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Let me try to explain it. Think of a song you know completely by heart. Not just the melody and lyrics. I mean the one you

know so well your body anticipates every shift in tempo. Think of a song that feels like the inside of your brain.

Got it? Okay, now imagine this: you press play, and someone’s added an extra bass line. Or a tiny change in intonation; an

extra beat of silence.

That’s my friendship with Nat. Most of the time, it’s business as usual. Same notes, same beat, same arrangement.

And then we’ll get a key change out of nowhere. Or there’s a brand-new riff before the chorus.

It’s like a tiny itch in the back of my brain. I don’t fully know how to make sense of it. Maybe it’s just a thing that happens

sometimes when you’re both queer.

I always thought it was the funniest coincidence—even more so when you factor in Zora. Best friends since kindergarten, and

all three of us turned out to be queer. If it weren’t for Mark, we’d have a perfect success rate.

I don’t really think it’s a coincidence, though. Maybe on some level, we knew. It just took us a while to know that we knew.

It took some of us longer than others, I fear.

Out of the three of us, I was the first to kiss a girl, but the last to know why. Because even after Talia Schecter and the boathouse, I still felt like a straight girl. That’s the weird part. I felt like a straight girl who maybe liked girls.

Me and my beautiful marble-smooth brain.

Words like queer , words like bi —they were like a new pair of shoes. Cute and properly sized, but they weren’t quite mine. I hadn’t broken them in yet.

It probably didn’t help that camp was so far from real life. It barely felt like it belonged to the world as we knew it. A

week after it ended, I was half-convinced I’d dreamed the whole thing. Not just the kissing. Even the feelings felt fake.

Two weeks into eighth grade, Natalie officially came out. Not at school; that was down the line. But to her family, and us.

And then Zora countered by dropping a gay bombshell of her own. The ultimate Uno reverse card.

Maybe I should have grabbed the baton and run with it. I wouldn’t have even had to change the topic.

The thing is, gay stuff was always the topic that fall. Quite frankly, I don’t know how Mark, Token Hetero ? , survived it. Natalie and Zora spent weeks comparing notes on which Disney princesses had them in chokeholds, what it felt

like seeing girls kiss in TV shows. The common ground was endless, and they were endlessly fascinated by it.

But things got fuzzy when I tried to play along in my head.

Zora and Nat were so certain about things—queerness was never a question for either of them. Even before they knew it, they knew. So what did it mean

that I didn’t?

Online, there were quizzes and columns, thousands and thousands of comments. But nothing was clicking.

Is My Girl Crush a Real Crush?

Help! I Don’t Know If I’m Gay!

How Do I Know If I’m in Love with My—

It was unnerving. I’d never been the kind of person to second-guess myself, but I was an absolute pancake. I couldn’t stop

flipping. I had to be queer, because no straight girl would be this hung up on the question. But then again, I had to be straight.

After all, no queer girl would be this unsure of the answer.

The problem is: you can’t fully remember a feeling. You think you do, but it’s actually just a mental transcription. Your

brain says, my stomach fluttered , but the flutter isn’t what you remember. It’s the thought. Almost like an echo.

Exactly like Walter said in his coming-out video.

The only thing feelings can do is fade.

I talk Zora into riding the Galaxi coaster—followed by the bumper cars, the Scrambler, and the bumper cars again. But as soon

as we settle in for a snack break, she leaves to call Edith. And I can’t even give her shit for it since Edith is the undisputed

queen of logistics this weekend. She’s the one who tracked down two empty dorm rooms for tomorrow when we realized every single

hotel near the college is booked solid for graduation weekend. Walter-Holland-Consult-a-Calendar-Before-Setting-Your-Event-Date-Challenge:

impossible. If Edith is the queen of logistics, Walter’s the king of the logistical nightmares.

So now it’s just the twins and me on the dandelion bench, where we proceed to annihilate a full bag of cotton candy. Nutritious and delicious. In related news, the Tilt-A-Whirl might be off the table for a while.

Natalie pats her stomach. “Arcade, maybe?”

Immediate verbal yes and a nod from Mark—for him, that’s pep rally–level enthusiasm. But I can’t sign off on this plan. Not yet.

“Hear me out. One more ride.” My eyes flick sideways. “Nothing dizzy.”

Natalie looks suspicious. “Tell me you’re not talking about the fun house.”

“It’ll be great! Just a nice silly time—”

“I don’t want a silly time. Not with them .”

“Who, those two?” I smile up at the clowns, turning back to Natalie. “You don’t think they’re kind of sweet?”

“I do not.”

“But they look so happy up there.”

We’re directly in front of Laffland now—close enough to see the brightly painted figures on the side of its structure. Just

a couple of deeply wholesome, upbeat, family-friendly illustrations. A larger-than-life decapitated skeleton, for example.

A giant horned demon. Possibly Satan.

“They’re ironic demons,” I explain. “That’s why it’s called Laffland. You’re supposed to laugh at them.”

“Laughing at demons.” Mark nods. “That always ends well.”

Natalie turns to me, anguished. “Why does the floating beard head have that face ?”

“Excellent question! Let’s find out.”

“Okay! I’m gonna...” Mark trails off, pointing vaguely at Playland next door.

“Markatron, are you scared of Laffland?”

“One of those clowns just winked at me,” Natalie murmurs.

“Nice. You should give him your number.” I tug her sleeve. “Come on!”

There’s no one in line. Literally no one. The ride operator is a grizzled-looking white dude with a moustache, who grunts

at our wristbands and ushers us into the ride car.

No seat belts, no lap bar, no safety restraints. The car lurches forward, and a door slams shut behind us. Then another door

creaks open, and we’re plunged into darkness.

“Alexa, play ‘The Sound of Silence,’” I say, nudging Natalie sideways. She snorts, opening her mouth to respond. But then

we’re jerked toward a glowing demon head before she can even choke out the first syllable.

Natalie grips the edge of the seat, suddenly breathless. “This place is actually terrifying.”

“Hey, it’s fine! You think I’d let a malevolent horned succubus emerge from the depths of hell to suck out every last flicker

of light from your soul?”

“That is... oddly specific.”

A jump-scare demon lights up out of nowhere, and Natalie yelps.

I scoot closer, grabbing her hand, and she freezes. Just for a moment. But then she turns her hand just a little, tucking

it more neatly into mine. By a skeleton’s light, I catch her glancing at me, mouth opening tentatively. But then—nothing.

The sound of silence. And demons. And my own fucking heartbeat. Amazing. Now back to you, Brain, for some real-time narration

about how my stomach’s fluttering.

But then the exit doors slide open, and somehow our hands disentangle. The ride spits us out where we started.

Natalie pulls her phone out as soon as we’re back on the platform. “Hey, you’ll never guess who bailed and walked home.”

“Not Marky Mark!”

She holds her phone up. “Says he wants to beat the—”

Suddenly, it’s raining—and not the gentle kind. It’s the kind that slaps the ground so hard, it almost ricochets. Niagara

Falls, out of nowhere.

“—rain,” Natalie finishes, with a startled little head shake.

A laugh bubbles up in my throat. “The fact that we’re not soaked right now.”

By some miracle of timing, we’re still on that tiny stretch of platform, completely covered by the overhang. And since the

moustache guy seems to have abandoned his post, it’s literally just us, Satan, and the decapitated skeleton. “Thank you,”

I say. “Thank you, demon guardians.”

“Nope.” She squeezes her eyes shut. “Absolutely not.”

The ride car’s still parked on the track just behind us—we could easily reclaim it, if we wanted. Not to run through the actual

ride again. But we could settle onto the seat and watch the rain. Like a drive-in movie. It would actually be really nice.

Natalie looks up from her phone. “Okay, Zora said just text her when we’re ready, and Aunt Jojo will come pick us up.”

“My hero.” I look out at the rain still pounding the concrete and gushing from the edges of benches. Flattening every dandelion

into oblivion. “Wow. I don’t even think we could make it to the car without getting washed out to sea.”

“I mean, technically, we’d be washed out to lake.”

“Or pushed into lake.” I nod gravely.

She bites back a smile. “Okay, question. How much would you hate it if we got, like... a little bit soaked?”

“Counter-question,” I say, raising my hand like a schoolgirl. “Is ‘soaked’ a euphemism in this context?”

“No.”

“Is it—”

“Not a double entendre.” She shakes her head, smiling. “I was just thinking... we never made it to the arcade, did we?”

“We most certainly did not!”

“And you know how I feel about coin pushers.”

“You love them,” I say. “You’d get wet for them.”

“Okay, you’re actually insufferable.” She scrunches her nose, but she’s smiling.

I smile back. “It’s an art.”