Benny is jumping up and down, hardly able to contain himself. “Yes, binch! That’s why we’re out here interrupting your moment! Your professor has been looking for you—I guess she couldn’t wait to announce your name!”

I stare at Jack, eyes wide, and open my mouth, but no words come.

“You deserve this,” Jack says.

“He’s right,” Rae adds as Benny purses his lips in a “don’t test me” way.

I clear my throat. “If y’all would’ve let me talk, then you would’ve heard me say that damn right I deserve this.”

I walk to the double doors and take a breath. Chloe and Sofía are onstage with Professor McPherson. Mom, Dad, and Taylor crane their necks to find me. Everyone is waiting on me. For me. To celebrate me.

It’s okay to allow myself the space to enjoy every single delicious second of this.

Chapter 29. Five Months Late

29

FIVE MONTHS LATE

I used to daydream of princes and knights and faraway lands populated by dragons and brimming with magic. I grew up imagining I was a princess in a tower waiting to be rescued by a debonair man on a noble steed, and we’d have a lavish wedding. Over time, I realized that no man will ever be perfect, that love doesn’t develop overnight, that it’s something that has to be tended to daily, and that there are no princes or knights or happy endings. There is only here and now. I’m learning every single day how to love myself, the skin and body I’m in, and that it’s okay to be a work in progress.

The balls of my feet gently push against the wooden front porch of Jack’s parents’ house in Vermont, and the porch swing rocks back and forth as the sun sets behind dense, towering pine trees and tall mountains. A symphony of crickets chirp around me, and the air somehow feels warmer and sweeter than it did a few hours ago. If there is such a thing as magic, this place comes pretty close.

Jack kicks open the screen door and backs out with arms full of snacks and two glasses of unsweetened iced tea. He sets everything down on the small table beside me and checks to make sure his parents or sister aren’t around before leaning in for a kiss. Even though I’ve been here for two days, and they know we’re together, I have to sleep in a guest room on the first floor of their house, and he’s still a bit squeamish about PDA. I allow him that space because there are infinite other ways he shows me that he loves me—every square inch of me and my body and my mind. I don’t need a public kiss or a hand to hold.