Chapter 21

LATER THAT WEEKEND, I TOOK MY camera out of the drawer. I was hoping it would feel good in my hands again, but it still felt wrong. It still made memories come flooding back, aching, painful memories of my mom. Instead of turning it on to shooting mode, I only made it to playback. And then I scrolled through the memory card, reliving all of the moments I’d captured.

There were my classmates at the Valentine’s Day dance, the girls with red heart stickers on their cheeks, their arms around each other, grinning. There was the freshman couple dancing with their foreheads pressed together, her eyes shut and his open. There was the old man who ran the antiques store, and our neighbor’s toddler in a yellow rain slicker, and a mechanic climbing one of the enormous wind turbines, and Barista Todd in silhouette pouring a foam heart into a cup of coffee.

I scrolled back too far, and all of a sudden my mom’s face was glowing up at me from the LCD screen. Her smile, the small space between her front teeth that had come back even after orthodontia. They weren’t good photos of her. That was the worst part. They were photos you take when it doesn’t matter. When you’re testing out the light or the framing. When you’ve taken so many that they’re meaningless.

I couldn’t do this. She’d bought me this camera and told me she couldn’t wait to see what pictures I took with it. So how could I use it now? This thing I loved was too tangled up in her. And I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to untangle it.

I hadn’t realized that Ethan and Whitney and Nick were in a band together, so it surprised me when Lily brought up going to see them play in a student showcase.

Their show was the weekend after our museum trip, at some place called the Den. Lily gave me a ride. It turned out to be a cross between a coffee shop and a community theater. A velvet curtain separated the space where people hunched over their laptops from the back room with the stage.

It was dark inside, the floor and walls painted completely black. The room was narrow, and the stage was small, and it was absolutely packed.

Some other band was onstage when we got there, rocking out in their matching snapbacks and tie-dye tanks. They were all on guitar and bass, and they mostly just seemed to be making a lot of noise come out of some very tiny speakers.

Some freshman girls right by the stage were losing their minds, screaming and holding up their phones to send their friends snaps.

“One can never account for taste,” Lily said sadly.

“They’ll look back in a few years with utter embarrassment,” Ryland said, joining us.

“The band or the fans?” I asked, and he snorted.

After another few torturous minutes, one of the guitarists mumbled into the mic, “Yeah, so we’re Poop Emoji, thanks so much for listening.”

“Hey,” someone said, clapping me on the shoulder as Whitney and Ethan’s band was setting up.

It was Cole, in sweats and a baseball cap, looking slightly disoriented. Friya was with him, in a backless cream mini dress and precarious silver ankle boots, looking like she was headed to a nightclub instead of an all-ages show.

“Wow,” Lily said appreciatively. “You look hot.”

“Good, because I feel ridiculous,” Friya complained, tugging on her hemline. “Nick and I had a fight. So I only came to cheer for my friends. And to show off how amazing I look to make him feel guilty.”

And then I glanced toward the stage, where sure enough, Friya’s ex-boyfriend was plugging in a guitar. He looked even cuter than he did in our English class, in his tight T-shirt and black ripped skinnies and Vans, his hair all a mess. He spotted Friya and waved, but she just huffed, turning away like she wasn’t interested.

“I should have worn leggings, to show him how much I don’t care,” Friya complained.

“No way, you look totally smokin’, Free.” This from Cole, who was scrolling on his phone, not even paying attention.

Ryland rolled his eyes. He clearly didn’t want to be here, cheering on his sister’s band and hanging out with her friends. But his parents were on call and couldn’t make it, so they’d insisted he turn up. Lily and I had come as moral support.

It had been a while since I’d hung out with Cole, and I was surprised at how he kept smiling at me, how he offered to buy me a soda and asked how I’d been.

“Well, I quit Mock Trial,” I said.

He did a slow clap.

“About time,” he said. “I never liked you hanging around with all those assholes.”

“Now I hang around with all these assholes,” I joked, motioning toward Lily and Ryland. Adam was at an overnight for Academic Decathlon, which was apparently amazing. I’d take his word for it.

“Psh. These two? They’re good people,” Cole said, grinning. “Quirky, like you.”

“Killing it with the compliments tonight,” I teased.

“Aah, you just forgot how charming I am,” Cole insisted.

Oddly, it was true. I had forgotten how easy he was to talk to. How goofy and boyish. How, even dressed in sloppy bro clothes, he was still devastatingly attractive.

“What happened?” I asked, staring at his hand. His knuckles were scraped and bloody.

“Soccer.” Cole shrugged.

“Isn’t soccer a no-hands kind of sport?” I said.

“I messed up at the gym,” he said. “Had a bad spotter.” And then he bumped his hip gently into mine. “Nice to know you care, Freshman.”

“I don’t,” I told him, moving away.

“Well, I’m going to keep on believing it anyway,” he said.

He stared down at me with his sea-glass eyes, and I realized that whatever was between us was still there, no matter how frustrated I was with what he’d done at the homecoming party, or how badly he’d botched the apology. But just because I was attracted to him didn’t mean I was obligated to do anything about it. Half the girls in our school were probably attracted to him. It didn’t make him boyfriend material.

He dug out his vape and offered it to me before taking a pull. I watched how much he inhaled, and he wasn’t just getting a buzz. Something told me he hadn’t hurt his hand at the gym, either. I wasn’t sure what was going on with him, but I also knew that I didn’t have the bandwidth to care.

“You better not be driving,” I warned.

“Nahhh, Ethan gave me a lift.”

The band started, and Lily, who’d been talking to some people from school I didn’t know, came back and asked where I’d been.

“Here,” I said, confused.

“I’ve been taking really good care of her,” Cole said seriously.

Lily rolled her eyes.

“Hi, Cole. Bye, Cole,” she said, taking my hand and leading me toward the crowd. We pushed our way to the front, joining Friya and Ryland.

On the stage, Ethan was on drums, a bandanna tied around his forehead, looking totally in his element. Whitney, in some sort of lace coat and feather earrings, crooned into the microphone, her voice soft and oozy like liquid velvet. Nick was scowling and strumming his guitar. And one of the Aidans from my math class was on keyboard.

The crowd was thick around us, writhing and excited and a mass of energy. Cole, who had followed us, squeezed my arm and grinned. Lily was on my other side, in a skintight black bodysuit and mom jeans, her ponytail swinging.

The moment they played the opening chords, the crowd went crazy.

“I’m getting a Coke,” Ryland said, disappearing instantly.

“Dance with me in case Nick looks over,” Friya begged Cole.

“No way,” he said. “Dude will kill me.”

“He will not, you’re like my brother,” she shot back.

And then the music got too loud for us to do anything except scream and dance. I’d listened to a couple of their songs online, and thought they were just okay. Somehow, here in this narrow room, with the sound echoing off every surface, they were great. Lily and I danced together, screaming because they were our friends, kind of, sort of. Next to us, some fangirls were freaking out, and Lily caught my eye and laughed.

Friya was glaring at the fangirls, who were shouting, “WE LOVE YOU, NICK!”

A fast-paced song came on, and I felt Lily’s soft, warm hands grab my hips. We were so close, dancing with each other, grinding on each other, Lily’s smile luminous in the dark. My heart hammered, and the room spun, and I felt like I could lean in and kiss her, and she’d kiss me back, hard.

I was certain we were supposed to kiss, right then, as the song built to its crescendo and Whitney’s sultry baritone crooned this amazing refrain about waves crashing the party.

And it terrified me. Because I liked boys, and I knew that about myself, but I also knew that the way I felt about Lily meant it didn’t matter if I also liked boys.

The crushes I’d had on girls before had been small. Hypothetical. Contained. This crush felt bigger, as though, no matter how I tried, it was going to spill out.

And I didn’t know what to do. Because Lily was gay, which meant it was possible. But we were friends, and I didn’t want to ruin that. And my life here was working, and I didn’t want to ruin that.

Falling for a girl wasn’t part of my survival strategy. I had two more years of changing in the PE locker room. Two more years of classmates who left awful comments on a girl’s Instagram because they thought she needed a bikini wax. Two more years in a house where conservative news anchors blared their nightly reports.

And yet, here I was, dancing with this incredible girl, the curves of her hips bumping against mine. We weren’t doing anything friends wouldn’t do, but I couldn’t tell if we were doing it as friends.

Lily was beautiful. Was it queer of me to notice, or just normal? Or was the queer part that I kept noticing all the dozens of tiny ways she was beautiful? That I never stopped noticing, because as long as she was around, I couldn’t look away? I could close my eyes and picture her, the smooth, soft expanse of skin, the shape of her eyes, the unevenness of her front teeth when she smiled. The beauty mark above her mouth, the way her hair came to a point at the nape of her neck. The soft mauve of her lips. The woodsy silage of her perfume.

I’d never known I could like a girl like this. It was how I liked boys, but it was also completely different. I liked the way boys’ arms felt around me, and how confident they were, how loud and boisterous. How being around them could make me feel like such a girl, instead of such a misfit.

It would be so much easier if you just got a letter, like in Harry Potter. You’re a wizard, Harry. You’re bisexual, Sasha.

But I didn’t know that for sure. Maybe there wasn’t a label for what I was, other than weird and different. Maybe plenty of straight girls imagined what it would be like to kiss their friends.

Then Lily smiled at me, and in that moment, I knew that it didn’t matter how hard I pushed it down, or locked it up or tried to explain it as nothing. My feelings weren’t going away. And least, not while Lily was around.

So we danced, because we were teenage girls at a concert, and it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Yes! You guys look sooooo hot,” Friya said, coming over to dance with us.

Lily rolled her eyes as Friya bumped her hips against ours, glancing thirstily toward the stage.

“Come on,” Cole groaned. “All three of you now?”

“Stay back,” Lily warned him. “None of your bullshit is allowed up in here.”

“It’s a conspiracy,” Ryland shouted, accidentally sloshing his Coke. “I’m sure of it.”

And then he stiffened, grabbing my arm.

“Look—Mabel’s here,” he said dramatically.

I swiveled around, and sure enough, she’d come with a group of drama kids. Her dress was amazing, black and gauzy and sheer. Her lips were deep red and her eyelids sparkled with glitter. But most important, Adrian was nowhere in sight.

“Go say hi!” Lily and I urged.

Ryland protested, but Lily literally shoved him over there. And then we watched as he danced with Mabel and her drama crowd friends, who seemed to totally get what was going on, and more than that, to encourage it.

It was barely nine thirty when Lily and I got back home. Our friends’ band had gone on laughably early, and they’d kicked out everyone who didn’t have a twenty-one-plus wristband at nine.

I didn’t have to be home for another hour, and I fought the disappointment that the night was over.

“Want to come in?” Lily asked.

“Sure,” I said. “That would be great, I mean, I have like an hour until my curfew, so.”

God. I hated how awkward and in my own head I was being. It was like one moment we were talking about nothing, and the next I was babbling.

Lily’s parents were in the kitchen, splitting a bottle of wine. Well, Lily’s mom and Adam’s dad. Lily’s mom was gorgeous, even in an oversized Berkeley sweatshirt and yoga pants. Adam’s dad was completely bald, with the kindest smile on the planet and Adam’s chin exactly. And then there was Gracie, in her Star Wars pajamas, lying on the rug, playing on an iPad.

“This must be the infamous Sasha,” Mr. Ziegler said, beaming.

“Unless there are two of us,’” I joked, returning his handshake and inwardly cringing, even though he laughed politely.

“You girls hungry?” Mrs. Chen asked. “I can make scrambled eggs and tomato.”

My heart twisted at the offer.

“No thanks,” Lily said.

And then we were faced with a barrage of parent questions. When we finally went to make our escape to the backyard, Gracie reached out and grabbed my ankle.

“Hi,” she said, rolling over on the carpet and staring up at me with wide dark eyes. Her hair was brown like Adam’s and wavy like Lily’s. “Are you Lily’s girlfriend?”

Everyone laughed. But Gracie was completely serious.

I wish, I wanted to say.

Instead, I shook my head. “Just her friend. And your neighbor. I live with my grandparents two doors down.”

Gracie sat up, blinking at me.

“You do?” she said. “They have the best dog! We take care of her when they’re out of town. I taught her how to play find the ball. It’s a game where you hide the ball and—”

“She gets it, Grace Kelly,” Lily said. “Isn’t it your bedtime?”

“Baba said I could play five more minutes.”

“That was ten minutes ago,” Mr. Ziegler called, coming over and swooping her up. “Say good night, Gracie.” Gracie giggled as her dad spun her around, and I felt this stab of sadness at the thought of my own dad. I glanced at Lily, and I could tell she felt it too.

“Glad that’s over,” Lily said when we stepped into the backyard. “My family can be a lot.”

“I think it’s nice,” I said. “I almost died when Gracie asked if I was your girlfriend.” The words slipped out, and my cheeks burned.

“Oh god,” Lily groaned. “She asks if everyone is my girlfriend. Even our cousins. My mom accidentally overdid it with the whole ‘girls can have girlfriends’ talk.”

“Oh,” I said, trying not to let my disappointment show.

“She’s the most woke six-year-old on the planet,” said Lily.

The grass felt soft and wet under my sneakers. It was strange being here, realizing how close my grandparents’ house was, just a couple hundred feet, just two fences. Strange how it felt like so much more usually, but tonight, how it felt like so much less.

Lily’s house didn’t have a pool, like my grandparents’ did. Instead, there was a pergola overlooking the ocean and the enormous trampoline. Lily scrambled onto it, and I joined her, surprised at the coldness of the fabric. It was easy to forget how much of California was a desert, and how after the sun went down, it didn’t matter how warm it had been during the day. The nights were always chilly.

Inside her house, the downstairs lights snapped off. The night air draped around us, salty and cool.

“Which one’s your room again?” Lily asked as we sat cross-legged on the trampoline.

I pointed.

“Mine’s on the other side,” she said, disappointed.

“I know,” I said, a little too quickly, and then reminded her, “I’ve been there before.”

“Oh.” Lily laughed. “Right.”

She lay down on the trampoline, her hair fanning around her face. I lay down, too, next to her. It felt achingly intimate, the two of us there, staring up at the sky.

“The stars here are terrible,” I said. They were much better where I was from. In Bayport, they were dulled and blurry, barely anything.

“Good thing we’re not here for the stars,” Lily said, her smile stretching wide. Her head was turned toward me in the dark, and I shivered, from the cold but also from something else.

“Do you know about the airplane curfew?” Lily asked, which I wasn’t expecting.

“All the teenage airplanes have to be home before midnight?” I joked.

“Terrible, but no. Orange County has this curfew where flights can’t land after ten p.m. If they come in late, they have to reroute up to Los Angeles.”

“Weird,” I said. “Why?”

“Rich people complained about the noise.” Lily shrugged. “Anyway, when my mom and I moved here, I had trouble falling asleep somewhere new, so I made up this game. You wait until just before ten o’clock, which it is right now. And then you guess which is going to be the last plane allowed to land. And you see if you’re right. But you only get one try.”

“I’ll play you,” I said.

We stretched back on the trampoline. Our shoulders were so close. My right arm, her left, a matching set.

High above us, I saw the blinking light of an airplane.

“Last plane,” I said.

“We’ll see.” Lily grinned.

We lay there a moment, breathing quietly in the darkness, waiting. And then another plane angled across the sky.

“You lose. Last plane,” Lily called.

We waited a minute, and then another.

Lily held up her phone. It was 10:01.

“I win,” she said, propping herself up on her elbow.

She was facing me, and she was so close, and so happy, and I don’t know what came over me in that moment, but I leaned toward her and brushed my lips against hers.

It was the kiss I’d wished for as we danced beneath the stage. It was the kiss that had been threatening to spill out, and now it had, pure and sweet and terrifying.

I expected the earth to shift, the ocean to rise up, the stars to drop like ripe plums into the soft grass. And for a moment, it felt as though they might. Because Lily was kissing me back. Her warm lips, her wicked tongue, and mine. Oh god. Mine.

The whole world started to spin, and then Lily pulled away, her face asking a question that I wasn’t ready to answer.

“That was unexpected,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” I gasped. “I—sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Lily said, grabbing the front of my shirt in her fist and pulling me back for another.

We kissed under the blurred stars, on that cold trampoline. I reached up and ran a hand through her hair, and it was in that moment that I remembered—I was kissing a girl.

I pulled away. My heart was hammering, and I was the good kind of dizzy, and I didn’t want it to stop, but I needed it to stop.

Everything was overwhelming all of a sudden, and I realized that I was hyperventilating.

“I have to go,” I said.

I hopped off the trampoline and ran through her backyard, toward the safety of my grandparents’ house. Toward the safety of being someone I wasn’t, which of course wasn’t safety at all.