He tried to hug me, but I pulled away and looked toward the house. “My grandma doesn’t really… she’s not… she’s…” I fumbled.

“She doesn’t know you’re gay?” Reece asked, eyebrows raised.

I shook my head.

“Then I’m just your friend Reece, okay?” he said, smiling at me. “Introduce me.” He nodded toward the house.

The memory of Reece’s smile the day that I met him makes my chest ache, but not because I miss Reece, really.

Beside me, Elijah clears his throat and the memory evaporates. “Did you… were you really close?” he asks, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“I think so,” I say. Damn Elijah for bringing it up.

Birdie was so impressed with how polite and clean-cut he was, I don’t think it really dawned on her at first what was going on. That first time he came over, Reece whispered in my ear while Birdie was mixing up some sweet tea. “Show me your room.”

A new feeling formed in my gut and started to crawl up my neck and down my thighs when his warm breath hit my ear. I showed Reece my room. We kissed for the first time, and that was when I started to forget about Elijah just a little bit. I was scared at first, worried that he might do the same thing Elijah did after we kissed and just disappear, but that didn’t happen. He called me that night when he got home and wanted to see me again the next weekend.

“Were you together for a long time? Like boyfriends for a long time?” Elijah stumbles over his words, and I wonder if there’s more he wants to ask but doesn’t know how.

“A couple of months,” I say, feeling a pang of sadness remembering those few months.

I met him during the July before tenth grade, and shortly after homecoming that year, we just kind of fizzled out. He came over less and less until one day we just weren’t in each other’s orbit anymore. Here and there one of us wouldn’t respond to a text or a DM. He’d call, and I’d let it go to voice mail. I’d FaceTime and he wouldn’t answer. I don’t think anything really went wrong; maybe he just outgrew me. Maybe we outgrew each other. Even though our relationship kind of died on the vine, I never really felt as heartbroken about Reece as I did about Elijah.

One afternoon after he stopped coming by, Birdie asked about him. “Where’s Reece been?”

“Busy with school, maybe,” I said, but I could feel the heat creeping up my neck.

“Oh,” she said. But she put her hand on my back and gave my shoulder a little squeeze. “You gonna be okay?” she asked.