• Write out the formula for the chemical equation

Another school year over.

James is working on his play.

Becky got a summer job selling ice cream at Baskin-Robbins.

Connor has been working nonstop to get the store ready for a big shipment they’re getting in from some old movie star’s estate.

I get sick of waiting to hear from B-Sides and go to the store.

The help wanted sign is off the door, and the owner, Mr. Lowenstein, and this girl Tracey who I’ve seen working there, are hauling empty record bins into the corner of the store.

What are you doing? I ask.

Mr. Lowenstein wipes his forehead and says, CDs. Everyone comes in and sifts through the records, and then they put them away and want to buy little bits of plastic, so I’m making room.

I start to ask about the job, and then Mr. Lowenstein sighs and says, Hopefully the store can stay in business.

Crap. Maybe Becky can get me in at the ice cream place.

I miss that Friday at Echo because their whole block has a water main break.

And I’m not upset. Not really.

It’s like I left some important part of myself at Pride, and I don’t know how to get it back.

Uh-huh.

That’s really all I can say when Gabriel surprises me by calling the next day. He tells me how he can’t wait for us to go to dinner, to sit and talk, to spend time together outside the club.

Uh-huh.

We’re meeting in Little Italy, at some pasta place Sinatra likes, so it must be good. Seven o’clock.

I hang up.

Who was that? Mom asks.

Just some kids playing around, I say, and then run to the bathroom to throw up before she can ask more.

July 1983

Friday night, Becky comes over to give me an excuse.

And to play fashion consultant, apparently.

Blue shirt, she says. It makes the green in your eyes stand out.

This feels…odd.

Why? she asks.

I think about the reasons: I don’t know. Is this a date? I mean…it might be, but Gabriel doesn’t seem like the dating type, and do guys even date? Does Connor even know what his last boyfriend looked like in daylight?

What I say is, I don’t know how to do this.

Michael?

Yeah?

Shut up and put on the blue shirt.

I change in the bathroom. Stare at my reflection in the mirror.

I don’t recognize myself.

It isn’t the blue shirt, or the fact that my hair isn’t sticking up in all directions.

It’s that even through the nerves, and the fear, and feeling as though I’m declaring something that can never be taken back, I look happy.

I have a date. In Little Italy. With a boy. His name is Gabriel, and when I’m with him, I want to stop time because he makes me feel…

He makes me feel…

I guess because he makes me feel alive. And he makes me feel like I know who I am.