Hannah takes a swig of soda. “It’s not all sunshine and friend requests. Last week, she called me during class to tell me she got a message from a random person saying that the government was monitoring her Facebook page and that she needed to send in her social security number to verify her identity.”

“Oh my God,” Clem gasps. “Do they have like child lock on phones but for grandparents?”

“Is it bad that I don’t know my social security number by heart?” I ask.

“You don’t even know your cell phone number.” Clem throws herself against the back of the booth. “I guess I’ll just go to Prism by myself.”

Prism is the only school-sanctioned queer club, started by—you guessed it!—Kyle Meeks. And, for the record, I don’t think I’m actually a bad gay, but I’ve never been good at being . . . political the way Kyle and the other members are. The group has done really awesome things, like a gender-neutral bathroom in the attendance office and fighting to remove gender-specific dress codes for school dances, but some days I feel like I’m barely getting by in Clover City and maybe there isn’t always safety in numbers. Maybe numbers put a bigger target on our back? I’m this close to graduating. I’d rather not become any more of a target than I already am. (And trust me. Femme-leaning fat, gay ginger guys already stand out plenty, even when they’re wearing basic-ass clothes their mom bought them at Sam’s Club.) Especially if Clem is about to leave me here to survive on my own.

Okay, maybe I also really can’t stand Kyle Meeks and everything he does, and maybe disliking him so much also makes me feel like a colossal jerk. I don’t know. Jury’s still out.

“Room for two more?” asks Kyle, as if summoned by our conversation. He slides in next to me, followed by Alex.

“I guess so,” I say as Clem says, “Of course!”

I slide to the center point of the U-shaped booth seat. Great. Now I’m trapped.

“Nice and cozy,” says Alex.

“So cozy,” Hannah deadpans, and I could kiss her cute little unimpressed face.

Kyle says longingly as he looks at all of our trays and then back to his grilled-chicken salad, “I was bad over the weekend, so salads for me.”

Alex rolls his eyes. “Babe, a burger won’t kill you.”

“No,” says Kyle, “but it will make me fat again.”

I want to slither out of this booth until I’m nothing but a puddle of human irritation on the floor.

“Um, Kyle,” Clem says gently, “maybe you don’t have to say fat like it’s a bad thing.”

Kyle gives her a puzzled look, but continues charging into a conversation about some teacher who dared to give him an A minus.