He'd broken up with Alessa. Or rather; they had both decided this was the right way to go.

It felt...weird. Not bad, not wrong, just...weird. Did he love Alessa? Yes; that wasn't really a question. He loved her immensely. Just not like that.

He was not in love with her.

He wanted to be. HE wished he could have been. Alessa was a wonderful person; beautiful, intelligent, confident...Ren had been happy with her; very happy. Alessa had made him smile, made him laugh. He had worried about her, been anxious for her, held her hand when she was sad, kissed her tears away. She had taught him to cook (sort of). She had put up with his constant napping, his admittedly strange friendship with Gabrian, his cuddling (platonic, of course) with LW (and Gabrian too, for that matter). She had gotten mad at him, told him not to be a "hero" when he had died, thrown a frying pan at his head when he had painted her bathroom walls a bright, neon green.

Yes, Ren had been lucky with Alessa; luckier than he thought he'd be when he had first asked her out, quite on a whim. She wasn't his first ghoulfriend - he had had two previous - but Alessa had been the first ghoul he had actually been serious about. Six months was a long time to date someone, wasn't it? It had felt like forever and no time at all at the same time. Was that even possible?

Is it possible to even fall in love? The answer to that felt like a very obvious duh, but Ren still thought it, despite that. He loved Alessa; there was no denying that. In fact, he loved her more than he was capable of expressing.

He was just not in love with her.

It was a problem. Ren let out a sigh, rubbing his forehead as he leaned back in his desk chair, closing his eyes briefly. At least it had not been a painful breakup; bittersweet, yes, perhaps, but not painful. Their hearts would ache a little, maybe, but there was no anger; no frustration, no sadness. Just a little twinge.

Rhys, sitting on his lap, looked up at him, nose twitching. Ren absently scratched behind his ears, then leaned over to his bedside table, rummaging around in it before pulling out a bag of carrots. He handed one to Rhys; the lepus made a contended noise, happily munching on his treat. He could always tell when Ren was in a mood; after the field trip, he had actually been good, behaving himself obediently until he thought his owner was well enough to handle his crazy misbehavior. And right now, he was sitting quietly in Ren's lap, eating a carrot.

Bizarre.

But Ren appreciated this. There were times when his pet drove him crazy, but right now...was not one of those times. Now was one of those unexpectedly pleasant times. Absently he rubbed the back of his neck. Prom was around the corner, and he knew that when he had broken up with her. He also knew that it was a horrible thing to break up with someone so close to prom, but although both of them had been disappointed, Alessa did not harbor any bad feelings towards him; and this made Ren feel absurdly guilty. He would have to make it up to her somehow.

...though how exactly, he wasn't sure. But he would. Alessa was precious to him, and so were Gabrian and LW. Together the four of them were a family. An unconventional, strange, and quite ridiculous family, but a family nonetheless. Ren no longer cared for the two people who called themselves his parents; Gabrian, Alessa, and LW were his family.

Vaguely he wondered if this was normal; the whole kid disowning his own parents thing. But, then again, it wasn't exactly normal for parents to whip their kids either, so he supposed it was simply an abnormal situation altogether. He should have been more upset at it than he was right now, but he felt nothing. Nothing except disappointment; disappointment that he couldn't have been a better son for them, disappointment that he would never be the person that they wanted him to be. But most of all, disappointment that they had never tried to accept him the way he was.

There was nothing wrong with him; Ren did not care what they thought, and even though in his mind he was still not completely convinced of his own words, the more he said them, the more he would believe them. The others had tried to convince him of this, but it was Ren himself that would need to convince himself.

Rhys made a discontented noise. Ren glanced down. "Finished, have you?" he said, and shook his head, reaching for another carrot. As the lepus crunched happily on it, Ren idly stroked his ears, settling back into the pillows.

Tomorrow is another day.