I remained silent as his voice trailed off, allowing the older gentleman to gather his thoughts.

Finally, he finished, repeating, "There is still a long road ahead."

I nodded, unwilling to press him further, accepting what I had already learned so far.

I take no credit whatsoever for the resolution of Zofi's brief estrangement. Not everything is about me. From what I understand, all credit belongs to her dad, with an important assist from Sam. I don't know all the details, but I do know that Zofi's dad spent all that weekend convincing his wife that times had changed, that the modern

American society around them wasn't the same as the conservative Polish one they'd grown up in, and that it wasn't fair for them to impose the same close-minded morals on their daughter that had tortured her during her adolescence.

Then Sam somehow managed to track down Maja, who had left Poland immediately after high school and was now in a civil union with another woman in Berlin. Zofi's mom and her high school girlfriend had a Long heart-to-heart phone call, after which Zofi's mom apparently went into her room and cried for an entire night and day. And when she finally emerged, she decided she could not take away from Zofi what had been wrongly taken from her.

It was a start. Zofi moved back home, and Zofi's parents started counseling. There was no risk to their marriage; as Mr. Zelazowski had pointed out, he had Lived long enough with his wife to understand how a lesbian could still love a man. Rather, they were visiting a therapist together in order to help Zofi's mom come to terms with her own sexuality as well as come to terms with Zofi's, both things that would not come easily. As Zofi's dad had said, there was still a long road ahead.

I had no doubt that Zofi's family still had a lot of things to sort out in defining their new normal, but for better or worse, it wasn't my problem. She wasn't my girlfriend anymore, and while I would still be both Zofi's friend and on friendly terms with her parents, there wasn't much I could do except be there in case she needed me.

Speaking of whom, Zofi said goodbye to her old friends and then meandered over to join us. Zofi's mom came over as well. Zofi came straight to me, gave me a quick peck on the lips and a warm hug. I then slipped my arm around my ex-girlfriend's waist, as comfortable as if we were still “together”, and politely accepted Mrs. Zelazowska's congratulations.

I perhaps wasn't the only one who thought Zofi and I still looked the part of a dating couple. Zofi‘s mom gave us a melancholy Look, the kind of look that suggested she was mourning the death of her dream that

Zofi would turn out to be straight and live a "normal" hetero life with me. Then again, her expression could be one of regret for her actions that weekend, or regret for actions from a Lifetime ago. Whatever the reason, my presence seemed to be causing her some measure of discomfort, so without further delay, I hugged Zofi close, checked to reassure myself she was genuinely content with the situation, and then took my leave of Zofi's family.

Despite the somewhat melancholy ending to my brief visit with Zofi's parents, all in all I'd gotten through it with surprising ease. And as it happened, getting through the rest of my parental visits turned out to be similarly easy.

Sam's mom and dad were still right next to us, and they both politely offered their congratulations when I walked over to greet them. From the way Sam's dad scrutinized me with a somewhat colder look than he'd ever given me before, I think he'd finally figured out I wasn't gay, and was perhaps even rather jealous at the idea of me having more than one girlfriend in the BTC. At Least he didn't say anything threatening or make some off-hand remark to his shotgun collection or something.

Sam's mother, on the other hand, was quite warm with me and even gave me a quick hug while congratulating me.

Next was Alice's mom. Rather than chatting with the BTC girls at the moment, Alice was with her other friends Lucia and Seo-yeon, both of whom would be attending UCLA with her in the fall. All three sets of parents were huddled together talking about SoCal. Alice's mom and

Seo-yeon's parents kept shifting to Korean and then having to stop and translate into English for Lucia's parents. When Alice saw me, she quickly split off, gave me a quick fist bump, and then wrapped her arms around my neck and gave me a fierce kiss. None of the parents seemed to mind, and afterwards her mom and I had a pleasant little chat before I continued on my way.

As it turned out, I never met up with Naimh's or Holly's parents. Their daughters were circulating without them, and for all I knew both sets of parents had already left. Holly was chatting with other friends she might never see again, flitting from one group to the next, although she did take a quick timeout to shove her tongue down my throat while the two girls she'd been chatting with tittered behind me. Naimh I actually found when I returned back to Belle and Mari. She was chatting quite animatedly with Mother, of all people.

All three girls gave me quick kisses upon my arrival, one right after the other. I briefly glanced over at Mari's parents to gauge their reaction after Naimh's kiss. After all, we'd only told them that Belle and Mari were sharing me. But Mari's mom didn't bat an eyelash (except to bat her eyelashes at me coquettishly as if suggesting she wanted to join my harem or something). Mari's dad just smirked and if anything, looked a little jealous (I've said before the Irish beauty was the most gorgeous thing I'd ever seen). And of course, both Belle and Mari were holding onto my arms by then as well, one on each side.

Eventually, though, all eight of us made it through the ceremony unscathed. The parents bid us goodbye (THEY weren't invited to our little after-party), and in the end I had seven girls wearing graduation gowns and very little else crammed into my minivan. Ten minutes after that, the eight of us walked into my empty house.

Sam led me straight to the kitchen, poured a glass of water, and then set it down atop the kitchen island next to two familiar-looking pills

-- one blue and one white. And when I hesitated, she smirked and remarked, “What? You can't say you're surprised."

“Surprised? I would've been more surprised had you NOT done this. No,

I'm just hesitating a moment because good lord... it took me four days to get over what you girls did to me on Prom Night."

Holly snorted.

“What WE did to YOU? I think you have that the other way around, buster."