“You’re a boy,” Raven repeated, his fingers still wrapped around Jack’s collar. Brushing the skin beneath. “How long have you known?”

“Honestly?” Jack glanced up at him. “I think I’ve known since I was a little kid. I remember asking my mom for boys’ clothes when I started preschool. I remember asking for a different name after Flynn was born. A name more like his.”

Raven raised his eyebrows, taking a breath. “I had no idea. I mean, you never mentioned anything.”

“My mom got really mad when I said those things. She told me girls didn’t dress like little boys, and she said my name was perfect for me. She’d braid my hair and tell me I was beautiful. I hated it, Raven. But I think her saying those things made me want to hide inside myself, you know?” Jack’s voice was shaking a little, his fingers toying with a thread on his jeans. “If my own mom thought it was wrong to want those things, what would the world think?”

“So you hid inside yourself.”

A nod. “For years. Then I met you, and you let me rescue you, and you let me be your knight and… it felt so right. I told myself maybe there wasn’t anything wrong with me. Maybe the world was wrong about what girls could be.”

“Because girls can be knights.”

“Yes.”

“And girls can wear whatever clothes they want, and girls can be named Jack.”

“Exactly.” Jack smiled, and Raven was struck by the light in his eyes. How bright would Jack burn if that light was finally allowed to come out? How happy would he be if he actually got to be himself?

“I decided I didn’t have to change myself. Or become myself, all the way. I could change the world, and I could be a girl who rescued princes and climbed towers and called herself Jack. But every time I got closer to making the world how I wanted it to be, I felt this twinge in my stomach, like I was missing something. Rewriting a fairy tale instead of admitting the hero wasn’t a girl named Jack. He was a boy.” Jack sucked in a breath. He wasn’t crying anymore, but Raven would stay close, just in case tears spilled over his cheeks again.

Raven would stay close because he’d always wanted to be close to Jack. “What changed?” he asked, taking Jack’s hands. “Did you realize something while I was away at boarding school?”