We can’t kiss inside the school, even a nominal peck, because it is apparently 1950 beyond those glass doors. Did I mention that for a century ASA used to be First Church of God Secondary School? (Go ahead: try to make that an acronym.) In its heyday—when my mom went here—it had 500 kids who came from all over the US for a good old-fashioned Christian education. But, what do you know? Demand dropped and the school rebranded itself with a new, mostly secular mission to be an “Accessible Academy for All.”

It’s not as conservative as when my mom attended, but Antic Springs is the land that time forgot when it comes to gender stuff. Not only is there no Gay Straight Alliance, there are still dress codes about boys not wearing makeup and girls not showing cleavage. (God help you if you’re Nix and blow past the binary altogether.) But I think dress codes are meant to be broken and I do a lot of the breaking. Right this minute, I have on glitter foundation and my eyebrows took a solid half hour to perfect. No teacher is hauling me off to the bathroom to wash it off, like they did in my mom’s day, because even they know that’d be stupid. But more than one teacher has encouraged me to do so myself because boys wearing makeup is not in keeping with “the spirit of things.” Please: I am the school spirit.

“Luis! LUIIIIIIIS!”

Some unwritten law decrees that there should be only two kinds of high school principals: the ones who like kids and Try Hard to be cool but will never be, and the Demonic Spawn who think of each incoming class as target practice for humiliation and shame. Mrs. Malee Somboon-Fox is a Try Hard, which is sweet but can be incredibly taxing for anyone on the receiving end. It is also useful, if you know what you’re doing. If you want her to soften a policy or fund your organization (I, for one, created Student Fashion Club, Mall of America trip, and Green Cafeteria Tuesday), you just tap into her eternal quest for youth. If you’re really smart—and I am—you snap up the campus job as Principal’s Secretary, which I did my sophomore year. I’m like her personal assistant, hype man, and confidant all in one. I excel at all three, but, seriously, there are only so many ways to answer “Why don’t the kids like me more?”

She is making a beeline for me from across the lobby, nearly knocking over the kids taking down last week’s banner announcing Senior Day at Darien Lakes Park. “Luis! You look so FUNKY!” Mrs. Somboon-Fox literally has the wrong word for every situation. “Don’t forget we have Prom Council today! I’ve already told Ms. Silverthorn you’ll miss the end of English.”