I take his hand again and channel the same argument Clem used on me. “I never got invited to any of the parties in high school like you did, Lucas. I’ve never had that classic high school rager experience. This is my one chance. Help me. Please.”

He sighs. “Is it true you’re running for prom queen?”

I nod.

“God, you’re way too fucking cool for this place.”

That gets a laugh out of me. “Tell me that again after I’ve been stuck in this place for forty-plus years.”

“Nah. You’ll leave us all in your dust. Besides, you and Clem are off to Austin the minute you walk across that stage.” He smiles. “All right, you got a list?”

I hold up a folded piece of paper between two fingers. “As a matter of fact.”

I was in this stockroom only two weeks ago and already it feels so much smaller than I remember. Perched on the desk in my usual spot, I wait while Lucas puts together a pile for me, which is growing to be much larger than I expected.

“Kyle Meeks is throwing this party?” he asks.

“The one and only.”

He rolls a keg over to the back door. “The student government nerd?”

“Along with his boyfriend, Alex.”

Lucas shakes his head. “Those two always stressed me out.”

“What’s so stressful about two well-adjusted gay boys who have their lives perfectly planned out right down to what flowers will be at their wedding?”

He laughs, leaning against the keg with his feet crossed at the ankle. “So I’m not the only one?”

“Oh, I’ve spent plenty of time thinking about how they make me feel like I must have missed part of orientation day at gay camp.” My voice is bittersweet.

“You know,” he says, uncertainty in his voice. “You always kind of made me feel that way too.”

My brow furrows in shocked confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“You know what I mean,” Lucas says. “You’re so sure of yourself. You always have been. You’ve never been sorry for who you are.”

“Well,” I say, “It’s pretty hard to hide it, Lucas. No matter how hard I try—and I’ve tried plenty—it’s everywhere. The way I walk. The way I talk. I didn’t wake up and pray to be a walking gay billboard.” Sometimes falling more on the femme side of the spectrum sends me into a massive thinky, feelsy spiral. I don’t hate those pieces of myself, even if they sometimes scare me. Those attributes are part of me, but it’s just a small sliver of who I am. And yet for so many people, it’s all they see. It’s the whole package. Fat. Femme. Judgments made. Case closed.