Page 38

The floorboards of my bedroom creaked with unrest, unease.

I kept readjusting the shirt I’d pulled on while I paced.

The collar was scratchy against my neck, circling my throat like a hand.

I checked the time on my phone, letting out a sigh, and tossed it onto the bed.

Any minute now, Cohen would pick me up. Then we’d go to the library with Sawyer and Kennedy to hang out, but I didn’t know if it was an actual date.

After all these damn years, I admonished, exhaling slowly through the nerves, why wasn’t I more specific when I asked?

My hands kept fidgeting, and I grabbed the cologne from my dresser to spritz myself. Ran my hands through my hair to try taming it again. It still felt surreal to think of Cohen as someone I was getting ready for, that we would hold hands and kiss until I’d want to other-stuff him…

The pride flag on the wall caught my eye, then the crumpled letter I’d taped beside it.

I’d fished it out of the trash yesterday, smoothing down the folds from Mom’s clenched fist. Its scolding red ink was a reminder that the mayor thought I’d done something wrong—that trying to make Beggs feel more like home was bad.

It only fueled my anger toward him and every hate-sign-carrying asshole from his rally.

And everything I was worried about suddenly felt insignificant.

The weight of reality forced me to sit on the edge of my bed.

There was more important shit happening in Beggs.

The rally was tomorrow, and I should be brainstorming ways to ensure a vote for Carmen would amount to something .

Running through our plan. Double-checking the details.

Anything other than being self-centered, with main-character energy.

“What the hell am I even doing right now?” I asked too loudly.

My outburst echoed through the apartment, and I hung my head.

Part of me was glad Mom had gone out to dinner with her new friends from book club.

Otherwise, she’d give me a first-date pep talk and only add more stress by mentioning condoms. Then again, another part of me wished she were here to tell me what to do.

Should I even be worrying about this? I groaned, snatching my phone off the quilt.

I swiped to unlock the screen and navigated to my favorite contacts.

Sawyer’s goofy display photo of smushed cheeks, puckered mouth, stared back at me as I tapped the video call icon.

Staccato beats rang three times before a chime sounded.

The screen lagged, Chappell Roan blasting through the speakers first, and then she appeared.

“I’m literally about to see you—” Sawyer began, but I cut her off without preamble.

“Helllllp,” I whined. “I’m freaking the F out. Gasket fully blown. Lid completely flipped.”

She blinked slowly, only one eye done in the little mascara she wore, and stepped out of frame. The music stopped mid-song as she returned. “What’s up, Z?” she asked, and then, squinting without her glasses: “Did you do something different with your hair?”

“Does it look bad?” I asked, voice lilting. “I combed it too much, and it got frizzy. So, I used some of my mom’s hairspray and…Why are you laughing?”

Her giggles echoed into my room, and she pointed the makeup wand at me. “Because you, of all people, are losing your shit.”

“What does that mean?” I countered.

“You’ve been with so many guys.” She held up her hand and counted. “Jonathan, Bailey, Zach—”

“?‘D appointments’ don’t matter,” I huffed, glancing back at the citation. “And I don’t even know if tonight matters either.”

“Oh, Z.”

“Don’t give me that look,” I said as she made a pouty face at the camera.

“It’s so precious how you and ‘the antagonistic fucker’?”—she quoted from all the times I’d shit-talked him—“are sooo enemies-to-lovers coded, and I’m here for it.”

My stomach churned at her use of the word lovers. “What do I do?” I asked quietly, anxiously smoothing my hair back.

“Seeing as I’m not well-versed in your preferred porn—”

“Not. That.” My face was on fire at the thought. “Like, how am I supposed to act tonight with everything that’s happening?”

The frame tilted back as she propped the phone up in front of her bathroom mirror. “Just be yourself,” she said, leaning in to finish her other eye.

“I don’t even know what that means anymore.” My sneakers thudded aggressively as my feet tapped like racing heartbeats. “It feels like I’ve been waiting forever for this, but now it’s here and”—I brought the phone closer for emphasis—“like how did you keep your cool with Kennedy?”

She laughed again, leveling her gaze at me. “I didn’t,” she explained, putting her glasses back on.

“Okay, that actually checks out,” I teased, and she stuck her tongue out at me. “So what happened?”

“I tripped in the parking lot of the restaurant, spilled my drink all over my shirt, snorted at one of her jokes that should’ve been a chuckle at most, and yeah.

It got worse from there. But it didn’t matter because she likes me.

Cohen likes you too, so stop stressing. Let whatever happens tonight… just happen.”

“I have a track record of messing shit up, Saw.”

“That’s not necessarily true. Well, on second thought”—she winked at me, holding up her thumb and forefinger—“maybe just a little true. But you’re also owning up to your mistakes and fixing them. That’s what matters.”

“I guess.”

“You’ll be fine,” she assured me. “Nothing is perfect, Z, and that’s okay as long as you’re trying. Even if tonight doesn’t go as planned, Cohen will understand. Worst case scenario, you can try again. There’s always the theater over in West Point or Founder’s Day or…”

She continued to ramble off suggestions, but I was stuck on Founder’s Day.

That implied “after the last speakeasy,” a reminder of the upcoming election for the new mayor of Beggs.

It made everything about right now feel trivial in comparison to what was to come.

“Sorry,” I interrupted her. “I know it’s stupid to worry about this when I need to focus on tomorrow’s rally. ”

“You’ve done all you can. We all have,” she said, bringing a hand to her chest. “I titty promise, it’s not stupid to be an actual person.

That’s what Mayor Buchanan and the state governor and even the Supreme Court of Dipshits want us to think, that we don’t deserve to be people too.

So don’t give them the satisfaction of dismissing your life. ”

We’ve done all we can. I hoped she was right. We had shown up instead of staying quiet, spoken up for our QSA—for everyone in this town. No matter what that citation declared, I knew what we’d done this summer was good. But is it enough?

“I’m waiting,” Sawyer added, her hand still on her chest.

Mirroring her, I brought my hand up. “I titty promise to not let political fuckwads keep me from living my life,” I vowed, hoping it was an oath I could keep. At least for tonight.

The running time for the old 2013 movie The Great Gatsby was nearly two and a half hours.

Every minute was spent wanting to kiss Cohen right there on the blanket.

We’d started off holding hands, electricity zapping between our fingers.

His head had found a place on my shoulder by the time the famous green light flashed in the closing scene.

Sawyer’s pep talk had calmed me down, settled my nerves enough to be bold.

Smoothly, I tilted his face up toward mine. He broke the kiss after a moment, leaning back to say, “I didn’t think it was that romantic of a movie.”

“I was too distracted to notice,” I admitted with a grin. His reactions to the movie had captured my attention. I couldn’t stop myself from watching him get lost in the story. Every time he smiled or laughed or widened his eyes in awe kept me here with him, not drifting into worry over tomorrow.

“Ah, yes. I don’t blame you,” he said through a laugh. “The themes of the American dream and social class, not to mention the irony of the Roaring Twenties and this summer—”

I kissed him again, and our tongues brushed ever so slightly as someone groaned beside us. He smiled against my lips before pulling back. Kennedy and Sawyer were wearing matching unamused expressions from the blanket next to us.

“I stand by my assertion,” Kennedy began, digging in her cheer tote. “This is so much worse.”

“So. Much. Worse,” Sawyer agreed, but she smiled at me like she had on the video chat. “Hurry up with those Takis before I die from this sweetness overload.”

“But I’m glad you two finally got your shit together,” Kennedy added. She set aside cans of leftover spray paint from the rally prep as she kept searching. Finally, much to Sawyer’s delight, she pulled out a bag of the Fuego flavored chips like a trophy. “It’s about time you went on a date anyway.”

Cohen choked, a gurgled cough of embarrassment. “We’re not…I didn’t tell her that, Zeke. Oh my god—”

“It’s okay,” I interrupted his spiral. “Besides, I’d like that.”

“For this to be a date?”

His whispered question was nearly lost in the sounds of people leaving the library’s lawn, the car doors slamming, the cicadas chirping.

Uncertainty lined his lips in a restrained smile.

Almost as though he was afraid if he gave into it, that I’d take it back.

That I’d pull a Mason and change my mind because of something inconsequential.

“Yes,” I said matter-of-factly.

“Me too,” he replied just the same way.

Sawyer snorted around the crunch of chips. “To think all it took for these two to stop fighting was political upheaval,” she said, pointing at us with a flaming-red-stained finger.

“What would y’all have done if Pride Day hadn’t been canceled?” Kennedy teased, grabbing Cohen’s camera from the blanket.

“Stooop,” Cohen said as a bright flash went off. Then he giggled as Kennedy snapped another picture of us. I had never heard him laugh like that before. It was soft, sweet even, and made my stomach flutter.

“This is too cute,” Kennedy said, looking at the viewfinder. “You have to post it to Insta.”

Cohen sat upright but kept leaning against me. “And to answer your question,” he directed at Kennedy, “I think Zeke would probably still be himself…ya know, a Zasshole.”

“Hey,” I said, shoving him playfully, and he winked at me.

“What’s worse than the word ‘worse’?” Sawyer muttered to Kennedy. “Because this is very much that. ”

They laughed, throwing digs at each other, but what he’d said about me being myself made me think of Sawyer’s promise.

It’s not stupid to be an actual person. Her words reverberated through me as I glanced over my shoulder.

Across the parking lot, two blocks down, I could see the billboard atop Jones Hardware.

The memory of being up there and panicking sent a wave of doubt crashing against me again.

But it receded as I held on to the fact that I wasn’t alone.

We were together, being ourselves despite the hate disguised by the haloed glow of Beggs.

“I think we’d still be here even if it hadn’t been canceled,” I said, tearing my attention away from the billboard. “Still fighting the never-ending bullshit.”

It was silent for a moment as they stared at me, and then Sawyer nodded as she understood what I meant. “We’d still have to fight anti–LGBTQ-plus bullshit,” she said.

“I’d still be nervous about being fully out in this crap town,” Kennedy added.

Cohen licked his bottom lip, catching my eye. “I would still be so preoccupied with planning my future that summer would have passed by without me knowing.” He gestured between us. “Without knowing what could be.”

I reached out and found his hand, a new habit that I didn’t want to break. “And I guess I’d still be fighting my father to be someone else.”

“I happen to like who you are,” Cohen said with a smirk. “Besides, your ‘Rebel’s Guide to Pride’ is what got us here.”

“It can only get us so far, though,” I admitted. We’d all done everything we could this summer, and there wasn’t a guarantee it was enough. “What’s our plan B if…if all our work amounts to nothing?”

“That’s easy,” Sawyer began, the headlights of a passing car glinting off her glasses. “We’ll fight for our Pride no matter what.”

“We don’t call ourselves the QS-SLAY for nothing,” Cohen added.

I fell silent as Kennedy brought up new-member orientation, absently staring at the spray paint by herbag.

Whatever happened next, we had to find ways to move forward—I had to keep moving forward.

When school started back up in a few weeks, I’d try to be a better student.

Get my life back on track. Keep working at Roaring Mechanics.

Maybe I’d take up Billy Peak’s offer to rejoin the baseball team for senior year, or maybe I’d try something entirely new. That was my choice to make now.

My future isn’t that billboard, I thought, casting a glance back at the square.

The kid in that ten-foot picture might’ve once had a life laid out before him, but I got to decide what I did next.

My first step toward who I wanted to be had come in the form of a giant graffitied penis.

I’d climbed up onto that catwalk to send a message to my father, to let him know he couldn’t control me.

Now Buchannan and his supporters were trying to control us.

Maybe we should send them a message too…

“I just had an idea for the rally tomorrow,” I said suddenly, twisting around. My eyes clocked each of their questioning stares before falling to the rainbow cans by Kennedy’s bag. “And I’m gonna need help.”