You Know Me Well(56)

“I will,” she says. And then she says it again, as if the first time wasn’t certain enough. “I’ve already talked to my parents about taking a break from the whole college plot. And I still need to talk to Violet about where the hell we go from here. I’ve loved her wandering heart for so long … but I have no idea what all that wandering means for her and me. I feel the urge for going, but I have no idea if it’s meant to be a solo exploration or not.”

“You’ll figure it out,” I say. Not because it’s this vacuous space-filler of a thing to say, but because I genuinely believe it. Katie is going to figure it out. She has enough of the world in her hands to do that.

“Thank you,” she says. Then she leans over and gives me a kiss on the cheek. “Now go help that boy find his way. And remember—as supportive as you want to be, if he and Taylor start being all boyfriendly, you have every right to leave the room and get some space. Empathy is wonderful, but you can still overdose on it if you try too much too fast. Noted?”

“Noted.”

“And while I will turn a blind eye to your willful disregard of your educational responsibilities today, I shall fully expect to be seeing you tomorrow for the grand finale, and again for the full host of Pride Weekend activities, not the least of which is the parade on Sunday. For all her worldliness, Violet’s never seen a pride parade, and I swear by Tegan, Sara, and the Holy Ghost that we’ll be showing her the best one ever.”

“It will be Ryan’s first as well.”

“How lucky they are to have us!” Katie says.

I kiss her back on the cheek and say, “How lucky indeed.”





20

Kate

Making my way toward Lehna at lunch, I feel the closest I’ve ever felt to being one of those lonely freshmen in the first days of school. The unfortunate boys and girls whose families have uprooted them just in time for high school, or the quirky, formerly homeschooled kids, or the kids who live in nearby, more dangerous towns and have found their way, through lottery luck or parental cunning, to our suburban haven of a school.

Lehna and I use to say blessings for them. Let purple backpack kid with the scarf find his people. Pigtailed girl with brand-new white Converse, head north to the circle of girls with their Sharpies out and make those shoes your own.

Eventually, unless they were very unlucky, each of them would find somewhere to belong, but for those first self-conscious, wandering days when they nibbled their sandwiches with their heads down, Lehna and I agonized on their behalf. We had arrived at school hand in hand, both of us newly out to the world with a summer’s worth of scavenged rainbow paraphernalia gracing our backpacks. Rainbow friendship bracelets, Legalize Gay T-shirts, the paper bag covers for our textbooks emblazoned with all the Tegan and Sara songs we knew by heart, which was every one of them.

We were beacons to the other queer kids. We got the hard part over with in eighth grade. No awkward boys asking us to Homecoming, thankyouverymuch. June and Uma, then strangers to us and each other, found us by the rainbow glow of our backpacks. A boy named Hank found us, too, and for six months he filled our lives with comic books and Frank Ocean. And then he started dating Quinn and his parents found out, and he began his slow fade from our school and, eventually, from our lives altogether.

We should have known it already—the world was trying to tell us in so many ways—but Hank is the one who taught us that life wasn’t so easy for all of us. Hank is the one who told Lehna and me that we were lucky. Hank is the one who made luck a sometimes complicated thing.

And it’s Hank I’m thinking about now, as I step down to where my friends are lounging, their backs to me, on the senior deck. They’re looking out at the rest of the school from this hard-won place of seniority. I set my backpack down next to Lehna. I get out my phone and pull up Frank Ocean’s “Super Rich Kids.” I turn the volume up as loud as it’ll go and set it on the railing in front of us.

We bob our heads and listen.

When it’s over, Uma says, “He should be here with us.”

June says, “I went on a rampage once, trying to find him online. I searched everywhere. I even thought of all the fake names he might use.”

“I did that once, too,” Uma says.

“Kate and I did, too,” Lehna says. “And I thought I saw him once, on Telegraph. I called his name, but he didn’t look up.”

“We were so young when we were friends.” It’s the kind of proclamation adults would roll their eyes over, but it’s true. “We were fourteen. His voice hadn’t even changed. He was skinny like a little kid. I don’t know if I’d even recognize him now.”

“Hank,” June says. “We are sending you our love, wherever you are.”

We sit in silence for a little while, and then I say, “I have something to tell you guys.”

“Let me guess. You and Mark are getting married.”

“Come on, Lehna,” June says, and we all turn to her, surprised. “What? Things feel normal for the first time in a week. Let’s just try to stay positive, okay?”

“Well, okay,” Lehna says. “Sorry, everyone. Kate, go ahead.”

“I’m going to take a gap year.”

“Seriously?” Uma says. “What are you going to do?”