Who We Are

The rest of the day passed and I wasn't sure what to do with myself at the end of the day. I wasn't sure if Emily was speaking with me, or if I even wanted her to. I didn't know what Gwendolyn was doing either. I headed to my locker by myself, hoping that Dean would be there waiting for me.

He was the only one who seemed to be excited for me. Not only out of my friends and family, but it seemed like he was the only one out of the entire school. All day I got strange glances from the students and by the end of the day, I could tell that some of the teachers had heard that I was now interacting with Ronnie Radke and his group of friends. I had fallen from grace.

"Dean," I whispered in relief when he was standing at my locker, leaning against the metal.

"Hey, Kat," he greeted apologetically as I walked up, "How was your day?"

I rolled my eyes in reply and turned the code to open my locker. "Everyone is treating me like I'm a social pariah." I tossed my largest book into my locker and slammed it closed, causing Dean to flinch.

"Well, you kind of are," he said softly, "You just threw yourself from the top of the social ladder."

"I'm not in the mood for analogies."

Dean frowned and straightened out the strap of my bag. "Sorry," he muttered.

"It's fine," I sighed, "I'm just stressed out. Gwen is probably on her way home right now to tell my dad everything." I looked up to meet Dean's eyes and I said gravely, "He's going to murder me and blame it on Ronnie."

Dean laughed and shook his head. "Don't be so dramatic," he demanded, "Nothing's going to happen to Ronnie. He's too tough."

I glared at Dean point-blank. "Have you met my dad?" I asked sarcastically, "He owns a gun and knows the district attorney."

"Oh, shut up, Kat," Dean demanded playfully. He looked down the hall to where my sister usually came walking out of us and sighed. "We should probably go. Maybe we can make it to Gwen before your dad gets home?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "Doesn't matter. She'll tell him even if we tell her not to. I think I'm just going to tell him myself."

Dean nodded and started walking back to my house with me. As we walked down the front steps of the school, he said, "Hey. Did you notice that someone took your picture from Art?"

"Really?" I questioned, knowing that the teacher said that if there was a drawing on the wall that you liked that you could take it. "I wonder who grabbed it."

Dean shrugged. "They don't know it's yours anyways," he said, "They probably just like the detailing and stuff."

"It's not that well done," I replied, remembering the first day of school when I had to draw something about my life that not a lot of people knew. All the art classes were given the same assignment and the images were hung around the room. They were pieces of people that I'd gone to school with my entire life and yet, they were images of secrets that no one knew.

"It was better than mine," Dean defended, "No one bothered to take mine with them."

"You drew yourself as Super Man!" I shouted playfully, "You totally didn't take the assignment seriously."

"I don't have any secrets!" Dean replied, animatedly. "I could've drawn that I wet the bed until I was ten, but I don't think that would've been too good if that got out around school." He rolled his eyes and I shoved his shoulder forcefully.

"Did you take anyone's picture home?" I asked as we made it onto my street.

Dean shook his head. "Nothing really caught my eye, you know? Just silly drawings by unhappy high school kids. What about you?"

"There was one that I liked," I told him, "But by the time our hour rolled around it was already taken."

"Aw," Dean cooed, "Sad."

I shrugged as my only reply and glanced up to Ronnie's house as he and his friends called out to me from the porch.

"Kat, come 'ere!" Max shouted from where he sat, perched on the porch railing.

I looked to my driveway and sighed in relief when my dad's car wasn't in the driveway. "What do you want, Green?" I called back to him, "I don't have any time."

Max rolled his eyes dramatically and pushed off of the porch, his feet landing in the soft grass of Ronnie's front yard. He trudged over to Dean and I and stood directly in front of me. "I need your help," he said, reaching out to hold me in place by putting his hands on my shoulders.

I stared at him. "With what?" I asked.

"Well," he said simply, taking his hands off of me as he realized I wasn't going to walk away. "You know that girl that Rob brought up earlier?"

"Kind of." I nodded.

"Well, she turned me down again," he said with a roll of his mossy eyes, "She says I'm not serious enough. What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

I chuckled at him. "Probably that she thinks she's just some big joke to you, Max," I replied, "You have to let her know that you're serious."

Dean nodded his head. "You have to do something special so that she knows she's special to you," he told Max helpfully, smiling at the distraught, shaggy-haired bassist.

"Really?" Max asked glumly, "I'm not one for over-estravagant public displays."

"Then just sit down and talk to her," Dean offered.

Max looked to me to make sure that the advice was legitimate.

I nodded and chuckled. "He knows what he's doing, Max," I said, referring to Dean, "He sees both sides of gender. He's gotcha covered."

Dean laughed and shrugged. "Thanks," he said to me, "I think?"

"It was a compliment." I nodded. Then I turned to Max. "Just talk to her. If you actually stop acting like she's a joke to you, I'm sure she'll realize you mean well."

Max nodded his head. "Thanks, Silverstein." He looked at Dean, "And, Wallaby."

Dean and I laughed and nodded. "Oh shoot," I murmured as I saw a car come around the corner at the other end of the street. I reached out and shoved Max's shoulder. The junior went running across Ronnie's yard and hopped up the stairs as Dean and I headed across my own yard.

I met Ronnie's wandering gaze before I pushed the door open quickly and slipped inside, grateful that Gwen had come home before so that the door was already unlocked.

"You're home!" Gianna shouted as she jumped off the couch, "Gwen said you'd run off to do bad things!" The six year old wrapped her arms around my legs and held on tightly, honestly scared for me.

I glared at my oldest sister. She sat on the couch with Lissy and Octavia. I crouched down and pulled Gianna into my arms. "I never do bad things, Gigi, I was just walking home with Dean."

The little girl looked up like she hadn't noticed Dean and she grinned widely. "Dean!" she cheered, "I missed you!" She ran over to hug him, too.

He laughed and picked her up. "I was here last week," he told her.

I turned around as the front door opened and my dad came walking through. "Hey girls," he said as he slid his jacket off, "Hello, Dean."

"Hi, Sir," Dean replied politely as my sisters climbed up from the couch and ran over to our father.

"Dad, Gwen, Dean, and I will be upstairs, alright?" I said, snagging Gwen by her shirt as she tried to walk over to dad.

"Okay, Kat," Dad replied, pulling Gianna into his arms, "Just let me know what you're making for dinner and I'll get everything out for you."

"I don't know, yet," I said, "Don't worry about it. I can do it." Before he could reply Dean and I dragged Gwen up the stairs, trying to make it unnoticeable as she quietly tried to pull out of our grasps.

"What do you want!?" she asked loudly as I shoved her into our room.

Dean closed the door behind us and I crossed my arms over my chest. "You know exactly what I want," I stated.

"Yeah, okay," she spat, "I know what it is, but I'm not going to get caught up in your guys' lies! For all I know you weren't even at Dean's at all on Friday! You were probably right next door sleeping with Ronnie Radke!"

"I did spend the night at Dean's!" I whisper-yelled back at her, "Ronnie dropped me off after we ate at the little place Mom used to work!"

The expression on Gwen's face looked like I had betrayed her. She dropped her hands down to her side and looked at me with the same blue eyes that were looking at her. "You went to mom's restaurant?" she asked, "You went there with Ronnie?"

I nodded once.

"You broke your promise," Gwen said, "You promised us that you wouldn't go back there without us. That we would face that together, Katerina."

"We were really little when we made that promise, Gwendolyn."

"So?" she asked, "That doesn't matter! You broke it!"

"I'm the only one that wants to deal with the fact that Mom's dead, Gwen!" I shouted, not caring who could hear me, "I'm the only one in this family who even acts like she ever lived!"

Gwen stared at me with anger on her face. She was mad at me because I broke a promise I made when I was ten years old and she was almost eight. It was a promise that we would come to terms with Mom's death, together.

And although none of us had gotten to the point where we fully accepted that she was gone, sometimes I felt like I was the only remembering that she'd lived and that she'd want us to live.

"You have to tell dad," Gwen said firmly, crossing her arms over her chest, "What you did was stupid and reckless and he could've gotten you seriously hurt."

"Don't tell me what to do, Gwen," I replied, shaking my head, "I'm the one who has been taking care of this family for the last six years and I deserve to do something for myself, for once."

"Or do someone, right?" Gwen asked harshly.

I swallowed hard as her words set in. "I'm not a slut, Gwen," I replied, "I just like the kid, okay?"

"No," she said, "Not 'okay'. Either you tell Dad or I will."

"Your messed up," I said to her, "So, go right ahead and tell him. Dean and I are going to hang out with Ronnie, and Max, and Robert, and Monte. Why don't you tell Dad that?" I shoved my bag under my bed and motioned for Dean to follow me after Gwen hurried out of the room and trampled down the stairs.

"Are we really going next door?" Dean asked as we quietly made our way down the stairs.

I nodded silently, listening as my father talked with the youngest, too busy to pay any attention to Gwen. "Yeah," I said, "If Gwen's going to ruin everything, I at least want to hang out with him one more time."

Dean and I hurried to the door and disappeared out of it without anyone noticing. I jumped down the front stairs and pulled Dean with me by his hand. Ronnie and the guys were no longer on the front porch seeing as it was starting to get chilly, but that didn't stop me.

I hurried across Ronnie's yard and up the steps of his porch. I knocked on the door, feeling slightly nervous because I didn't even know if the guys were inside or if they had gone somewhere else. My nerves disappeared when Omar pulled the door open.

"Hey," I greeted, "Ronnie's here, right?"