Cover

Dedication

To all those

In the closet

On their way out

Living in their truth—

This one’s for you

Chapter One

Héctor Muñoz glittered.

Literally. His mami glanced over at him from the driver’s seat and smiled. “You’re going all out, aren’t you?” she said.

“I have to!” he said, smoothing out the wrinkles on his black button-down. “First day and all. Gotta let them know what they’re in for.”

She turned the car onto the wide stretch of Madison Avenue. The streets were so much bigger here than anything he was used to back home in San Francisco. Well, not “home” anymore. It hadn’t been long since his family had moved to Orangevale, which was definitely not San Francisco.

He fell silent as his mother drove him to school. He wasn’t going to tell her how fast his heart was beating, or that he missed his friends. That he missed being able to walk through the Mission to school in the morning. That he missed the corner market off Valencia where the man behind the counter always joked about Héctor being too young for coffee.

So he fiddled with the tiny stuffed Eevee on his backpack.

He zoned out while staring at all the strip malls and gas stations and drive-through restaurants as they passed by.

He flicked the tiny bells he had sewn into the top strap of his bag.

“You’ll be fine, mijo,” his mami said as they slowed behind traffic. When he glanced up at her, her eyebrows were raised in concern. “You just be your wonderful self, and it’ll all be okay.”

“You think so?”

“Depends on if your new classmates have any taste,” she said in a faux serious tone. “You might just be too cool for them.”

He laughed. “Oh, come on, Mami. You think that’s true?”

She grunted. “Honey, the buttons on your shirt match the buttons on your shoes.”

“True.”

“And yesterday morning we saw a man wearing a cargo vest at the store.”

He nodded. “Also true. I did not know a person could need so many pockets.”

Mami turned off Madison toward the school. “What do you think he keeps in them?”

“Duh, Mami. His hopes and dreams.”

They both laughed at that, and Héctor was thankful he could joke as often as he did with Mami. He relied on humor a lot because it just made everything fun. He looked more like his papi than his mami. She was a lighter brown and her nose came to a point, and her face was framed with long black hair. Héctor had the black curls, the dark-brown skin, and the wide nose of his papi—but he got his jokes from Mami. Definitely.

He hoped that his humor would get him through this day.

Because there it loomed, off to the right and at the end of the block.

Orangevale Middle School.