What I remember, what I couldn’t express at the time and fear I may not even be able to express now, is the feeling I had—of something happening in my throat. The longer I stayed silent, the more physical it felt, like there really was something damming up the words: a literal gobstopper. All the words just got stuck, like they could not pass through. Maybe it had started out as pretend, but the longer I went without talking, the bigger that ball of words became, all the letters tangled. I worried that the cough drops were getting stuck in there, too, coating the words, heavy and dense as the rubber-band ball that sat on my teacher’s desk, but I couldn’t stop eating them, hopeful that they might help.

At night, I’d cry silently, worried that if I couldn’t figure out how to speak, it was just going to explode inside my throat—obliterate me from the inside out.

Speak, honey, my mom said.

But I was worried I couldn’t, afraid that I might never speak ever again.

Ultimately at Lovers’ Lagoon, I found my words again. When I did, I made up an excuse that Phoebe had texted me from the costume shop about a button emergency, and I left. I didn’t care that I was their ride. There were plenty of them, and they were all bright, competent people, capable of finding a different way home.

Even though there was no button emergency, I actually went to the costume shop, which was mercifully, beautifully quiet. No sunscreen in sight. Not even Benna was there on the holiday, nor were the kind-of-comforting-if-only-in-their-consistency wails of Jacques, who she must’ve brought home for the holiday.

I sank into a chair by a sewing machine and tried to steady my breathing. I couldn’t get the sight of them kissing out of my head. I didn’t want to be this person. I wanted to go swimming with them and find them charming and adorable, and I wanted to support queer love in all its forms, and I kept thinking of fourth grade and my parents telling me to take risks and how that meant I met Ros and could conceivably meet other people, too.

It seemed so reasonable. So why was I having this reaction?

I didn’t want to be the person who was jealous of a new person in Ros’s life, covetous of their time, of their attention. It was such a tired plotline that they’d even accelerated it in season two of Power Jam: Everyone liked one another, right off the bat. They supported new relationships. They were a lot nicer than I was—better friends and better people.

It was then that Phoebe walked in, carrying a cream-colored bolt of furry fabric.

“Hey,” she said, surprise in her voice. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Fancy meeting you here,” I said. “Don’t you have the day off?”