"Hi, honey! How was the first day of school?" Andy shrugged. "Andy." His mom, Amy, dropped her purse on the floor by the door and kicked her shoes off. Their dog, Harley, ran in circles around her.
"Fine. Fine. Fine." Andy mumbled. Amy pursed her lips.
"Did you make any friends?" He shrugged again. "Andy, don't make me tell you again." Andy sighed.
"Kinda."
"Wanna tell me about them?" He shook his head and she sighed. "How does pizza sound tonight? Dad's working late and I'm spent."
"Pizza's fine."
"Great. Do you have any homework?"
"No." Amy nodded. She turned to walk into the kitchen with Harley following her. "Come get your backpack out of the middle of the floor, please." Andy grabbed his backpack and tromped up the stairs with it. "Thank you." He dropped his backpack just inside his door and then dropped down onto his bed.
"Any preference on pizza toppings?" Amy called up the stairs.
"No mushrooms."
"Other than the obvious?"
"No."
"Okay." He sat up and pulled his pen from his pocket. Then he pushed his sleeve up and continued drawing lines. His mom didn't like it when he drew on his arm, it left ink stains on his shirts and sheets. He didn't care, but it bothered her for some reason. Half an hour later the doorbell rang. It made Andy's skin crawl. He rubbed his ear and sighed.
"Pizza!" Amy called in a song-song voice. She waited for response she didn't expect to get before carrying the pizza into the kitchen. A few minutes later she heard Andy coming down the stairs. He'd changed into a pair of sweatpants and had the sleeves of his sweater pulled down over his hands. He liked to run the  seam between the cuff and the sleeve under his thumbnails. He didn't know why. He just did. And he was doing just that while Amy put a plate in front of him and set a slice of pizza with pepperoni, green peppers and onions on it. With one hand he picked the onions off and with the other kept running the seam under his thumbnail.
"I thought you liked onions." He shook his head. She sighed.
"Hello?" Andy's dad, Chris, called as he walked into the house.
"Kitchen." Chris walked into the kitchen and kissed his wife. "I thought you weren't home till late?"
"Christy went into labor and Simon sent everyone home so he could take her to the hospital." Chris sat down at the table and grabbed a slice of pizza. "How was school kiddo?" Andy shrugged and started picking the peppers off his pizza. "Andy." He shrugged again. Chris sighed and looked at his wife. She sighed as well and picked up her pizza.
"You need to actually eat it, Andy." Andy rolled his eyes and picked up his pizza. He made a face as he took a bite.
"I thought you liked pizza?" Andy shrugged and Amy looked between Andy and Chris. "I don't-I can't-" She dropped her hand onto the table heavily, making the dishes rattle.
"Ames." Chris said softly. Amy looked at him. His eyes moved from her face to Andy. She moved her gaze to Andy and immediately felt bad. Andy's eyes were wide and glassy. She sighed and stood up. She grabbed a dish of applesauce and a spoon and offered them to Andy.
"Go to your room, listen to music or something. Dad and I need to talk." Andy grabbed the applesauce and the spoon and hurried out of the room and up the stairs.

———

"We have to tell him." Amy said as soon as Andy left the room. Chris sighed.
"Ames. . ."
"I can't handle him not knowing."
"We both know we can't handle him knowing." Amy started pacing.
"He needs to know. The longer we wait the worse it will be."
"Let him get settled in at school first. One thing at a time." Amy stopped pacing and grabbed the back of her chair at the table. She held her hand up and watched her fingers shake.
"Chris. . . he's never going to handle it well. We need to just tell him and be done with it. I can't take it. Between him and my appointments and your crummy schedule I'm losing my mind. I'm tired and I'm stressed out and I can't deal with him not eating or talking or listening and getting emotional over everything." She slammed her hands on the table, making her empty cup tip over. Chris stood it up.
"Ames, you know he can't help it. And he doesn't like any more than you do."
"I know."
"He's overwhelmed enough as it is. We can't throw this at him too. Not right now." He stood and wrapped his wife in a hug. "It's going to be okay." He said and kissed the top of her head.
"It's hard to believe that sometimes." She whispered.

———

Andy sat on the stairs listening to his parents. What were they hiding from him? What was wrong? When they stopped talking he stood and climbed the stairs as quietly as possible. In his room he pulled the lid off his applesauce and ate it in tiny amounts while listening to Alkaline Trio. He hated when they hid things from him. And he knew they did it a lot. Whispered conversations when they thought he couldn't hear, hiding certain pieces of mail before he could see. Why didn't they trust him? What did he do? Maybe it was just because he existed. He knew he made things difficult. He knew he was hard to love. He wished he was normal. He knew they would love him more if he was normal. He wished he had group more than twice a week. He missed his friends.

———

"I thought you gave up on guys? Weren't those your words? That and something about how all they wanted was pussy and booze." Juliet nodded and popped a grape in her mouth as her mom spoke.
"Yeah, I did, but this one's . . . different." Her mom raised an eyebrow and kept cutting cucumbers for the salad.
"Really?"
"He's a guy." Juliet's sister, Angie, said from her seat at the table. Juliet threw a grape at her.
"He really is different. I'm not sure how, but he is. I'm positive."
"Whatever you say." Juliet swung her legs while sitting on the counter and continuing to eat grapes.
"It's six." Their mom said.
"Mmhm." Juliet was daydreaming and not paying attention.
"Juliet." Her mom said more firmly, "it's six."
"Oh! Fuck!" Juliet hopped off the counter and bolted from the kitchen.
"Language!" Juliet ran down the hall to her room and changed into her uniform faster than she would've thought possible a few minutes earlier. She threw her hair up into a bun, put on her pink converse and some fresh lipstick before leaving her room.
"I'll be back in a bit." She called as she opened the front door.
"Do you have your keys?"
"Yup. Bye Mom. Bye Ange."
"Stop calling me Ange!"
"Bye." And the door slammed shut.