It doesn’t escape me that she knows the show well enough to know exactly which song I’m referring to. Why is a secret nerdy side so damn hot? “Oh, but I can!” And I can, in my embarrassingly white girl way. No one’s ever heard me do it other than Sage and Morgan—Morgan is a huuuuge nerd for the show and Lin-Manuel Miranda in general—but I have an inexplicable urge to perform it right now.

I stand up straight and give her a nod, and she laughs as she yells, “Lafayette!”

Boom—I’m off, and watching her jaw drop is so damn gratifying, I sail right through the rapid-fire verses, even letting my limbs dance a little, all thoughts of shame and shyness forgotten. When I’m done, I give a sweeping bow, and she rises up on her knees and gives me a round of hollering applause. Morgan would be so proud.

I have kind of a ridiculous thought, then—what if we FaceTimed with Sage and Morgan? It sucks that Amber’s image of me here is as someone with no friends. It’d be cool to actually get to introduce her to some.

But … as what? Is she my girlfriend? Are we technically dating if we can’t even go on dates by ourselves? If I’m sitting at home on Saturday while she goes to the dance without me on another guy’s arm? A gay guy with a boyfriend, yeah, but a guy nevertheless. Besides, everyone else is sure they’re boning, so thinking of her as mine feels even more ridiculous.

“Earth to Jack. What are you spacing about?”

Do I tell her? I look at her, sitting back on her heels on the bed, perfect brown waves disheveled from rolling around with me, blue-green eyes tinged with concern, freckles dusting her little ski jump of a nose. She’s not meant to be an outcast. She’s not going to risk being an outcast, for me or anyone else, and I’m not going to risk losing the one good thing I have here.

Time to go back to playing games.

“So, are you gay or bi or … what?”

She purses her lips. “Why?”

“Just curious,” I assure her. “Not a judgment. Promise. It doesn’t matter to me.”

She scrutinizes my face as if trying to see whether there’s a lie behind it, but she isn’t going to find one. I really don’t care which genders she likes, as long as she likes me.