They finished shoving pancakes into their faces and moved to the living room to start their movie marathon. It was actually surprisingly chill. Gabe didn’t know why that was surprising, except that he didn’t normally hang out with people. The guys at the all boys school he went to seemed to take Gabe’s non-threatening nature as the biggest threat of all, and he didn’t really know anybody outside of school, so the only person his age he had any kind of a relationship with was Adam.

And… that wasn’t always bad. It was hard to remember that sometimes, and especially right now when Gabe’s back was serving as a constant reminder that Adam had tried to physically force him to eat a dead lizard, but sometimes they had fun together. Sometimes Adam even did nice things for him. Near the end of the school year, when Adam had been well into his growth spurt, he’d even inexplicably gotten into a fight with some guy for calling Gabe a name. As if he hadn’t done way worse shit to Gabe himself.

It was that sort of thing that had let Gabe convince himself that they were just like real, normal brothers for such a long time. Sure, he’d tell himself, they fought a lot, but didn’t all brothers? They were there for one another when it really counted. But somewhere deep down, he’d been aware that was bullshit. If he’d really believed everything was fine, he would have told on Adam like a normal brother instead of hiding bruises and pretending he’d cracked the screen of his phone himself by accidentally dropping it.

And look where he was now. Sent away from the only home and the only family he’d had since he was seven because he’d had the audacity to be a victim. Because what was Sally going to do? She didn’t know how to control Adam and if one of them had to go, it wasn’t going to be her own son.

But this, here, watching movies with two virtual strangers? Oddly, this felt like family. Bee and Sophie joked back and forth and laughed unselfconsciously. All three of them decided on what to watch together, and it didn’t turn into an argument or one person settling so that there wouldn’t be an argument. They shared their favourites Gabe hadn’t seen and rewatched one they all said they’d liked. It was just… nice.

At the same time, though, it hurt because it wasn’t his. They were kindly letting him be part of it, but that was only temporary. Alice had made it clear this was a short term thing and Trist didn’t want him here at all. Soon he would have to leave and maybe he’d go somewhere new or maybe he’d go back to Sally’s place and nothing would be any better. This feeling of safety, of easy companionship, just wasn’t something he could keep.

At around six o’clock, Sophie checked the time on her phone and groaned. “Where the hell is Trist?”

“I don’t know,” Bee said. “I tried texting him earlier, but he didn’t reply.”

“Well, there’s only one thing for it, then.” Sophie sat up properly on the couch, tapped the screen of her phone a couple of times, and held it up to her ear. “I’m calling him.”

“Oooh,” Bee said, but she didn’t bother sitting up and she didn’t sound that impressed.

A few seconds later, Sophie lowered her phone and frowned at it. “That bitch hung up on me.”

Bee did sit up now. She frowned. “Wow. Maybe he’s more bothered than I thought. I’ll try calling him.” She got out her phone as well, but she didn’t have it held to her ear for long before she dropped it back down. “Huh. He hung up on me too.”

“Hmm.” Sophie turned her attention to Gabe. “Do you have a phone?”

“Yeah.” Gabe retrieved his phone from his pocket. “Why?”

“He won’t recognise your number.”

“Uh, I think he’ll probably guess it’s us since we both just tried to call him,” Bee pointed out.

“That’s why we wait, like, half an hour,” Sophie said. “He’s always complaining that he has to answer all the calls he gets on his phone, even though it’s usually scammers, because it could be work. In half an hour he might suspect it’s us, but he won’t be sure enough that he’ll ignore it.”

“That will probably work,” Bee admitted. “But I don’t know. Maybe we should just leave him alone if that’s what he wants?”

“He can brood all he likes after he tells us when he’ll be home and if he wants pizza.”

“Fair. I am a bit worried about him.”

So they watched another half an hour of the movie they had on and then Sophie waggled her fingers at Gabe to request his phone.

It was Bee who took it when he got it out, though. “I will call him.”

“Yeah, okay, fine,” Sophie said, but she paused the movie and stared intently at Bee as she made the call.

“Hi Trist, it’s me,” Bee said into the phone, and then paused to listen. “I borrowed Gabe’s phone.” She paused again. “I know, but we wanted to make sure you were okay and ask if you want pizza.” She was silent again for a moment and nodded to herself. “Okay. When will you be back?” She paused again. “Well, if you’re not back when I go to bed, I won’t be able to sleep.” Another pause and then she smiled. “Okay. We’ll see you then. Bye, Trist.”

“Well?” Sophie asked as Bee handed Gabe his phone back.

“He said that he’s fine, which I don’t believe, that he does want pizza but just put it in the fridge for him to have later, and that he’ll be back by nine.”

“Did he apologise for being such a difficult bitch?”

“He didn't, no.”

“Man.” Sophie fiddled with the remote, but she didn’t unpause the movie. “Do you have any idea what’s going on with him?”

Bee scrunched up her tiny face. “I have ideas, but they’re either wrong or not things I should be sharing.”

“Does it have anything to do with whatever shit went down with his family?” Sophie turned to look at Gabe. “To catch you up, Bee knows what happened there and I don’t.”

“I don’t know what happened,” Bee said. “I… suspect. But I’m not a gossip so I keep my knowings and my suspectings to myself.”

“Boring but respectable,” Sophie said as she unpaused the movie.

Gabe looked down at his phone. Trist’s number was still on the screen. He closed the window, put his phone down, then picked it back up again a second later, went into recently called numbers, and saved it. He hesitated on the ‘name’ field. If anyone took a look in his contacts and saw it there under Trist’s name, they’d have questions. He saved it under ‘emergency’ instead, because that was the only situation he could imagine actually calling Trist.