"Go fish." I told my dad and watched as he took a card from the pile in the middle of the table. I laughed as a huge grin formed on his lips. That's how sad my life had become, the highlight of my week had been playing this card game with my dad.

This past week I had done nothing. I hadn't even bothered to go to school, I couldn't face it. I wasn't ready to hear what people had to say about me now they knew I was gay, then again I don't think I'll ever be ready. Arizona brought around all the work I had missed everyday, but she never stayed long enough for me to apologise to her. I had treated her so awfully, I don't even deserve her forgiveness.

Courtney too, had visited everyday, begging me to listen to her excuses, only to be sent away by my dad. She tried calling and texting me but I ignored her calls and deleted her texts before I even read them. I couldn't talk to her, I know that it if I did, it was likely that I would forgive her and go straight back to her side. I couldn't do that, not again. I couldn't go through the pain of having my heart broken again.

It wasn't just Courtney I blamed. I blamed myself just as much, perhaps more. I was the fool who had allowed her to walk all over me for years, I had the chance to walk away but I didn't, I was too weak.

"Princess?" My dad's voice brought me back to reality. I shook my head, erasing all thoughts of Courtney, all they did was bring me misery and heart ache.

"Sorry. Have you got any fours?" I asked.

We continued to play the card game until my mum arrived home from work. We finished our game and the two of us finished off preparing dinner and set the table for the three of us to sit down and have a meal together, the first meal the three of us have shared together for days. My mum was always too busy with work to arrive home any time before 10 pm, meaning it was usually just me and my dad, which I, personally, didn't mind in the slightest.

The atmosphere was awkward as we sat down to enjoy the meal. My mum refused to look up from her plate and contribute in the conversation throughout the majority of the meal, so it came as a surprise to both my dad and I when she started a new conversation.

"I heard a funny story today." She said, smiling a fake smile. I swallowed nervously, knowing that she can't have been impressed by this story.

"Care to share this funny story Jessica?" My dad asked, pushing his food around his plate, not eating any of it. I sent him a look, but he ignored as he continued to press her for the details.

"Well Nathaniel, this morning while us girls were working, we got onto the topic of our precious children." I froze, knowing exactly where this was heading. "So, of course I mention our Michaela-"

"Mum..." I cut her off, trying my best to stop her from talking. She didn't even so much as glance in my direction, instead she kept her eyes focused on my dad's face.

"Here's the funny part. They seem to be under the impression that our little girl is a... a dyke." A gasp escaped my lips at her terminology. I hated that word. I especially hated it when Courtney had used it, but now the word sounded so spiteful coming out of my mums mouth. I bit down on my knuckle as I did my best to stop the tears falling.

My eyes scanned my dad's face. He looked angrier than I had ever seen him. "What did you call her?" He wasn't shouting, but the tone of his voice had me terrified. Growing up, he had not once raised his voice to me nor my mum, and I was scared that today might just be the day he ended that record.

"I didn't call her anything, because she's not..." She trailed off, and for the first time in the whole conversation she looked at me. I couldn't bring myself to look her in the eyes, instead I kept my eyes focused on my plate of food, willing myself not to cry. "You're not are you?"

I couldn't form the words to tell her that it was true, instead I nodded my head. My mum let out a gasp, "Mum..." I whispered, stretching out my hand to touch her.

"Don't touch me." She spat. Her words pierced straight through me. She glared at me before turning to my dad. "This is your fault." She screamed at him.

My dad didn't say anything, instead he just shook his head, his eyes filled with such sadness. Sadness I had never seen before. My mum ignored his action and continued to shout at him.

"You insisted on calling her Mickie. You warned her away from boys-" My dad let out a small laugh, shocking both my mum and I.

"You daft cow. Nothing made Mickie gay. It's who she is, and there is nothing wrong with her." He stood up from his seat, and my mum copied his actions.

"You already knew didn't you?"

"I did. Mickie trusted me enough to tell me, and I'm glad she was able to." He smiled at me, before returning his attention back to her.

"And you're okay with... This." The words that came out of her mouth were lined with such venom, I couldn't bare to stay in the room any longer and listen to whatever else she had to say.

I got up from the table and practically ran out of the room and out of my front door. I heard my dad call me, but I ignored him and slammed the front door shut. I didn't actually want to leave, I just needed fresh air. So, I ended up sitting on the brick wall at the front of my house. The wall was just wide enough for me to be able to bring my knees up to my chest. I laid my into down onto my knees, and sat there, in that position, for what felt like hours, but was more realistically ten minutes.

I heard a car pull up to the left of me, but didn't pay too much attention, it was probably one of the neighbours late home from work. Even when I felt a person sit down next to me on the wall and wrap an arm around me, I still didn't look up. It could have been anyone, a neighbour, a rapist, a crazy old man, but right now I didn't really care. Because of me my parents were fighting, my friends had abandoned me, the girl I loved had only caused me pain, why not throw in a random stranger hugging me.

The person sat beside me shifted a little, obviously trying to gain a little more comfort. Deciding that I had to see the person who was, still, hugging me, I looked up. My eyes met the most gorgeous blue eyes I had ever seen, and immediately I felt better, the person hugging me was not that much of a stranger.

"Arizona." I said shocked, but I couldn't hide the smile on my face, to say I was happy to see her would be an understatement.

"Hey Mickie." She smiled back at me. She dropped her arm from around me, and the action hurt me slightly, I shook of the feeling and turned my focus back to her.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, moving my legs, so that now I was facing her.

"I came by to drop off work for you, and then I saw you here, and I... I thought you could do with a friend."

"I don't deserve your friendship Arizona." Another thing I was responsible for. Outing Arizona, then accusing her of outing me. The way I treated Arizona was completely out of order.

"Everybody deserves a second chance." By my calculations, this was more like my third chance, but I wouldn't admit that.

"Thank-you Arizona."

"For what?" She looked so cute when she was puzzled, her mouth forming a slight frown, her brow creasing.

"For giving me another chance." She grinned at me and shook her head.

"Honestly I think we both could do with each others support and help." I smiled at her and she stood up, holding out her hands for me to take. "Would you like to come back to mine for a bit?"

I took her hands and stood up, she let go of one of my hands but held onto the other, I smiled at how soft her hands were. "I'd love too." I was more than willing to go anywhere to escape the events taking place in my house.

I followed Arizona has she guided me to her car. She let go of my hand, but opened the passenger door for me. I giggled at her, as she took a slight bow when I entered the car. During the short drive to her house she asked me why I had been sitting outside, I told her the truth, about my mum's reaction to the fact I was gay.

"She's just shocked, she'll come around." Arizona comforted me, as we walked up to her front door.

"I don't know Arizona, she seemed so full of hate." I blinked away the tears that started to form as I pictured the disgusted look on my mums face when I didn't deny the fact I was a lesbian.

"Ari you're back soon, did you talk to-" Her dad said when we walked through the front door, "Mickie, hi." He smiled at me, before grinning at Arizona. She rolled her eyes at him, but smiled back. "Nice to see you again."

"Nice to see you too Tom." I smiled at him. I loved how welcome he made me feel.

"We're going to go upstairs dad. We don't want to be disturbed."

Tom raised an eyebrow, "Oh don't you now."

An obvious blush appeared on Arizona's pale cheeks. "Not like that dad." She quickly pushed me up the stairs and away from her dad. I laughed at her reaction, which only made her cheeks turn a darker shade of red.

I was still laughing as we walked into her bedroom, she shut the door behind us and threw herself on her bed. "God he's so embarrassing." She mumbled into her pillow. I sat down next to her on the bed, making her sit up to face me. The blush having faded now.

She looked at me, her gorgeous blue eyes meeting mine, a wave of guilt hit me and I found myself needing to apologise to her. "I'm so sorry Arizona. What I did and said to you... I was out of line. You were so kind to me and I just threw that back in your face."

"Forget about it Mickie. I understand why you did and said what you did." She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. She stood up quickly and walked over to her iPod docking station and turned the music on, just loud enough so we could still hear one another but we couldn't hear her the television her dad was watching down stairs. "There's something I should really tell you."

I didn't know what to say to her in response. The last time she had told me something personal, I went and told the one person who had the ability and want to tell everyone else. I was surprised Arizona could even trust me after that. She must have taken my silence as a sign for her to continue, as she took a deep breath, a sign this was going to be a long story, before sitting down next to me.

"I lied about Annabelle. I lied about how we met and what she did to me. I lied about why my mum kicked me out." She had lied to me, about practically everything. It made me wonder if everything she had told me about herself was I lie.

"Why did you lie?" I asked, wanting to know the reason, more than I wanted to know the truth.

She sighed, "Because I thought you wouldn't want to hear the truth." Again I didn't know how to respond to that, why did she feel like that?

"I would rather hear the truth than a lie Arizona." I was sick of lies. People telling me lies, me telling others lies. I was sick of them.

"I'm going to tell you the truth now Mickie."

"From the beginning?"

"From the beginning." She confirmed. "I wasn't lying when I told you I wasn't very sociable. I had very few friends, and I wasn't close to any of them bar one, Amelia. And I was only ever close to her because her twin sister happened to be Annabelle. Annabelle, in my eyes, was perfect, I craved her attention, and so spent as much time as I could round their house.

"One day when I was round there, Amelia had stolen some of her dads alcohol and we had gotten pretty drunk, we were only 14. Annabelle came home later that night and found us, Amelia had passed out and I had snuck into Annabelle's room. Of course she was pissed at me, and I remember she screamed at me. I can't really remember what happened next, but somehow I ended up telling her I had a crush on her.

"From then on, Annabelle allowed me to 'hang out' with her. I was thrilled that she wanted to spend time with me, and when she asked me to do little things for her, I was more than willing. Two years went by and I was still helping her in return for spending time with her and a quick kiss when no one was looking. It took me a long time to figure out she was just using me to do her dirty work, I was the one who started the rumours, I was the one who found everyone's secrets, I got so tired of being that person that I told her to stuff her little 'arrangement'. It broke my heart to tell her that, but I didn't want to be her puppet any more."

Arizona stopped talking, and closed her eyes for a moment or two. Perhaps trying to decide what else to tell me.

"What did Annabelle do?" I asked.

Arizona opened her eyes and looked at me, "She told everybody that I was gay and that I had tried it on with her. It made me a social outcast, but the funny thing was I didn't even care. I had seen her for who she really was, and I was finally able to escape from her grasp."

We sat in silence for a few minutes before I spoke up, "Why didn't you want to tell me

the truth?"

"I was afraid you would think I was trying to take a swipe at Courtney, I already knew how much she meant to you."

I realised what she meant. Courtney and Annabelle were both similar in the ways that they held onto Arizona and I. There was definitely a similarity between the two.

"Okay. I understand that." I nodded and smiled at her, too show her that I wasn't bothered by it. "Do you mind if I ask then, why your mum kicked you out?"

Arizona frowned and she balled her hands into fists quickly before realising them. "That's the part I really didn't want to tell you."

I grabbed her hand and entwined our fingers, "It's fine you don't have to tell me."

She shook her head forcefully as if dismissing my comment, "No. I want to tell you."

"Only if you want to." I rubbed the back of her hand with my thumb.

"I want to." She repeated. "Well I-" Arizona started but was disturbed by a knock at her bedroom door. "Not right now dad." She called out. The knocking stopped but just as quickly started up again. "Dad we're busy." She yelled at him through the door.

"Maybe you should see what he wants." I suggested, shrugging my shoulders.

"No. He'll go away in the minute." She responded, but the knocking continued. I raised my eyebrows at her and she rolled her eyes playfully. "Fine. Come in." She called to him.

The knocking stopped and the door was opened. But it wasn't her dad who was standing there, it was a girl. She was tall and slim, with long wavy brown hair and big brown eyes. She looked around our age, perhaps slightly younger. Arizona stiffened beside me, her grip on my hand becoming tighter and her eyes open wide in shock.

"Sasha." Arizona whispered. The girl didn't respond, she just continued to smile.