You’re broken, the voices say, fat, ugly, not nonbinary enough, and—

Nope. I can’t fuel this thinking.

I wish I could just call my old therapist and unpack all these fears, but we had our last session a few weeks ago, and she told me it would be best if I found someone new here. She even looked into the free therapy CIA offers as part of tuition costs. But the thought of diving into the crap relationship I have with my dad, body image issues, eating-disordered past, and the question mark that is my gender identity feels too overwhelming. I’ll do it. Just not today.

This is supposed to be a new start, a place where I don’t have to be anyone but the person I want to be. But that feels daunting, and I need a reprieve from all the voices in my head.

My fingers twitch as I paw at my phone. Instinctively, I pull up the only person I know will be a comfort and a distraction. Though I hesitate about FaceTiming her due to our pact, I can’t stop myself.

Rae’s face pops on my screen, her eyes wide, her tongue wagging. She looks exactly like middle child Alex Dunphy from Modern Family, thick-framed nerd glasses and all. “What the hell do you want, slore?!” It’s good to know a week apart hasn’t changed her.

She seductively tussles her wavy brown hair, which gets caught in the silver Star of David necklace around her neck. She yanks on it and yelps, “Ouch! Fucking shit bitch!” and all the sexy just goes right out.

“I am neither a slut, nor a whore,” I say. “Yet. Unlike you.”

“I beg to differ, you sexy beast.” Rae winks as she settles post–hair struggle.

Rae and I have what Mom affectionately labels a “very inappropriate relationship.” When we’re together, we act like a married couple deep in the honeymoon period. There’s lots of handsy behavior on both of our parts, and we talk to each other like we’re in some low-budget BDSM porn about to get it on. But she’s very much a girl, and I’m very much into guys. It’s our friend fetish. Nobody gets it, and I love that.

“No, you’re sexy!” I say. Then I go silent, my cue that I need to talk.

“All right, what’s wrong?”

“Sorry, I know I’m breaking our pact—”

She cuts me off. “Excuse me, slore, but that pact was one-sided. I never agreed to such a thing, and this past week without seeing your face has left me feeling a ferocious void the likes of which not even my boyfriend’s ginormous cock can fill.”

My eyes widen. “Rae! Did Bubbeh Harold make a move?”

Rae met her boyfriend, Harry, at a freshman orientation mixer at Laurene just after high school graduation, and they’ve been together ever since. Granted, he lived in California, so their relationship has existed purely over the phone for the past two months, but apparently, they’re making up for it now.