You know what’s not pretty?

Standing in your first gay bar alone, surrounded by sweaty darkness and lasers and the pushy bass of dance music even though no one is dancing.

A handful of Twizzler-thin boys in muscle tees are circled up, laughing at jokes I can’t hear. Pretty femmes are grouped together at the bar, pulling up hair and pushing down necklines, touching the skin where each other’s crop tops end, while they down the sugary fake cocktails that this place serves for its eighteen-and-over night. I turned seventeen in January, but it’s not that hard to get in when your bakery caters events all over the city and you’re not actually trying to drink. My neon green “don’t give this one alcohol” bracelet feels like a beacon in the sweaty darkness of the oldest gay bar in Austin.

I’ve never been here before. I’m not even remotely sure that this was a good idea. But I needed to spend my first night without W somewhere other than at home, stretched out on the floor, listening to the banshee wail of her favorite indie bands and thinking about what to bake next.

It felt good to pour my feelings in those brownies and then walk away.

This place isn’t what I expected, though. I don’t want to break it to anyone, but it looks like a regular bar for straight people and maybe that one closeted uncle. The space is split down the middle: a sports-focused area with the TVs set to football — European, not American — on one side, and an ancient black-painted dance floor on the other. Even the music is mostly straight artists with a little Kesha thrown in for good measure.

I ease into the beat of the first Beyoncé song that comes on, thinking I’ll be a magnet for everyone else who needed to be out tonight, everybody young and queer and freshly single, so fresh we can still taste our breakups.

But I’m out here alone, dancing to “Crazy in Love,” trying to make it look like this solo act is what I wanted to do. I’m a solid backup dancer, but W is incredible, her body fused to the beat. Now that the spotlight is on me, I keep swiveling things, hoping for some kind of miracle.

The beat changes, the lights get more dramatic, and I think the main event must be starting. A single twenty-ish guy comes out of a back room wearing a G-string. Some wilted old Madonna starts up, and he struts out onto a platform and starts dancing without a whiff of enthusiasm.

“Let’s turn this party up to eleven!” shouts a bouncy DJ voice.

I try to shuffle off the dance floor, but the voice bursts out of the speakers again, coming at me from everywhere. “Don’t stop now! We’re just heating up!” I freeze abruptly, afraid to get called out again, like I’m being sent to the Big Gay Principal’s office. G-string guy notices me and looks down with understanding, even pity.

I try to smile, but my face is broken.

“You okay, honey?” he shouts.

Even this half-hearted, ninety-percent naked dancer feels bad for me.

I run to a dark crevice of the room. I’m ready to call this a horrible time and go home, when my phone vibrates in my pocket. I check it, thinking maybe it’s my sister, trying to make up for how unhelpful she was a few hours ago.

It’s Marisol. Which is weird. She’s never talked to me outside of work.

Harley left a # in case you need to talk to someone

I’m about to thank her and maybe ask if she wants to hang out next weekend, because I can’t ever do this again.

Don’t text back I’m on a date

I add Harley’s number to my phone, saving it with an exclamation point. Harley! Usually I would let it sit in my phone for weeks before I sent an exploratory text, but tonight I’m doing new things. I let my hands take the lead, the way I do when I’m baking. I let them type whatever they want.

Help I’m stranded in a gay disaster

Harley texts back half a song later.

Prepared to rubberneck

In less than twenty minutes, Harley bounds into the bar, smiling so big that it makes up for the smiles I messed up earlier. Those red-brown curls are shining from a recent shower — no sign of helmet hair tonight. As soon as Harley’s close enough, I look for the omnipresent bag and Harley’s pronoun pin: they.

“Thanks for coming!” I shout over the music.

“I never turn down a gay disaster,” they shout back, and I swear it’s flirty, and I swear I didn’t realize we were flirting until this moment.

We’re standing close together. In the dark. In a place I invited them to, right after I told them about my relationship probably ending.

“Are you okay?” Harley asks.

“Today has been a lot,” I admit.

“Did you and W talk?” they ask, peering into the laser-strewn darkness like she might be hiding somewhere.

“You were right.” My neck feels hot. Not as hot as a stack of ovens in a Texas spring, but close. “She broke up with me.”

“So we’re going to dance it out?” Harley asks. They’re wearing artfully loose jeans, a fitted T-shirt. I feel certain their finger-combed waves of hair would do all kinds of adorable things while they dance.

“Already tried that,” I shout. “It’s hopeless.”

Harley shoves their hands in their pockets and leans forward to make sure the words reach me. “It’s not you. This music is stale!”

As if to prove them right, a song comes on that I don’t think I’ve heard since elementary school. It’s dully electronic, the lyrics all about heartbreak. About being bulletproof the next time it comes around. The music video glares at us from three different TVs, and I get caught up in how androgynous the singer is, mesmerized by a broad, freckled face and lean body. I used to think I should look like that. I used to be confused every single time I stared at the mirror and what I saw screamed back girl.

I’m used to the way I look now, the hips I can’t hide no matter what pants I wear, the broad waist and the small feet, the combination of round cheeks and rough jaw. For a long time, I thought my body should be different. Now I’m pretty sure that no particular body would make sense to me all of the time. That’s one of the reasons I like dancing, or baking, or anything where I’m inundated by what I’m doing, too busy feeling to feel wrong.

“Wait,” Harley says, closer to my ear than before, close enough that they don’t have to shout. “Something’s happening.”

The guy in the G-string has a friend now, wearing an equally tiny string and nothing else all the way up to his head. “Is that . . . a baseball cap?”

“A bright purple one,” Harley confirms. “Do you think he came straight from a game?”

“Of what?” I ask. “Sexball?”

Harley gives a few shy blinks. They try not to smile. But their dimples are winning.

“I’m in love with this look.” I wave at the leather-and-cap combo. “It’s like two ingredients that shouldn’t work together, but they do.”

It’s more than that, though. He’s dancing. Really dancing, with brazen moves and zero self-awareness, to a song nobody’s thought about for ten years. He fills up the entire platform, arms wild and lunge-steps shameless. The singer in the video sounds so bored with the idea of becoming bulletproof, eyes sad like they already know it isn’t going to work. But this guy dances like he believes it. We hit the chorus, and he does the shopping cart. It’s glorious. He’s buying everything.

“He owns this song!” Harley shouts.

“He is this song.”

“I’d say we should join him, but I think we have to let him have this one.”

“Tonight belongs to Red,” I agree.

His enthusiasm must be contagious, though, because Harley and I look at each other and a bolt of energy passes between us. Five minutes ago I felt ready to end the night, but now it seems like it’s just starting. Grabbing Harley’s hand, I sprint out of the bar before the DJ can yell at us.

Sixth Street is what a bloodstream must look like during a sugar rush. On weekend nights they close it off to cars, because there are too many people out partying. Harley and I try to walk next to each other, but the sidewalk gets choked up. They fall behind, their fingertips still linked with mine. I don’t know where we’re going, but I’m not giving up. W can break up with me, but she can’t make me miserable.

Not unless I let her.

I walk confidently past block after block of restaurants and bars. Above us the sharp teeth of high-rises chew up the sky. Greenery all around us and live music leaking from every doorway keep Austin from feeling like every other interchangeable city.

Besides, this is just downtown.

We walk south, toward the lake, and even though I can’t see it, I can feel it there, a natural barrier separating us from South Austin, where I live, where I work, where most of my life takes place. W lives downtown. She’s the reason I came here all the time, browsing at BookPeople while I waited for her to meet me, driving down to Mozart’s on the water and sitting under trees wrapped in white string lights while we clutched our hot chocolates in Austin’s never-truly-winter weather. I wonder how often I’ll cross the bridges now that I know she’s not waiting on the other side.

“I picked the last place,” I say. “Where should we go now?”

“Wherever you feel better,” Harley says.

And maybe just by saying that they’ve summoned it, but the next window we pass is a popsicle shop. The entire wall facing the street is made of windows. We can see the toppings sorted into a rainbow of options, the menu plastered with sweet, icy suggestions. It might be getting late, but that doesn’t mean it’s getting any colder. It’s definitely still hot enough to want one.

“I don’t know this place,” Harley says.

“Neither do I. That’s what makes it an adventure.”

There are new places in Austin all the time. Some days it feels like the city won’t stop to catch its breath, like whenever you look up, it’s trampled something you love.

Tonight, I’m glad this is here.

Tonight, I need new.

“Do you think the employees wear G-strings?” Harley asks. “You set a high bar for the evening.”

I push their shoulder and laugh.

We get coconut dipped in chocolate, and half-dipped strawberry, and pineapple with coconut flakes, and banana with a shaggy coat of sprinkles. One popsicle for each of our hands. Harley bumps the door open with their back, then spins out into the night. I follow, and in the single moment it takes me to catch up, everything that felt complicated in the bar is simple again. I have sweet things and a slight breeze, and someone to share them with.

We walk the last block to the lake. It’s down a slope from where we’re standing, so we’re not on the bank but above the water, looking across the trio of flat bridges that lead to South Austin. It’s calmer there, and the lights look warm. I try to pick out the Proud Muffin.

“Want to walk over?” Harley asks.

“Maybe just halfway.”

It takes longer than I think it will. We stop and stare out at the dark ripples and get really invested in our popsicles. I want a bite of the strawberry one, so I sort of dive for it, and Harley holds it out.

I lean in and bite. It tastes good, with patches of real strawberry. And then this feels weird, because it’s how I would share with W. And then it feels weirder, because her family’s condo is only a few blocks from the bridge, and all I can think about is her looking down and seeing me share dessert with Harley the day after we broke up. Technically, it’s the same day.

I swallow and retreat a few steps.

“How did you end up in that bar?” Harley asks.

“It’s my sister’s fault.”

“Your sister brought you to a gay bar and then ditched you?”

“Well . . . no.”

Harley laughs and then waits, like they did at the bakery. Like they’re making room for me to say more.

“My sister Tess is at Northwestern,” I say, sticking to my pineapple popsicle. It’s good, but not as good as the strawberry. “I didn’t want to tell my parents about W yet. They kind of love her. I thought calling my sister would be like . . .”

“A warm-up?” Harley offers.

“When I told her what happened, Tess said that it sounds rough, because I don’t really have a life without W.”

Harley winces. “I’m glad my siblings are little. They just accidentally pee on me and hit me with foam swords.” I imagine Harley surrounded by tiny people, clinging to their arms and legs, demanding snacks.

I have to stop. It’s way too sweet.

“I wanted to prove that I could go out and have fun,” I say. But when you move somewhere and find an amazing girlfriend right away, all of your memories of that place have the person baked right in. “I just . . . needed somewhere W and I have never been together.”

Harley nods, like this makes complete sense.

“Was she your first girlfriend?” they ask.

“Yeah.”

We’re still close to the intensity of downtown, but here above the water, the night is so quiet.

“And . . . did W call you her girlfriend?”

It takes me a second to see the whole question Harley’s asking. “W thought it was funny that I like to bake. Most people think cupcakes and kitchens are girly, but I’ll throw on a frilly apron over cut-offs and boots and shave my head like it’s no big deal. She called me her Bold Baker Girl.” I remember the feel of her playing a hand over my freshly shaved scalp, and I shiver, even though the night’s as warm as her skin. “After a while, I told her I’m not a girl. At least, not most of the time.”

I look down at the lake. It’s dark but covered in shine, the city lights trembling on its surface. During the day, the water is a pretty but boring blue, covered in paddleboards and ringed by joggers. Right now, it feels like we’re the only ones who know about it. Like it’s a huge secret, right in the middle of everything.

“What are you most of the time?” Harley asks.

“Agender.”

That word takes a lot to say out loud. I reward myself with the rest of the banana popsicle.

“Got it. And W . . . got that?”

“It didn’t seem to bother her.” It still took me six months to work up to saying it out loud to a single person, and when W broke up with me, it felt like I lost that moment of bravery as much as I lost her.

Everyone at school knows I’m queer. My family knows. I know how lucky I am that I was never scared to say it out loud. I don’t know why it’s harder to tell people that I don’t feel attached to a specific gender. That some days wearing a femme outfit or acting a masc way feels nice, but neither of those things is me.

Harley leans with their back on the stone railing. “I’ve been thinking.” They take their time with the last bite of coconut. “You and W were together for a long time, right? Don’t they say that you need to be sad for at least as many months as you dated the person, in years?”

Four miserable months?

I can’t feel the way that I felt today for four months.

“Who is they?” I ask, ready to fight whoever came up with that rule. “Who says that?”

Harley shrugs the casually stubborn shrug of someone who thinks they’re right. “People who research relationships. Love scientists?”

“Love isn’t science,” I push back. “The chemistry matters, that makes sense, but that’s where it starts, not where it ends. Baking is like that. It’s not just a predictable set of reactions. It’s —”

“It’s what?” Harley asks with a quirk of the lips that feels like a dare. They lean one elbow against the railing, cross their boots at the ankle.

I don’t talk about this, but then again, I don’t talk about any of the things I just told Harley. I wouldn’t have done it a week ago, and a week from now I might talk myself out of it, but tonight I have this compulsion to tell Harley how I feel about baking, and therefore about love.

“It’s magic.”

I keep thinking about the brownies I made. How they were more than a simple dessert. They were everything I felt as W broke up with me.

“Magic . . .” Harley echoes. I can’t tell if they believe me, if they’re not sure, if they’re silently judging me.

Then Harley smiles again. It’s not the broad grin from when they showed up at the bar. It’s the smile of someone who’s been let in on a secret. They hold out the last bite of the perfect strawberry popsicle, and I dip my head for it.

I don’t care if W’s watching from somewhere above us.

This tastes too good to pass up.

 

1 breakup, fresh if you can get it

4 popsicles, eaten earlier in a fit of trying to forget her

1 sister who won’t text you back because college is so much fun

46 neighbors at a house party next door, most of whom seem to be making out near your window

2 assignments you have to finish before Monday because you spent all your homework time on breaking up

1/10 of your normal confidence

A pinch of parental worry

10,000,000,000 frantic phone checks to see if your ex texted you (she didn’t) to say she wants you back (she doesn’t), which you definitely know, and have basically come to accept, so why are you still checking your phone?

1 possible new crush at the worst possible moment

Heat the world to 94 degrees.

Add the popsicles to your stomach. Let sit.

Get home late and watch your parents react. Mine skulk around in suspicious silence. Your flavors will vary.

Shut yourself in your room, shut your ex out of your mind, shut off your phone.

Definitely do not look to see if she’s gone on social media to post anything cryptic, or sad, or — worst-case scenario — sexy.

After you’ve checked, shower it off. Wrench the water to a dead stop when you remember how much you hate showers now.

Armor yourself in your comfiest pajamas and climb into bed. Realize that the post-sugar misery pounding inside your head is being echoed by the pulse of a party next door.

Shut your window.

Get too sweaty! Turn up the AC!

Get too cold. Open your window to the sweet smell of lemon blossoms and the less sweet sound of people making out in the alley behind your house.

Slip back in time, to every party you spent in the darkest corner, the backyard shadows, the guest room with the door gently shut. Relive every middle-of-the-night wonder, every discovery in the dark, all those times you felt too good for words.

Wonder: If that doesn’t work, what does?

Think about your new crush. Try to stop immediately, but once you’ve poured in an ingredient, you can’t unpour it. It’s in the mix now, swirling around. Think about your new crush’s secret smile. Their eagerness to talk.

Their hands.

Decide that since you’re not sleeping, you might as well do some homework. Fall asleep with your face in the vagina of a textbook.

Wake up the next day.

No, really.

Your alarm is ringing.