“Here’s hoping,” Not that it’s a guy occupying my brain, but I link pinkies with Cara in our traditional “make a wish” move anyway. Game nights are the only Friday nights Cara’s exempt from spending with her family, and it’s strictly because football players and cheerleaders are so revered in this town that Pastor Whelan’s congregation loves that his daughter is on the squad, skimpy skirt and all. I know full well he’ll rope blessing the Alligators into his donation collection on Sunday, and Cara will be there in one of her church-perfect pink or white or yellow or baby-blue dresses.

But right here, right now, she’s the version of herself that gets just as high on flying through the air and being cheered on under the lights as I do, the version who sang along to Camila Cabello with me on the way here, who sneaked me a pouch of her little sister’s fruit snacks that she knows I love, and who’s helping bring me back to myself after one of the most confusing weeks I can ever remember.

Speaking of friends who help me feel normal. “Miggy!” the guys yell as Miguel lets himself in, having dropped off his parents and sister before taking the family car. Miguel is a permanent designated driver—alcohol gives him migraines—which is actually how we became friends. I got stupid drunk at a party as a freshman who had no idea what she could hold, and he was the valiant and newly licensed sophomore who drove me home. It was only because he thought I was passed out plastered in his back seat that he had a brief conversation with his secret then-boyfriend on speakerphone, and I was so relieved to find another queer kid at Atherton that I drunkenly blurted out that I was gay too. (No one had introduced me to the sexuality spectrum yet. I had, however, been introduced to Diana’s cousin Mariana’s lips in the coatroom at Diana’s quinceañera.)