“Maybe, but at least then my heart won’t be broken.” I take a sip of water just to give myself something to do. “Okay, subject change, I’m over this.”

“Fine, fine!” Wyatt holds his hands up defensively, smile on his face. “Can I ask you one last question?”

“Is it about Josh?”

“No.”

“Is it about my family?”

He doesn’t answer.

“What is it?”

“You don’t have to answer.”

Well, now I’m curious. “No, ask.”

“Is there anyone in your family who isn’t awful?”

“Besides Lindsay, no. I mean, there were my grandparents—”

“Seriously? They could’ve fooled me.”

“Not the maternal ones you met. My dad’s parents.”

“Oh, were they cool?”

“Yeah.” I can’t help but smile when I think about them. “They basically raised me for the first few years of my life. I spent nearly every weekend with them. My grandma would make me watch all these super-old movies that she loved like Singin’ in the Rain. And my grandpa was the person who taught me how to swim, and we’d garden in his yard, and I’d get really sunburned.”

“That sounds sweet,” Wyatt says.

“Yeah, they’re good people.”

“Why aren’t they here? Or are they coming later?”

“Well, after my parents got divorced, they kind of picked my mother over their son. He didn’t like that very much, so he told them to stay away from us. I’d still sneak out to see them, though. Go get some fresh-baked cookies and sit down and watch movies with them. But Grandpa died a few years ago. And Grandma moved all the way up to Red Bluff. I think she wanted to come to the wedding, but since Dad said he wasn’t coming, I think she decided it was better to stay on his side. It’s complicated.”

“That’s awful, Neil. I’m so sorry about your grandfather.”

“He had a hard fight, and we knew where it was going, so we just tried to make him comfortable. Dad had the balls to tell me that I couldn’t still see him, but Mom stepped in. I basically lived with them the last two months he was alive.”

Wyatt remains silent.

“He was actually the first person I came out to,” I say, because the faucet has been turned on and now I can’t stop myself. “I was so scared of what he’d think. I know it’s not fair to assume, but you just kind of think a lot of older people won’t understand gender or being trans.

“I told him how I felt, how my outside didn’t feel like my inside, how it felt almost like I was two different people, and how confusing and scary it was, and how good I felt when I wore T-shirts and jeans and sneakers and when I pulled my long hair into a ponytail and hid it in a hat or behind my head.