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“Mostly good.”

“Mostly?”

“Yeah.” The dimple appears as his mouth upturns. “We’ll leave it at that. That’s all I want to focus on.”

Somehow, all my fingers have claimed his. He squeezes.

“Coming out is,” he pauses, making a face.

“A lot.”

“A lot,” he repeats.

It really is. It’s this secret that’s all yours for so long. Then you suddenly have to share it for whatever reason and hope people are okay with it, or not. You suddenly have to prepare for the good, the bad, and the zombie apocalypse. Coming out is freeing. It’s terrifying. It’s monumental and amazing and draining. But it’s yours.

“I’m not ready to march into school on Monday and tell everyone,” he says.

“You don’t have to tell anyone.”

“I know. But I want to. I can. I will.”

“Okay.”

He looks away for a second, then steps closer. “I did this because I know who I am. I’m okay with me. And I want you to know I’m okay with us.”

“With us?”

“Yes,” he says, earnest and happy. “I did this because I deserve to be happy with a boy. I’m ready to tell the world that.”

There’s that word again:Deserve. My favorite word.

“So,” I swallow and grin, “can I kiss you?”

“No.” I flinch. But he smiles so wide, his glasses are touching his eyebrows. “I’m going to kiss you.”

He does. Ian’s chilly fingers brush my Dopey-ears, and his thumbs frame my jaw. He kisses me. His nose bumps mine, we re-configure, and I kiss him back. He tastes like matcha, and he feels like nerves and excitement.

Like a rollercoaster at night.

Like a boy who knows he loves me.

28

“Well, that was quite thepresentation today, wasn’t it?” Ms. Amos is sitting on her desk, short legs and tiny feet swinging. She smiles in that way adults do when they’re presenting a rhetorical question. I’m at a desk in the front row. School’s over, and the last GSA meeting before Thanksgiving break starts in five minutes. But, after my essay presentation, she asked to talk. I can’t exactly turn her down.

“Um.”

She lifts a hand. “It wasn’t bad.”

“It wasn’t great.”

“Well, it wasn’t all flashy like Sara’s. It certainly didn’t have the soundtrack Alex’s did.” She giggles. “Is that how you felt about it?”

I bite the inside of my cheek, almost shrugging.

She folds her hands across her lap. She’s holding an essay—probably mine.

“I tried really hard,” I start to explain, because it feels as though she wants one, or I owe her one.