I let myself be dragged inside, even though in my opinion, we didn’t need the thrift store: Our outfits were already fire. I’d debuted my denim shortalls that I’d bought specifically for the trip, with my glitter socks and my boots. Touchstone had on his customary, but still very respectable, solid-color T-shirt and shorts combination, this time pale blue on top and olive on the bottom, muted tones that brought out the penny-red shades in his messy hair and ensured that endless freckles were the stars of the show. Ros had on their tie-dyed PIZZA ROLLS, NOT GENDER ROLES T-shirt, and their signature gold chain, which they always wore. I’d been there when they bought it years ago, and to this day I found its omnipresence comforting: It was almost liquid, serpentine, and when Ros had put it on that first time, they’d studied themselves in the mirror for a long time, longer than I’d ever seen. Typically, they avoided their reflection—at some point in middle school, they’d taken their mirror off the wall and turned it around—but when they put that necklace on, they actually liked the way they looked. I remember standing in the store with them, watching them look at themselves, turning this way and that, admiring the angles of their jaw, their collarbone. They never took it off: swimming, showering, if they layered on other necklaces. We’d actually bickered about it when we went as flamingos for Halloween: I said the necklace distracted from the authenticity of the costume, and Ros said it was a fucking flamingo Halloween costume and no one was going to be thinking about it that hard anyway. Flamingos aside, I loved that chain on Ros—it reminded me that they were still them, in spite of all the changes they, and we, had gone through.

In the thrift store, Ros found a pair of trousers they liked: a kind of plaid mustard check that would’ve looked hideous on anyone else, but on Ros they looked slouchy and effortless, a throwback to the ’70s.

“Very used-car-salesman chic,” said Touchstone.

“They’re kinda long,” Ros said, kicking up fabric where it puddled around their feet.

“I can hem them for you,” I said.

“I can just—” Their lace-up caught in a rip in the fabric, and they stepped and pulled. They repeated the same thing on the other side in spite of my loud protests that we hadn’t paid for them yet, that we couldn’t alter clothing we didn’t own. To get me to shut up, they launched themselves at me in more of a tackle than a hug, and Touchstone wrapped his arms around both of us and squeezed.

They liked the trousers so much they wore them out of the store after we paid, ragged bottoms and all.