Cover

Content Warning

Note to readers:

This novella includes brief mentions of gender dysphoria and fatphobia.

Dedication

For memories of Chopsticks III, and the friends who let me sing along

And for pop music, which saves me still

1

Sam

All my friends were assholes.

I tried to leave for the bar later tonight; I really did. I sat around my apartment for as long as possible, snacking on cheesy puffs and watching my cats growl at each other. Garfunkel always antagonized Simon and Simon always played right into it. They were both idiots.

But even after stalling for what felt like forever, I was still the first one at Moonie’s. Like always.

Moonie’s was technically The Moonlight Café, although nobody actually called it that. The café in particular always tickled me. As if we were conjuring uncomfortable chairs on the sidewalk in Montmartre, sipping tiny cups of espresso and chomping on perfectly flaky croissants. You couldn’t get a croissant at Moonie’s if you begged on your hands and knees.

Still, I loved Moonie’s, in this pure, uncomplicated way, like children loved snow days, or cats loved tiny dots of red light. I loved its not-so-slight seediness, its sticky floors and dreadful food selection, its weird location in the middle of an industrial wasteland section of the city. Moonie’s wasn’t a place you happened to stumble into during a night out on the town. Moonie’s was a place you went to on purpose.

And even though it didn’t actually advertise itself as a queer bar, all the queers knew it was Our Place. We all came here on purpose. For some reason. Some cheap liquor, excellent karaoke reason.

What I didn’t love was having to be the one who saved our table every time, awkwardly thumbing through my phone and nursing a beer until someone else in our group finally decided to show. It was like my friends completely forgot that time we showed up and our entire favorite table—including the tables from the side we always dragged over to make ÜberTable—was taken by a sloppy bachelorette party. It had been a qualified disaster, but apparently I was the only one who cared.

Or perhaps, my friends simply knew I was the only one who cared. Hence taking advantage of me always being here early to save our table.

Although, okay. If I was being honest...I was also here this early for my own sake. Because if I wasn’t out of the house by 8:30—the time of night I was typically already rolling into my jam jams and gleefully snuggling under my covers to watch YouTube until I passed out—then the probability of me actually leaving the house at all decreased exponentially.

Sometimes, I wondered if I’d gotten too old and pathetic for even Moonie’s.