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"My name is Arden." He had to hold on to the podium to keep his paws from shaking. "A little while back, I was presented with the opportunity to write an essay. I took it without looking into it much. All I heard then was 'Winner gets a fifty-thousand dollar scholarship'. Had I read the fine print, I would have realized that I would have to present this essay to the entire school; I would have backed out and looked for other scholarships. I'm glad I didn't; this essay has given me the push I needed to come out with my..."

"Fag!" someone shouted.

Arden was surprised by just how unphased he was. "Yes, I was just getting to that, thank you."

There were chuckles in the audience.

"I'm gay." The magical phrase. "And thanks to the support of my friends, family and teachers, I can now stand before you and say so with confidence. My wish, on this day of tolerance, is that everyone have support enough to proudly proclaim who they truly are."

Hours seemed to pass... or maybe just moments.

He wanted so badly to run, to get away as fast as he could and hope that people forgot everything he had just said.

Just as he began to pry his paws off the podium, the auditorium erupted in applause. Granted, quite a few people were not clapping (Andy's group being chief among them), but it didn't matter. Whether it was out of support or respect, most of the students applauded, and some even cheered.

Arden's eyes filled with tears and he smiled; everything was going to be okay, he knew that now.

He waited for everyone to settle down and proceeded to read his essay. When he was finished, everyone applauded again; he could even see sections of the audience rising to give him a standing ovation.

Unsure of what to do, he bowed and retreated hastily behind the curtain.

"You were amazing!" Mark ran up and hugged him, followed by Sam and Fresto.

Arden still felt numb from everything that had taken place; he just smiled and gratefully accepted the hugs.

"You did it." The fox beamed. "How does it feel?"

"Pretty good, actually." The world didn't end, he was still very much alive, and Mark was still there.

"I'll see ya in English." The wolf gave him another hug. "I have to do a project in the library, so I won't be able to go to lunch." He pushed the door open and walked out.

Fresto pulled out his cellphone. "So, how about some pizza? I've been to the caf, so I know the kind of garbage they feed you kids there. Arden, see if any of your other friends want to come."

"Okay." Arden opened the door and walked outside.

'This is it,' he said to himself, 'the secret's out.'

He waited outside the auditorium, watching groups of students walking out. Out of everyone, he only really saw one familiar face. "Hey Danny!"

The cheetah turned and smiled when he saw Arden. "Hey!" He walked over and extended his paw. "Awesome essay!"

"Thanks." They shook paws. "You wanna go to Fresto's class for some pizza?"

"Sure!"

They walked back to the auditorium, where Fresto was already placing an order. "Anchovies. Yes, Anchovies! What's so hard to u... oh, hey guys!" He smiled at Arden and Danny as they walked in, clearly very happy to get a reprieve from his phone conversation. "Why don't we head to my classroom. We can eat there."

He finished placing the order and followed them out of the auditorium.

The pizza arrived twenty minutes later, but Fresto told them not to rush.

"I'll write you guys late passes, don't worry." He took a bite out of his anchovy pizza. "Besides, how often do you actually get the time to enjoy your lunch?"

The pizza tasted great and the conversation was even better; Sam came out to Danny and promised to attend the GSA meetings. Arden only wished Mark was there to complete his happiness puzzle.

He remembered, twenty minutes after the late bell rang, that he had a quiz in English. Bidding everyone a hasty goodbye, he grabbed the pass that Fresto had written and made a dash for Eggurd's classroom.

The classroom was about half-empty when he came in; either the quiz was really short, or half the class had decided to skip. Mark wasn't there, so Arden went with his first theory. He handed Eggurd the pass and sat down to take his quiz.

The questions were basic and it was clear that Eggurd had written the test solely because she had to - the old mouse was not a fan of tests. Arden was done with the entire thing in just ten minutes.

"Congratulations, Mr. Halinen." Eggurd smiled, taking his quiz. "On the essay, I mean; the quiz was easy."

"Thanks!" It had only been an hour since the assembly, but the memory of standing up at that podium was already fading.

He was rather surprised by how well everything had turned out, in fact. It seemed that Fresto didn't exaggerate the tiniest bit when he said that everything would remain pretty much the same.

His phone rang just as he was leaving class.

"Hey!" It was Sam, he sounded cheery - more cheery than usual, even.

Arden decided to play along. "What's up?"

"Would you mind if we had dinner tonight instead of Friday night?"

"Sure... why?" Clearly it wasn't anything bad because Sam's voice was very easy to read when it came to emotion.

"I have a thing Friday night?"

Arden could feel his friend smiling on the other end of the line. "You asked Danny out, didn't you, ya sly 'coon?"

"Ha! I didn't... he asked me out."

"Oh, Sam, I'm so happy for you!" He wished he could reach out and hug his friend right now. If anyone deserved a loving relationship, it was Sam.

"So, we'll just go somewhere after practice, then?"

"Yeah, sounds good; not pizza, though. I've had just about as much pizza I can stand for now." Between Fresto's pizza parties and his weekly outings with Sam, pizza had lost most of its charm.

"Chinese, then? There's some new place that just opened; Hoen? Something like that, anyway."

"Might as well give it a shot."

They bid each other goodbye and Arden headed home. He hoped sincerely that Sam and Danny hit it off; not only for his friend's sake, but for his own. Ever since he found out that Sam liked him, Arden felt a good deal of pity for his friend. The otter was good-natured and polite, but that didn't keep him from feeling like a third wheel in his and Mark's relationship. On top of all that, Sam didn't seem like he planned on hiding his relationship; maybe if Mark saw how accepted the boys were at school, he would be more comfortable with following their lead... maybe.

Practice was grueling; Arden was relieved to finally climb out of the pool, dry off and head to dinner.

Sam spent the entire walk talking about Danny and how excited he was. Arden didn't say much, he just listened and smiled; it was nice to see his friend so happy. There were many times when he would talk to Sam about Mark; he always tried to gauge Sam's level of sadness during those moments. Each time, his friend was chipper and bright; not because Arden had found somebody, but simply because his best friend was happy.

The Chinese place turned out to be quite a find. They both ordered shrimp-fried rice and it proved to be just as delicious as the menu's broken English had promised.

"We should come here more often." Sam finished his rice and opened the fortune cookie closest to him. "Hmm... It's empty. What do you think that means?"

"No clue." Arden opened his own fortune cookie: 'You are a very happy man!'

"Heh, imagine if a girl got this one?" He showed the fortune to Sam.

"She'd either laugh it off or consider gender reassignment surgery." Sam chuckled.

They paid the bill and left.

It started raining just as they got outside, so Arden called his dad to pick them up. Rather than stand around in the cold autumn rain, the boys went back inside.

After twenty or so minutes, Mr. Halinen's Tuareg stopped in front of Hoen's.

"How's the food here, guys?" Mr. Halinen locked the doors and pulled out of the parking lot.

"It's actually pretty good," Arden said. "We should go here sometime; we don't have enough family nights out."

"I don't suppose they have a health menu, do they?" Mr. Halinen was always extremely health-conscious. "My heart is bad enough as it is. All that fried rice nonsense will put my cholesterol through the roof."

"Well, we just had two large servings of shrimp-fired rice, and I feel pretty good!" Arden loved pushing his dad's buttons.

"Yeah, but you're what... twelve?"

Arden folded his ears. "I'm almost eighteen, Dad!"

They dropped Sam off at his house and went home themselves.

Arden scarcely got through the front door before running upstairs and dialing Mark.

It was late, but he wanted to tell the wolf about Sam and Danny.

The phone rang for such a long time that Arden was sure it was going to go to voicemail. He was about to hang up when Mark finally answered. "Hello?"

"Hey, hon."

The muffled voice in the background hinted that Mark might have been in the middle of something, and Arden didn't want to be rude. "Is this a bad time? I can call you back later."

"Look, would you just leave? We'll talk about this tomorrow."

Arden heard the door slam.

"Sorry, I just had to deal with some stuff. What's up?"

"Oh, I just wanted to tell you about Sam." Arden also wanted to ask who was visiting Mark so late, but decided against it. "He's going on a date with Danny this Friday."

"That's awesome!" He could tell that the wolf was trying his best to sound cheerful, but he definitely wasn't fully into it.

"Yeah! We should go on a double-date sometime!"

Silence.

"Mark?"

"Yeah... yeah. Sorry, I just zoned out." He really did sound groggy. "Practice just drained me today."

"Okay, well... I'll see you tomorrow, then."

"Yeah, maybe we can go out for smoothies or something. Coach has to go to some meeting, so practice got canceled."

"Yeah, absolutely!" With the sudden invitation for smoothies, Arden almost forgot about the wolf's strange behavior... almost.

They chatted for a few more minutes, and Arden found it more and more difficult to keep from interrogating Mark. Finally, he opened his muzzle to ask about the wolf's late-night visitor, but some strange force told him that it wouldn't do anything. If Mark had a secret, he was not about to share it. Rather than let the friendly conversation veer off into an argument, Arden feigned tiredness and quickly ended the call.

'I'm just being paranoid again,' he said to himself. He remembered the last time he had suspected Mark of something; the wolf took him out for the best day (and night) of his life, and all his suspicions were proven null and void.

Trust. That was one word he really needed to embrace.

He tried going to sleep, but found that he couldn't keep his eyes closed for more than a few moments; was it worry?

For lack of anything better to do, he went to his desk and scribbled some homework until he felt sufficiently tired to try sleeping again.

After about an hour of tossing and turning, he finally fell asleep.

Tuesday came and went; Arden's suspicions from the previous night faded with it. Mark was happy and clearly very excited to spend time with his boyfriend. Arden tried his best to see through the wolf's facade of smiles and hugs. He found, to his delight, that there was really nothing behind it. Either Mark managed to turn into an Oscar-winning actor overnight, or he really was as happy as he let on.

Wednesday went pretty much the same. Sam came with him to the GSA meeting, which was comprised mostly of all the kids congratulating Arden on his presentation.

"The principal has decided to give us our own room!" Fresto announced excitedly, producing an official-looking letter. "I vote we call it 'The Pride Room.'"

His suggestion was met with unanimous agreement.

"Now, I don't know which room it is yet, but we should definitely spend a couple of Wednesdays painting it and picking out decorations."

That proposition was met with even more hearty approval.

Thursday was pretty boring; between the test in calculus and his fitness exam (which he passed with flying colors), Arden preferred to file the day under 'Best left forgotten.'

Friday started off with pouring rain. Arden was only too happy that Mark had a car. They spent the drive discussing weekend plans and then made a silent dash from the parking lot to the safety of the indoors.

Florin handed back their tests; the expression she gave Arden when she came around to him, could only have been interpreted as, 'You fag, why couldn't you fail so I could make an example of you?'

History was much more chipper. Sam's energy was almost electrifying. Arden could tell that the otter was nervous, but he was managing to channel that nervous energy into a kinetic one by drumming his paws on the table and grinning from ear to ear. He sat back and watched with amusement as Sam tried his best not to look at the clock.

"I love this class, but time's just going too damn slow!" he hissed to Arden.

After several more such comments, the bell finally rang. Sam sprang up from his seat and bolted to his next class. Arden chuckled and followed at his own pace.

When he got there, Sam was sitting next to Danny. They clearly wanted to show more affection for each other, but kept their paws to themselves as they discussed a good place to go for their date. Once again, Arden spent his time sitting back and listening. Sam and Danny seemed to share a certain glow; he remembered having that same glow all those months ago when he just started hanging out with Mark. A certain energy that came just from being next to someone you really liked. For some reason, that energy dissipated as time passed; he almost envied the two and their youthful enthusiasm.

"I'll text you and let you know how it goes," Sam whispered to him as they were leaving biology.

"Sounds good. I'm guessing I won't see you at swimming, then." Arden chuckled. "Whatever will Barken say?"

"Yeah... uhh... tell Barken I was sick or something. You know the kind of stuff he likes to hear."

"Do I?" Arden knew that the only excuse the coach was willing to acknowledge was a debilitating injury of some sort.

"Yeah, yeah. Just tell him I got food poisoning." Sam suggested.

"I've already used that one a few weeks back. But I guess I could just say that you caught whatever I had."

"You're the best!" Sam hugged him and dashed off again.

After school let out, Arden headed home. He was about to call Mark and invite him on a date too, but between the wolf's soccer practice and Barken, he decided against it.

He finished his homework and headed to swimming practice.

He was changing into his bathing suit when his phone rang.

"Hello?" The otter held the phone against his shoulder as he pulled his jammer all the way on.

"It's me." Sam's voice was barely audible, but the worry it carried was clearly evident.

"What's up?" Arden got a more comfortable grip on the phone and sat down on the bench.

"Danny's not here yet." His voice quivered, just short of tears. "We arranged to meet almost an hour ago and he hasn't shown up."

"Did you try calling him?" Arden felt as if some of Sam's nervousness transferred right over the phone lines.

"Yeah, I keep getting voicemail."

"What about his home phone?"

"Same thing; answering machine. I've... I've tried leaving a message... a lot of messages, but he still hasn't gotten back to me."

"Halinen!" Barken's bark pierced the walls of the bathroom. "Front and center!"

Arden was about to hang up when Sam spoke again. "Hang on, someone's calling the other line."

Choosing between his best friend and practice was easy. "Okay." He let Sam put him on hold.

It was a long while later that he finally heard the otter's voice again, although it was almost unrecognizable.

"He's in the hospital!" Sam was crying openly now.

Arden's heart sank; he felt sick to his stomach, many times worse than he'd felt before his presentation. His legs started to wobble so much that he had to sit down. "What happened?" he forced the words out in a whisper.

"I don't know. His father called, said someone attacked him." Sam's speech was barely comprehensible at this point. "Arden, what do I do?"

"Where are you?" Arden changed faster than he ever had before.

"I'm... I'm at the movie theatre... Cineplex, I think."

"Stay there. I'll get my dad and we'll drive down to the hospital together." He sprinted out of the locker room and came muzzle to muzzle with Barken.

"Practice isn't over yet, Halinen!" he barked.

"My friend needs my help and I'm going to be there for him." Arden walked around Barken and out into the parking lot. "So just pretend I took a day off."

He flipped the phone open and dialed his father.

Each ring felt like an eternity.