“Wait, what?” Sunny stares between me and Minsie. He takes in my whole body, top to bottom. His eyes are shiny, extra bright, absorbing. “Lillia? What do they they mean?”

We stare at one another, arms loose, at a loss. The crowds around us have shifted, so we’re washed up on our own lonely ring of concrete. “It’s okay,” I say. “Hey. Sunny. Can we talk about this later? I was just telling Minsie. Like, about me.”

His mouth knots into a red ball. “I mean, Mom said you were like that when you were little. That’s why she told me to invite you. She said I should talk to you about it or whatever.” He rolls his eyes to the dark sky. “I thought she was being annoying. I thought she meant just, like, a thousand years ago. Like you were a tomboy or something dumb.”

Sunny’s words needle my skin. He and Jen have discussed me like I’m his age. Anger should follow, or humiliation. How can he stand there, dismissing the struggle of my life? I want to snap at him, send him away. But I swallow. I force myself to think. Because maybe Jen was trying. But maybe Jen was trying. Maybe she threw herself into helping Sunny because she couldn’t go back and help me when we were kids.

“It’s a lot more than that,” I say. “It always has been.” I take a breath. “I’m good at hiding.”

“No.” Sunny’s face screws up like I’ve told him he was adopted, like everything he thought he knew is a lie. “I would’ve noticed.”

“Adults have inner lives too, you know,” Minsie says. “It would be good of the youth to remember.”

“Shut up, okay?” says Sunny. “Seriously, who even are you? You’re just, like, some random stranger.”

“They’re the speaker,” I say, willing the bratty edge to soften from his voice. “Come on, Sunny. Be polite.”

“But you’re lying, right?” he says. “You’re trying to fit in or something.”

I search for words to make him feel better. “Don’t worry,” I say. “Nothing has to change.”

“Of course it does.” Minsie’s face hardens into a mask of patience. “Son, you’re being trusted with information here. What are you going to do with it?”

“But she lied to me,” he squeaks. “She had the same shit, all this time, and she didn’t even try to help? You’re telling me that’s cool?”

“I’m sorry,” I say. But I couldn’t have helped him. I was lost in my own swamp.

“You don’t know what it was like for me.”

“I was there.”

He steps toward me, humiliation wet in his eyes. “Shut up. Just shut up.”

“Come on now, kid,” Minsie says. “Have a little empathy.”