“I guess I just always knew, even though I didn’t have a word for it until I was older.”

“Same here,” Professor McPherson says. “It felt like all the tension I carried in my shoulders melted when I knew how I fit with all the ways I saw myself but couldn’t be myself.”

“Do you ever feel like you still don’t know?” I ask.

“Sometimes, but I think that’s normal.”

“I don’t know what normal is. I don’t know what pronouns I want to use. Right now, I feel most comfortable with he/him, but maybe that’s just a comfort thing. I don’t even know if I like the term nonbinary, because it’s like, I do sometimes feel like I exist within the binary, but it’s not stagnant, you know? More fluid, like genderqueer, which is a term I think I like. But … I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to have anything figured out right now. Or ever.”

“That sounds … horrifying,” I say.

“That’s life, Gray,” she says. “Mind if I call you Gray?”

I shrug. “Seems fitting.”

“I have to run to a meeting, but I just wanted to tell you that I’m here to help with your art or anything else.” She stands up and moves to gather her belongings. “For now, if you want me to use he/him, I will. If that changes, tell me.”

“Thank you, Professor.” I suck in a breath. “Can I be nonbinary and use he/him?”

She smiles. “There are no rules, Gray. And there’s no pressure to be anything other than exactly who you are at any given moment.”

That sounds nice.

But the thing is …

I wish I knew who I was and how to be comfortable with every part of myself in every given moment. The only thing I know for sure, even more so now, is that I have to get this mentorship with her, because opportunities like this, for nonbinary creatives, don’t come along every day.

And I have to fight for them when they come.

6

“You’ve wasted like thirty zillion trees since you started this assignment,” Benny says from his bed, hanging over the edge upside down like a tree sloth. “I’m really not judging you at all, I swear!”

“I know. I just can’t figure out what to do for this flip-book.”

I contemplate snapping my pencil in half, but the thought of it gives me anxiety. Every time I try to draw something, Leila’s face pops into my head, telling me that I’m not good enough. That she’s more talented, more deserving, and then my hand freezes on the page or draws something dark and shaky, uncertain garbage.

“You need to get out of this room!” Benny says. “You’ve been holed up for the past three days. When was the last time you showered?”

“An hour ago,” I say.

“Oh. Point still stands. Why don’t you call Jack? I can tag along on whatever adventure you two have, like the desperate third wheel. Wait.” He pauses, as if what he just said about himself sank in. Then just breezes past it. “I really wouldn’t mind seeing that snack.”