We’re here until it starts nearing freshman curfew, and as Taylor gets ready to leave, Nevaeh yanks him onto the couch next to the three of us. It takes a moment to get it right, but finally, in the photo, you can see how her arm is stretched up high to fit all of us in the frame, her eyes bright, and I’ve got my arms around her waist, laughing so hard my face is scrunched up, and Taylor’s smacking a kiss on Katherine’s cheek.

Looking at the photo on her screen, I don’t know what’s going to happen to us. But this is a good place to start from. We are going to be okay, no matter what happens. Despite the cruel people and the vicious people. The people with Sharpies and too much time on their hands. I refuse to believe that they’ll win in the end.

And then I have an idea. And I tell them.

“Oh, fuck yes,” Nevaeh says when I finish.

“I’m in,” Katherine says.

“Full-speed ahead,” Taylor says. “To Dirty Little Secret,” he says with a grin, the imaginary champagne glass. “Who knew they’d take that so literally?”

We lift our glasses to that.

The alchemy of love, turning all my fear into fierceness. And this brilliant idea.

24

Afterward I keep writing and deleting texts to Jack. Listen, I’m still mad at you but I need to ask you a really, really big favor because it’s really, really important. Listen, I don’t want to make up, but I do want your help. Hey, let’s pretend everything is okay so I can ask you to please do something for me.

It’s impossible. I’m awful at explaining myself in text. I can’t find the words. And I realize I need to see his face when I ask him. I need him to see me and tell me he understands, that he’s thought everything through. I want to stop having angry imaginary conversations in my head with him where I win and he apologizes when he realizes why he’s wrong. We need to talk. I need to explain why I was so upset. God, I hope he gets it, because I want this distance between us to be fixed.

So I hurry to his studio, the time of evening when the quad is filled up with students rushing between buildings, from spotlight to spotlight, to make the most of the time before final curfew.

The only light in the studio is the lamp above Jack’s table at the back. And he’s here, bent over papers in front of him, humming absently to the music playing on his laptop, swinging his hips but not to the beat. He always works Friday nights because he gets the whole room to himself, and I guess he gets to dance terribly without anyone seeing him.