You didn’t mean to let your grades slip, but with all the homelife stress it effected how able you were to study, or even sleep through the night. Your parents would get onto you for it, time and time again, but never acknowledging it was them who caused all the problems.

It was a happy house, no?

Only when Simon was here, would you ever call this..place..happy. Simon… Simon was a boy around your age. He lived with his parents across the street, and often came to spend his sleepless nights with you. Perhaps, with both of you in homes full of conflict, you found solace in each other.

Speaking of the boy, you heard the familiar tapping on your bedroom window. One quick, two slow, one quick. A simple “code” you two created..

By the time you got to the window and could open it for him, his nose was pink and his body shaky from the cold.

“Hell, took ya long enough… Fancy me freezing out there?” Simon complained, pulling himself into your room with practiced ease.