I stare for a second, my brain frozen.

“Don’t worry — she gave me blanket permission to tell people,” June adds.

Lelia presses her cheek against June’s shoulder as they walk, which is pretty impressive friendship choreography. “I kind of hate having to tell people,” Lelia admits, “but I do want them to know, so June is helping me out.”

“Right,” I say. I know a little bit about nonbinary genders, but where I grew up, people have barely wrapped their minds around gay. I’ve been waiting to meet anyone who can handle more, and here they are, and I’m the one who can’t keep up. “Uh, what are your pronouns?”

“She is fine, at least for now,” Lelia says with a shrug. “And while we’re here, I’m not allo either.”

I silently thank the internet for teaching me that allosexual is one end of yet another spectrum, with asexual at the other.

“You’re ace?” I ask.

“Gray ace,” she says with another shrug.

“She’s a double gray.” June beams.

The whole thing seems so ordinary and everyday to them. These new maybe-friends of mine can’t feel that they’re an earthquake, rattling everything into new places, breaking the ground open.

“I’m a girl,” June says. “Of the girly variety. And I like girl-types.”

“She’s pretty proud of that triple crown,” Lelia says, the kind of teasing that’s pure sweetness.

“I prefer the term femme as fuck,” June says, practically shouting it. “And I’m proud of anyone who isn’t afraid of who they are,” she says at a slightly more normal volume. “It’s not an easy thing.”

Of course, as soon as I think California is an earthly paradise made of rainbows, the Grays tell me it’s not that simple. Still, I can’t help but say, “It might not be easy anywhere, but it’s different here. I can feel it.” Like seismic activity. “What about you?” I ask Hawthorn.

She turns back to me, hair bobbing as she steps. “Ora gave me endless speeches about how you shouldn’t be too eager to label and box people.”

“Ora?” I ask.

“Hawthorn’s mom,” June pitches in.

“Really?” I figured from the way Hawthorn was talking that Ora was her older sister. And I’ve never met anyone who uses their parents’ first names. Is that a California thing, too? Or just a Hawthorn thing?