“Welcome to Laurene!” Harry shouts.

I want to thank her for offering to ditch Harry—and studying, which is a Big Deal for Rae—to be with me. That’s Rae, though. She’ll drop everything for me, even if it’s not in her best interest, which is why I won’t press her to come.

“Welcome to the hardest environmental science program in the country,” she adds. “Love you, boo. And just try to, like, relax. Why don’t you sketch your feelings? You know I love a good angsty Chase original.” Silence zips between us for a beat. “What’re you feeling?”

“Very Alice in Wonderland. Like, I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole, and I’m stuck in this room, alone, with no way out.”

“Who are you?” she says, mimicking the Caterpillar.

“I hardly know, just at present—at least I knew who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then,” I recite by heart. Dad used to read that book to me every night when I was a kid. Back when he was, well, a dad.

“I already know who you are. You just have to be brave enough to show the rest of the world.” Her face scrunches in a way that tells me she’s about to read me like my favorite book. “And when you’re ready, the boys will flock.”

“Ha,” I snort. “I wish. I’m not even thinking about that.”

Which is a lie, of course, and she gives me The Look. Arched eyebrows, pursed lips. Rae and I used to stay up all night talking about how, once we got out of our small town and into the larger world, we’d find men who’d sweep us off our feet. She found hers. I’m still waiting. I don’t even know what my dream man looks like, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that the experience is grand and sweeping, epic and life-altering, a montage of us set to an Alan Menken/Howard Ashman musical number with dancing cutlery and singing woodland critters.

“It’s harder than you make it look.”

“Oh, shut up,” she says. “Let me come there and sweep you off your feet.”

“I said no!” I protest. “Go study!”

“Fine, but I love you dearly.”

“Parting is such sweet sorrow,” I say. “Love you, too.”

When the call ends, the silence in the suite reverberates in surround sound. Who do I want to be here? The Chase of yesteryear was out and seemed loud and proud, but inside my broken, misshapen body was a fragile mess of a person just trying to keep himself together. I love Rae, but I was always slightly out of place amongst a group of cishet girls. I felt small, unworthy of being noticed as anything other than Rae and Leila’s fat friend who loved to gossip and draw. None of the cute, out gays even glanced my way because, for most of high school, I hid what I thought was an ugly, fat body under baggy clothes and suffocated my loneliness in food. I never gave myself a fair shot. This is my chance to shift my perceptions of myself. Start fresh. Be the fully realized, cartoon, Technicolor version of Chase Arthur I see when I close my eyes or open up a sketchbook or Autodesk Maya, my animation software.