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Logan Connaissance and Virgil Angoisse had been best friends since seventh grade, but they started to drift apart in sophomore year. Why? Because Virgil started dating the only guy who managed to be a theatre kid and a jock, Roman Prince.
Roman was nice to Virgil, but he and Logan absolutely hated each other. They disagreed on just about everything, the only thing they had in common was the jelly brand they enjoyed.
The longer Roman and Virgil dated, the more confused Logan became about his feelings. He thought he had never felt love, but the research he was doing led him to believe he was feeling it currently towards Virgil. He had no idea if this love was platonic or romantic, but one thing he knew for sure was that he was going to ignore it.
One day in sophomore year, Logan and Virgil were going through the lunch line together, as they always did, when Virgil piped up, “Hey, Lo?”
“Yes, Virgil?”
“Do you think we could maybe sit with Roman today? I know it messes up your routine and is probably annoying and frustrating but I-”
“Virgil,” Logan made eye contact and stopped walking, “you’re spiraling. I would greatly enjoy spending lunch with you as well as Roman.” Logan knew he shouldn’t lie, but this was the only way.
Virgil let out a breath of relief, “Oh thank god. Awesome, his usual table is this way.”
They walked to the table and the conversation going on was about sexuality and LGBTQ+, and they were sharing their identities.
Virgil sat down next to Roman, Roman snaking an arm around his waist. Virgil blushed but did nothing to stop it.
Since they were already sharing, they decided to go around the table and say their names too.
“Roman, gay. Duh.”
“Virgil, asexual and gay-romantic”
“Virgil, it’s homoromantic.”
“I know, but gay-romantic is better.”
Logan sighed, “Logan, asexual and panromantic.”
“Patton, pan!” Patton grabbed his backpack and pointed to a button on it with a picture of a frying pan. Logan stared at him for a moment before sighing.
“Janus, gay.”
“Remus! Roman’s aro-ace brother!” Remus cackled as everyone gagged at his inside out eyelids, excluding Logan.
Janus groaned, “It’s not like we’re eating or anything!
Roman pushed Remus so he fell off the bench, laughing the whole way down. “Hey, I’ve got an idea! Once we’re done eating we should help draw pride flags on each other’s hands!”
As lunch went on, Logan was able to participate (sometimes with Virgil’s help), keep up with the conversation, and even laugh! He’s always had trouble making friends, Virgil had been the best thing that had ever happened to him. He had trouble keeping up with conversations because he usually found them uninteresting and zoned out, reading, writing, or just thinking if he couldn’t do those. He actually couldn’t remember the last time he laughed about anything other than something he learned or something Virgil told him.
Only as he was walking home, ace flag on one hand and pan flag on the other, did Logan’s smile fall for good. He had just split off from Virgil, walking down the street to his house.
He opened the door, calmly stating, “I’m home. What would you like for dinner?”
“Oh honey, you don-”
“Shut up! Don’t you know what kids are for? Especially fucking defective ones like him!” Logan just stared as his father gestured to him with a beer bottle. “Fucking robot. Go make us some spaghetti. You don’t get any tonight.”
Logan’s mother just sadly watched, too frightened to intervene.
“Yes, sir.” Logan nodded at his father. As soon as the giant burly man flopped back down on the couch to drink and flip channels, Logan quickly but calmly went into the kitchen and started boiling the water.
His mother eventually came in and sat down, adjusting her taped-together glasses as she softly said, “I’m so sorry, Logan.”
“I know, mother.”
“I’m so sorry for everything, I just don’t know what to do, I just-”
Logan went over and gently touched his mother’s shoulders, “Mother, it’s alright. Next year, I’ll be able to get a job and-”
“But you shouldn’t have to! I should be able to speak up to my husband and get us out of here but I can’t !” She broke down sobbing, muttering “I can’t” over and over again under her breath.
Logan awkwardly rubbed her back for a few minutes before sighing and going back to making dinner.
At the dinner table, while Logan was dishing out the food, his father noticed something. Before Logan could sit down, his father yanked his hand towards him, already bruising Logan’s wrists.
“What the hell is this, Lo-bot? You some kind of fancy fag?!”
“I-I apologize, sir, it was for a project, they don’t mean anything-”
“No, no, no, I recognize these from those fucking inclusivity,” his father used air quotes, “posts on Facebook and those buttons on kids’ backpacks! You are a fag! I thought you didn’t have the capability for emotions, much less love! Not that it matters,” he stood up, dragging Logan by his wrists with him, “all you teens are just making it all up anyway!”
Logan barely resisted the multiple ‘um, actually’ moments as to not anger his father further, wrist bruises were already hard enough to hide.
“Nothing to say now, huh? Typical.” He slammed Logan’s head on the counter, Logan’s mother’s sobbing increasing volume in the background.
Logan’s eyesight was getting fuzzier and fuzzier, but he could tell his glasses were cracked. “Father, please, I-I have a t-test tomorrow, I can’t call in s-s-sick…”
Logan’s father gave a hardy laugh as he increased pressure on Logan, “Classic Lo-bot, only focused on school,” he lets his son go and pushes him in the general direction of his room, “Whatever, asshole. Go fix yourself up for your precious school !” he laughed and sat down to eat his spaghetti.
Logan staggered to his room, once inside getting his mirror and first aid kit out to assess the damage. He had a black eye, split lip, bruised wrists, a giant bruise on his jaw, and his suspicions were confirmed about his glasses, one lens almost entirely shattered.
He carefully took off his glasses, getting the tweezers and trying to pick out a few tiny pieces of glass with blurred vision. Thankfully, none of them got in his eye, but he was almost sure he had a concussion. He sighed and treated his wounds the best he could. Afterward, he got out another pair of glasses, ignoring the sting and splitting headache he got from looking at his laptop and researching makeup techniques to use tomorrow morning.