1
I haven’t quite unclicked my seat belt, but I’m getting there. Obviously. Just waiting for my brain to stop doing the thing where I’m being interviewed on a talk show in front of a vaguely hostile live studio audience.
Imogen, is it true that it’s your first time visiting Lili on campus, even though she’s one of your two (2) best friends, and she’s invited you fifteen billion times, and Blackwell College is so close to your house, you literally drove by it last weekend going to Wegmans?
Gretchen raises her eyebrows at me from the driver’s seat. “Want us to hang for a sec?”
“Or more than a sec,” adds Edith, and I twist around to look at her. She’s buckled in, legs crossed, denim jacket spread over her lap like a blanket. Bright blue eyes and wind-ruffled curls. My hair’s two shades darker and a little straighter, but besides that, we’re almost identical. Everyone thinks so.
Otávio’s back there, too, playing a game on his phone. This campus isn’t much of a novelty for him at this point—he and his parents come up here a lot, even just to take Lili and her friends out to dinner. But this time, he’s just along for the ride. I’m the only one who’s staying.
For three nights. Approximately sixty-five hours. Not that I’m counting.
“I’m good.” I tack on a smile. “I don’t want you getting caught in rush hour.”
“I don’t give a shit about rush hour,” says Gretchen.
I know she really means it, too. I didn’t tell Gretchen my parents needed both cars this weekend. She just caught me checking the Yates Transit bus schedule and swept in for the rescue. Say what you want about Gretchen Patterson, but she’s a drop-everything kind of friend, through and through.
“I can’t believe you’re meeting Lili’s queer college friends.” Edith stares out the window, puffs her cheeks out, and sighs. “I want queer friends.”
Gretchen blinks. “Um. Hello?”
“See, but you’re more of a mentor,” says Edith.
I breathe in. “Okay, texting Lili now.”
“Are you sure you don’t want—”
“Yup!”
Edith claps. “Look at you. Lone wolf, living up to your badass reputation.”
Right, so now I’m trying to picture the alternate universe where my reputation falls anywhere in the vicinity of badass. Like, let’s just put that in bold for a minute. Imogen Scott: badass. It barely even makes sense as a concept. I’m the kind of person who has a favorite adverb (obviously, obviously).
Edith, on the other hand.
I mean, our baby pictures tell the story. Like the one from the Yates County Fair animal barn, where I’m standing next to an all-caps sign that reads: PLEASE DO NOT PET DONKEY!!!!!
Edith is in the corner of the frame, petting the donkey.
Or the one of me at an easel, carefully painting a blue stripe for a sky. Edith is crouched beside me in a diaper, chest fully covered in her own tiny green handprints. And of course, there’s a whole series from my seventh birthday where Edith is literally dressed like Jason from Friday the 13th.
To be fair, my birthday is Halloween. But.
It was noon. And she was five.
She springs out
of the back seat as soon as I open the passenger door—as if Otávio Cardoso, certified teddy bear, is going to fight her for shotgun. But instead of moving up to the front, she follows me around to the trunk of Gretchen’s car.
“Immy, hear me out. As your big sister—”
“That’s factually inaccurate—”
“Chronologically? Sure,” she says. “But spiritually? Aesthetically?”
In effect, Edith’s a modern-day Amy March. Whereas I fall squarely in the category of Wants-to-Be-Jo, Is-Actually-Meg.
“All I’m saying is, the whole point of college—”
“According to you, a junior in high school.”
“The whole point of college,” she repeats, “is that it’s a chance to break out of your comfort zone. I’ve given this a lot of thought, and—Immy, I really think you should give up flossing for the weekend.”
“The point of college . . . is me not flossing.”
“Exactly.”
I hoist my suitcase out of Gretchen’s trunk and pull the door shut. “I’ll take it under advisement.”
“Also, I think you could use a few spontaneous campus high jinks.”
“Mmm.”
“This is spring break! At college! With cool queer people!”
“You know we have queer people in Penn Yan, right? A whole club of them?” I tilt my palms up. “You could try—I don’t know—actually going to one of the meetings sometime?”
She shakes her head. “Can’t do Tuesdays.”
Edith has a standing Zoom date with her girlfriend on Tuesdays. And on days that aren’t Tuesdays. But even before Zora, she always managed to find a reason to avoid Pride Alliance. Meanwhile, I’ve been to almost every single meeting since freshman year, as the group’s only capital-A Ally. Or I was, until Otávio joined at the beginning of this school year, after Lili came out. Everyone in the group lost their minds about Otávio. Woke king, brother of the year, et cetera. Kind of funny, I guess. People still seem confused about why I’m there.
For a while, I was worried I shouldn’t be there. I spent weeks reading every blog post and Reddit forum I could find about allies and safe spaces, and whether it was even okay for me to show up at the meetings. Was I just another straight girl invading queer territory? Was I an outsider, sucking all the oxygen from the room? The discourse offered no clear consensus. I hated that—hated the lack of certainty. My mind never really settles in a new space until I know all the rules for engagement. What’s encouraged, what’s allowed—or even what’s not allowed. Because restriction carries its own kind of safety.
Well, I knew I was technically allowed to be there. At least according to the official guidelines for extracurricular groups, as outlined in the Penn Yan High School student handbook. And of course I knew how important it was to Gretchen, given everything that happened in the queer club at her old school. Not that she’d ever outright admit this, but I think we both know I’m her emotional
support hetero.
I just feel a little unworthy sometimes—too normie, too distinctly unqueer. Like when Gretchen calls Otávio and me “heteropotamuses,” or when people can’t even ask us our snack preferences without saying they’re “conferring with the straights.”
My phone buzzes with a text from Lili. You’re here!!!!!! And I’m coming!!! give me like five min!!!!!!
By now, Gretchen and Otávio have already stepped out of the car to join us. I shake my head. “Seriously, this is already so above and beyond—”
“Hush.” Gretchen takes my suitcase and starts rolling it to the edge of the parking lot, the rest of us trailing behind her. When we reach a sidewalk, she stops to survey the space—a small, grassy quad tucked behind a cluster of brick buildings. No sign of Lili yet, which isn’t all that surprising. Lili’s always running “five minutes” behind, which sometimes means five minutes and sometimes means she just woke up, still needs to get dressed, and she wishes that would take five minutes.
A bunch of students spill out of one of the buildings—bright-faced and boisterous, full weekend mode. Gretchen leans in, studying them so intently, I half expect her to scribble down field notes. Maybe that’s what I should be doing—observing real college kids in their natural habitat.
After all, in less than six months, I’ll be one of them. At this very school, even.
That part doesn’t feel real yet—though, in fairness, it’s only been a week since I accepted Blackwell’s offer. Gretchen thinks I’m playing things too safe, sticking too close to home—but once the scholarship money came through, it wasn’t really a question. The location’s just a bonus.
“Oh ho ho.” Gretchen nudges me sideways, eyes still locked straight ahead. “Found one.”
“One of what?”
“College guy.”
“They do tend to have those on college campuses—”
She laughs. “I mean a cute college guy. Hottie with a body.”
“Not a disembodied head. Got it.”
Edith leans in, following Gretchen’s gaze. “What are we looking at?”
“Gray shirt, white hat. That’s Imogen’s spring break fling—”
“Um. What?”
Edith looks delighted. “Do we know him?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Not yet—but we will! Let’s call him Bruce. Or Bryce?” Gretchen tilts her head. “Bruce. I’m thinking . . . sophomore. And he’s from somewh
ere cool.”
Otávio looks up from his phone. “Who’s Bruce?”
“MAINE. He’s from Maine.”
I blink. “Is Maine cool?”
“And he likes lobsters. Because he’s from Maine.” Gretchen shrugs. “Sorry, that’s all I know about Maine.”
“Mmm. Are we done?”
“WAIT. No. No. Hold up.” Gretchen presses both hands to her cheeks. “New target. Okay. Okay, just stepped out of the second door. Not the facial hair guy. Green hoodie, next to the girl—”
“Even better. Guy with a girlfriend.”
“A girlfriend wearing a carabiner and a thumb ring?”
I bite my lip. “Maybe?”
“Hey—sorry! Hi! I’m here!” Lili skids to a stop on the sidewalk, sneakers only halfway on her feet. She hugs me, hugs Edith, ruffles Otávio’s hair, and then hugs him, too. Then she turns stiffly to Gretchen. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Gretchen nods.
Lili claps. “Okay! Should we . . .”
“Yes! Okay, um. See you guys at home?” I say. “Gretch, really, thank you for driving.”
“No prob. Hey.” Gretchen meets my gaze. “You good?”
“Yeah. Yup! Of course.”
Lili rolls her eyes faintly and reaches for my suitcase.
Texts with Gretchen
GP: Okay we’re off!! Have FUN!!!
GP: And take lots of pictures with your man!!!!
GP: Ok but seriously, let me know if you need a rescue
GP: I can swing back and pick you up, for real
GP: I don’t leave til tomorrow morning
GP: anyway, I love you, have fun at COLLEGE
2
“Rescue?” Lili’s eyes narrow. “From me?”
“Oh, no—I think she just means, like. College.” I gesture vaguely toward campus.
Lili stops short. “Hey. Are you worried?”
“No! I’m fine. I’m good! Just Gretchen being Gretchen.”
“Yeah. She’s extremely Gretchen.” Lili veers us down a winding concrete path. “Anyway. Hi! This is Blackwell!”
“Hi, Blackwell!”
It’s my first real glimpse of campus. My future home.
I mean, I’ve passed it hundreds of times. Dad even drove me up and down the side streets once. But that was more like peeking into someone’s house through a ground floor window. This is like stepping into the foyer.
Lili’s already playing tour guide. “That’s the central quad, and that brick building is the new performing arts center.”
“Wow. It’s so . . .” I trail off, gaze landing on a gray stone building, wrapped in vines. “It’s like a fairy-tale cottage.”
She laughs. “That’s the registrar’s office.”
“It’s too pretty!”
“Now you know why I’ve been on your ass to visit!”
“I know. I know—”
“But, hey—at least you’ve visited me the exact same number of times as Gretchen!”
My cheeks go warm. “No, I know. Lili, I’m sorry—”
“I’m kidding.” Lili shoots me a wry glance. “It’s fine, okay?”
“Yeah. No, I’m just.” I swallow. “Everything got so crazy, with applications and homework, and the car stuff. And then Nana’s wrist—”
“Right. No, Immy, I get it. Seriously.”
“I just don’t want you to think I didn’t—”
“I don’t! Really. I’m just glad you’re here.” She smiles. “It’s going to be perfect.”
And maybe it will be. Maybe it’ll be one big extended sleepover, just like when we were kids. We used to spend entire weekends together—building fairy houses, playing Mario Kart, getting ice cream at Seneca Farms. In the summer, we’d basically just go back and forth between my house and hers, like it was some kind of joint custody arrangement.
I had entire rituals at Lili’s house. I was such an early bird when I was little—up and wide awake before six in the morning, even though Lili and Otávio slept until at least nine or ten in the summers and on weekends. But those mornings were some of the best times of all. I’d tiptoe downstairs in my pajama shorts, Lili’s beagle mix, Mel, trailing behind me. Lili’s parents were almost always up by then, and Lili’s dad would say, “Bom dia, querida!” He’d make me milky coffee with lots of sugar before disappearing with a book. Then I’d settle in on the couch with Mel and Lili’s mom, and usually we’d get through an entire movie before Lili came down. It’s how I found most of my favorites—But I’m a Cheerleader, Clueless, Reality Bites. Basically every nineties rom-com ever made. Lili’s mom used to watch them on VHS after she moved to New York, when she was trying to master colloquial English.
The point is, Lili and I are really more like cousins than friends, which is why visiting her at college should feel like picking up where we left off. Like unpausing a movie. But now that I’m here, I’m wondering if the pause even happened. Maybe I stopped and everything else just kept going.
“Oh, this is kind of cool,” Lili says. “There’s, like, this whole network of underground tunnels connecting the buildings on this side of campus.”
“Like a storm shel
ter?”
“You could probably use them for that.” She stops at a bench, propping her foot up. “I don’t know why they were built. You’re not even really supposed to go down there—you have to find someone who knows which specific doors are unlocked.”
“So it’s like a secret society?”
Lili laughs, tugging the back of her shoe up over her heel. “Totally not. Do you remember my friend Tessa?”
My mind conjures the image of a ponytailed girl in boyish plaid—present in so many of Lili’s photos, it’s pretty clear they’re best friends. I guess she’s kind of the new and improved me.
“Her brother’s a junior here, and he brought us down there last semester. It’s so cool. And creepy. But cool-creepy. The walls are covered in graffiti, but it’s all from the eighties and nineties. It’s like a time capsule.”
Lili smiles back at me so easily, it makes my chest tug. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this wide-open. I mean, maybe at home, when it’s just the four of us—her, me, Edith, and Otávio. But never at school. Even though she had a whole group of friends from her grade, she never seemed to fully relax around them.
Here, though—she’s smiling and waving at acquaintances as we pass them, saying, “That’s Clara from my philosophy class,” or, “Okay, so Mika actually did a TikTok collab with that guy—forgot his name, but it was the one with the little candy house. Did you see that one?”
I did. Three times, and I texted it to Gretchen, too.
Lili’s friend Mika is sort of TikTok famous—mostly for creating these really detailed dioramas and using a green screen video app to make it look like they’re dancing inside them. I can barely wrap my head around the fact that Lili’s friends with an actual celebrity. Though all of Lili’s friends are basically celebrities to me, from her stories and pictures alone.
Lili veers off the quad, leading me down one of the residential streets near campus—mostly frat houses with giant Greek letters on display, populated by shirtless guys on lawn chairs. All of whom seem to have missed the memo that it’s March in upstate New York.
She stops in front of a slatted wood house with colorful flags draped from most of the windows. “So . . . this is Rainbow Manor. It’s kind of the queer frat house? People live here, but they also do events and community outreach work. Stuff like that.” She shoots me the quickest half smile. “And they throw the best parties.”
It’s like stepping into an alternate universe—sorry, but I’ve known Lili Cardoso since she was three years old, and parties are her personal hell. T
his is a girl who carried thick, dog-eared Tamora Pierce books all around camp every summer, just in case there was unexpected free time and someone tried to talk to her.
It must be different with her college friends. Her so-called pack of queers. They found each other at an orientation-week mixer, and they’ve been a ride-or-die squad ever since. Lili’s first real queer friendships.
I’m really happy for her. Obviously.
Even if I feel a little far away from her sometimes.
It’s hard to explain, because it’s not like she’s trying to phase me out. I’ve lost track of how many times she’s invited me to crash in her dorm for a weekend. And when her roommate moved off campus after winter break, it was basically a standing invitation.
I really meant to take her up on it.
But sometimes I get in my head about things like this. I think it’s the way Lili talks about this place—not a trace of snark or cynicism. Pure marshmallow. I know it’s a good thing, but it’s a little unnerving. It’s like her whole life clicked into place as soon as she left.
Which makes me the backstory. A relic of Lili’s heteronormative small-town childhood. I even look the part—a cardigan that’s almost as long as my skirt, my sandy-brown ponytail bobby-pinned on the sides. Even my purse looks a little too hometown preppy—a miniature crossbody satchel in brown fake leather.
Maybe this would be easier if I looked like Gretchen—cotton-candy pink hair and a wardrobe ripped straight from the set of Euphoria.
“For real, are you okay?” Lili asks. “You’re eerily quiet.”
I blink. “Oh! Sor—”
“Don’t apologize—I’m just saying. Also, we’re home!” Lili gestures at a trio of brick buildings arranged around a cozy grass courtyard. “The middle one’s Rosewood—that’s us. But all three are mostly freshmen.”
I pause to take it all in. The three structures—mismatched but complementary, connected by a network of intersecting paths. Everywhere I look, there are students on benches, on blankets, roaming in packs of two or three or six, with messenger bags and backpacks. Absolutely none of them look like freshmen. They look years and years older than me.
“Let’s drop off your bag,” Lili says. “Are you hungry? When do you want to eat?”
“Whenever—”
“Immy, no. Don’t do the people-pleasing thing.”
“I’m not!”
“You are!”
“Well, I don’t mean to!”
“Yeah, I know.” She laughs a little, then exhales. “Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry—”
“Or not! Let’s just not. We’re not sorry. We’re remorseless. Got it?” She hugs me sideways.
I grin. “Got it.”
We’ve barely taken two steps toward the dorm when a guy sneaks up behind Lili, covering her eyes with his hands. “Guess who!”
Lili doesn’t even pause. “Declan, meet—”
“Imogen!” He kisses my cheek. “Finally.”
He breaks into a smile, revealing a tiny gap between his front teeth, and for a moment, I’m speechless. I know him from Lili’s pictures, of course—this runway model of a boy. He’s white, with icy-blond hair and an angular face. Meeting him in person really does feel like a celebrity encounter.
Except for the part where he recognized me, too. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that I might exist to Lili’s new friends the same way they exist to me.
Declan grabs my suitcase, brushing off my startled thanks. “Babe, we’ve been waiting. We’ve heard quite a lot about you.”
I glance sideways at Lili. “Oh yeah?”
“I talked some serious shit,” she says. “They hate your guts now.”
“Not even close.” He turns to me, lowering his voice to a stage whisper. “Don’t worry, I tune out every time she starts talking—”
Lili shoves him. “Hey, what’s the plan for dinner?”
“Funny you should ask! We were just about to head to Winterfield. Hoping to
‘beat the rush,’ as the young folk say.”
“Oh, those young folk. Always beating the rush. What a smoking-hot new slang expression.”
Declan laughs, opening his mouth to respond, but he’s interrupted by a pair of new arrivals—Mika and Kayla. And it’s that same unnerving déjà vu.
I recognize Mika from TikTok, of course. They’re Japanese American and nonbinary, styled with their own blend of masculine and feminine aesthetics—soft-glam makeup and hair barrettes, boy-cut jeans, and a bird-printed button-down. I think Lili told me they’re from the Minneapolis suburbs. It’s still so strange to me that someone in Minnesota would even have upstate New York on their radar. Kayla being from Albany makes a little more sense. She’s tall and lanky, with deep brown skin, angular cheekbones, and Sisterlocks pulled into a bun. I know she’s an anime geek—Lili said she used to do cosplay. She does a jokey fake gasp when she sees me. ...
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
