Coral sat on the picnic table—the table part, not the bench—so I joined her, leaving plenty of space between us. She was quiet for a few minutes, and I had no idea what to say either, but finally, she asked, “You’re nonbinary, right?”
My eyebrows rose in surprise. “I am, yeah.”
She nodded. “So, um, you use they/them pronouns? After you told everyone last year, I managed to get a couple of books about being nonbinary and stuff—I had never heard of it before then. So, um, I’m sorry if I mess up, but I’m going to try.”
My mouth fell open in surprise. No one, not even my own mother, had been this considerate to me. Ever.
My eyes stung with emotion, but I still had to ask, “Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
I blinked back the tears that wanted to fall.
I’d been terrified of meeting with Coral, scared of spending alone time with a girl I didn’t know. But she’d just given me the most precious gift I’d ever received, and I didn’t think she even realized just how wonderful it was, how amazing she was being right now.
She tilted her head to the side, staring at me now. “I know this is weird, and we didn’t really… well, I just…” She sighed. “Look, this sucks. We both know it. But maybe we can try to… be friends? Or something? Right? We’re both in this, no matter what we want, so…”
I stared at her for a few seconds, taking a breath to clear away the emotions—the last thing I needed was someone else seeing me like this. “I think I’d like that.”
She smiled, just a little. “You like to read, right? I’ve seen you with books.”
“I love it. What about you?” And she’d said she got ahold of some books about being nonbinary. That meant she was sneaking in things that weren’t allowed too.
Maybe… maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. Not if we could be friends. I’d never had a friend before.
A secret smile spread across her face. “I have so many books. Maybe we can trade a few or something. Like, not to keep, but just to read? It’s hard getting new books here sometimes, but I bet you have some I haven’t read before. Do you, uh… like any romance books?”
My eyes widened. “I love romance. And adventure, fantasy, sci-fi, anything like that.”
“Really? Me too! Those are my favorites.”
We shared a smile, and yeah, maybe we really could be friends.
Hopefully she’d still want to after she got to know me better.
“Oakley.”
I blinked.
“Oak, you okay, babydoll?”
I sucked in a breath and turned to see Roman sitting beside me, staring at me in concern. “I…”
His head tilted to the side. “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head, trying to shake off the random memory. “Nothing. I was just thinking.”
He stared at me for a long moment, and I was pretty sure he saw through my bullshit, but I was glad he didn’t call me out on it. If it was just the two of us, maybe I would tell him, but there were too many others around us right now. No one needed to know about Coral.
I’d have to tell Roman about her eventually, but not… not now.
Particularly not when today’s news—us being viramores—should be celebrated. And we both needed that, especially when my dad had treated Rome so badly.
So I shook off the unwanted memories and sent my viramore—holy shit, Roman’s my viramore—a small smile.
Roman stared at me for a moment, then sort of nodded to himself and asked Keryth, “Can we take our bags up now?”
Ker gave him a nod. “Sure.”
