Page 31

I’d lost count of how many times I’d said, “I’m sorry.”

When I was younger, my father forced me to apologize every time he thought I messed up.

When I ruined my new chinos helping Mom work on the family SUV?

“I’m sorry.” When I stayed up late binge-reading Sawyer’s X-Men fanfic and got an A minus on my history test?

“I’m sorry.” When I blew my allowance on concert tickets instead of saving it like he’d wanted? “I’m sorry.”

Those two words were said so often they’d lost their meaning.

They would fall out of my mouth without me feeling it.

Two stones worn smooth from the steady stream of apologies.

Now, I was starting to remember how to be sorry.

There was a difference between saying it because someone else thought I should and saying it because I was in the wrong.

And this time, I knew.

I knew why Sawyer had gotten mad. I knew that I deserved it after disregarding her concerns. I knew there wasn’t a way to go back in time and make it right without the Doctor and a TARDIS. I knew it was too late to change what I’d done.

However, it wasn’t too late to do something about it.

With a deep breath, I raised my hand and knocked twice on the basement door.

Silence pulsed as I stood there in my sweaty, disgusting clothes.

After cleaning the garage, I’d come straight over to Sawyer’s.

This was too urgent for me to meander upstairs, shower, procrastinate, let fear keep me from making amends.

I had to talk to her before something bad could happen again.

I knocked louder, and then the knob finally rattled.

The door swung open, revealing Sawyer in her oversized pajamas and gaming headphones.

A bemused expression crossed her face as she stared at me.

I braced myself to be scathed, for her to continue our argument from the last time I was here.

But then she rushed forward and caught me off guard with a tight hug.

“Z,” she sighed. “I’ve been calling, texting—Are you okay?”

“Hey,” I said hesitantly, ignoring her question. “Sorry, my phone is…” Where? I tried to remember. Flashes of bodies rushing to escape, the mayor and his megaphone, the fear, came rushing back. I cleared my throat. “Guess you heard what happened, then?”

“My dad told me.” She took a step back and motioned for me to come inside. “It was all over the local news last night. People bragged about Mayor Buchanan shutting down an ‘illegal’ event, and I knew it had to be the speakeasy.”

“Oh,” I said absently, my eyes adjusting to the dim lighting of the bachelorette pad.

The TV was bright with a Final Fantasy game on pause. The screen’s glow washed over her face as she sat back in her nest of blankets. “Are you okay?” she asked again.

“I, um…” I shrugged and perched on the arm of the sectional. “Shaken up, I guess.”

“Cohen is too,” she said, twirling her blue-tipped hair.

Memories of last night flashed through my mind again, on a constant loop ever since it happened.

I tried to smile at her, to play it off like I always had, but that panicked fear twisted my mouth into a grimace.

“You were right,” I began, glancing away from her focused stare.

“I get it now, and I’m sorry I ruined everything. ”

“Z.” My nickname was softly spoken. So soft it made me look back up. Her eyes were as glassy as mine felt. “I don’t care about—”

“No,” I interrupted. “I was being reckless, and now the mayor is targeting us just like you said…and with that One Lifestyle ordinance…when he gets reelected, there won’t be a QSA or anything queer in Beggs.”

“It’s not a guarantee that he’ll win.” Her voice was quiet, laced with remorse. “And I’m sorry for how I treated you. It wasn’t fair of me to push you—”

“I deserved it.”

She shook her head. “No, you didn’t. It’s my fault. If I’d helped out, maybe things would’ve been different.”

“How is it your fault?” I asked, thrown off by her admission. “You didn’t ignore the danger. That’s all on me.”

“But if I hadn’t pushed you out, then you wouldn’t have had to do everything alone…It’s supposed to be my responsibility as QSA president to…I dunno, make this place safe? That’s all I wanted, and I failed.”

“No, you didn’t,” I countered. “You got Beggs its first ever Pride Day, and it would’ve been incredible if it hadn’t been canceled.”

“Look where that led, though.” She pushed her wire-frame glasses up in her hair, rubbing at her eyes. “The mayor is using it to his advantage, and…” Her eyes went distant, unfocused. It was clear she was flipping through her memories just like I’d been.

“I was at his rally…and I don’t think it would’ve made a difference if we’d had Pride Day or not. He’ll do anything to get reelected.”

She leveled her gaze at me. “ Why did you even go to that rally?” she pressed.

“I went to the rec center for the mentorship program, but the mayor shut it down. I was so mad and wanted to let him know how much of a jackass he is. When I got there…Saw, it was terrifying. Seeing all those people, hearing what they were saying about me—about us. I panicked.”

“God, Z. I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing,” I said with a forced laugh. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I let the speakeasies go to my head because…”

“Because why?”

I chewed my bottom lip while everything the JACass had ever said weighed down on me. “My, uh, my father. You know how strict he is?” She nodded. “Well, it was more than that. He wouldn’t let me be out.”

“He what ?”

That overwhelming guilt I’d once felt bubbled in my gut as I tried to find the right words to explain it. “He said that if people didn’t know who I was, it’d make life easier for me.”

I could see her connecting the dots. “And then the divorce. That’s why you finally agreed to join the QSA last semester?”

“All I wanted was to be like you.”

“Like me?”

“You know, out and proud. Doing something. Not hiding who you are. And my father, all he ever told me was to stop acting so gay all the time.”

She scooted down the sofa and reached out to grasp ahold of my hand. “Why didn’t you say something?” she asked with a gentle squeeze, and I shrugged. “You didn’t have to deal with that alone.”

I thought back to all the times he’d made me apologize for being myself, for any time I slipped up and did something too overtly queer for his liking. “Do you remember when we played dodgeball at recess, and you’d beat my ass?”

“Thought we agreed not to talk about my bully days,” she said with a weak laugh, crossing her arms over her chest.

“But that’s exactly how it felt living with my father.

I kept having to dodge him over and over again.

Then it was easier to just sit there and let it happen.

I was tired of fighting it, even convinced myself that I needed to be quiet to survive.

Then you were out there, being loud and not giving a damn. ”

“I might’ve given a little bit of a damn,” she admitted. “People started treating me differently. The dude bros fetishized me, and the other girls in our class came at me with microaggressions in the locker room.”

“It didn’t stop you from speaking up,” I reminded her. “I wish I didn’t just stay quiet and let it happen.”

“You haven’t been quiet this month,” she pointed out. “I really meant it when I said I was proud of you for stepping up. You have nothing to apologize for. The speakeasies brought everyone in Beggs together to celebrate.”

“Look where that led,” I countered. “It only gave Buchanan even more of an advantage—”

“But it also made Carmen Bedolla want to challenge him.” She cut me off. “Having the speakeasies might’ve done something bad, but that doesn’t outweigh the good they brought to this town.”

I nodded as her words sank in. My hands ached to grab a tool, to take apart an engine and put it back together. “I just wish, I dunno, that I could fix everything.”

“You can’t,” she said, not unkindly. “None of us can.”

Silence filled the basement, the hum of her PS5 droning in the background.

I didn’t want to believe none of us could make it right.

After the shit I’d been through, I thought I was finally in control of my life.

But it turned out that I’d been letting my fear influence me.

Fear of being like my father, of not being worthy, of disappointing anyone who got to know me.

“I’m glad Cohen swooped in to save your ass,” she added, her voice cutting the tension with a small laugh. “It could have been so much worse.”

The mirror ball shimmered behind my eyelids with every blink.

A flash of its emerald reflection, the bass thumping in my chest, Cohen rushing in.

Then its glisten became moonlight. Cohen and me outside the nature preserve and the revelation that he was bedmas_22.

The embarrassment jabbed at my rib cage like a dull blade.

“I’m high-key impressed he did it,” she continued.

I shot her a silent question. She tilted her head to the side, eyes narrowed in thought.

“I mean, it’s a known fact that he’s terrified of getting into trouble.

But he agreed to help with the speakeasy and risked being caught in a raid to warn you—” She gasped, her eyes lighting up.

“Kennedy and I knew he still liked you.”

“Uh…” I didn’t even know how to begin to tell her about bedmas_22.

“And you like him too!” she added with a giddy squeal.

“No, I don’t!” My voice spiked with anger, my face growing hot. The annoying heat spread to my chest, then to my back where he’d sat against me with his arms around my waist.

“I beg your most finest pardon, but consensus says that you’ve liked him since mathletes, Z.” She shook her head with a smile. “Oh my god, I love this for you.”

“Abso-fuckin-lutely not,” I said quickly. “We’re not bringing up Extremely Shit-tacular Freshman Fall right now.”

“It’s obvious there’s something between you two.”

“There are more pressing things to worry about,” I continued, ignoring her smirk. “So much bad shit is happening in Beggs, and now that Pride Month is over, I feel kinda useless. I don’t know what to do now.”

“Okay…” A moment passed while she collected herself. Focus mode was back, Cohen forgotten, while she narrowed her eyes in thought. “What if we had more speakeasies—and were more discreet this time?” she suggested, and I flinched as those same flashes flickered through my mind at warp speed. “What?”

“I c-can’t. Not again.” My heart rate sped up, taking me back to last night, to the mayor’s rally, to all the times I’d felt like a failure.

She reached for her phone with determination.

Her fingers tapped the screen rapidly, and then she looked up in triumph.

“I messaged the group chat. We need to have a QSA meeting,” she said matter-of-factly.

Her phone dinged almost immediately with a new message, and she read it.

“Damn that was fast. They’re on their way so we can figure it out together. ”

“We?” I asked, unsure if I should leave. “Does this mean I’m back in the QSA, or…”

She grimaced and flashed a tight smile. “I’m sorry I threatened to kick you out.”

“I deserved it, to be honest.” I ran a hand through my hair, smoothing it back as I let out a deep sigh. “I’m sorry I was a Zasshole and let everything go to my head.”

“You’re forgiven if you make me two promises.”

“What?” I asked cautiously, unsure of where she was going.

“One, that we resume our list of traditions, because I owe you a sneaky birthday breakfast,” she began, and I nodded, “and two, that you won’t sit back and let people like your dad keep you quiet.” She pointed at me then herself. “ We have to speak up.”

I thought back to the first night I’d climbed up above Jones Hardware to paint the billboard.

How a halo had hovered over the town square from the streetlamps, pushing darkness to the outskirts of town.

That was where they wanted people like me, like Sawyer and the QSA, to stay.

We were tired of it, tired of feeling unwelcome in our own town.

Something had to be done, and maybe we could figure it out.

“I titty promise,” I finally said, bringing a hand to my chest, and she did the same.