A/N: Alright, I'm here to give you more gay shit- well..this chapter is less gay shit and more just friendship shit, but have it anyways, it's progressing the story. Also, this song doesn't have much to do with this chapter specifically, but it's kind of related to the book, and I just feel like Matt Maeson just needs more of an audience and must be shared because his voice is killer. Anyways, I hope everyone's having a great day and enjoy this chapter!

The first day of the year was cold, not freezing, but cold enough to leave the red-headed boy's nose and ears tinted red as he waited outside of his friend's house. It'd been a while since he'd last hung out at Ivy's house, but she'd pointed that out and he'd decided to walk there that morning. She lived down the street from him and it was a wonder that it'd taken them so long to find each other, but before camp the year he'd met her, he never thought to make friends with his neighbors. He'd never really felt like he belonged in the neighborhood that he did with the family he had and the life he didn't deserve. He knocked on the dark wood door, then waiting.

The door swung open to reveal Ivy, she smiled and Logan smiled back.

"Hey, stick, come in." She said and he nodded a little, walking in and glancing around a bit.

"Hey, what's up?" He asked and she shrugged, closing the door for him.

"Not much, just hanging out, we could play video games or something, that's what I've been doing all afternoon. It's so boring not being at school." She said with a soft sigh.

"I know, it's got my schedule all out of wack and I've got nothing to do half the day." Logan said, walking in. "We could play video games."

"Don't you have the art project thing to work on?"

"Yeah, but I don't feel like working on it right now, I'm kind of going through art block." He said with a quiet yawn.

"Genevive, make sure you clean your room before you do anything else, you know how I feel about it being messy." Her mom said, walking into the entryway. Ivy's mom had never taken to her nickname, but Ivy hated her full name so everyone else called her Ivy. Logan sometimes wondered if Mrs. Palmer just called her by her full name as a way to spite her. Ivy and her mother hadn't ever really gotten along well. They were both stubborn and had opposite opinions on a lot of things, one of those being that Ivy didn't want to marry a man and her mother seemed to think not marrying a rich husband and completely failing at life were just the same thing. Logan sometimes wanted to tell her that it was 2020 and marrying rich is kind of weird if you already are rich besides the fact that Ivy could still marry a rich woman, but Mrs. Palmer would probably think that was disrespectful and Logan didn't want her to stop liking him.

"I already did, Mom." Ivy said.

"And vacuumed?"

"Yup."

"Alright, then keep it clean." Mrs. Palmer said and then looked to Logan, smiling. "Oh, hey Logan."

"Hi, Mrs. Palmer." Logan said with a smile, giving a small wave. Mrs. Palmer had always been pretty nice to him even though he was gay, probably because he was always nice to her and never actually brought up liking boys around her unless she specifically asked and she never did.

"Did you have a nice Christmas?" She asked and Logan nodded.

"I did, yeah, was your good?" He asked.

"It was, we had a wonderful little family Christmas, Rachel came home for it and everything." Ivy's sister, Rachel, was at college abroad in London, apparently, it was cheaper for American students or something. Ivy had five siblings: Rachel who was 20, Ian who was 19, Evan who was 14, Fionna who was 10, and Daniel who was 7.

"Well as much as I'd love to listen to small talk, I'm gonna take my best friend back now." Ivy said with a smile, taking Logan's hand and leading him up to her room, then flopping down on her bed, letting out a sigh. "I swear sometimes it's like she loves you more than me."

"She doesn't." Logan said, sitting down on one of Ivy's beanbags.

"She's probably put you in her will or something." Ivy said and Logan laughed softly. If I even outlive anyone. He pushed the thought out of his head.

"But it's not like you wouldn't also be in her will, I mean, you're her flesh and blood."

"Actually, they're gonna cut me off as soon as I move out." Ivy said and Logan frowned.

"No way."

"Yeah, and I can't move out later than nineteen, so I have to pay for college and everything." She said.

"Then I'll help, I mean, I'll have more than I need from the trust fund." He said and she looked at him.

"You're kidding."

"No, I'm completely serious, even if I paid for full ride, it wouldn't even be like, a quarter of my inheritance."

"Dude, I fucking love you.." She said and Logan smiled. "But I wouldn't do that to you."

"Just promise me you'll let me help you pay for something..maybe we could be roommates and I could pay the rent." He said and she giggled.

"Sounds like a plan." She said. "But whatever, I've still got a couple years so I should be fine." She said.

"Yeah, maybe you can change your parents' minds by then."

"Maybe I can reverse my gayness too, I mean, I'm already halfway straight, maybe I can just make the other half of the switch." She said and he giggled. "You wanna play Biostorm?" She asked and he nodded so she got off her bed and grabbed controllers.

"The first or second game?" He asked.

"Second, obviously." She said and he nodded, taking the controller and sitting crisscrossed on the beanbag, turning on the console.

They played for a while, Logan dying a few times before he looked over at Ivy, nearly pouting.

"How are you so good at this?"

"I'm good at everything, duh." She said with a grin and he laughed, setting his controller down. "Had enough?"

"There's no way to win." He said in defeat.

"You just don't play it enough, you do important shit like homework."

"Yeah, I guess so." He said and she exited out of the game.

"God, I can't wait for Grace to get home."

"When's she coming home?"

"Tomorrow, I've missed her so fucking much, we've just been calling over skype for the past couple weeks." Ivy said and Logan nodded.

"That must suck, but at least you only have one more day and then you can see her again."

"Yeah, we're gonna go out tomorrow night."

"Aww, that's cool, where are you going?"

"The roller rink, you could come with if you want, maybe you could bring Sy, like a double date." She said and Logan smiled nodding.

"Yeah, I'll see if he wants to go." He said. "I could call him in a bit, he's probably not up yet." He said.

"Really? It's like 10 am."

"Yeah, but he sleeps late when he doesn't have to get up early and he definitely didn't go to bed until like 1 last night with how late their parties usually go." He said and she nodded.

"That's true, I didn't see you last night, did you go early or something?" She asked.

"Yeah, I don't really like loud parties and I wanted to get home to read my new book." He said and she smiled, ruffling his curls.

"You're so geeky, it's fucking adorable." She said and he giggled, rolling his eyes.

It went quiet after that, not an awkward quiet, just a quiet. Logan liked that there was never pressure to talk when he was with Ivy, she didn't need noise, it was okay to have silence.

"What's going on with you and Sy anyways?" She asked after a while and Logan shrugged, not looking at her, glancing to the floor or the games menu on the tv or watching the wall.

"I don't really know, he's just...it's just a lot." He said softly and she looked at him a moment.

"Logan, you know it's not good to keep going with this if you're not comfortable with it." She said and he was about to open his mouth to defend himself when his phone rang and he took it out of his pocket to answer it.

"Oh, sorry, it's Sy." He said, looking to her with guilt in his eyes before he answered, holding it to his ear. "Hey." He said.

"Hey." Sy said. "How'd you sleep."

"Okay, you?"

"I slept good. You kinda disappeared last night." He said.

"Yeah, it was just kinda loud and I was kinda stressed out so-"

"But you just left without telling me or anything."

"I know, I just-"

"Were you with Oliver?" Sy asked.

"No, why do you always think I'm with him when I'm not with you?"

"Because I don't know, he's just all over you all the fucking time."

"No he's not, I haven't even talked to him for the past like, two days. We're just friends."

"Are you?" Sy asked and Logan paused a moment, his breath catching. He thinks I'm cheating on him?

"Yeah, Sy- I've gotta go, I'm hanging out with Ivy." He said and hung up, stuffing his phone in his jacket pocket with a quiet huff.

Ivy sat up, looking at him with raised eyebrows.

"What'd he say?" She asked and Logan shook his head, laying on the beanbag and staring up at the ceiling.

"He asked if I went out with Oliver after I left the party and I didn't, I just left because he was talking to Gia and he didn't even seem to want me there and she wouldn't shut up about my dads probably being the reason I'm gay and how it's important to grow up with a mom and all this stuff about the gay agenda and he wasn't even saying anything like it's just okay to say stuff like that and she brought up my birth parents and I was just tired of it so I went home." He said and Ivy looked mad.

"This bitch said what?" She looked at Logan with that same look that she'd had after he told her about Jace.

"Yeah, and she asked me like- If I would have rather had a mom."

"And Sy didn't say anything?"

"I mean, he changed the subject, but he didn't really tell her not to say it." Logan said and Ivy shook her head in disbelief.

"And he's trying to be jealous about you being friends with Oliver, that's fucking insane."

"I know, it's crazy, it's like he thinks I'm cheating on him and I'm not, even if I did like Oliver, I wouldn't cheat on him because he's my friend and I wouldn't do that to anyone."

"Why didn't you just reject him in the first place?"

"I..I just didn't know how to say no to him, I don't-...I was scared." He said quietly and Ivy looked at him, her eyes softening.

"Oh, sweetie." She said softly, pulling him into a hug and he let her. "You know this isn't something you can't get out of, you just have to be honest with him, loggy." She said and he nodded.

"I know, it's just..I just need some time to figure that all out and I mean, I do like him, just I don't think I like him enough and I'm trying to figure out how to tell him all of it and break up with him but I don't want to hurt his feelings.."

Ivy took Logan's face in both of her hands, making him look her in the eyes.

"Logan, listen to me, sometimes, you just have to stop caring what anyone else thinks and do what you know you have to do, you have to take care of yourself and this is hurting you and it's hurting Sy and the longer you wait, the worse it's going to get, so you need to do this sooner than later." She said and he paused before nodding, processing her words.

"Thanks, Ivy." He said and she smiled, kissing his cheek.

"You wanna play another round?" She asked, holding up the controller and Logan smiled, nodding and picking up his own, pulling up the game again.

He knew what he needed to do, he just wasn't quite sure how to do it. He knew Sy would be mad or sad, but he didn't know how to prepare for that. He vowed to himself that he'd do it in the next 2 weeks, he needed to.