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Skyler nods. “You don’t have to hide that if you don’t want to. You know they don’t really care what your parents do, right?”

“What my mom does. It’s just her.”

“I’m sorry,” he says in this tone I’ve never heard. “I’m sorry it got weird. Family shit can be complicated.”

And if that isn’t the most succinct way of summing it up, in pure Skyler fashion.

I paste on a smile, trying to push away the swirl of feelings that this conversation has dragged to the surface. My chest won’t tighten if I don’t let it. My breathing can remain calm. Not thinking about him, not going there, not now. I am in control.

“It can indeed. It’s a wonder all of us are so normal and well adjusted.”

Then Skyler gives me this goofy grin. “Is it weird to say I missed you over the holidays?”

And that’s when I finally break. I have to know the truth. “You really like hanging out? With me?”

Skyler just blinks at me. “Did we not just spend the whole day hanging out?”

I can’t help laughing at that, because maybe I really am an idiot. My smile is unforced now. Easier. “No, we did—I’m just… I guess I’ve just wondered if maybe you felt obligated because we live together. The whole making friends thing—it’s something I’m still trying to figure out on this coast, I guess.”

“You have to put yourself out there.”

“But it seems to come easy to you. That day when you put together that game of Ultimate Frisbee, you’d just met all those guys and they were immediately on board with playing. That doesn’t happen in Seattle.”

“I don’t think it’s regional,” Skyler says, tossing a wink to a girl giving him a very clear once-over. “But if we’re being real, I haven’t seen any of those guys since then. I mean, I’ve seen them around campus, but I haven’t spent quality time with them. Maybe I know a lot of people, maybe I have a lot of friends, but they’re not the kind of people I can really be myself with, I guess. The kind of people I can open up to.” It’s to his credit that he’s able to follow up the casual arrogance of “Maybe I have a lot of friends” with something truly genuine. “You know how you had, uh, a certain reputation in high school?”

“I was a nerd. You can say it.”

He laughs, swipes a hand through his floppy hair. “Well… I was a bit of a partier. I was the guy with the older siblings who could get alcohol, the guy with the parents who didn’t care if anyone came over and drank or smoked. People came to me for a good time, but that was pretty much it.”

None of this is too surprising, and yet—

“That’s not what you wanted?”

“Back then, maybe. I liked the attention. The status. But now that I’m here… no, I don’t think it’s what I want. Not all the time, at least.” He gestures between the two of us. “I don’t think I’ve had a meaningful conversation with anyone not related to me in a long time. Being around Adhira again is making me realize just how much of an ass I was in high school. I was trying so hard to prove myself to people, to be the life of the party… and it’s only recently that I’ve decided I don’t really care what anyone else thinks about me. I don’t have to try so fucking hard.”

Even if he and I had significantly different levels of popularity, I can relate to that: the trying so fucking hard. The fatigue that accompanies that kind of effort.

“I think I might want those deep-level friendships? Like, I still want to have fun, but I’m pretty sure I can have both,” Skyler continues. “And you’re nonjudgmental. I feel relaxed around you, like I could tell you anything and you’d still think I’m a decent human being.”

I am so touched by this, I’m not sure I could put it into words. At the beginning of the year, I thought Skyler was so surface level that we’d have nothing in common. I assumed he wouldn’t want to be friends with me, so I created space between us, when all this time he’s wanted a close friendship just as much as I have.

“Of course. Of course you can.”

“I’m not hanging out with you because of obligation,” he emphasizes, and then turns the question on me. “Are you?”

I shake my head. “At first I thought I’d have dinner with you and your dad and then we’d be polite to each other, but we’d eventually have completely separate lives. But being here is more overwhelming than I thought it would be, and I think you might be helping me get out of my shell. And convincing me that Staten Island is a hidden gem of the tristate area.”

Skyler laughs, but I can tell he’s touched, too. “We’re really bonding, huh,” he says with a nudge of my arm.

“I think we are.” I can feel my own body relaxing as I stretch out my much shorter legs, shoulders finally settling against the back of the bench.

“Speaking of putting yourself out there. I have something I should probably tell you.” For the very first time in the nearly six months I’ve known him, Skyler looks nervous. It’s a bit like seeing a golden retriever refuse to play fetch. “I, uh, might have feelings for Adhira?”

I have to bite back a smile—it’s far from a surprise. “I’ve been wondering about that.”

He lets out a long whoosh of breath. “Shit. It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“Actually, no. Both of you flirt, but that’s also just a you thing. I’ve seen you do it with the janitorial staff and the people who work in the dining hall, and—”