And then I was standing with Leo, just a few feet over, at his grave. The date of his death was there, but covered by weeds, and I realized it could be fifty years from now, or next month, or tomorrow.

“Does it ever bother you,” he asked, “that you were named after a guy who was named after a guy who was in a movie that glorified the Confederacy?”

The answer was yes, but instead of saying that, I told him what I always told myself. “Ashley Wilkes said he was going to free his slaves if the war didn’t happen first.” I know this because my grandma made me sit through all four uncomfortable hours of the movie once.

“But he didn’t, did he? Instead he went off and fought for the South. All talk, no action.”

“I’m not him!” I told Leo.

Then Leo leaned close and whispered, “Prove it.”

Then he disappeared, and when I looked around, all the tombstones in the graveyard were gone. But I knew the dead were still down there, their graves unmarked, their names unremembered.

When the dreams had all evaporated, I woke to a gloomy Friday morning full of that mental dream hangover that lingers with you for the rest of the day. Hunter was already in the kitchen when I came downstairs, inhaling a bowl of Frosted Flakes over the sink.

“Hey, check it out,” he said, showing me his T-shirt. The shirt had a logo that read “Live Your Life.”

“Yeah, so? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“They’re your words, don’t you remember?”

I hadn’t until he mentioned it. It was part of what I said to those reporters.

“They were handing them out for free at school yesterday, so I took a couple. You want one?”

“Absolutely not!” The idea of wearing my own quote felt like masturbating to a mirror. “And who’s ‘they’?”

“I don’t know—the LGBTQ club maybe? They want people to wear them to the game tonight. To support you.”

I didn’t know how to feel about that, so I decided not to feel anything at all.

“Tonight’s game is against Slayback High, isn’t it?” Hunter asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“They play dirty,” he said. “Everyone knows it.”

I tried to shrug it off. “Refs’ll be watching.”

“Refs can only see so much.” And then he put his cereal bowl down and looked at me a little too long.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “It’s just . . . I don’t know . . . You said not to worry, but I can’t stop. You’re not yourself, lately—and I don’t mean the gay thing. It’s something else. Something . . . bigger.”

Not myself. That made me laugh. He had no idea how right he was. I had no specific “self” anymore. Just versions. Like a human operating system.

“Well, if I’m not myself, then who am I?”