Rae was entirely different. Like, worlds apart. Aside from being slightly peeved that I’d told Leila first, she hugged me and told me she loved me just the same. She asked me how I was feeling, and she sat with me in silence as I processed. She even held my hand as I came out to Mom and Taylor, who were unsurprisingly amazing. Dad was kind of emotionless but made sure to tell me he still loved me. He still doesn’t know I’m nonbinary. At least, not from me directly. I’m sure he’s seen the article on The BuzzWord and chooses to ignore it; he still says shit like, “Be a man!” if I’m having a tough day.

A few years later, when we were seniors, and I started mining my gender identity, exploring terms like nonbinary or genderqueer or genderfluid, and rejecting heteronormative gender labels, I didn’t feel the need to pronounce that to anyone. Especially not Leila. It was—and is—nobody’s business but mine. Period.

Instead, I spent months animating a black-and-white short about a knight who always felt uncomfortable being forced into rigid male-appropriate armor, so one day when the queen was throwing out old garments, he snuck them back to his chambers and tried them on. I set it to Lady Gaga’s “Chromatica II” transition into her song “911,” and the second the knight tries on an opulent, gemstone-studded ball gown, he transforms into a fabulous medieval drag queen who ignites the entire kingdom in glorious color. It was fun, silly. I never expected another video to go viral when I uploaded it to YouTube, but it exploded.

Suddenly I was being interviewed by The BuzzWord and having to talk about what it meant to be nonbinary, even though I didn’t understand it myself. It felt easier to just let people find out that way, so I wouldn’t have to come out to them.

That was when Leila started distancing herself and making passive-aggressive digs at me: “That Lady Gaga song transition was so 2020 and unoriginal,” and “Anyone can animate a short, but it takes real talent to sculpt with your hands.” Then it morphed into “you’ve changed.” Coded bullshit that I knew was about me, not my art.

So I regretted ever letting myself get too close to her in the first place. I’d given her a piece of myself when I trusted her and let her into my inner circle. But I should have listened to my gut when she Yaaasss Queen’d everything and then turned her back when I seemed to no longer fit the GBF box for her.

Now I have a hard time trusting people.

Which is why I didn’t want to force Jack to come out.