Later that night, there’s a knock on the door. Eric’s about to leave for his overnight inventory shift and Mom is laid out from her double. I sometimes catch myself mistaking a knock on the door for Dad without his keys. It’ll be a while until I shake that off, I think. Normally my friends call for me outside the window. I pause my game and pray it’s not someone ding-dong-ditching me because so help me God . . .

I open the door and it’s Thomas. “Hey,” he says with a smile.

I smile back.

“You game to come over tonight?” he asks after I say nothing. “I’ve made progress on my life chart and thought we could catch up. Been a while.”

Yeah, eight days since I last saw him and ten hours since we last texted. I should really stay home and rest because I’m spending the day with Genevieve again tomorrow. But if I stay, I’ll be up all night anxious over how I could’ve been helping him figure out who he is so he isn’t walking around blind and lost. “Yeah, I’m down. Give me a sec.”

I go back inside to turn off the Xbox, and Eric is eyeing me like he knows all my secrets and lies; it’s the same look he had the day I left home to go have sex for the first time. I let Mom sleep since I’ll be home before she even wakes up during the middle of the night to pee. To avoid all our friends in the court, I lead Thomas out of the back staircase. It smells like recently lit weed. I put a hand on Thomas’s chest to stop him so we can listen out for anyone down there.

When I don’t hear anything, we go down and bump into Brendan and this girl Nate. Nate’s real name is Natalie but she’s been reinventing herself as a dude for the past four years with thick braids, fake gold medallions, fitted hats, and basketball jerseys. Brendan looks at Thomas but asks me, “What you doing here, A?”

“Heading out.” I see the packet of weed in his hand. “You?”

“Business,” Brendan says.

“You would’ve been busted if I was a security guard,” I say.

“Nah. Their loud-ass keys always give them up.”

“I could’ve been someone who would’ve snitched.”

“My grandfather doesn’t care what I do to bring home paper,” Brendan says, rubbing his fingers together. “I should finish up here.”

“Yeah,” I say.

When we leave, I hear Brendan ask Nate something: “You sure you don’t like guys?”

We stop into Good Food’s and Thomas buys Pop-Tarts, sour candy, and enough bags of potato chips for a party of six. It’s nice out, so we go up to his roof and play cards. It’s a little dark, but Thomas saved a green paper lantern from his birthday that miraculously still works. I tear into the sour candy and ask him, “So what’s new with your future?”

“I figured out something big. About who I want to be.” Thomas downs his Top Pop and burps. “Or more like who I don’t want to be.”

I don’t know if it’s the sugar, or where he could be going with this, but I’m a little shaky. “And who’s that?”

“I don’t want to be a director,” Thomas says—exactly the kind of thing you expect to hear from someone who is so young and lost. “I just don’t think I’m as passionate about it as I thought I was. Think about it, I haven’t ever filmed anything or even put up a video on YouTube. All I do is look up directors and watch movies as if that’s all it takes.”

“But you’ve been writing scripts,” I say.

He shrugs. “I don’t have any real stories to tell. I can write all the scripts I want, but I’m only seventeen and haven’t lived anything interesting enough to write about. When your life sucks, your story sucks.”

“Sometimes your story is worth reading about because your life sucks,” I say. “And I don’t think your life sucks.”

“Sure it does. I don’t know what I want to do when I’m older. You’re my only real friend. My mother is always working and never has time for me, and my father might be dead for all I know.” Thomas immediately looks up at me, horrified. “I’m sorry. That was such a dickhead thing to say.”

I want to tell him that it’s okay, that it’s not like my father killed himself because of me, but that will only sound like his father left because of him. So I say nothing. It’s quiet except for the wind. I throw a rock back onto the ground. “I think it’s okay for you to be confused by things right now, Thomas. We’re young and figuring shit out, but our lives don’t completely suck. Take it from the kid whose bedroom is the living room.”

“I just want the future figured out, you know?” He grins. “Maybe we should invite your girlfriend up here with her tarot cards to lay it all out for us.”

“I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be dating,” I say, looking down.

“Why’s that?” Thomas asks, and I can see from the corner of my eyes that he’s lowered his head too.

“Things aren’t what they once were. And I think I’m going to take a page out of your book and put some distance between me and her.” I’m tugging at my sleeve now, something I used to do as a kid whenever I got really nervous. “I love her, and I want to know her forever, but we don’t fit.”

“I get that.”

I’m staring very hard at my hands now. “I feel weird talking like this. Do guys do this kind of thing? Hang out and talk about love?”

“You ask that like you haven’t been a guy your entire life. Some dudes make their mind a prison. I like living outside of bars. If we’re different, that’s fine with me.”

He’s right. I will dare to be different. I will prove to everyone that the world won’t turn to ash or spin out of control or be swallowed alive by a black hole. But someone has to man up first to get this ball rolling.

“There’s something I want to tell you but it has to stay between us,” I say. The words almost sound like they’re being spoken by someone else. “And you can’t go running away.”

“Please tell me you have a superpower, like you’re actually a descendant from aliens or something. I’ve always wanted to be the best friend in a superhero movie who keeps the superhero’s secret,” Thomas says. “Sorry, too many movies. Of course you can trust me, Stretch.”

“There’s two sides to this and I’m not sure I’m ready to tell you both yet. But I want to soon.”

“Okay. So tell me Side A now. Or whenever you’re ready.”

I look down again and massage my temples, my head ready to explode from what I’m about to admit. “Look, you’re my best friend and everything, but if what I’m about to tell you is too much for you, it’s fine and—”