I was laying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, watching as my ceiling fan spun around and around, making a quiet buzzing noise that I mostly recognized as white noise by now.

How long had I been laying there? About four hours. Thinking. I hadn't looked anything up, I hadn't gotten up, I hadn't said anything to anyone. The second that I got home from the park, I went and plopped down right where I was then. And I hadn't moved since.

I sat up eventually. I couldn't just lay on the floor forever. I was terrified of going to dinner, terrified of seeing my parents and letting something slip.

They had told me years ago that if any of us turned out to like the same gender, then we would no longer be family.

Imagine what they would do when they found out that their middle son just didn't like someone of the same gender- that his soulmate was yet another guy.

I would never be able to tell them. If I did, I would be alone in the world then. I would lose my parents, and they would probably keep Sammy away from me too. I didn't know about Elliot. I hadn't talked to him since Christmas, and that was only a brief conversation before he left to go to his girlfriend's family for the rest of the holiday.

If only I could have it that easy. To just have a girlfriend. To have my soulmate be someone who I could easily spend the rest of my life without being judged.

My mom called me down to dinner right then.

Fucking great. I didn't want to eat. I wasn't hungry, Not at all. I sighed as I stood up, walking out to the dining room without another word.

I went to the table and sat down right as my mom was passing around the bowls of food. I didn't get very much. Sammy even got more than me, I was usually the one that got the most food. Maybe that was just making me look even more suspicious than I already did. I didn't care.

"Sebastion, are you feeling okay?" My mom asked me. Called it.

Fan-fucking-tastic Mom. I thought to myself. But I would never be caught dead saying that out loud.

"Yep, just fine," I mumbled, taking a small bite of mashed potatoes on my plate.

She exchanged a look with my dad. Clearly, she didn't believe me.

"You know that you can talk to us about anything, right sweetie?" She asked me.

I was tired of that phrase, to say the least. Tired of her telling me that I could tell her anything when she told us that she would never speak to us again if we told her one thing. The exact thing that I was dealing with.

"No Mom, I can't," I told her. "No matter what you say otherwise," My words got quieter towards the end.

"Of course you can, what's bothering you?" She asked me. Everyone around the table had stopped eating to focus on the conversation going on.

I so badly just wanted to say that I couldn't because then she wouldn't think of me as her kid anymore. But then it would be obvious to her what I was hiding. And I couldn't let that happen. "I'm not going to tell you," I told her. "It's not even that big of a deal anyways,"

My mom frowned. "Did your mark go off or something?" She turned towards my dad. "Don't you remember Elliot acting like this when his went off?"

Except he didn't have to worry about you disowning him.

"I dunno. I do remember that a little. Seb, you can always tell us when it happens. It's not something to be embarrassed about," My dad told me.

"So what if it did? How does it matter to you? And what if it didn't? It still doesn't matter," I said.

"Sebastion John William, what is up with you?" My mom asked, her voice rising as she asked the question. The glare that she gave me made me want to sink into the ground and never be seen again.

If it was anything else, then maybe I would've told her.

"It doesn't matter," I said, wanting nothing more than to go back to my room where they would hopefully leave me alone.

"You're not leaving this table until you tell us!" She said, or really just yelled. "Sebastion get back here!"

I was already gone, not even pushing my chair back in as I went to my room, slamming the door behind me, and then I slid down to the ground.

Why was it like this? Why was I like this? Why did Parker have to be so perfect for me? Why did my parents just have to hate anyone who was gay? Why did this all have to be so fuking difficult?

I hated it. I hated every little part of it.

I wanted to go back to before all this when everything was normal. But I couldn't.

Because I had already found out who my soulmate was. And I couldn't just ignore that. I couldn't just pretend that it had never happened. I couldn't just never talk to Parker again.

Tears were streaming down my face, and I realized that I had cried so much in the past two days, that I had hated everything the entire time. Were things ever going to get better? Was I finally going to be able to just be me again? Or was the person I had been even me?

"Seb..." My dad said from behind the door, as he knocked. "Seb what's wrong?" He asked me. He sounded like he really cared, and maybe he did. Or maybe he didn't give a shit.

"Go away," I said, and you could tell I was crying from the emotion that was in my voice.

"You really can tell us anything. We'll always love you, no matter what," My dad said.

I wanted to laugh at that. "Funny Dad, real funny," I said, trying to stop crying. I hated crying in front of people, it made me feel weak. "Thanks for trying, I guess,"

"What happened?" He was talking quietly, like he didn't want anyone else that was in the house to hear me.

I had to tell him something. So that he could report back to Mom and they would just leave me alone for once. The only thing was- I didn't know how much truth I wanted to be part of that. I didn't know if I should make up a quick lie, or just tell him my mark went off.

I decided on the latter. "My mark went off, okay? And it's not someone that I expected. Now you can leave me alone," I told him.

"Sebastion, open the door," He said.

I didn't want to, but I also didn't want to have Mom come and yell at me. Dad was better than her, nicer, more understanding.

So I stood up, pulling the door open as I tried to wipe the tears from my eyes. I knew that they were still red and puffy.

"Hey, just because it's not the person that you liked or something, you'll find out that this other person is better, that they're exactly the right person for you. It'll just take some time, okay?" He told me. I noticed he didn't use any pronouns in that sentence, and I frowned. Did he know or something? He reached out and pulled me into a hug. "I don't know who it is, but I don't care who it is. All I care about is that you are happy, and I will always love you, got it?"

I nodded a little bit, and that's when I started crying into his shoulder.

I had no idea what he thought, but it seemed obvious to me that he knew. I had looked it up a little on my laptop the night before... I left my laptop open.

But he didn't seem to care, he seemed to be fine with it. And that just had me crying even more.