“For the first time,” she clarifies.
“I got that.” Then I wonder. “You were ready? Quinn didn’t—”
“James! Of course I was. And like Quinn would be like that? Quinn’s perfect.”
I see how expectant her face is, and I realize that she needs this to be like when she told me about Matty, after all. “Was it OK? Was it . . .” I don’t mean to, but I laugh. “. . . really awkward?”
She giggles, too. “It was more than OK. And you know how it is when you really like someone. It doesn’t matter that it’s awkward.”
I think back to last year, Logan’s bedroom while his parents were at a party. Awkward didn’t begin to cover it, but, no, that didn’t matter at all.
“I just wanted to tell you,” she says. “Don’t look at Quinn like you know, though. She can be really shy about stuff. She’s shy about this, I think.”
“I won’t.” I examine Kat’s face like something has changed tonight. “Do you think you’re—”
“Oh, yeah, I’m definitely bi,” she says, like it’s old news. “It’s not just Quinn. I mean, of course it’s just Quinn right now. But, no. It’s more.”
I nod.
“Is it weird now?” she asks. “I haven’t been secretly in love with you or anything.”
A laugh bursts out of me. “Oh, god, Kat. I didn’t think that at all.”
She cracks up. “No offense.”
“Oh, shut the hell up,” I say, and she laughs harder. Quinn walks into the room, holding three bottles of an expensive-looking beer.
“Hey,” she greets me.
“James doesn’t drink.” Kat discards her keg beer for the sleek bottle. “But you’re super sweet.”
“I’m just good at stealing beer,” she says.
I watch her, this girl who’s changed my best friend’s life. Kat says magic so much regarding Quinn, but she’s just a normal girl. Everyone could see how special Logan was. Is. He’s not dead, after all. I could even understand Matty. There’s something about Matty, a certain presence, that even when he’s being an asshole is pretty undeniable. Quinn, though, has no magic as far as I can see.
Gabriel might have a little, if I’m being completely honest. But even if Kat could go from being in love with one person back in September and someone completely different now, I can’t imagine my feelings cycling through that quickly.
“People are going up on the roof to watch fireworks,” Quinn says. “There’s still space.”
“Kat’s afraid of heights,” I say. “It’s not that far up, though. Can you try?”
Kat shakes her head emphatically. “What if I just tip over? What if someone else does? What if, like, I drop my beer and it picks up speed and kills a little squirrel or something?”
“The probability of any of that happening is incredibly low,” I tell her.
“Yeah, are you sure?” Quinn asks her.
“I’ll look out a window,” Kat says. “I’m not, like, afraid of fireworks.”
“What about windows?” Quinn asks, and Kat laughs and winds her arms around her.
“Not windows, either. Hardly anything at all except heights.”
“I’ll protect you,” Quinn tells her, and I feel how suddenly this isn’t about me anymore.
I climb up to the roof and end up sitting with Mariana and Sofia. I guess it’s just like last year, but without Logan, and without Kat, it doesn’t feel like it at all.
“This’ll be the year we graduate,” Sofia says.
“The year we all move away,” Mariana says.
I feel that I’m supposed to have a third thing, but this coming year feels so unknowable and foreign still. So I stay quiet, sip my bubbly water, and get ready to count down to midnight.
CHAPTER TEN
May of Senior Year
KAT
Magnolia Park High’s Prom Changes with the Times
by Allison Chen for the Burbank Leader
At the beginning of this school year, many students already considered Magnolia Park High School senior Kat Rydell a lock for prom queen. Rydell certainly fits the title: pretty, popular, and at the time dating someone considered by many to be the most popular boy in school.
However, that relationship ended, and Rydell, who identifies as bisexual, began dating Quinn Morgan, another girl in her senior class.
“Prom was definitely not on my mind all year,” says Rydell. “But when announcements were made for the prom king and queen nomination period, it hit my friends and I that the whole system was super heteronormative.”
“It was not at all important to me to be on the prom court,” Morgan says. “Then I realized that only boy/girl couples could even qualify, and that fact really bothered me.”
Morgan and Rydell, along with a group of friends, organized a petition to change the prom court rules, ultimately collecting signatures from sixty percent of the student body.
“When we saw how important this was to so many of our students, we knew we had to reconsider the way we did things,” said Principal Juan Ochoa. “We never want MPHS to lag behind the times, and we’re proud to make this change.”
As of this school year, thanks to Morgan and Rydell’s petition, there are no longer any gender requirements for what Magnolia Park High School is now calling prom couple.
“It’s important to us that, in the future, kids like us feel like they’re just as much a part of the school as anyone else,” Morgan says.
“I know that prom isn’t, like, hugely important, in the whole scheme of things,” Rydell says, “but it’s a big deal at our school, and it’s so cool that two girls—or two people of any gender—together could be a symbol of it.”
Principal Ochoa agrees. “No matter who wins the crowns, these girls have made history, and they prove just how commendable MPHS students can be.”
After school, the day our issue of the Burbank Leader goes out, Raina and Gretchen convince us to drive around collecting as many extra issues as we can so that we can hand them out at school tomorrow. Quinn sighs and mutters a bunch about it, but I also keep catching her staring at our names printed right there in black and white.
“We’re famous,” I murmur to her, and she laughs and rolls her eyes all at once.
“Who even reads this paper?” she asks.
“Well, us now,” I say. “And, like, pillars of the community.”
“You guys are definitely going to win,” Gretchen says, and I reply, “We’d better!” right as Quinn says that it doesn’t matter. I pretend I was only kidding. I mean, I basically was.
A car I don’t recognize is in the driveway when Gretchen drops me off, and when I walk inside I see Diane sitting with Dad at the kitchen table. I guess that seeing her is becoming almost completely normal for Dad, and so it should be for me, too.
“Kat, Charlie just showed me the paper,” Diane greets me. “It’s really amazing.”
“Oh, thanks. I mean . . . it’s just prom, I guess.” I didn’t even know that Dad had seen it. Of course, I texted him when I saw that it was out this morning, but he didn’t respond. Dad is not great at texting. Once I sent him a cute GIF of a puppy to cheer him up, and he just wanted to know whose dog it was and where I had gone instead of school.