“Why do you even care?” Sunny’s voice breaks the arguing, and the panelists turn. He stands on his chair, slim and tufted as a dandelion, swaying high. I raise my arms instinctively, ready to catch him if he falls.

“Sunny Talks?” Emmerson’s voice softens. “Dude, what’s up.”

“Wellcamp’s fine.” Sunny’s voice rings through the canned air. “They’re, like, probably a fine person.” A shaky sigh heaves out of him. “So leave them alone.”

Wellcamp is as abashed as Emmerson and Henry, all three slouching like children caught squabbling, which, really, they are. Sunny lingers on the chair, applause sinking into his skinny shoulders, rotating his golden face for the crowd.

For lunch, I drive Sunny to a cheesesteak joint whose vegetarian option, according to online photos, is crushed tofu coated with a plastic skin of cheese. I pledge to order it in solidarity. “I’m so proud of you,” I say, bouncing in the squeaky booth. “You really told him.”

“I know,” he says, his voice tiny, thrilled.

Heat prickles the back of my neck. Sunny spoke up for the nonbinaries. Maybe I can talk to him after all, in the privacy of the car, driving to the afternoon panels.

Sunny smooths a crease in the laminated menu. “I really thought I’d chicken out. Like, I didn’t even know I was doing it until I was up there, like, doing it.”

The waitress sets sweating glasses of water between us. “Ladies? What can I get you?”

I don’t register her words until I’ve placed our orders, and I turn back to Sunny. The vinyl cushion has depressed behind his head, as though he’s forced his spine against it hard enough to swallow him.

“Oh, Sunny,” I say. “It was an honest mistake.”

He hardens his jaw. His focus slides off me. He’s acting like he did as a little girl, going limp at any slight. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He rises against the booth, shoulders squared. We chew our crumpled soy in silence.

After lunch we attend two more panels, one on T distribution and then a reading of self-published memoir excerpts from teens who, a year or two out from their transitions, are eager to reflect. “Life was hard,” reads one kid. “I concerned my mom by declining PB and J.”

“Sunny,” I say, en route to the keynote. “I’m sorry about lunch. Look.” My voice wobbles. “I sorta get how it feels.”

“Don’t,” he says, through teeth, his shoulders up, like an animal under threat.

“Okay. Okay.” My face relaxes into flabby indifference. The day has lost its point. I want it over, want to be alone in my bed, darkness falling out the window until I give up and turn on the light. “Maybe we should head out? Jen said you might get tired.”

“I’m not a baby.”

“She treats you that way, doesn’t she? Sometimes?”