Lulu takes this in. “That is,” she declares, “pretty freakin’ adorable. Also, see how I just acknowledged your feeling, and didn’t make fun of it?”

“God,” Cass groans. She shakes her head. Then she says, quieter: “The funny part is, I didn’t want to be Mary when we played it.”

“She’s the main character?”

Cass gives Lulu a withering look.

“We weren’t all Secret Garden nerds!” Lulu says. “I don’t know.”

“Mary is the only girl in The Secret Garden,” Cass explains. “She starts out this sick, spoiled little princess, and then she plays in an English garden and gets hearty and healthy and in touch with nature and all of that. But I always wanted to be her friend Dickon.”

“Why?”

Cass shrugs. “I think it made my parents wonder if I was gonna turn out to be trans or something,” she says. “But it wasn’t that. I didn’t want to be a boy, exactly. Dickon just seemed cooler. He knew more stuff. And I didn’t understand why everyone thought I should always want to be the girl, you know?”

Lulu has only ever wanted girl things. Pink ribbons and glitter lipstick. Long hair, high heels. Pretty dresses. A pretty face.

“That’s exactly what I’ve always wanted,” she says. “To be the girl.”

“That’s okay,” Cass says.

Despite herself, Lulu believes her.

“What did you want to be instead?” Lulu asks.

Cass doesn’t have an answer. “I don’t know, just not that,” she says. “You really never—you never just wanted to be something else for a minute?”

Lulu shakes her head. “I’ve always been a princess.”

“Wild.”

“I think you mean basic.”

“Now who’s making fun of you?”

“I’m not making fun. I’m stating a fact. Is there anything more basic than wanting to be a princess?”

“I don’t know. I mean, if that’s what you really want, there’s nothing wrong with it.”

As much as Lulu’s been giving Cass shit about her hippie comment earlier, this contemplative, open conversation is worse, because it makes Lulu feel like she can say whatever she wants, and she isn’t sure enough where things stand between them—what all of these little moments mean—to do that. Lulu feels her chin get stubborn. “Listen. I’m not dumb. I know what I look like,” she says.

“What do you look like?”

“Like I’m dumb.”

Cass barks out a laugh. She rubs a hand across her face. “Jesus, Lulu.”