They didn’t have train stations in Garnd. No airport, either. Too small and too poorly funded.

  But they had a bus stop. It sat right at the edge of campus, the north side, where the trees thinned and gave way to the podunk town that reminded Seb too much of home, too much of Cabash. Local service, just a singur ring route that ran from campus to the center of town, all two and a half blocks of it, and a pair of daily routes out of South Carolina.

  It wasn’t even a proper bus depot. It was a stop, a stop on the long routes between Atnta and New York, Florida and New York, everywhere south of him and New York. Twice a day, each direction. Twice north, twice south. North in the middle of the night, 1 am, and in the te morning, 11 am, and south at 7 am and 5 pm.

  Four times a day, you could leave Garnd. Four times a day.

  Four.

  Of course, if you were fortunate enough to own a car, which most students on campus were, you could go at any time you wanted. Just pay for a parking pass and a car and insurance and gas and maintenance and all of the other tiny, tiny expenses that went along with car ownership, and you had the freedom to go wherever you wanted. Easy. Super easy.

  Seb had never gotten past the ‘own a car’ bit. His parents never had enough for more than two cars, the one they shared and the one he had shared with his brother. And his brother, still in Cabash and working, earned the rights to keep the second. Any summer money, of which Seb had already drained the majority in his desire to eat something besides the dining hall food every once and a while, would never cover a car. Not a car and gas and insurance and the parking pass and…

  Seb checked his watch. The northbound bus should come soon. It was te often enough, enough that Seb wasn’t expecting it right at 11, but northbound was more reliable. Less distance to travel, less time for dey. He ran his hand through his hair, trying to shake loose the hangover he was still nursing.

  Barely nursing. He’d come and sat in the sunshine at 10a.m. on a Saturday morning. Hard to call that ‘nursing’. Nursing was supposed to be for brunch. Nursing was supposed to be for him and the girls and the morning after, dissecting the bits of the night before that needed dissecting, and it was supposed to be done with heaps of coffee and turkey bacon and eggs.

  No pancakes. Too much sugar and not filling enough.

  Don’t even get Lucy started on syrup.

  But Seb didn’t go. He came here instead, to wait for the bus. Northbound. New York. Eleven in the morning on a Saturday.

  For eighteen years, every bit of being alive, Seb had felt the pull to go. He didn’t know where it came from, and the dream of ‘going’ never seemed to be coupled with a destination, but the pull had never subsided. He always wanted to run. He woke up, and he wanted to run. Off to New York, off to Chicago, off to the middle of field where no one would know his name. There was no vision of a destination, only of him and this world, once Cabash and now Garnd, fading behind him. It didn’t matter what was through the windshield.

  In Cabash, it had lent itself to long drives in the shared Camry, his eyes on the road, tempted by every turn towards the highway. And here, in Garnd, it was the bus stop. This stupid, tiny bus stop, right on the curb of the boulevard that divided the town of Garnd from the campus of Garnd, where there weren’t enough trees to stop from melting in the sun, and where there weren’t enough benches for everyone to sit.

  Seb was leaning against the little wall of a pnter, trying to angle his face under the rge leaf of something green behind him.

  Not long now.

  He had needed to come today. He had needed to remind himself that, if everything else fell apart, if it all fell apart, he could run. North. He could go all the way to New York, and he’d have no money and he’d have no friends, and it would, almost definitely, be terrible, but he needed to remind himself that it existed. Somewhere, there was a relief valve, and it cost forty dolrs, payable by cash or credit, and it came every morning at eleven.

  It was a light day at the stop. Just him and a couple, both of whom seemed frenetic. The woman was wearing an oversized hat, which Seb expected would have to be stowed before she sat, and the man was checking his watch more incessantly than Seb. Neither of them seemed to be accustomed to the illogic of the bus, and neither of them seemed all that prepared for what was, every time, a very quick on and off process. They had too many bags. They had too much to carry.

  The bus was for people who had no pns of what to do when they arrived.

  That, and spring breakers, and Garnd got triple the buses during that week.

  “Sebastian Collins?” Seb jumped. People didn’t normally talk to him at the bus stop. Viotion of etiquette, really, even in the south. The woman who was peering at him was wearing over sized sungsses, a pair of sweat pants, and a mismatched blouse. Seb blinked. It was hard to recognize her out of the pantsuit.

  “Professor Bridges,” he said, still half unsure it was her. But she took off her sungsses and smiled, and Seb did his best to imitate.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I was just studying the new faces and names. You’re sort of a pop quiz.” She frowned and shook her head. ‘And you can call me Annabelle. I’m sure I said that in css.” Seb honestly couldn’t remember at this point, but he nodded.

  “Sorry,” he said. Annabelle, a name which felt far too familiar to use for a professor, held up a single, pausing finger.

  “No worries,” she said. “Just don’t want you to think I’m some sort of terrifying professor, is all.” Pantsuit. Height. Reputation for being a much harder grader than Dali.

  “No,” said Seb, shaking his head. Annabelle raised an eyebrow.

  “Pantsuit did me in, huh?” she asked. Seb blinked. He had never been much of a liar.

  “A little,” he admitted.

  “Conundrums,” she said. She leaned up on the wall next to him. The outfit was not of the professor version of her, and it was a Saturday, so that made sense, but Seb couldn’t pce why she would be on campus on a Saturday at all. Or, for that matter, at the bus stop.

  “Where are you going?” he asked. Annabelle nodded at the metal signpost.

  “Into town,” she said. “Grocery store. I can’t just be eating dining hall food.” Seb frowned for a moment, then registered. Some professors lived on campus. It was, as far as he could tell, not a popur option, but the younger ones seemed to opt for the free room when they could. Besides, Seb heard they got nicer rooms than the students. En suite bathrooms and everything.

  “Right,” said Seb.

  “You too?” asked Annabelle. “Or are you going out of town for the weekend?” Seb shook his head. Then, he realized that he would either have to board the bus with Annabelle Bridges or fess up to coming to the bus stop for the sole reason of feeling less desperately isoted, and that felt like a dramatic thing to spring on his Theater 101 professor of, oh, twenty four hours.

  Not even. Like, twenty, by Seb’s count.

  But he’d already shook his head, so he decided to half fess up.

  “I just like the people watching,” he said. He nodded at the couple, the woman fussing with her hat and the man with his watch. Annabelle followed his gaze, then returned to him. Her demeanor, while still friendly, was offset by the piercing of her eyes. She stared at him, cocked her head, and then nodded.

  “Better people watching on the quad,” she supplied. Seb bit his lip.

  “It’s just a change of pace,” he said. Annabelle nodded again, and Seb had the distinct feeling that he was currently being read. And, to be honest, he was kind of avoiding his own thoughts, so he wasn’t a huge fan of someone digging into him. So, deflection. “Do you like living on campus?”

  For a long moment, it seemed like Annabelle Bridges would not let him off the hook. Her eyes stayed locked to him, the look on her face remained curious, and she let out a heavy breath. And then, mercifully, she took the bait, and started monologuing about her time in the professor suites.

  And that carried the pair of them until the buses arrived, both the local, which looked particurly pitiful today, and the coach from Illyrian Trails, which looked only marginally less pitiful. The couple was already scrambling by the time Annabelle pushed away from the wall.

  Seb’s eyes remained on the coach.

  Forty dolrs. Forty dolrs, and release. He had that. Not enough for the parking pass or insurance or the car, but enough for the ticket to New York.

  “Come see me some time,” said Annabelle. Seb looked at her, and he couldn’t read whether it was concern or fascination. Maybe both. “My office hours are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, three to five. Same building as css.” Seb, not the least bit interested in going to his gen-ed professor’s office hours, nodded.

  “Okay,” he said. Annabelle took a step towards the more pitiful bus.

  “Try people watching by the pond next time,” she said. “Out by Williams Hall.” She looked back and let her sungsses fall down her nose, just a little, just so Seb could actually see her eyes, and smiled. “Better there than here. Fewer nosy professors.” Seb bit back the ugh.

  “Okay,” he said again. And then Annabelle Bridges pushed her sungsses back up her nose, obscuring her eyes again, and disappeared onto the bus.

  And then, Seb watched both buses depart, one for the podunk town with the podunk grocery store, and the other for New York. Him not aboard. Him still choosing to stay in Garnd, to not run. Him choosing, despite everything, to stay.

  For now.

  * * * * *

  Seb spent five days avoiding texts from the girls, trying to pretend that he hadn’t just completely embarrassed himself on Friday, hadn’t completely given away any specter of manhood that he had in their eyes. And, dear god, it did seem like they had all but given up the pretense on his masculinity, which was it’s own kind of frustrating, not in the least because it was stupid and regressive and boys could absolutely wear makeup and still be boys.

  Seb should know.

  But also because, if they dropped that pretense, and they made it seem like they just thought of him as one of the girls, well, that was great for them, but it might well ruin his life. This was South Carolina. And a state college in South Carolina, at that.

  But, after five days of badgering him, he’d confirmed that, obviously, he would be at the pregame on Friday, and he’d do brunch with them on Saturday, and that he’d be wearing Boy Clothes for all of it. Lucy had sent the emoji where a smiley face disintrigrated into ash at the st bit, and Seb had actually ughed at that.

  He had wrapped his head around it. It was just hard to be with the girls and not get wrapped up in the femininity of it all. They were having so much fun, and Seb enjoyed being around them, and it bled into him a little when he drank. They had already conquered bits of his speech pattern, with the rogue ‘babes’ and ‘darlings’ that he now managed to slip into sentences, and it made sense that it had slipped into the rest of his life. But that was just the intoxication of swimming in a room full of estrogen, and when he left, everything went back to normal.

  Well…

  Okay, some of the bits had followed him out into the real world. His mind was spinning too much for that not to be true. Not anything tangible, just the ghost of mirror’s past.

  Still, he was trying to avoid getting completely sucked into the girls’ orbit, lest he one day wakeup with bottle blonde hair and the kind of affectation that belonged on reality television.

  Good day to be meeting with the most masculine man he knew, then.

  He checked his watch. He should have guessed that David would be a little te, given that David had never been on time for anything. They needed to run the lines, even if Seb was pnning on half-assing it, because the forums had said that Bridges was a stickler. You had to know your lines, at the very least, for a passing grade.

  So much for his easy csses.

  “Hey!” David was striding across the library, backpack slung over a single, toned shoulder. Seb smiled instinctively.

  “Hi,” he said. Seb had chosen a library table that was out of the way. His hope was that they wouldn’t have to practice in front of a million other people. Especially since his suspicion was that, after Friday night, after Lucy’s insistence, he was going to be stuck running Beatrice’s lines.

  He’d read them, though, and only one of the scene’s they received was anything resembling romantic. The rest were all badgering each other, and Seb could imagine himself in those scenes pretty easily.

  David swung into the seat across from him.

  “How’s the week going?” he asked. Seb smiled.

  “Good,” he said. True, mostly. It was Thursday, and nothing catastrophic had happened. He was saving those things for the weekends, apparently. “How are you?” David nodded.

  “Living the dream,” he said. He settled his backpack on the chair next to him. “Did you go over the lines?” Seb nodded.

  “A couple times,” he said.

  “Me too,” said David, and Seb swallowed the smile. I bet you have, David. I bet you’ve read them a million times. “Hey, I ran into your friends on Friday.” Seb gave him what he hoped was a surprised look.

  “Oh yeah?” he said.

  “Yeah, they’re cool,” he said. “Do you know Cam? He’s dating your friend Margot, I think.” Seb nodded. He hadn’t actually met Cam to this point. He supposed that, in a different world, one where he hadn’t been hiding under the bed st Friday, that would have been the night to py ‘meet the boyfriend’.

  “Not yet,” said Seb. “Um, soon, I think. They’re just really busy.”

  “Right, right,” murmured David. “Yeah, he sorta dragged me to their dorm.”

  “Huh,” said Seb, looking down at his phone, pretending there was a need to scroll deeper to find the py.

  “Yeah, Margot seemed to think you were going to be there,” said David. There wasn’t really any sort of accusation in his voice. Seb wasn’t even sure how their could be. He’d been pretty well concealed.

  “Oh?” said Seb. “Um, well, I had a bunch of homework.” David nodded.

  “Tough being a Chem major?” he asked. And Seb nodded. The answer, to this point, was ‘not really’. Most of the intro level csses he was in were retively simple, and he wasn’t particurly worried that they would get difficult until next year. But the excuse had already been provided for him, so he might as well lean in.

  “Very,” said Seb. “A least compared to Shakespeare.” A good transition. “Did… did you have a particur part you wanted to py?” David leaned back and nodded, as if Seb had just gotten them back to the very important subject at hand. And well, maybe to David...

  “Not really,” said David. “I mean, they’re just line reads.” He frowned. “I mean, I’m taking it seriously or whatever.” Seb caught the smile before it hit his lips. Right. Shocking that the Shakespeare fan was taking it seriously. “I know that Bridges is a tough grader.” Seb tried to imagine the woman from the bus stop, who had been wearing the ugliest pair of sweatpants and what he recognized to be, quite obviously, hangover sungsses, grading tough. Possible. Possible, he supposed.

  “Tougher than Dali,” agreed Seb.

  “Low bar,” said David, and Seb giggled. David grinned. “Look, we can try it both ways. And tomorrow, we can just pick which one seems to work more naturally.” Seb, trying to imagine a world in which it made more natural sense for David to be Beatrice and him to be Benedick, nodded.

  “Okay,” he said. “Sure.”

  They went through the scenes twice, once each way, and Seb made a concerted effort to keep his voice exactly the same in both instances. Lucy and Anna might have appreciated it as a party trick, but there was no way that he was whipping out here in front of David. David got regur old monotone Seb, the one who could deliver a line with the gusto of a supermarket cashier.

  Of course, it made it harder to tell which of the read throughs went better, but at the end, Seb was willing to cim the spot of Beatrice, having confirmed to himself that he could read the lines and avoid fshbacks to st Friday night. They were just lines, and he was just reading them, and Seb was doing a very good job remembering that.

  “Right,” said David, closing his book. “Well, enough of Shakespeare.” Seb smiled at him.

  “I thought you liked Shakespeare,” he said. David shrugged and smiled.

  “I do, I do,” he said.

  “Well, I’ll let you take the lead on the performance then,” said Seb. David chuckled.

  “Bridges isn’t that tough,” he said. “I mean, she’s not easy, but she’s not going to be too much of a stickler if we have the lines alright.” He tilted his head from side to side. “She might get mad if we don’t even try to put anything into it.” Seb blushed. That was about him. About how he had given just about nothing on the line reads.

  “I’m not much of an actor, am I?” he asked. David bobbed his head back and forth again, smiling.

  “No,” he admitted.

  “You could have lied just there,” said Seb. David held out both hands and tilited his head back.

  “I’ll have my bond; Speak not against my bond; I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond,” said David. Seb coughed through a giggle. It was so formal. David put a hand ft on the table and gave Seb an overserious look. “It’s a Shakespeare quote. From Merchant of Venice.”

  “Is Shakespeare going to weasel his way into all of our conversations from now on?” asked Seb. It had been, what, six days? Six days, and David was quoting Shakespeare straight to his face now. Of course, he kind of liked that David was quoting Shakespeare at him. He had liked it the other night, back when he had been under the bed, too, but it was better than David was doing it to him rather than Lucy.

  “We’re in a theater css together, Seb,” said David. “Specifically, we’re in a theater css that seems likely to principally involve Shakespeare.”

  “That’s a yes, then,” said Seb. David grinned at him, and Seb readjusted in his seat.

  “Probably,” said David.

  “Great,” said Seb. “You know, I thought I could avoid being beled a nerd if I befriended the quarterback.” David’s grin widened.

  “Tough luck,” he said.

  “Clearly,” said Seb.

  “You might have better luck befriending a cadre of sorority girls,” he said, and Seb blushed, knowing immediately that he was referring to Anna, Lucy, and Margot. They weren’t sorority girls, not in any official sense, but, well, from an aesthetics point of view, he couldn’t bme David.

  And who had taught him the word cadre?

  Okay, he just quoted Shakespeare again,was Seb really going to pretend like ‘cadre’ is out of his vocabury?

  “That hasn’t been the boon to my reputation I was hoping for either,” he said. And then, realizing that might beg more questions than he wanted to answer, he pressed on. “I can’t get in to a single party with them.” Which was a pusible reason, and a much less embarrassing reason than, well, ‘they figured out how to get me into a dress’.

  “Yeah,” said David, nodding. “Unfortunately, that’s a barrier that’s hard to breach.”

  “Not for everyone,” said Seb. David raised an eyebrow.

  “What, you think I get into any party I want to?”

  “Yes, David. Yes I do.” David ughed, and Seb smiled at him.

  “I’ll let you come along some time,” he said. “I think I might have more pull than your friends around here.” It was a ughable statement. David might have more pull than some donors around here, and he had more social credibility that just about anyone. Still, wasting that on Seb Collins…

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Seb. “I was… I was only joking.” David tapped his fingers on the table.

  “Sure,” he said. “But, if you want. I don’t go to that many parties these days, not with practice and everything, but it’s good to get out.” Seb smiled at him.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he repeated. It was nice, really, but it was also completely unnecessary. Seb was perfectly content with his Friday night experiences. Well, okay, maybe not content. Content implied that he was on stable footing there. But he was pretty much one hundred percent certain that adding parties to the mix was not really what he needed. All he really wanted, if he was honest, was to feel like, if he wanted, he could go. A ticket he wouldn’t use.

  “Sure,” said David. “Listen, do you want to get lunch before css tomorrow?” David pushed back his chair. “I gotta go to practice, but we can do another read then.”

  “Right,” said Seb. “Um, I can’t, actually.” He had promised the girls that he’d run to the liquor store in between csses. The party they were aiming for started early. David frowned.

  “Oh,” he said. “Next week, then,” he said. And Seb nodded.

  “Sure,” he said. “Next week.”

  * * * * *

  Seb’s dorm was a twenty minute walk from the library, and it was nice enough that it didn’t bother him too much. Seb liked to walk. Campus was pretty, and people were more than happy to just walk on by, headphones in and eyes straight ahead, and Seb liked the time to think.

  Well, normally. Normally Seb liked the time to think. Today, all week, really, he’d been trying to avoid sitting too much with everything. Time to think wasn’t bad per se, it just was conducive to kinds of thoughts like ‘hey, why did you enjoy that whole dressing like a girl thing’, and that question might have an answer, might have a real one, but Seb didn’t want that answer. That was a bad answer. That was an answer that would tear so heavily at the fabric of his life, that would be, probably, ruinous, so Seb was sort of hoping that it would go away. And when he was walking back from the library, no headphones and no friends to talk to, it battered against his head instead of disappearing.

  Inconvenient.

  God, he hated living in South Carolina. In-state tuition and a schorship were the only things keeping him locked here. Oh, sure, he hadn’t been the best student in high school, but Garnd State was low in academic rigor. You didn’t need to be a genius for a schorship, which meant boys like Seb, who couldn’t afford to go to the better schools that weren’t willing to pay him, ended up here. In state. Garnd State University. Go Dukes.

  It was such a macho campus. Repressive in that way. He even saw it in David freaking Oliver, who was afraid to let people know how much he loved Shakespeare.

  Except, of course, Seb, and apparently Lucy, and by extension, everyone in that dorm room, which meant… well, okay, maybe David Oliver wasn’t afraid to tell people he liked Shakespeare. Maybe David Oliver just didn’t get the chance all that often.

  But Seb definitely wasn’t David, and he definitely wasn’t afforded the same kind of leeway as the star quarterback. No, David could probably show up in a dress to css, and no one would deign to call him a ‘fag’. David Oliver got a pass for that.

  Not Seb, though. If Seb stepped a little too far out of line, pushed a little too close to the boundaries of femininity, he’d be mocked. God, he hoped all that would happen was being mocked. There were gay people in South Carolina, and there were probably even gay people at Garnd State, but there were also lines. And where you fell in retion to those lines mattered. Seb had been mocked by his brother when he went home for knowing women. Not, like, dressing like one, but knowing them.

  In three years, he could be whatever he wanted. He could be a slightly feminine man in New York or Chicago or fucking, like, Rome or something. And not Rome, Georgia, but real Rome. The one in Europe. He could be whatever he wanted there.But here, in South Carolina, at Garnd State, he needed to keep his head down. He needed to keep his head down and his hands clean and he needed to make sure that no one, no one outside Lucy and Anna and Margot, knew what had happened.

  He would compartmentalize it. He was already trying to work on the speech pattern thing, and he would keep any makeup and clothing to that dorm room. The one far from his. The one he could access only occasionally, and only under pressure, one where the bits of it couldn’t escape. That was something.

  Blood letting. It was blood letting. The femininity could spill out in that room, in that dorm, and Seb could be preserved. Masculinity intact outwardly, to everyone but the three of them.

  Campus was quiet, and the sun had begun to dip below the marbled buildings. And Seb walked. He walked and he walked and he walked.

  It shouldn’t be this hard. Nothing should be this hard. He had liked that thing in the mirror, that reflection, and that was hard. And even now, thinking about tomorrow, about Friday, about the next night that he might be able to spend with the girls, was it’s own jumble of escating confusion. Seeing them meant, quite possibly, confessing. Confessing that he had enjoyed what they had ostensibly forced him into. Liking that bit. And maybe it would happen again, maybe, but…

  Seb stopped to scratch his leg. God, the legs.

  He closed his eyes.

  He imagined himself in the mirror, his head swimming with alcohol, his face painted, his waist clutched by the top of the mini skirt. And he imagined his legs, free of the tights, smooth and pin and…

  He forced his eyes open. Fuck. He started down the sidewalk again.

  Fuck.

  Fuck.

  Compartmentalization, Seb, compartmentalization. Stick to a sembnce of the pn here.

  Well, but, shaving his legs was compartmentalization. Shaving his legs was a feminine thing to do, of course, but it was in service of Lucy and Anna’s dorm. It was in service of that mirror, not the mirror in his own dorm. If he went and shaved his legs, and he’d do his belly too, in service of the crop-

  No! Compartmentalization.

  Seb stopped in the middle of the walkway and flexed his hands. What the fuck was he doing? Why was he even thinking about this? Three years and he’d be twenty one and he’d have a degree and he could go. Not now. Not now. He could not put himself in a position that made school untenable, that made his life untenable. He was still Sebastian, and that was sticking.

  He started walking.

  Of course, he’d still be Sebastian if he shaved his legs. Really, shaving his legs was no more of an imposition than the ‘darlings’ and ‘babes’. Small. Nothing. Not even really a beachhead to femininity. Just something small. Something that would grow back, and that was reversible, and that was entirely, completely, and totally not a big deal. It was breaking the rule, just a little, but he felt like if he didn’t break the rule just a little, if he didn’t give himself that tiny bit of permission, that the rule might cease to exist.

  A small breach. One small breach.

  And he’d do his chest, too.

  * * * * *

  It had turned out to be a good thing that Seb hadn’t accepted David’s offer of lunch, because David had needed to miss css for practice. Football emergency of some kind. Seb had blinked once at the text, snorted, and then done his best not to feel too annoyed that David wasn’t going to be around for the whole day. Csses were very boring without him. Film was basically a complete nightmare if David wasn’t whispering little jokes in his ear the whole time.

  But he’d made it, and now he was trotting down the hall towards the girls’ dorm, and he was hoping that they hadn’t suddenly decided they hated him in the interim. Maybe, perhaps, they had remembered that he was a boy, and that they had discovered that he had willingly (!) put on their clothes, and now they thought he was some kind of maniacal pervert, here to steal their underwear. It was an intrusive thought, the kind he should easily and obviously dispel, but he was having trouble with those kinds of thoughts tely. Never mind that they had invited him, that they had begged him to come, or that Anna and Margot had already Venmoed him for the liquor.

  Who knew! Maybe things had changed.

  And then he knocked on the door, and Lucy flung it open and dragged him into the dorm, and that fear was immediately dispced by the realization that he was about to have the opposite problem. Anna and Margot, already made up, blonde hair pulled into ponytails, were grinning at him and he came in, and Lucy immediately pushed him down into one of the desk chairs.

  “Um, hi,” said Seb.

  “What did you bring?” asked Anna, sliding off the bed to sit on the floor next to his backpack.

  “Same as st time,” he said. It had worked well enough then.

  “Atta girl,” she murmured, and Margot giggled. Margot, he realized, hadn’t seen him st time, hadn’t been privy to the machinations of Lucy and Anna. Seb gave Anna a look. Anna shrugged and grinned into the backpack, pulling out alcohol. “What, do we have to wait for you to be drunk every time?”

  Seb frowned. Well…

  No.

  No, if they were okay with this, and if this was about preserving the status quo, then they didn’t have to wait. If this was about compartmentalization, and it was, and this was the compartment, then it was fine. Maybe even good. Maybe it was the right thing to do, spilling all of his femininity out into this room, keeping it a secret just for the girls, just for them. But it had to be a secret. It had to stay here. It had to be restrained by the walls and the door and they had to be careful. Because Seb wasn’t stupid. He knew what happened to boys who strayed too far, who tripped on the bricks of masculinity, and they had to be very, very careful.

  “Can we establish some ground rules?” he asked, quietly. Anna wiped the grin off her face and nodded.

  “Yes,” she said, gently. “Of course. Sorry, I…” Seb shook his head. He wasn’t upset or anything. He just… he needed to be in control of this. It was blood letting. And he needed to be in control.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I… look, I… I enjoyed what happened st weekend. I liked it. As crazy as it is to say, I liked it.” Lucy smiled at him.

  “Um,” she said, sitting behind her own desk. “We know.” Seb closed his eyes. God, it felt crazy to even be discussing this. Men didn’t need to discuss this. They didn’t. They shouldn’t. But Seb thought he might lose a grasp on himself if he didn’t.

  “It had to just be in here,” he said. “Just in this room, and no one else knows.” He looked to Margot. “No Cam.” Margot nodded quickly. “And I… I get to stop any time I want to, okay?” All three of them nodded. He knew he hadn’t really expined himself, and he wasn’t really sure how to expin it, if he could, but if this was going to happen, and it was, it had to, it would, then it had to stay locked in this room. It had to remain contained. “It just has to be us. It has to be us and it doesn’t get to leave and I’m happy…” He stopped.

  He was going to say ‘and I’m happy to do these things’. But that sounded like reluctance. And if he was going to be honest, if he was leaning into the compartmentalization, then he needed to not fake reluctance. He needed to be real. He needed to say…

  “I want to do these things.” A smile spread on Anna’s face, and she pulled him out of his chair and onto the floor, into a hug.

  “It’s okay,” she murmured, “to want to do these things.”

  “Being a girl is fun,” chimed Lucy. Then, she stopped. “Okay, well, I know you’re not a girl, but, well,” she stopped again, “in here, maybe…” And Seb smiled, unwrapped himself from Anna, and nodded.

  “In here,” he said. “Maybe.” Femininity in this room. Femininity, perhaps, in this room, and nowhere else, and a return to masculinity at that doorway. Lucy cpped, and Anna hugged him tighter. Margot, who was still on the bed, made a noise.

  “Listen, this is cool, but can I please hear the voice thing?” she asked. “They won’t stop talking about it and I’m starting to feel left out.” Seb smiled and pulled back from Anna. Anna grinned and, as if it was an activator, tapped on Seb’s throat. And Seb swallowed, held, and looked straight at Margot.

  “What voice thing?” he asked, in perfect, fluent sorority girl.

  * * * * *

  With permission, and acceptance, even if it was what Seb would describe as ‘tacit’, the girls offered to do his makeup. Offered, this time. Not pushed for. Not pressed. Offered. And Seb, realizing that it was this or nothing, that, really, after st weekend, there was no, real, genuine world in which he could pretend that he didn’t want this, and it meant that he was allowed to try these things, that he was allowed to be that in this room, and in this room only, accepted. He said yes.

  And he said it in Girl Voice.

  That’s what Margot was calling it. Somewhere along the line, she said, it sounded less like an impersonation and more like an interpotion of his and theirs, a combination of accent and realness. Which meant he wasn’t doing them, he was doing Girl Voice.

  She had expined this while doing his makeup because, well, she hadn’t gotten to enjoy the fruits of his feminization st time, hadn’t been privy to the forward facing momentum that came from putting makeup on Seb. Which meant that this time, she got to take lead, and she got to do makeup, and Lucy and Anna got to sit and watch.

  “You know,” said Lucy, “we can teach you how to do this yourself.”

  “Truly,” said Anna. “God, truly.” Seb gave them both a look, mostly because he couldn’t, at this moment, actually say anything, and both girls giggled. “Okay, baby steps.”

  “I can’t believe you let them talk you into this,” said Margot, dabbing his cheek.

  “We barely had to,” said Lucy, and Seb clicked his tongue.

  “That is not true,” he said. God, the inflection was getting even worse. He was going to have to be dead careful when he went back out into the real world. “I said no for, like, several hours, and then you got me drunk.” Anna shrugged.

  “You weren’t that drunk,” she said, and Seb opened his mouth to keep talking, but Margot put her palm on the bottom of his chin and pressed it up. Lucy leaned in dramatically.

  “Hush,” she said, and then giggled at her own joke. Seb did his best not to blush too much. Margot smiled and pulled out bit of lipstick. Seb offered his lips up, and she giggled.

  “Good for you,” she said, to Seb, and Seb felt the heat rise in his face. “I’ve never met another guy who could pull this off.”

  “It’s crazy,” agreed Anna.

  “God,” said Margot. “You really could sneak in to a frat.” “That’s what I said,” said Anna. Seb narrowed his eyebrows at all of them. This room. Only this room. Everything stayed, forever and always, in this room. “I’m not saying you should.” Margot smacked her lips together, and Seb copied her.

  “No frats,” said Seb. “No frats, and no one outside of this room.”

  “Not even David?” supplied Anna, sweetly. Lucy giggled.

  “Definitely not David,” said Seb. Lucy giggled harder, and Margot gave him what was a knowing smirk.

  “Why definitely?” she asked. Seb felt the heat rise in his face. They were, by the day, growing more incorrigible. David, more than anyone else, was the epitome of masculinity, and he was the one man who had decided Seb was safe enough to actually befriend, and if they told him anything, then he’d be well and truly fucked. David might tell the football team, or he might tell no one, but David would most certainly be gone.

  But all Seb said was, “Because.” And Margot snorted, and Seb grimaced.

  “I can’t believe you have a thing for the fucking quarterback,” she said. “That’s so cliché.”

  “I- Hang on a second!” said Seb, and Margot grinned. “I do not have a thing for him.”

  “Sure,” she said. Lucy and Anna ughed.

  “I don’t,” said Seb.

  “Okay,” said Margot. Seb stamped a heel on the ground. He didn’t even like guys! He was almost certain that he did not like guys.

  “I’m not gay,” said Seb. Margot raised an eyebrow, and immediately Seb took stock of the situation he was currently in. Sitting in a room of girls, letting them do his makeup, for the second- Still! That didn’t mean he was gay.

  “Right,” said Margot.

  “Stop doing that!” said Seb. And Margot sat back, smiling at him. He gred at her. That was… well, no, that wasn’t right. He didn’t think of David that way. Yes, he liked David, and he liked that David was friends with him, but it wasn’t anything sexual. It was ptonic. Fully and entirely ptonic, and it was, in fact, sort of fucked up of them to imply otherwise. “You’re all ridiculous.” Margot let out a heavy sigh.

  “Darling,” she said, “Every Friday you come in here and you find a way to twist yourself to talk about him.”

  “That’s-”

  “Okay. Okay, you’re not gay.” said Margot, sitting forward.

  “I’m not,” said Seb.

  “Fine,” said Margot. She put a hand on each of Seb’s shoulders. “Just imagine for a moment with me, okay?” Seb gred at her. She rolled her eyes. “Okay, you’re with David. No!” Seb had opened his mouth to speak. He renewed his gre but shut his mouth. “Just imagine. You’re with David, and you’re at a party. He’s in some stupid button down, probably some kind of Hawaiian shirt or whatever. And you’re dancing. And you’re dancing. And,” she put a hand to Seb’s wrist, slowing down, “he has you in his hands. And he’s tall and he’s pretty and he smells the way that men do when they’ve been dancing a while.” She smiled. “You’ve been in css with him. You know how he smells.”

  “And it’s all around you, and you’re moving against him, and his body is pressing into yours, and you can feel him. His hands, his thighs, his chest. You can feel all of it. It’s all in your hands.” Seb’s mouth was a little dry. “And his hand is sliding down your back. Just slowly. Just little by little. And his eyes are locked onto yours and his arms are around your body, and all you can do is smell him, feel him, and he’s looking down at you. And your perfume is melding into him, into the smell of him, and his hand is just… sliding down your back.” Seb’s mouth was so dry. Margot inched a little closer. “And he leans down, close to your lips, just a few inches away. Just a few inches up.” She smiled. “And all you have to do is…”

  And Margot left it there. She sat back and let out a breath.

  And Seb, his mind melting, could not shift in the chair. His mouth was so, so, so dry. He had never considered David like that. Really, he had never considered that something like that was possible, that it was something that he could want. And, well, it seemed right. He’d never been able to put himself in the shoes of a boy liking a guy, but hearing Margot describe it, hearing her talk about his hands around her waist, down her back, down… god…

  “Oh,” he murmured, and each of the girls giggled.

  “Sorry to break the news,” said Margot.

  “Right,” said Seb. His mind was still locked to David. He… he had never thought about it like that. He had never considered him, in that situation, like that.

  “He’s a very sweet guy,” offered Lucy. Anna nodded.

  “I like him a lot,” she said.

  “Right,” said Seb. As if that made a difference. As if whether or not David Oliver was sweet was any sort of deciding factor in any of this. He blinked, trying to imagine a world, a real one, not a fictional one, where David Oliver kissed him like that. “Oh.” Margot put a very gentle finger on his forearm, and Seb met her eyes.

  “It happens to the best of us,” she said. “And, well, it is a cliché, but he happens to be a very cute cliché.” Seb closed his eyes and shook his head. He needed the world, for just a week, to stop spinning. He’d very much enjoy a Friday night that did not involve what could potentially be earth shattering information. He’d enjoy that very much, thanks.

  “Fuck me,” he whispered, and Lucy giggled. Too much going on. Way, way too much going on. “Is there any other potentially paradigm shifting information that you’ve been waiting to share with me?” Anna snorted, and Margot gave him a sympathetic smile.

  “Look,” said Anna, “we’ve known you like David and we’ve known you’d look good as a girl, but that’s really it. And,” she spread out her hands, “we were not subtle about those things.” Lucy nodded.

  “No subtly,” she said. Seb leaned back in the chair and let out a heavy breath.

  “Well,” he said, “that’s a relief.” Margot tapped him on the shoulder and beckoned him back towards her.

  “Setting spray,” she said. Seb closed his eyes. “It’s not like we befriend a lot of guys. I mean, we like guys, but there’s not a lot of guys that we invite to hang out with us while we get ready.” There was a soft mist on his face. “Like, okay, we didn’t know it would be like this, but, I don’t know…”

  “You’re not like other boys,” offered Anna.

  “Exactly,” said Margot. And Seb, emerging from the mist, opened his eyes, focused his throat, and shook his head.

  “No shit,” he said.

  * * * * *

  By the time they’d arrived at the evening gown portion, in which both Anna and Lucy had opted to model clothes themselves as well, the trio of them spinning out in different bits of Lucy and Anna’s wardrobe for Margot to politely appud at, all the while sipping wine and scrolling her phone, the time had rocketed by the hour specified for the party. And Seb had noticed, noticed that none of them had moved to the door, that none of them, aside from Margot, had remained in their Frat Party Chic, but he didn’t much care. If they didn’t notice, and they didn’t move to the door, this night sted longer. Everything about this whole experience sted longer. And the longer it sted, the longer it went on and on and on, the more intoxicated Seb felt.

  He had tried on a mini skirt first, and the girls had smiled at the reveal of bare legs, although Margot had insisted that they find a way to tan them. Uneven, she had said. Improper, apparently, to have tan lines that fell at your knees, regardless of the hairlessness. Women were evenly toned from head to toe, according to her, and if she was going to wear a skirt, she ought to look the part. Lucy had grabbed him by the elbow and expined the beauty of self tanner. Nothing was as good as the real thing, of course, but self tanner did the job during the winter. And then, she had looked at his legs, giggled, and said, ‘or if you’ve been hiding them away for a decade’.

  And then he had found himself in dresses, mostly at the behest of Anna, who had insisted that he try something more sporting, something more interesting, something that wasn’t just intended for frat parties. Because, god, if he wasn’t going to a party, why structure all of this around the idea that he might end up at one? Why force himself into that box, into that specific set of coordinates, force himself to obey rules that existed only outside the room? The rules didn’t exist in here. In here, he could try the other thing, the taboo thing, the boring thing, anything.

  The dresses were soft and flowed and Seb spun himself in them, letting the skirts billow out behind him, letting them set out to the edges of the room. There was nothing like it. Really, there was nothing like it, and when they had put him in short dresses, ones he had to wiggle into, even with the ck of an ass, and hampered in staying power by the ck of boobs he had felt hiriously naked and wondrously free.

  But, in the end, it was neither the dresses or the skirts that he ended the night in. No, Anna had dug out a pair of bellbottom leather pants in slick white, and he had immediately taken to them. And he was pretty sure that Margot had scoffed at the choice, and Lucy had struggled mightily to pair anything with it, but who fucking cared? Honest to god, who fucking cared in this room? Lucy was trying on all of her greatest hits, which included all of the ugliest things she’d ever owned in high school, and Anna had ended there, too, and Seb was giggling on the floor, his head on Margot’s shoulder as the pair pressed deeper and deeper into the recesses of their closets.

  “I love you guys,” he said, somewhere into his fifth drink, which had always been true, always been true at the surface and the depth of his heart, but had never felt more true than it did right now. He loved them. He loved them with everything he had. Margot patted him on the head, gently, and giggled.

  “Someone’s drunk,” she said.

  “Okay,” said Lucy, digging through her closet. “I’m running out of ridiculous items. Wait! Oh, no, I already put on the stupid witches’ costume.”

  “We’ll just have to buy you a new set of stupid clothes,” said Anna. Lucy scoffed.

  “Bellbottoms,” said Lucy.

  “He likes them,” said Anna. Seb realized they were talking about him, and he giggled.

  “They’re nice,” he said. Anna gestured over to him, and Lucy waved a hand into the air.

  “Yeah yeah,” she said. “Listen, all I’m saying Seb is that you cannot be wearing those outside of the dorm.”

  “They’re nice,” he insisted again. “They’re cute.” He liked the way they sat in funny rings around his ankles. Margot was stroking his hair now.

  “The girls will eat you alive,” sighed Lucy, turning back to the closet. “Sorority girls here are nightmares.”

  “We’re not listening to the sorority girls,” said Anna. She backed away from the closet, sliding herself onto the floor. She ended up with her head against the bed frame. “They don’t have joie de vivre.”

  “No French,” muttered Margot. The other three giggled.

  “It hurts my brain,” agreed Seb.

  “No hurting Seb’s brain,” said Margot, and Seb rolled his head back. They kept saying the name. They kept saying the name, but in here, he didn’t want to be Seb. He wanted to be someone else. Seb wasn’t trying on these clothes. Whoever was the product of this bloodletting, the girl who was a construction exclusively to preserve Seb, she was not Seb herself. She was someone else. A facet. A construction. Someone who only existed by the mercy of necessity, and a girl who’s job was only to preserve and enjoy. And Seb needed her to exist under a different name.

  “I need a name,” he murmured. Lucy cpped her hands and spun from the closet.

  “Oh, thank god,” she said. “Because I have your name. Oh my god, do I have your name. It’s so perfect, because you’re Sebastian, and, well, it just works.” The rest of the girls remained silent, and Lucy dropped a shoulder. “Oh, please at least act a little excited about it. I mean, it’s so good! It’s so perfect. Because he’s Sebastian, and she can be, well…” She looked around. Her shoulders dropped further. “No appreciation for the cssics!” She stomped a foot, settled on the floor, and grinned at Seb. “You can be Vio.”

  Vio. A name he could furnish with life. Something of a start, more than just the clothes in the room, more than just twirling in dresses, but an outlet. A full, realized outlet, a girl for this room alone, and he could make that work. Vio. She could be Vio. That was a name he could hold onto, and Seb smiled to himself and let go of that version of himself for the night.

  “Vio,” she said, and the word fell off the tongue, fell like it had been pulled into the room. She giggled. “Vio.” Anna smiled broadly, and Lucy cpped her hands again.

  “You like it?” she asked. And Vio nodded, nodded at all three of them.

  “It’s perfect,” she said. And Lucy pulled her into a hug, and Vio reciprocated, a big, squeezing hug.

  “Vio,” said Anna. Vio looked up at her, and Anna grinned. “Sorry, I was just trying it out.”

  Vio would work. Vio was something.

  Vio had to pee.

  Lucy, currently squeezing her as tight as she could, mixed with the concoction of alcohol and the nearly four hours of it, meant she had to pee.

  And that was going to be a bit of a problem. Freshmen dorms didn’t have bathrooms en suite. No, they were shared by the entire floor, separated into boys and girls, and Vio, fresh as she was, knew she could not just walk out of the room and go into the girls. She’d looked in the mirror, and while it might be, like, eighty-five percent girl now, a small jump from the Friday before, there was still the ck of boobs and the hair. And neither of those were about to waltz into the dorm room.

  She sighed.

  “I’m going to need to change out,” she said. Lucy pulled back and gred at her.

  “Right after I named you?” she asked. Vio grinned.

  “I need to pee, babe,” she said, and she was deeply pleased at the way ‘babe’ sounded in her voice. It sounded so natural. Lucy frowned.

  “Just go in the women’s,” she said.

  “My hair,” said Vio, gesturing up. “And, well, um,” she gestured to her chest. Anna giggled.

  “Right,” she said. “Right, we can fix you back up after you come back, if you want.” Lucy peeled herself off, and Vio stamped her way to a makeup mirror, where Anna supplied her with wipes for her face, and she started deconstructing the woman she had just named. Or, well, the one Lucy had just named. Makeup off, and then the clothes, and Anna supplied her with the jeans and sweatshirt she had come in with, and then, after about five minutes, Seb was back, and it was time to pee.

  The bathroom was at the far end of the hall, and Seb settled himself in one of the stalls in the men’s room. Empty bathroom, but he preferred the stalls anyway. Less likely to run into a meathead in a stall.

  It was crazy, wasn’t it? He was being crazy. He was being crazy asking for this, doing this, pressing forward with this. His thighs were smooth and his eyebrows were thinned and this was a crazy thing to be doing to himself. Those were things that would knock him of the pedestal of manhood, press him away from that, and he knew that. He knew that was where this road led. Someone would see the razor bumps, would see the groomed eyebrows, and they would pull him away from manhood, a manhood that he was…

  Well, it wasn’t something he loved, but it was a part of him. It had to be. He had to be.

  But so was she.

  And all he had to do was keep them separate. Keep the man, the one who wanted to and needed to enjoy the perils of Garnd State, separate from the woman, the woman who could not exist. Because, if he furnished the man with womanhood, if Seb himself embraced it, if it was the boy who was full thoatedly enjoying those things here, on this campus, he would be a dead man. If they saw him shaving his legs, if they saw him bouncing in eyeliner, that would be it.

  But, in that room, as that girl, as someone unknown and unseen, those things could be done.

  He finished up, opened the stall, and hurried to the sink. He wanted back into the room. She was in there, and he was out here, and if he was only going to get to do this one night a week, one night for the next three years, he wanted to maximize his hours. Next year, they ought to get a suite with a bathroom.

  He stared in the mirror, and the boy stared back. A boy. Moderately boy, at the very least. Not a girl, and not a boy pretending to be one, stepping out of line. Boy. A worn, tired one, but boy.

  For a split second, he imagined a world where the answer was true, where the one that would tear at the fabric of everything was real. He imagined his parents, his body still tied to their insurance, and he imagined his schorship, that money still tied to this name, and he imagined trying to unwind the world that had built him.

  He closed his eyes, opened them, and stared in the mirror again.

  Boy.

  He could manage this. He could manage this.

  * * * * *

  Anna had two pillows, and they had each taken one, and Anna was doing an average at best job of not kicking Vio off the bed. Vio, now in an oversized t-shirt and a smaller than she was used to pair of shorts, had tried to arrange herself so that Anna wouldn’t push her down the bed, but she was pretty sure it wouldn’t matter. Twin beds were twin beds. Someone was headed for the edge.

  But that was okay. She was okay. They were okay. Margot and Lucy were tucked into Lucy’s bed, and Vio could hear the snoring, and she was sure she would get there, too. She flipped onto her back, staring at the ceiling, trying not to imagine herself tomorrow, trying not to imagine exactly what Saturday would bring. They would do brunch at the dining hall, and she’d have to go as Seb. And they’d never treated her that different as Seb, always nagging her forward, always pressing her towards all of the things they loved, towards femininity, but… it was different. The room was different as Vio.

  “You okay?” murmured Anna, beside her. Vio looked at her and smiled.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Because you look like you’re not okay,” said Anna. Vio did her best to put on a very steady face, and Anna giggled at that. “Don’t be a bitch. I’m trying to be a good friend.”

  “You are a good friend,” said Vio.

  “Yes, well, I’m trying to be a good friend right now,” said Anna. “Not just like, theoretically.” She flopped her head further up the pillow, and her hair spyed. Vio wondered if it would be too much of a breach to start growing her hair.

  Still no blonde, though.

  “You are a good friend right now,” said Vio. Anna rolled her eyes.

  “Just be serious with me for a second,” she said. “Because… I don’t know, just because.”

  “I’m okay,” said Vio, and she was pretty sure it was true. Yes, this was a crazy, insane, wild thing that was happening, and she was going to need to take a massive, massive nap tomorrow, something to steady her nerves, but she was okay. Sure, she was slipping towards danger, but she was pretty sure this was a ledge she caught herself on. This room. This room was the ledge. “It’s a little crazy.”

  “I know,” said Anna. She paused. “I’m sorry if we pushed you into this. I mean, well, I’m so gd you’re doing it, but I am sorry if we pushed you here.” She grimaced in the dark. “I know we can be a little pushy, and I know it’s gotta be hard to be gay or, um, whatever this is,” Anna gave her a half smile, and Vio closed her eyes, because she understood the implication, but she was entirely uninterested in dissecting that, and even less interested in the potential answer, “but, you know.” She sighed. “It’s just, like, I don’t know, I never expected this. I just thought we’d do your makeup and it’d be a one night thing, or maybe something small, you know? Just like a thing we did because we were drunk and it was fun and now…” Anna chewed on her lip, and Vio took her hand.

  “It’s okay, Anna,” she said. “Look, it’s not changing my whole world. It’s just,” she paused. “Well, it’s just crossdressing.” And that was minimization, and she knew it the second it left her lips, but it wasn’t a lie. “And I do like it and, Jesus, apparently I do like boys,” Anna giggled, and Vio smiled, “but, it’s not bad. As long as we keep it here, and as long as it doesn’t start spreading to the whole campus or whatever…” Anna nodded.

  “No one will know,” she agreed. She closed her eyes tight. “If they found out, if people knew that you were… well, you were Vio in here, then out there…”

  “Seb would die,” supplied Vio. Anna shook her head very hard. She shook her head very hard, and she looked at Vio with pained, heavy eyes.

  “No,” she said. “It’d be hard, but you wouldn’t die. We’d make sure that didn’t happen.” She swallowed. “It would just be bad, is all.”

  “I know,” said Vio.

  “More of a social suicide than anything else,” she said.

  “Anna, I know,” said Vio.

  “I just don’t want to put you in danger,” whispered Anna. “And if you think this is some sort of prerequisite for being our friend, I promise-”

  “You’re not,” said Vio. And that was true. They weren’t. She wasn’t. This whole thing, everything, could stop. And Vio knew that. She knew that it could, really, stop. They could stop. She could say no. Physically, at least, Vio could say no.

  “Okay,” said Anna.

  “It’ll be okay,” said Vio.

  “As long as you are,” said Anna. She grimaced. “You know I wasn’t going to ever make you come to a frat party with us, don’t you? I mean, I know what I said. And I know what I was saying, but, really, Vi, it…” she trailed off. “I was just being a bitch. I… I was just being a bitch is all. I thought it would be fun for, well, for me and Lucy, and I didn’t expect it to be like this and it was just an excuse to get you to say yes.” Vio smiled at her.

  “I know,” she said.

  “It’s not that you couldn’t,” said Anna, quickly. “It’s just that, well, unless you felt safe doing it, I would never.”

  “Anna, you’re a good friend,” said Vio.

  “Okay,” said Anna.

  “Seriously,” said Vio.

  “Right,” said Anna.

  “It’s okay,” said Vio. Anna let out a heavy breath and giggled. And Vio, sank her head back onto the pillow.

  “You really like David, then?” she asked. Vio closed her eyes, trying to imagine that she hadn’t heard the question. Yes. Yes, she liked David, and that was it’s own can of worms, even if it, really, was pretty simple. David Oliver was straight, and Vio existed only here. Sebastian couldn’t date David. He couldn’t kiss David. And unless David Oliver got very cool, very quickly, well, it was all pretty much a moot point.

  Except, of course, that Vio liked a boy, and what the fuck was that about?

  “Yes,” she said, sighing into the air. Anna giggled.

  “He’s cute,” she said.

  “I know,” sighed Vio.

  “He talked about you, you know?” she said. Then, she giggled. “Well, he talked about Seb.” And they both giggled at that.

  “I was under the bed, remember?” said Vio. And Anna giggled and spun to face her.

  “No, babe, he talked about you ter, too,” she said, grinning. Vio felt a little pang in her chest. Why was Anna telling her this? What was the point of pressing this into her, of telling her that David, a boy she had only just stumbled onto her feelings for, but who she knew she couldn’t have, had talked about her?

  “We’re friends,” she murmured. Anna waved a hand in the air.

  “Yeah, but he does like you,” she said. “I mean, maybe not like that.”

  “Definitely not like that,” said Vio. Anna squeezed her hand. Vio hadn’t even noticed that they were still holding hands.

  “He’d like this version of you,” she murmured. “Everyone would like this version of you.” That was a bigger pang in her chest.

  “No,” she said. “He wouldn’t.” Anna squeezed her hand again, tighter, crushing her fingers.

  “Everyone should like this version of you,” she amended. She shook her head. “God, I love this version of you.” Vio smiled.

  “I know you do,” she said. The three of them did. They liked Vio. They liked Vio in ways that no one else would, no one who understood where she came from could. She could live with that. It was enough.

  It had to be.