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“I mean, not that it’s a secret,” she says, her voice quaking a little more with each word, “and not that I haven’t known for a while. I’m making it sound like this is my big coming out moment. It’s not. I’ve told other people. I—I mean, I haven’t told a lot of people, but I don’t want you to think you’re, like, the first person ever, and I…I don’t know why I’m making this so weird.”

She forces a shaky laugh and glances at me before looking away and pressing her lips into a thin line.

“It’s not weird.”

Despite the jubilant refrain of the queer angels on high still echoing in my head, my voice comes out steady and reassuring.

“And trust me,” I add, “you’re talking to the queen of making things weird.”

She huffs another laugh, this one sounding a little less fake than the first, and her posture loosens a bit.

“Thanks.”

A moment of silence passes before she shrugs.

“So, uh, now you know,” she says.

I nod, my heart pounding like a jackhammer in my chest. “Yeah, um, now I know.”

CHAPTER 12

Naomi

Istand in front of the full-length mirror in my bedroom, holding my hair aside with one hand so I can squint at my piercing and assure myself it’s really there.

Yesterday really happened.

The me who graduated high school a few weeks ago would never have gotten a piercing. She wouldn’t have touched even a speck of marijuana. She wouldn’t have been able to put enough sentences together to make a new friend, and that new friend certainly wouldn’t be one of the coolest and hottest girls in the world.

That new friend wouldn’t be someone she just spent a whole night thinking about kissing while her heart thundered with something dangerously close to hope.

When we made our summer bucket list while giggling and tipsy on wine, I imagined a version of me who could really do all the things we wrote down. I imagined what it would be like to rip through every page I’ve ever read until I was the girl doing things, not the girl burying herself in books to spend every day reading about the people who make things happen.

I thought that’s all I’d do: imagine her.

I thought that’s where it would end—the same place every possibility of a different life or a different me always ends: in my head.

My hands shake even more, and I realize it’s because I’m breathing so heavy, pulling in sharp bursts of air through my nose until my head starts to feel all fuzzy.

What’s happening to me?

The rap of someone’s knuckles on my door splits the silence of the bedroom.

“Hey, you in there?” Andrea’s voice asks, muffled by the door.

I let my hair fall back into place as my heart leaps into my throat. I try to come up with the words to answer, but all I can think about is her crouched beside me in the bookstore yesterday, so close I could count every one of her freckles while she read the description of Sizzling Sapphics and then admitted she’s attracted to girls.

I couldn’t look at her the whole ride home. Today I woke up at a quarter past seven to be sure she’d still be sleeping while I fed the cats. I’ve spent the rest of the morning locked in my room because I know there’s a very good chance that the second we’re face to face again, she’ll see everything.

She’ll see every first kiss scenario I spent last night playing out in my head like a dozen movies starring the two of us. She’ll see the way my hands shake at just the thought of holding hers. She’ll see all the excuses I’ve tried to batter into my brain only to have each and every one wiped out by a truth I can’t ignore anymore, not after what she told me yesterday.

I like her.

I don’t just think she’s hot and cool and impressive.

I like her, and I want her to like me back.

“Oh, um, yeah,” I answer, my attempt to sound natural just making my voice slide from way too high-pitched to way too low in the span of a couple words.