“The context,” Jem said brightly, “is that wedidn’trob an old lady.”
And because this was Jem, the drag queen laughed.She ran her index finger over Jem’s coat and said, “Aren’t you a treat?”Then, to Tean, she added in a cold voice, “We go on in ten minutes.If I were you, I’d be in the back.”
Tean couldn’t help himself; as soon as the drag queen was gone, he blurted, “That’s so unfair.”
“Why?”Jem was inspecting his coat as though seeing it for the first time.“Iama treat.I mean, I am, right?You’d tell me if I wasn’t?”
“If I’d told her we didn’t rob an old lady, she would have—I don’t know, snapped me in half and used me like a toothpick.”
“People like me,” Jem said with a shrug.He turned a big smile on Tean.“Don’t worry, babe.People like you too.”
“No, peopledon’tlike me.Peopledislikeme.”
“That’s crazy,” Jem said.“People are obsessed with you.”
“No, they’re not.People areunobsessed with me.”
“I’m obsessed with you.”Jem ticked the list off on his fingers.“Scipio’s obsessed with you.Daniel’s obsessed with you.”
“Daniel just looked at me like I was the human equivalent of a dirty gym sock!”
“But that’s only because you were being sexist.He still loves you.”
“I wasn’t being sexist!”
“That’s what every straight, White, cis man says,” the girl with the shaved head said as she led the other teens into the hallway.
“But I’m not straightorWhite—” Tean began.But Jem cleared his throat, and Tean cut himself off.
The teenagers stalked past them with more dirty looks for Tean.Daniel slowed as he passed, then stopped.The doe-eyed boy glanced over his shoulder and reached back, twiddling his fingers low—as though somehow that might make the gesture invisible to everyone else.A hint of pink bloomed in Daniel’s cheeks, but he only shook his head, and the doe-eyed boy frowned and went on.
In the last four months, a lot had changed about the young man standing in front of them.He was continuing to grow, of course—his shoulders broadening, his face taking on definition and structure as baby fat melted away, his voice cracking at unexpected moments.But it was more than that.He wore glitter on his cheeks—which, Tean hadn’t failed to observe, he had appliedafterhis dad had dropped him off at their house.And although Daniel had arrived in a gray zip-up hoodie, he’d immediately shed the jacket to reveal a cropped T-shirt that left close to six inches of his stomach bare in spite of the February cold.Maybe those were good things, Tean tried to tell himself.Maybe it was good that Daniel felt no qualms about producing a glitter stick from his back pocket as soon as his dad drove away and using the living room mirror to put it on.Maybe it was good that Daniel didn’t care if Tean and Jem saw what he was really planning on wearing to Rainbow House.
He doesn’t get me at all.
Daniel stood there, hugging himself.And then he said, “My pronouns are he/himorthey/them.”
“Okay,” Tean said.
“You can’t tell my dad.”
Tean didn’t say anything to that.
Fortunately, Jem was there to step into the mix.“My pronouns are he/him.What are your pronouns, Tean?”
“Uh, he/him.”
“Nice.”And then, so fast Tean could barely process what was happening, Jem slapped Daniel.
That was what it looked like, anyway—Jem’s hand a blur of movement as it snapped toward Daniel’s face.
But Daniel wasn’t there anymore.He leaned back, and the blow whiffed through the air.
And because Tean would never understand anything, Daniel was grinning.And so was Jem.
“Almost,” Jem said.
“Nah,” Daniel said, but the grin got bigger.“Too slow.”Then he jogged after his friends, calling, “Justin, wait up!”
