She says, “Bringing it up always feels dramatic. Like it’s this announcement I have to make up front. So I put it off sometimes. I just don’t . . . I don’t. But then I hadn’t told you, and we kept hanging out, and the longer it went on, the weirder it was to be like, By the way, I forgot to mention, I’m pretty much a lesbian.”

“Well,” Lulu says. “Anyway. Now we both know.”

“We do.”

Lulu lets the silence settle for a minute before she says, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Okay.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Sure of what?”

“Yourself.”

Cass throws her head back and laughs. “I am not,” she says, “sure of anything.” She runs a hand through her hair so that her curls rise and then fall again, a shower of sparks around her face.

“It’s just that Ryan said something last night about, like, experimenting,” Lulu continues. “And I—I hate that word. I hate that idea, but isn’t that what I’m doing? Using other people to figure myself out?”

If Cass can hear the warning threaded, desperate, through Lulu’s voice, she doesn’t let on.

“That has nothing to do with being bisexual, I don’t think,” Cass says. “Or whatever word you choose. That’s just . . . being a person. Right?”

Lulu feels like she’s going to snap in half. She doesn’t know how much of Cass’s kindness she can bear. “Are you this nice to everyone?” she asks.

“No,” Cass says. “No. I am pretty much only this nice to you.”

Breath moves through Lulu’s lungs: in, and then out again. “I’m glad—” she starts, but there’s no end to the sentence she can possibly say out loud. “I’m glad,” she says again. “I’m— Never mind.”

“Are you glad we’re friends?” Cass asks.

“Sure,” Lulu says. “Of course.”

“I—” Cass stops too.

Lulu would swear the air in this room is different from any air in any room she’s ever been in before. It feels too thin, too shaky, like there’s nothing at all that could possibly stop her from reaching out and touching Cass. There’s nothing between them except her own hesitation.

And the possibility that Cass will say no.

But Lulu can’t wait any longer. She’s run out of questions and she’s run out of answers. She’s run out of everything but this desire, which doesn’t seem to have an end.

Lulu comes and sits next to Cass on the bed.

Cass sits up.

Lulu isn’t sure which of them leans in first, or faster. All she knows is that one minute she’s not kissing Cass. And then, she is.