“You’re acting like I’m going to stop talking to you or something,” he says, shaking his head again. “But I’m not going to. I mean, where else am I gonna find someone who can memorize all the lyrics to the original Broadway production of The Phantom of the Opera?”

I sort of want to cry.

“You’re so stupid,” I say, even though I’m smiling. “I know I’m awesome—”

“You are.” He puts his hand on top of mine, and I don’t pull away. “You’re really awesome.”

“Okay, but people would stay away from you, if they found out,” I say, forcing myself to look him in the eye. “You know that, right? People would be afraid of you. I mean, we both know what it’s like to be black. And people hate black guys.”

He snorts. “I know.”

“Well, they hate HIV even more,” I say. “Put all of those things together, and they’d try to, like, quarantine us on Mars. In the meantime, they’d make our lives miserable.”

“Simone, racism’s not going to go away if I stop talking to you,” he says. “It’s not like we can control prejudice or anything.”

“I know.” I stare down at our hands. “I just want you to know that things could be bad.”

“Are you trying to convince me to stop talking to you?”

Yes. No. Maybe a little bit. Maybe it’d be easier to stop things now instead of getting hurt later on.

“I’m just surprised,” I say. That I liked him first, and he likes me back. That he’s still here, even after I told him, and he’s holding my hand—not for the first time. “I didn’t think this would happen.”

“Well, I like you.”

I flush. “I figured, but like—”

“I hang around you because you’re smart and pretty and funny,” he says. He doesn’t rush his words out the way I do. Like saying this doesn’t embarrass him. “If I didn’t want to kiss you, I think I’d be jealous of you.”

“You’re…God, Miles, you’re so weird,” I say, rubbing a hand over my face. “I don’t even know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. You already said a lot.”

“Well.” I turn toward him. “There are a bunch of things I could say. Like, you’re my favorite person. One of my favorite people, anyway.”

I think of Claudia and Lydia. Miles is somewhere on the same level as them.

“I could also say I love you, but it would be, like, ironically.”

“What?”