"No! Hey! No! Give me back my gym shorts!" I shouted as my friend Maelie flung the garments halfway across the yard. I could hear her cackling as I scrambled off my trampoline, racing to snatch them. "How did you even get these?"

Maelie leaned casually against the doorframe, resting her head on my front door and igniting a spark in my chest. I'd had a crush on my best friend Maelie for three months, starting just two weeks before I'd realized I was bisexual. It was hard knowing Maelie would never return my feelings -- she was straight as an arrow -- but I'd come to terms with it since then.

"I may have gone through your backpack. . . ." she replied innocently, watching me trip over a stray root as I returned with my gym shorts. "I mean, really, Ady, why do you even have your gym clothes anymore? We're entering the last two weeks of school!" Shaking her head, Maelie laughed. "It's not like we're actually doing anything athletic in Gym anymore."

"And thank goodness," I grumbled, stumbling clumsily as I made my way back to the front porch -- I was not an athletic person. As I plopped down on the bench-swing that hung next to Maelie's lounging figure, I spoke louder. "Just so you know, these are dirty gym shorts. We cleaned out our lockers today, remember?"

"Right," she responded, before seeming to realize something. "Wait, those were dirty?!"

"Yep." I flashed a smug grin.

Maelie squealed and ran inside to wash her hands. As she came outside to the sound of my giggling, she rolled her eyes. "Hey, I don't want your sweat on my hands."

"Really, huh?" I smirked, tossing my stinky shorts at her head. She shrieked and dodged the throw.

"Hey!" Bending to pick up a stray pinecone, Maelie returned the assault.

I caught the airborne evergreen product, flinging it back at her. "Attack! Attack!"

"Nuuuuuuuuu," she groaned, rubbing the sap off of her cheek where the pinecone had hit her. "I just washed my face -- only thirteen hours ago!"

"Dude. You can't use that as a credible source of defense. 'The information is outdated.'" Maelie snorted as I quoted our English teacher.

The door opened, causing Maelie to topple backward and run into a pair of tall, hairy legs. She glared when I cracked up.

"Come on, Mae, I know you love me, but there's no need for a hug," my dad joked.

"Ooh, rejected!" I giggled, raising my eyebrows as Maelie rolled her eyes.

"Is anyone coming in for dinner?" my mom asked, amused, joining Dad at the door and helping Maelie up.

"What are we having?" I inquired curiously.

"Mac and cheese -- Mae's favorite," she replied, winking at my friend, who squealed in delight.

"Oh, thanks, Mrs. Senft!" Maelie grinned. "That's a lot better than the spinach salad my family's having at home."

Both my dad and I shuddered. We hated raw spinach and knew Maelie did too.

"I'm glad we could rescue you, then," Dad replied with a fake-deep voice and a cocky smile transforming his demeanor. "Quite heroic, if I do say so myself."

"Dad," I groaned, shoving him lightly from where I sat on the swing.

"Anyway," Mom interjected, looking quite amused again, "I need someone to set the table--" at which she raised her eyebrows at me -- "and someone to pour the drinks." Shooting a pointed look at my dad, Mom strolled back into the kitchen.

"What will you be having tonight, Mademoiselle Bellamy?" Dad inquired, adopting the demeanor of a fancy French waiter. He slung an imaginary towel over his arm and pretended to whip out an order sheet and pen.

"Lait, s'il vous plait, gentil monsieur. Mérci." Seeing the astonished look on my dad's face, she added a confident "Boom."

"Never try to out-French a half-French girl," I snickered.

Looking faux-defeated, Dad slunk back to the kitchen, seemingly trying not to laugh.

"Farewell, dear friend -- I must go and set the table." I dramatically attempted to reach for Maelie's barely-too-far-away hand.

"Farewell," she replied, grinning and lazily taking my place on the bench-swing. "I shall see you in a short while." Waving daintily and fluttering her fingers, causing my heart to do the same, Maelie turned and lay back on the swing, brushing her long black hair over the back.

I shut the door behind me as I donned my slippers and headed to the kitchen. "What do we need?" I asked Mom, who was bent over the pot of mac-and-cheese, stirring away.

I opened the utensil drawer as she responded. "Oh, just do everything -- we have a guest," she instructed me matter-of-factly, not taking her eyes off of the food.

"Okay." I grabbed four sets of knife, fork, and spoon, and set off for the dining room.

Silverware in hand, I entered the room -- only to find the feisty Patches, my cat, atop our mahogany dinner table. "No," I shouted sharply. "Bad girl. Get down." When Patches refused to budge, I plucked her off the table and set her on the ground, ignoring the annoyed mews Patches was releasing. "You know better than that."

Picking up the utensils I'd left on a placemat when I'd removed Patches from the table, I began to place them at seats.

I'd just finished when my dad barged into the room carrying three glasses of milk and one glass of carbonated water. As he set them down, he frowned. "Why is there cat hair on the table?"

I glanced at Patches, raising my eyebrows. She meowed.

"Ah, I see. That was what all the noise was about," he noticed, wiping the whitish-orange fur off. Leaning down to Patches, he scratched her fluffy neck. "No more of that, okay, little girl?"

She purred, enjoying the attention. As Patches rumbled with no apparent sense of volume, I heard the door slam gently shut.

"Dinner ready yet?" Maelie questioned upon her arrival in the dining room.

"Almost," I answered.

"Caitlin?" Dad called to my mom. "How close are you to being done?"

"I just have to serve," Mom replied. "You guys can go ahead and sit down. I'll manage."

While Dad and Maelie shrugged and sat, I wanted to help. Entering the kitchen, I grabbed two plates -- mine and Maelie's -- and, ignoring Mom's protests behind me, set them down at my place and my friend's.

"Thanks, Ady," my mom said as she distributed the remaining plates and smiled.

Dad cleared his throat. "Well, shall we dig in?" he invited, grasping his fork and impaling a noodle.

I copied his actions, feeling quite triumphant when I managed to stab two.

Just then, a loud chime interrupted the sounds of chewing that echoed throughout the room: the doorbell. "I'll get it!" I exclaimed, fervently hoping it was the book I'd ordered last week.

I made it to the door just as the mail truck pulled away. As I swung open the door and tried to step outside, I tripped over a large brown cardboard box I'd somehow overlooked. Muttering some impolite words under my breath and rubbing the newly formed sore spot on my shin, I bent to grab the package.

Adelyte Senft, I read, noticing the address wasn't directly below my name; it was printed under the PrideBooks logo, a striped book with a colorful heart on the cover. Grinning, I set the box down inside our foyer and closed the door.

"Be right back -- I'm going to run up to my room quick," I called to my parents, picking up my parcel again and racing upstairs.

As I walked down the hall, regaining my breath, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My fluffy blonde hair was loose in its ponytail, my face was flushed red, and the sore spot on my leg had morphed into an angry purple-and-green bruise, reminding me oddly of lettuce -- but my gray-blue eyes were bright with anticipation and a smile had wormed its way onto my face, stretching my chapped, rose-colored lips wide and displaying my barely misaligned, yellow-tinted teeth (my teeth had suffered from a rebellious period while I was seven during which I didn't brush my teeth for three and a half months) shining in the hallway's artificial, warm ivory light.

Quickly, I shook myself from my staring contest with my reflection and stepped into my recently cleared room. Setting the well-sealed box in the middle of my ivory-carpeted room, I opened a drawer in my desk and snatched my twelve-year-old ice-blue pocketknife; it was my age, and my mom had owned it before she'd given it to me for my sixth birthday. It had been a present to her from her dad when I'd been born. "To open baby presents and to protect the baby," he'd reasoned, according to my parents.

Snapping out the knife mechanism, I gripped the pocketknife and began to cut away at the tape holding the box together. Ten seconds and three long strokes later, an open box lay at my knees.

I dug out the packing bubbles, pizza coupons, and PrideBooks receipt before removing the one thing from the box I really wanted and needed: my book.

"Hurry up, Ady -- dinner will be cold!" Mom shouted up to me, breaking me out of my preoccupation. Quickly I tossed the book and other contents of the box back in and shoved my package under my bed to be dealt with later.

"Coming!" I called back, standing up and smoothing my clothes. In the hallway, I paused in front of my reflection, tightening my ponytail swiftly before returning downstairs.