Steph shrugged. “My stepdad is religious and a straight-up asshole, so as long as she’s married to him I don’t think she can change her mind. They kicked me out when I was seventeen.”

“That’s awful,” I said inadequately.

“I wanted to leave anyway.”

She acted as if it hadn’t been a big deal, but it must have been huge. I couldn’t even imagine my parents doing that to me, and the vast difference between my childhood and what Steph had dealt with seemed to yawn between us. I felt as if I owed her some kind of revelation of my own at the very least, but she didn’t ask me any questions.

Analemma was sniffing around a bush where tiny white flowers were in bloom, and Steph said, “That’s toyon. The flowers will turn into red berries in the fall, like holly berries.”

I went along with the change of subject. “What’s that one?” I asked, pointing at another bush nearby with red limbs and flat oval leaves.

“Manzanita,” she said.

We continued along the ridge while she named the other plants she knew: yerba santa, buckbrush, sagebrush. When we came to the fire road that descended down into Woodacre, I turned onto it. Analemma caught sight of a lizard on a rock and sprinted, snapping the leash out of my hand. “Analemma!” I shouted, running after her. She disappeared down the road and into a grove of trees, finally stopping at a fallen log in the shade, her tongue lolling out while she panted. I picked up the leash from where it trailed onto the ground, about to scold her, but she gave me her big brown eyes and sloppy grin and I couldn’t be mad.

The trees around us had reddish bark that was peeling away in long, paperlike strips from a green trunk beneath. I heard Steph crunching down the trail and then into the grove behind us. I turned to her and asked, “What are these trees called? They’re so weird looking.”

“Madrones. It’s like you can see inside them, right?” She went over to one of the trees and rubbed her fingers against the green interior.

And then I knew what I wanted to tell her, and before I could lose my nerve I said, “I don’t think I’m straight.”

I have a crush on you, I thought, as if I were a twelve-year-old, and I blushed even though I didn’t say the words out loud.

Steph turned away from the tree and toward me. She gave me a sympathetic look, and I felt that flutter in my belly that I was beginning to recognize as belonging to her: that warm purr, that fizzing lift.

“How long have you known?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. Since I met you.

She nodded gravely, as if that were normal.

—