A New Start

Chapter 20

A/N: quick little message, lovelies! Thank you for all your support and feedback with this story. I love you all so much!

Zoe came home from her night at the Kleinmans', tossing her bag on the floor by the laundry room. "Hey, Mom," she said. "Where's Connor?"

Cynthia shot Larry a glare over the dining table. "Ask your father," she spat.

"Dad? W-where's Connor?" Zoe asked nervously.

"The hell if I know," Larry replied. "He's probably off getting high or making out with some male prostitute."

"W-what?"

"Your father is a bigot and drove your brother away," Cynthia explained with distaste. Zoe looked between her parents, frozen to her spot on the carpeted floor.

- - -

Heidi cane home early in the morning from one of her classes to see Evan and Connor's bodies tangled together on the couch in a mess of limbs. (Though it was mostly Connor's legs. That boy is tall.) Connor's phone was buzzing constantly on the coffee table. She looked between the blue light emanating from the phone to the sleeping boy, contemplating whether or  not to wake him up. She eventually walked over to him and gently shook him awake. Whoever it was, they weren't going to stop calling.

"Connor," she said softly, nudging the boy's shoulder. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, looking up at Heidi. "Sorry to wake you, but," she gestured to his phone, "it seems important."

Connor nodded sleepily and picked up his phone. "Hello?"

"Where are you?" A panicked Zoe asked.

Connor rubbed his face and sighed. "Relax. I'm not in danger."

"Where are you?" She asked again.

"I'm at Evan's," he said softly, trying not to wake his peacefully sleeping boyfriend. "I'm gonna hide out here for a few days. Don't tell Larry and Cynthia."

He could practically hear Zoe's eye roll. "Just call them mom and dad, you idiot."

"Not until they start acting like real parents."

"Alright, just... don't do anything stupid, okay? Don't get hurt. Please?"

Connor sighed. "Fine. I'll see you in school tomorrow." He hung up and tossed his phone back onto the table.

"Who was that?" He heard Evan mumble sleepily.

He smiled and kissed his boyfriend on the forehead. "Don't worry about it, go back to sleep." Evan nodded and wrapped his arms around Connor, drifting off to sleep again.

Connor dug around in his bag until his fingers latched onto his sketchbook. He flipped it open and pulled a pencil out from the coils. Connor flicked through the pages until he got to an unfinished picture of an iris. He continued sketching the flower from memory, the sun filtering in through the blinds and lighting up the room.

When Evan woke up again, he rubbed his eyes and looked at Connor, who had pulled his hair up in a bun with the hair tie he perpetually keeps on his wrist. His tongue was poking out of his mouth as he focused intently on his drawing.

Evan smiled and whispered, "Morning."

Connor turned his head and smiled back. "Morning, Ev." He glanced at his watch. "Do you always get up at 8 on a Sunday?"

Evan rubbed his eyes and sat up. "Most of the time, yeah." He looked over at Connor. "What are you working on?"

"What? Oh, it's nothing, really," he said, scribbling CM in the lower right corner. "Just a little something I made for Zoe." Evan peered over Connor's shoulder and took a look at the flower.

"It's pretty."

- - -

Quinn was cleaning up from the girls' party the previous night, watching Law and Order: Special Victims Unit in the process. The episode she was watching had something to do with a girl who escaped her kidnapper after ten years. She glanced at the screen while the detectives were talking to the family and scrambled for the remote.

She paused it and yelled, "Jared, get your ass in here!"

Her brother came strolling in with a piece of cold, left over pizza. "What's up?"

"Look at the screen!"

"What am I looking at exactly?" He squinted. "Oh, my god, that looks exactly like Connor."

"Exactly! That's so weird," Quinn muttered. She turned to Jared. "Can we agree that he never watches this? It deals with a bad sibling relationship."

"Yeah. Yeah, we can do that."

"Cool. I'm gonna go call Zoe. She left her toothbrush here."

A/N: if you're wondering what episode of law and order:svu I'm talking about, the episode is called Complicated and it's in season 19. Here's a picture from it:

Also, please go read my other story, Hotshot. I don't usually promote other stories in author's notes, but I'd really love it if you lovelies read it.