We had a two-grade age difference, but I was always friendly with Dean. Like everything here, we’d been connected in a myriad of ways—my aunt lived on his block, and Alexis and I grew up three streets over. Our parents went to the same church. Midge and Maria ate at my dad’s diner every Saturday morning. I walked to school with Dean and his friend Rowan a couple times a week. We’d cross paths at whatever teenage hangout was cool over the summer—FDR Park, the public pool, the Wawa parking lot.

But of all those many connections, the strongest one was the monthly support groups we’d attended together at a nonprofit called the Lavender Center—a group for LGBTQ teens, families, and their allies.

“I thought you were in Los Angeles,” Dean said. “Working with movie stars.”

It took me a moment to surface from my memories. “Sorry…what did you say?”

“All this time,” he continued. “We all heard you went to UCLA to pursue film. I always thought you were, like, a producer or someone kinda famous.”

“Oh, nope, not me,” I said, stepping over a jagged crack in the sidewalk. “I did go to UCLA but became pretty disenchanted with the Hollywood scene almost immediately. I knew I wanted to tell stories about people, about communities and art and all the things that make us feel human. I’m a freelance videographer and photographer now, and I go wherever the business takes me. I can usually piece together enough corporate or tourism contracts to pay my living expenses. But I use social media and my website to share videos I make that are more like passion projects.”

“About what?” he asked, brow furrowed.

“Neighbors helping neighbors,” I explained. His lips quirked up at that. As we waited for a car to pass before crossing the street, I toed a cluster of purple violets that had sprung up through a fracture in the cement. “I like to tell stories about wildflowers growing through sidewalks, basically. All the things that take up space, demanding attention and justice in the face of larger forces trying to make them silent or invisible.”

Dean was watching me closely, that dark gaze of his causing all the hair to stand up on the back of my neck. Given his success in a sport I thought of as being violent, I hadn’t expected him to be the same person I’d grown up with—a little shy and a lot serious, thoughtful and deliberate, like he knew his words mattered. Though I’d glimpsed the look he’d given Flailing Guy, noticed the clench of his thick fingers and how his body’s movements seemed restrained in some way. Like he was holding back from doing what he really wanted.

“So yeah…” I continued, laughing. “I’m not working with movie stars.”

“And you’re always on the move?” he asked.