Why should I feel some kind of way because two other people I was crushing over stood in front of another crush of mine? That was normal, right?

"Heeey, Diallo, Gay. You're back! Woohoo! Come on in, the gangs all here. You remember King, right? Anyhoo, he was leaving and ummm..."

"What's up," King greeted them. "Sorry man, I took all the good food. She's going to have to hook y'all up next time."

"Food? There was food?" Gay asked walking inside. "Ugh! Meat!"

"There's some cake left." Although, I did not want to share my death by chocolate cake. My granny made it and I took half and my daddy took the other half. We were the only two that could stand it.

"No, I'm good," she said, going over to sit on Richie's lap, which kind of shocked me. Where they...

"Fresh, Imma catch you later, okay," King said, pulling me in his arms to give me a nice warm hug, and it did feel good before he pulled away and walked off.

"Bye," I said, watching him walk down the hall.

"You and him," Diallo started. "Are you and him, together?"

"What? Huh? No! We're just..." What were we again? Friends? Classmates? Just hanging out? Sorta kinda dating but not really?

"You're just...what?"

I realized I did not answer the question and I had nothing to say about it. Why did I have to define what we are?

"You want something to eat? How was Jeff City? Have fun with your family?"

Diallo started to say something then stopped himself. He stood there, looking at me but not saying anything.

"Are you okay? You want to come in, I'm sure I can find some more leftovers, King did not take it all. I have maybe some-"

"Naw, I gotta go," he turned to leave but I grabbed his arm and stopped him.

"Wait! Come on in and hang out with us."

"Naw, I'm good." He snatched his arm away from her and walked down the hall.

Oh well with him.

I went back and hung out with my friends and we talked about what we did on break. I told them about my daddy being funky about my grades and the others all talked about their parents nagging them about one thing or the other. Todd, the As he brought home were not good enough. Jonathan's parents wanted him to be more like Todd, get better grades. Allura, her parents knew she was partying too much, though her grades were good enough for them. Donnell, his parents never wanted him to go far away for college, they wanted him to stay home. Richie, money, he spent too much money from the account they set up from them.

Of course, Gay, her parents did not like anything she did. They did not like her hair, how she dressed, that she smoked, that she "slept around."

My ears perked up at that. Gay slept around? Like with girls or just guys? I was interested...no, for real, I was just nosy AF.

"So you um...sleep around...like you mean, have sex?"

Gay glared at her. "Kinda what that means."

"It's your body, hey free will," Allura said.

"But...aren't you afraid of..." I did not want to sound like a prude, but here it goes. "Diseases, pregnancy...other stuff?"

"Other stuff?" Gay asked with a chuckle. "Like what?"

"I don't know."

"I think she means the kink stuff, right Allura," Jonathan said with a chuckle, elbowing her.

Allura playfully pushed his head. "Boy!"

"No, she means the girl-on-girl play," Gay said. "My parents, who were totally cool with me being gay, do not like that I am bi. They would prefer I be gay."

"Old people are weird as fuck!" Richie said. "Why can't we like who we like and not put a name on it."

"But you are putting a name on it when you have LGBTQ and the rest of them," Todd stated. "Does that even include a letter for someone totally straight?"

"You sound real dumb to be a smart guy," Allura said. "If you're part of the marginalized group and not the majority, why do you need to be included? You're white, male, straight. You're the enemy to all."

"Me?"

"Why Todd? He can't help what he is," I said, defending him.

"And if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem!" Gay stated. "My sexuality is not up for debate. I like who I like when I like. And if I want to have sex with them, it's my body, that's on me."

I had many questions, but I did not want to ask them and be shunned. Who were still virgins, like me? How many people had they been with? What was sex like? Did they have sex with people they were in love with, are was it just a hook-up? And again, they weren't scared of diseases and getting pregnant, or getting someone pregnant?

"I'm with you Gay," Allura added.

"No, no, wait," Jonathan said. "I don't believe in just having sex randomly and freely. I believe you have to care about the person you're with, really respect them."

"Aaaw! He's sweet. This is why he keeps getting me back." Allura kissed him.

I wondered if Jonathan knew that Allura hooked up with Gay? It wasn't my business to step in and say something.

"Nothing wrong with a smash and dash," Donnell said with a chuckle.

I did not want to hear any more about what he meant...except, I wanted more.

"You just have sex with girls and leave?" I asked.

"Hell yeah!" he stated proudly. "It's called linking up. Matter of fact, I have a couple of sneaky links spread around this campus here. Lil shorty or two back at the crib I did a drive-by on. Yep, I'm good."

I groaned. Was this acceptable behavior from a guy? To have several girls, side-piece, none he was claiming, just to get intimate with and then leave.

Was Diallo like that? Did he think like his sister? They were so different in many ways, but maybe similar in that. He never really expressed true interest in me, not like King.

Maybe that's all King wanted too. No, no way! If King just wanted sex with me, he wouldn't be happy with hugs and kisses on the cheek.

I blew out a frustrated sigh. Obviously, I was not ready for this discussion with my friends.

"You okay?" Todd asked me.

"I'm fine." Of course, I knew at least Todd was a virgin. He was like me, never had a relationship.

"I know you're not like that," he whispered in my ear.

I was not judging anyone that did choose to sleep around. Like, it was their body, right? Girls had bad reps for sleeping around a lot. For men, it was some kind of badge of honor. The more women, the cooler they were or something. Disease worked both ways! Pregnancy worked both ways. I did not want either of them.

"How many of you want to find the one, fall in love, get married, have a family, and live happily ever after?"

They all looked at me as if I said Trump was elected for the second time.

"What?"

Who is thinking about any of that now?" Allura asked.

"Me!"

"I feel what you're trying to say, but...I'm eighteen, first year in college," Jonathan said. "Let me focus on this one part of my life before I move on to the other stuff."

"I agree!" Allura said. "We're young, we're hot, and we only get one chance at doing wild and crazy things."

"Old people get married," Donnell said. "When I'm like thirty, maybe."

"Marriage is an old-school constraint put on us by the man," Gay said. "Especially for women, I feel like it's a control mechanism men like to put in us. Make us subservient. Their concubines. Men get more out of a marriage than women."

What the heck hecky heck was she talking about? She lost cool points with me.

"So you never want to get married?"

"No. Absolutely not."

"I want to get married one day," Todd added.

"I don't even know," added Richie. "I mean, marriage, divorce, bad kids, why bother."

"But see that's my point," I say, standing up. "When you meet the one, and everything is so perfect. There's love and commitment to each other, you want to make each other happy and spend the rest of your life with them. So why not get married? And when you're married, you want to see what a person created by each of you would be like, so why not children? That you can raise together, in a home, together. Love, together. Watch grow up, with perfect little kids that are not screwed up by seeing dysfunction in the world and can see what true love is and..."

They were all strangely staring at me again. Okay, me and my big mouth. I talk too much sometimes.

I sat back down.

"You read too many romance books," Allura said to her. "Happily ever after is not real."

"Totally," Todd said. "My parents have been divorced twice, each of them. Married, divorced, married again, then divorced. Obviously, that is not happily ever after."

"My parents never married," Donnell said. "I turned out fine."

I could not say anymore. None of my friends agreed with how I felt about relationships. Maybe I was too old school.

A/N: See how some of Hook's life in Rayvn's earlier formative years play out to who she is today? That's really why I wrote this, to dig into that side of things.