I don’t want to say his name. He and Jesse have worked together since the beginning of the year, and if I tell him, I’ll have to deal with all the emotions he might have—anger or sadness or shock. Hell, I’m too exhausted to deal with my own emotions.

Still, now that he’s here, I don’t want him to go. Like with Claudia and Lydia, I didn’t realize how much I missed him.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I shrug. “I’ll just have to find a way to deal.”

“How?”

“Probably changing schools again,” I say, staring at the floor. He’s wearing cleats. My eyes snap up in shock. “You were playing lacrosse?”

“Just messing around.” He shakes his head. “What do you mean, change schools?”

“Something like this happened at my last school,” I say, still focused on his shoes. I can’t help but wonder what he looks like when he plays, even if this is a weird time to think about it. “That’s why I came here. But junior year is almost over, so maybe I’ll just apply to college earlier.”

“So that’s it? You’re just gonna run away?”

If I go to a bigger school, there will be different types of people, maybe even other positive people. Somehow, positive people exist out in the real world. They deal with high school and go on to have jobs and families.

It’s like the guy who played Hamilton, the one Jesse hates so much—Javier Muñoz. I don’t understand how he could go around telling everyone he’s positive without spontaneously combusting. People still went to the show, still lined up for miles to meet him—to shake his hand, to touch him—because they knew he was so talented. I blink back tears.

The people who went see Javier Muñoz on Broadway aren’t like Jesse or the other kids here. I hope this is just something that happens in high school, in buildings full of kids who haven’t experienced much outside of themselves. I hope it gets better. But I don’t know.

Maybe I can go to New York and shed all of this like a dirty coat. I could be like Pops—he left North Carolina, where all his friends and family were pissed about him being gay, and moved to a place where no one would bat an eye if he kissed his boyfriend on the sidewalk. I wouldn’t tell everyone about being positive, but maybe I wouldn’t have to hide. That’s different. It’s not running away.

“You don’t get it,” I say, stepping away from him. “You don’t know what it’s like at all.

“Come on,” he says, shaking his head. “All I’m saying is, you shouldn’t give up just because some people are being horrible.”