He still felt shame, so unjustified because it wasn’t his fault, thinking about—about his childhood.

They did know. Not all of it, but—

Enough.

When he left his closest friends’ warm home that night, he was tipsy, wrung out, and lighter than he had been in years.

One horrible conversation done with, he thought.

Now on to the next.

It was Dare’s idea, of course, going to Pride, that June after they graduated, and once it had been suggested, Meg begged Jack to come along.

He found himself at loose ends, here after school finished, before his internship started, and he was itching under his skin, like all of him was tight and tensed. He was hungry through every nerve—but he couldn’t figure out why, what was wrong, what he longed for. His four-year struggle through Gwynns had ended with such normalcy—it felt mundane where it should have felt extraordinary.

And since graduating he just felt like he was...missing something.

So—Baltimore Pride, June in the city, the sunshine already turning his skin a warm golden brown and Meg’s a caramel pink—speakers blaring out onto Charles Street from the event stage, and the smell of bodies and cologne, and liquor pouring out from every bar. It was frenzied and sparkling and crude and so unbelievably beautiful. And there was something in his chest, like a monster gnawing at him, and Dare coated him in a fine sheen of shimmer.

He’d looked at himself in the mirror before they walked down into the city. His muscles were well defined from years of lacrosse, body bulkier after three solid meals a day, his hair a mess of black strands and scented gel, his face made strange with glitter and kohl. He’d never—he never minded about what he looked like, before; he wasn’t particularly handsome, he thought, but today he felt—he looked—

“God, you’re hot.” Meg grinned from behind him in the mirror, and he rolled his eyes.

“You have to think that.”

“I do not. I would tell you if you were ugly.”

“That I believe.”

Meg kissed his shoulder. “Now, don’t go getting picked up by some handsome stranger.” She winked.

He rubbed the back of his neck and kind of grimaced. “Ha, right.”

“You really don’t know how gorgeous you—” She paused, then reached up to cup his face, tender and questioning, like she couldn’t figure him out. Then she patted his cheek, just shy of a slap. “Come on, sexy. Let’s move.”

As they walked the mile down to Mount Vernon, Jack observed the streets through the corners of his eyes, alert and nervous. He didn’t want—he didn’t want anyone to see—

“Holy shit.”