“My assistant,” Sunny says. “Almond Senior.” He bounces the rabbit’s haunches. “Pronouns: they/them.” He snorts. “Almond Senior’s nonbinary.” The rabbit’s cute, cancer-filled nose presses against Sunny’s cute, little boy nose. “So trendy, now, aren’t you?”

I pull back from the screen into the green light of the office. I’ve watched the video a dozen times, awaiting this moment, my breath so quick it’s audible, perking my ears for Sunny’s tone. Is the joke that the rabbit has an identity, or is the joke that the identity is nonbinary?

Sunny crops the frame at his waist, as though he has hips to hide. He updates his perspective regularly, on crucial queer Gen Z issues such as pansexuality, passing privilege, cisnormativity, he/him lesbians, PGPs, chasers, and demiromanticism. He applies gel to his hair so it crests sweetly over his forehead, a neighbor boy from a fifties sitcom.

I live hundreds of miles from Sunny now, but this evening my sister will drop him at my apartment in Trenton. Tomorrow Sunny and I will attend a convention of trans YouTubers in Philadelphia. Sunny invited me a few weeks back, explaining that it wasn’t cool to go with his mom, that he preferred me, his aunt, which was fishy, because he loves my sister, but I guess everyone grows up sometime. Last week, he sent a video message of himself singing “Streets of Philadelphia” with a plastic bell (the crack drawn in Sharpie) nested in his soft disc of hair and a portrait of Ben Franklin taped to the wall behind.

I pat my blouse to absorb the sweat from my palms. Tonight I’ll discuss my identity with Sunny, tell him what’s been true my whole life, though only now is there language for it. I hate to burden a kid with my issues, but he’s the only trans person I know.

“Uh, the write-up?” Eric says, looming over my desk. My colleagues don’t look directly at me, as though I could infect them through the eyes. But I hold out hope that Eric could become a friend. He visits my desk instead of emailing me. His earring is either queer or cheesy, same with his spiked, thinning hair. Once I’m more comfortable in my body I’ll ask him for a drink at the sports bar.

I pinch the report from my printer tray and clap it into a folder. Eric snatches the file as though I’ll change my mind.