I stuttered, not sure what to say. “I-I’m not a traitor,” I said.

“Well, you’re the one who didn’t want to live with us,” Gabby said.

“Oh, Gabby,” my mother said. “We don’t need to talk about that.”

“You never invited me to live with you,” I said. I thought they meant the house, this house, the current house.

“Yes, we did,” Gabby said. “Aunt Deedee said you refused. Said you wanted to stay with her.”

“What? When? When are you talking about?”

“We don’t need to bring all this up, this is ancient history,” my mother said.

Was that what they thought? That it had been I who abandoned them? I tried desperately to remember exactly how it had all happened, how it had been decided, but it was so many years ago, and so many of the conversations had been had between my mother and Aunt Deedee that I had no idea what had been said.

“I don’t know what to say,” I said.

“He’s not even sorry!” Gabby said.

“What? Sorry for what?”

“You were my big brother,” she said. “And you just fucking abandoned me.”

“You are twisting this. Mom didn’t want me.”

“Who said I didn’t want you?” my mother said, her voice almost hysterical with emotion. “Did Deedee say that?”

“No!” I said, because I couldn’t remember her actually saying that. “She didn’t say that, it was just implied. Because—well, I mean, because I’m gay.”

My mother clapped both her hands over her mouth in surprise.

“Michael!” she gasped. “You are not.”

“I am,” I said.

“You are not,” she said again.

This conversation was getting so bizarre that I looked around at the grass, at the daisies, at the fairy garden, trying to find something to cling to, that was real, that made sense. “I thought you knew,” I said, “when I was in the hospital—you just—I mean, why did you think I was there?”

“You were beat up!” she said. “Why would that make me think you were gay?”

“I was beat up because I’m gay,” I said, though I didn’t know if that was true either.

“I just want you to know that I accept you,” Gabby said, which was such a one-eighty from her previous anger that I couldn’t take it in as sincere at first.

“You’re not gay,” my mother said more confidently.

“I am definitely gay,” I said. “Mom, I’m gay.”

“I know you think you’re gay,” she said. “But you’re not.”

“Mom, if he says he’s gay, he’s gay,” Gabby said, and I was grateful that she was my unexpected ally in this situation, but it did nothing to deter my mother.

“Trust me,” my mother said, “I know you’re not gay.”

“How do you know I’m not gay?” I asked.

“Because you would get crushes on little girls!” she said, tugging her hands inside the sleeves of her beige sweater. “When you were little! You always loved the little girls. Listen, Michael, just being more sensitive, having taste, being interested in art, those things don’t make you gay.”

“I like to suck cock, Mom,” I said. “I like to fuck men in the ass.”

“Shut your mouth,” my mother said, her fury instant and electric.

“I’m leaving,” I said. “Thanks for the flask. I’ll use it for all the drinking I don’t do!”

And I turned and went back into the house. I looked for a second at the cake on the counter. They had gotten the bakery to write Happy Birthday and my name on it. The guilt was so strong it seemed to make my vision wobble, but I went into the living room where James was learning that aliens had visited the Old West and been seen by cowboys. “Bye!” I said, as I put on my sweatshirt.

“Oh, you leaving?” he said. “It was good seeing you!” He smiled.

“You too,” I said, and I went outside, and I speed-walked to Bunny’s Jeep, and I drove away.

I took my GED that February, after I heard that Tyler and the other boys I named had gotten one year of probation for almost beating me to death. One year of probation. It seemed so bizarre and useless to me. I had applied to ten colleges, all the state schools back in November, and some private colleges in January, and I agreed to let Ray Lampert help me with the admissions fees, even though I wanted nothing to do with him anymore. I drove Bunny’s Jeep all around L.A. She had left her iPod in the center console and so I listened to her music. On some level, I was acting like she was dead. On some level, I thought she really was dead. I think I was pretending everyone was dead. Bunny, Ray. Aunt Deedee. Anthony. Gabby. My mother. Even myself. Every metamorphosis is violent, even disgusting. That’s why you have to hide while it is happening.

I had applied to state schools, but I had no idea how I would afford even in-state tuition. My only hope, and it seemed like such a long shot I didn’t like to even speak of it, was a scholarship to a private college. I applied to four of them, and I got into two, with a full ride to one. Pomona College. It wasn’t Yale or Harvard, but it suited me to the ground. It was familiar and safe and free and even kind of fancy! When I moved into my dorm room, which I shared with a sullen young man named Trent, on the first day of freshman year, I felt like I had pulled off the most outrageous long con in the history of the world. And I was thrilled. I loved college. I loved every single thing about it. From the dining hall with its predictable, nourishing, bland food, to the library with its wonderful new-carpet smell, to reading Camus and studying calculus, college was for me in every way. There were free concerts, free lectures, there were art shows, there were barbecues. There were other out boys. I had never been so happy in my entire life.

I got a work-study job answering phones in the dean’s office, and I excelled. “What a phone voice!” my boss, Mariana, said. She was an overweight perfectionist with absolutely unbearable carpal tunnel pain. She wore wrist braces every day. She loved me, and I accepted her maternal affection with gratitude, even if I didn’t feel exactly the same way about her. She even liked my gayness and would bring all matters of aesthetics to me, as though I had some special expertise. Did I think the gray header or the navy header was more executive-looking for the budget memo? What did I think about this font for graduation name tags? On some level I found this insulting, she was stereotyping, but she was also not wrong that I was better than her at picking out which header looked good. Sometimes she bought me lunch, and she always tipped me off if she knew there was going to be free food somewhere around campus.