“Workbook.” He seizes a fistful of bears.

“Health?” One regret is that I can’t fully see Sunny as a boy. He’s used male pronouns since age eleven and never developed female sex characteristics, but, although he looks like a boy and is shaped like a boy and I’ve never botched his pronouns, I trust him more than I’d trust any boy. I give him more credit. And I like him more, which is a betrayal.

He raises and lowers his palms like a scale. “Workbook.”

“Sunny.” I roll back on my chair—the floor is so sloped that every minute we’re farther apart. I resolve not to pee until I tell him who I am. I realize I’ve been mutilating a cheese bear only when it explodes on my knee. I ball the bear’s remains into a marble and flick it away. “I’ve been thinking about stuff. About me.”

He blinks. His big eyes, his towhead, his jittering leg, glancing down at his phone every second. Jen’s right. He’s a child. I shouldn’t dump my sour adult laundry all over him. “Never mind.”

His attention snaps back to the screen. “So, I just found out? There’s gonna be these guys at the conference tomorrow. Emmerson and Henry?” His thumbs are all over the screen, satisfying bleeps pulsing up. “These transmed assholes. They’re always mocking kids in their comments. We have to go to their panel, okay?”

“Okay.” My legs twitch. “I guess I’ll retire, then.”

Sunny looks up, surprised. The sky still has light. “That’s all right, Lillia.” The baby-talk way he still says my name gives me chills. His features crunch together. His fans call this his old man face, which he makes when discussing the grimmest community comments: My grandpa’s dying but I’m not ready for him to see how I look now. My mom took my period stuff so I’d have to ask for it back. My parents call me “it” and the dog’s name.

Once in my room, I’m trapped. It’s only eight, and the bathroom is off the living room. I’m in my nightgown already and I don’t want to pass Sunny so exposed. My breasts are loose, hot and itchy, too heavy, showing through the cotton. And I’m too overwhelmed to talk to him anymore, afraid I’ll blurt my secret. Through the closed door, Sunny calls Jen, complaining that his friends at the conference have already gathered. “Yes, Mom, friends from the internet,” he says. “They count as friends.”