For a moment, I feel like revealing the entire plan to Samuel, just so I have someone besides Wyatt who I’m not lying to, someone who I can talk to about this entire situation. Besides Josh, Samuel was always the one guy who I felt like I could go to with anything. Not that I ever did—my business is my business—but the thought was nice. As far as I’m aware, he’s the only other out trans kid at Steerfield. I’m sure there are others; at a school with three thousand students, there are bound to be other trans kids. It’s just statistics.

But Samuel and I are the only out ones, so there are things that he understands. Like the strange way that some of our classmates will look at us, or sitting in the sex-ed course in Health 2 and not having to pay attention at all because for some reason the curriculum doesn’t think education about vaginas is needed. Samuel’s parents were a little more understanding, though, and never tried to bury that part of him when he was a kid. He’s far from the youngest kid ever to really start on the journey to hormone blockers and testosterone, but he started young enough that top surgery was never going to be an issue for him. It always made me pretty jealous.

SAMUEL: you hear how paranoid you sound, right?

SAMUEL: about josh.

ME: No.

ME: What if he said something? What if he’s plotting to break us up.

ME: Wyatt said he was talking about a quiz in Daniels’s class. But I just know something else was going on.

SAMUEL: you’re a dummy

SAMUEL: josh isn’t going to do that

SAMUEL: he was literally just talking to wyatt. it’s not that deep.

ME: I don’t even remember Josh having Daniels this semester.

SAMUEL: he does

SAMUEL: he literally sits right next to me

SAMUEL: and wyatt sits behind him

SAMUEL: youre being paranoid

Deep down I know that Samuel’s right. But I just need to be sure. I need to ask Wyatt if he’ll tell me what Josh said last night.

It’s just to make sure the plan isn’t in jeopardy.

Wyatt wouldn’t have outright told him this entire thing is fake.

But what if he slipped up, what if he messed up the story, what if he got details wrong?

After talking with Samuel for a bit longer about New York, I roll out of bed to pee, and after I’m done I slip on sweatpants and a T-shirt after remembering that I’m sharing this room, and that I probably shouldn’t just walk out into the living room in my underwear.