“Anything new happen with Devin?”

Elise was sitting down on one of the couches in her living room when Amanda sent her that text. She internally groaned once she saw it. As expected, Amanda was going to pester her with more questions about Devin after their chat the previous day.

Annoyed, she simply replied back with “no”.

It wasn’t that Elise didn’t like it when Amanda texted her. Obviously she quite enjoyed the conversations with one of her closest friends. It was just that she didn’t want people prying into her relationship with Devin at a moment like this, when Devin had a huge and highly sensitive secret that both of them didn’t want to get out.

She hoped that her response would be enough to satisfy Amanda, but of course it wasn’t.

“Did you tell him you liked girls?”

Now that question Elise could actually answer and be truthful about. Elise did indeed tell Devin that she liked girls, and that she still liked him… or her. So she could reply with “yes” and technically she wouldn’t be lying about anything.

“Yeah.”

“And how did he take it?”

“He took it pretty well.”

“See? What did I tell you, nothing to worry about.”

Elise actually smiled when she read that last text. Even though there was a ton of information that Amanda didn’t know about, just seeing her say that there was nothing to worry about was reassuring enough. There was nothing to worry about, Elise and Sierra were together, and nothing was going to change that.

Elise did hope though that Amanda would take well to Sierra, when the time came.

***

Elise looked up from her phone as she heard the front door open. Once she saw her parents come inside, she looked back down.

“You’re home rather late. Overtime again?” She asked

“No, not this time. Something worse actually.” Ronald answered.

“What are you… oh yeah, that’s right, the stuff with grandpa. I forgot about that.” Elise replied. “How’d it go?”

“I’d rather you not know about that stuff.” Ronald said.

“Too late. You two talk too loud.”

Ronald smirked. “Guess I can’t argue with that, huh.” He laughed under his breath. “Well, it went about as well as you would expect. That being, not at all.”

“Oh, it was awful!” Julie added. “They wouldn’t listen to anything! They were so beyond ignorant! I don’t know why we even tried to talk to them. It’s all so hopeless!”

“Hey now, don’t be like that honey.” Ronald reassured his wife. “We can always try again.”

“And do what? What could we do? Because what we did today clearly didn’t work.”

“Well… we could… I don’t know, we’ll figure it out later, but I think it’s important to keep going to their house every so often just to check up on them. One thing you don’t want to do is leave them alone. That’s what I’ve been told. We gotta keep trying.”

“What good would that do!?” Julie said back harshly. “Going over there for hostile confrontations every single time. They’d know to get angry each time we came over. That’s not the relationship I want with my parents.”

“I know, honey, I know.” Ronald pat Julie on the back. “Just… everything will be fine, okay?”

“I don’t want your empty words, I want results.”

“Wait.” Elise chimed in. “How bad is it?”

Ronald sighed. “Well, it’s not QUITE as bad as I was afraid of.”

“But it’s SO much worse than I expected.” Julie responded. “The stuff they said… I still can’t believe it came out of my parents. It just keeps going through my head that MY parents said that stuff.”

“What stuff did they say?” Elise asked.

“Well…” Julie started. “I’m sorry sweetie, but it’s not gonna be easy to hear this.”

“I can handle it.”

“Okay then…” Julie sat down as Ronald leaned his head against the wall. “There’s so much to say…”

***

1 Hour Earlier

“Are you ready?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Julie said. “But I’m still not sure it’s entirely necessary to do this.”

“Like I said before, better safe than sorry, right?” Ronald asked.

Julie hesitated before giving a light nod. Ronald smiled, then rang the doorbell to the grandparents’ house.

It took a while, the old married couple was definitely not nearly as quick and mobile as they were in their younger years, but eventually the front door was opened.

“I didn’t know you two were coming over today.” The grandmother said. “Are the kids here too?”

“No, just us.” Julie answered.

“Well then.” The grandmother began walking away from the door, with Julie and Ronald following her inside the house. “We were just finishing up dinner, we have some leftovers if you want.”

“Oh, no thanks.” Julie said as Ronald shut the front door. “We have stuff at home.”

“You sure?” The grandmother sat down. “It’s chicken breast. Mighty good stuff.”

“No, we’re good.”

The grandmother laughed. “Oh come on, my cooking isn’t that bad, is it?” She joked. “You know, your father hasn’t complained about my food in like six months, so I think I’m doing pretty good right now.”

“Haven’t complained out loud!” The grandfather yelled from the kitchen.

“Oh, shut your trap!” The grandmother yelled back. “And come on out here too! We have people here! Don’t hide in the kitchen!”

“Alright, alright. I’m coming.” The grandfather walked into the living room with a cup of beer in his hands. “Want some?” He asked Julie and Ronald.

“Oh no.” Ronald said. “I mean, we’re gonna need to drive later.”

“That never stopped me.” The grandfather laughed as he took a sip.

The grandmother laughed sincerely alongside him, while Julie and Ronald just continued to stare with a blank expression.

“So.” The grandfather started. “What brings you here today?” He took another sip of his beer. “Oh and please sit down, wouldn’t want you two to get uncomfortable.”

Julie and Ronald proceeded to take seats on the large couch, both right next to each other.

“We… well, we wanted to talk.” Julie said.

“Talk about what?” The grandfather asked. “These days everyone wants to talk.”

“We just have a few concerns about you two.” Ronald pointed out. “We want to make sure everything’s okay.”

“Concerns?” The grandfather put down his cup. “What concerns? We’re old, but we’re not so old we have to start wearing diapers again.”

“You might be getting close to that.” The grandmother laughed.

“You know, if I do get there, you’re gonna be the one who has to replace my diaper.”

“To hell with that, I don’t love you that much.”

The grandfather laughed as he picked up his cup again. “Sorry about all that, you know us, can hardly stay focused anymore.” He took another sip. “So spit it out. What concerns are you talking about?”

Ronald and Julie looked at each other for a brief moment, then Julie sighed. “Well…” she started. “It’s not anything to do with your health. It’s just about some of your… recent visits.”

“What’s the problem?” The grandmother asked. “When we come over to your house I’m not the one cooking.”

“Yeah…” Julie responded. “This is serious. We’re talking about the things you two have said.”

“Mainly you have said.” Ronald pointed to the grandfather. “And the things you’ve posted online.”

The grandfather’s face suddenly took on a more sinister look. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Well, it concerns us what you two have been saying.” Julie explained. “The beliefs you’re holding are very harmful.”

“Harmful? How?” The grandfather aggressively asked.

“Well, I mean, for starters, the vaccine stuff-”

“You mean the vaccine that we took? That vaccine?” The grandfather shot back harshly.

Slightly taken back by her father’s interruption, Julie silently nodded. “Yes, that vaccine. You spreading all those anti vaccine lies hurts people, kills them even. Especially at a time like this, with a worldwide pandemic and all.”

“What ‘anti vaccine lies’ have I been spreading?”

“Well for one.” Ronald answered. “That article you linked in that Facebook post of yours didn’t even agree with what you said. If you had actually read it, it would’ve said that the Covid vaccine still saves lives and should be used.”

“Oh, bullshit!” The grandfather yelled. “That vaccine isn’t going to save us all! And the government is trying to force everyone to take it! People should be in charge of their own damn decisions! I thought that’s what this country was about!”

“The majority of covid deaths are unvaccinated. You think the vaccine isn’t helpful? What about the people who work? Are they not entitled to safe and healthy working conditions?” Ronald asked him.

“What about the people who get FIRED from their job because they don’t want to take an experimental vaccine!?” The grandfather yelled. “You know what that’s called? Fascism!”

“Fascism? What are you talking about? Is it fascist when restaurants fire workers who refuse to wash their hands?” Ronald asked him.

“That’s different.” The grandfather replied bluntly. “Washing hands isn’t experimental.”

Ronald laughed for a while and then turned to the grandmother. “You hearing this?” He asked her. “Don’t you ever say anything back to him?”

“Why would I need to?” She responded. “He’s right. And I don’t want to start yelling over nothing.”

“Hey, if she doesn’t want in this, then don’t bring her in.” The grandfather said.

“Okay, fine.” Ronald replied. “So you think vaccine mandates are fascism. And you also think critical race theory is fascism. I really wonder what fascism is in that head of yours.”

“Fascism is what’s ruining this country. You say critical race theory, I hear people teaching kids to hate their race and their country.”

“Father, I really don’t think that’s what critical race theory is.” Julie said. “It’s just supposed to teach kids that racism is a systemic thing, and it affects the law and stuff.”

“Oh yeah, sure.” He responded sarcastically. “That’s exactly why white kids are crying to their parents thinking they’re evil. Also, what about gender identity theory and all that shit? Forcing it on kids. That’s fascism as well.”

“First off, I get out way more than you do and I’ve never even met a transgender person, so I know you sure as hell haven’t either.” Ronald sternly pointed out. “And second, what’s all this about you hating fascism? Do I need to remind you of that facebook post you made about ‘jewish control of banks’? What the hell was that? Literal nazi propaganda!”

“Wait, you posted WHAT!?” Julie asked, surprised.

“It was JUST an article that said that in Germany, there was a Jewish control of the banks. It’s a real statistic, look it up.”

“No. It’s not real. I guarantee whatever statistics you believe are real are false. The second you believe the literal fucking NAZIS you have lost the fucking plot.”

“Father… did you actually…”

“All I did was post what was true.” The grandfather took another sip of his beer. “And I’m not a nazi. I do not like Adolf Hitler.”

“Good for you to clear that up.” Ronald said. “Wouldn’t want to have any misunderstandings here now, would we?”

“Cut it with the smug shit, okay?” The grandfather demanded. “I suppose you want me to talk about QAnon next? You probably do, don’t you? I saw you talk about it on your facebook. Well, rest assured that I don’t believe in that crap, but to say that Trump isn’t trying to fight any kind of cult that the democrats are a part of, especially after they stole the election from him, is fucking stupid.”

“Very interesting.” Ronald responded. “You know, I think we’ve heard enough. We might need to get going. We should’ve left as soon as you started saying the nazi shit.”

“Well then you better get going.” The grandfather said. “And next time bring the kids along. Maybe then you won’t say something stupid.”

“Father…” Julie stared at her father for what seemed like a very long time, to get any indication that he didn’t truly believe the heinous things he had said. But it soon became apparent that what he had said were indeed his true beliefs. She then turned to her mother to see if there was any possibility that she disagreed with him. And sure enough, there was not.

“Come on, Julie, let’s go. I don’t want to keep the kids waiting.” Ronald urged her.

Julie slowly turned around and hesitantly followed her husband out the door, leaving the old married couple alone in their house.

***

“Jesus…” Elise said. “And that’s ‘not so bad’ to you?” She asked her father.

“Well… look, I was kind of expecting them to already be on the QAnon train. And instead they only half agree with it? I don’t know. To me that’s not so bad.”

“The Nazi stuff though? That was pretty bad.” Elise said. “And you really left after only a few minutes? Why didn’t you stay longer? What was the point of even going there if you were going to leave so soon?”

“Listen, it was getting really intense in there. I was not expecting it to get THAT heated.” He argued. “And I didn’t really handle the confrontation very well either… look, the whole thing was just a mess all around.”

“I’ll say.” Elise said with a grunt. “So then… are you going to go back there?”

Ronald hesitated for a bit. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

“I sure hope not.” Julie said as she turned toward Ronald. “It was nothing but a big waste of time. I even told you that I tried to talk to them before and it didn’t work. And you said that I just didn't do a good job and that you could do it better. And then when you actually went there, you failed too. You didn’t even really do anything different from me. Like I said, it’s hard. And they won’t listen.”

Ronald shook his head and put his hands up. “Hey look I’m sorry. I didn’t know-”

“Well you do now.” Julie interrupted.

There was a bitter silence in the room for a while. The stress from the confrontation with the grandparents was undoubtedly weighing down on the two parents. Even Elise felt it, and she hadn’t even been there. Needless to say, there was a lot of tension among the three that could not be easily resolved.

Finally, Julie broke the silence. “You know what Ronald, why don’t you go make dinner? If you’re so sure you can do things better than me.”

“Okay.” Ronald sighed.

“And be quick about it! It’s getting late!”

“Fine. I’ll do it!” He yelled back.

Julie smiled while Elise simply rolled her eyes.

***

The dinner that night between the family members was at the very least a nice distraction from the previous events regarding the grandparents. Especially since Emma was there, and she didn’t seem to care about that situation at all.

“A cheerleader?” Julie asked.

“Yes. I REALLY want to be a cheerleader.” Emma stated. “It’d go so well with my boyfriend being a football player.”

“Believe me, we know about that.” Ronald said sarcastically. His comment got a chuckle from Elise.

“Sweetie, being a cheerleader is a big commitment. It takes a lot of work and discipline. And you could get really hurt. I’m not so sure you're ready for something like this.”

“Aww come on, please?” Emma whined. “I really want to do it.”

“The only reason you even want to be a cheerleader at all is because I told you you aren’t one.” Elise pointed out.

Emma drew back, highly offended. “Hey, that’s not true!” She turned to Julie. “Don’t listen to her mom, she’s lying.”

“It’s true.” Elise said with a smile. “She’s so vain, isn’t she?”

“Hey, I do everything because of one person, me!” Emma proclaimed. “No one can tell me what to do!”

“Girls, please calm down.” Julie said as she put her hand on her forehead. “Trust me, I’ve already had to deal with enough yelling today.”

“Sorry.” Elise said to her.

Julie sighed. “Look, Emma, if cheerleading is really something you want to do, then just tell me when the tryouts are and we’ll get you a physical, okay?”

Emma nodded enthusiastically. “Thank you so much mom!” She cheered.

“But you better not get hurt.” Julie told her.

“I won’t, I can handle it. Trust me.” Emma said. She was booming with excitement. “How do you guys think I’ll look in my cheer outfit? Pretty good, right?”

“We’ll see.” Elise said to her. “We will see.”

“Yes you will! I can’t wait for the pictures of me and my boyfriend in our uniforms. We are going to look so good together!”

The rest of the dinner went by rather quickly. Emma was filled with happiness and almost skipped on her way to put her plate in the sink.

That happiness vanished when she was told to wash all the dinner dishes. She was not thrilled. Elise got a laugh out of it though.

***

Elise plopped down onto her bed after another long day. She just wanted to get to sleep as fast as possible. Unfortunately her mind was preoccupied with not just Sierra but also her grandparents.

They couldn’t have actually been that bad, could they? It seemed that they were. They fully believed in literal nazi propaganda, and that was obviously really fucking bad.

How could Elise have missed this before? She had known that her grandparents were bad, but she didn’t know they were this bad. Was she blinded by her love for them? Was she too busy reminiscing on all the times her grandparents had shown her love and took her to incredibly amazing vacations?

Probably.

Furthermore, what if her grandparents met Sierra? Would they be upset? Would they ever love Elise again? Ever even want to see her again? It seemed extreme, but also frighteningly possible.

Elise groaned before picking up her phone. The growing need to tell Devin of her grandparents had overcome her. She didn’t know if he would be up this late, but it was worth a shot.

“Hey, are you up?” She sent.

It wasn’t before long before she received a response. She smiled upon reading it. “Yeah, what’s up?”

“It’s my grandparents, they’re apparently worse than I thought.”

“Oh really? That sucks. How bad are they?”

“Vaguely QAnon I think and also believe nazi propaganda about Jews controlling banks.”

“Oh damn, that’s real bad. Worse than most people at our school even.”

“Yeah can’t argue with that lol. My parents tried to talk to them and they really messed it up. Huge argument and they left midway through.”

“I can definitely see that.”

Elise was about to put her phone down when she got another text.

“Maybe I could try to talk to them?”

Elise stopped for a bit and took in Devin’s words. She was very puzzled at his text. She then finally replied back “Umm, what?” She asked.

“You know… I just kind of thought maybe I could try and talk to them. I don’t know why I just thought it might be worth a try.”

“Devin… if my parents couldn’t do it, then how could you?”

“Well, I don’t know. I just think it could work. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to but maybe you could ask your parents if this would be okay?”

Elise thought about it. Devin wasn’t a very talkative person, but he was surprisingly good at presenting his ideas. He certainly wasn’t the best debater in the world, but he usually could convince people of his views pretty well. Definitely better than her parents could, that was for sure.

“You know what?” She thought to herself. “Fuck it, let’s give him a shot.”

She lifted her phone back up and texted him again. “Okay, I’ll ask them.”

“Really? That’s great. Good night then.”

“Good night.”

Elise stared at the ceiling after she put her phone down. Was this really a good idea? To have Devin try and talk to her grandparents? Would her parents even allow that?

It seemed that Devin knew what he was doing. She should probably trust him, after all he’s done to trust her, giving her his passcode for his secret safe and all. Really, it was the least she could do.

Elise yawned and laid herself down on her bed, fully intent to finally get some sleep. Thinking about all this was exhausting and she believed it could wait until tomorrow. Right now, it was time for her to get some well deserved rest.