Page 75 of The Rebel's Guide to Pride

It came out as another mumble as I glanced around the parking lot. Past the crowd and the bookstore, even farther past the library, I could see the billboard. It was as though younger me was watching the square where Buchanan had said he wasn’t welcome in Beggs. The memory sent a ripple of panic through me, and my jaw clenched with doubt.Will this rally be enough to make a difference—

“Thank you, by the way,” Owen said over my thoughts. He gave me an encouraging smile as we eased the podium onto the float. “Your speakeasies taught me how I can be a more supportive parent. Addi has a rough time at school with their pronouns, and I’m doing everything I can so they don’t have to grow up in fear.”

The way he said it was so earnest, and I looked away so he wouldn’t see my eyes welling up. All the years I’d spent living inside that shoebox made me fear the what-ifs: what if I came out and everyone turned on me, what if I wasn’t welcome in town, what if I was targeted and became the moral of someone’s story. I’d stayed hidden because of those fears, kept them so long they’d become my truths.

“You don’t, um, you don’t have to thank me,” I managed to say around the rush of emotions.

“Sure I do,” he said, wiping his hands off on his Carhartt work pants. “You’re trying your best, and it’s making a difference.”

“I hope…so.” My voice broke, and I needed to change the subject before I outright cried in front of everyone. “Um, do you need help with anything else?” I asked, then cleared my throat.

“I could use another set of hands to assemble the platform for this monster.” He knocked on the podium for emphasis, and I nodded my head in agreement. “See,” he said, clapping me on the back. “We’re already building a better Beggs.”

He climbed onto the float and held out a hand. My mind darted back to the statue in the square as he helped me up. Just like David Beggs and his faithful donkey, we really were building our own community. I guess we just needed the right people—the right parts—to do it.

For so long, I’d been disassembling engines and putting them back together. It made sense in my head, how everything had its place for the vehicle to run. Now I was beginning to understand that wasn’t real life. You couldn’t keep trying to put your life back together with the same parts. Some didn’tbelong anymore, and some needed to change. All you could do was build yourself into something new.

And Ihadbecome something new this summer: bold.

A lock of my hair danced in the evening breeze. It felt good on my sunburned face as I lay on the new platform. Most of the volunteers had called it a day, and I was exhausted. My hands were the best kind of sore—the tightness of my knuckles a reminder that I’d built something.

“Are you…” Sawyer was saying, but I kept zoning out. My mind wandered as I watched the Timmy’s Shaved Ice truck. Cohen and Kennedy had gone to get sno-cones while we waited. Every few minutes he’d glance back. Lock eyes with me. Smile. We were on the precipice ofsomethingagain, but this time I knew it was different.

“Spill your guts,” Sawyer ordered, snapping me back. She had shifted to face me with an intense stare down. “Right now.”

“Huh?” I asked.

The setting sun glinted off her glasses as she leveled her gaze. “Why are you and Cohen acting sus AF?” she demanded with a smirk.

“Uhhh.” My uncertainty hung in the air between us. The sticky honey of her eyes was trapping me yet again. I sat there, listening to the rustle of the float streamers, and searched for the right thing to say. She still didn’t know what had happened. Not that I was deliberately keeping it from her, but I wasn’t sure what everything all meant. “I mean, we aren’t—”

She cut me off. “You’re cute and all, but he’s been intently staring at you like you’re a Weeping Angel all day.”

“Well…” I trailed off, unable to stop my grin.

“Iknewyou liked him!” she gasped. “The tea is scalding, and you better spill it.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, sitting up. “When we were hanging up posters in the square, he and I…we might’ve kissed.”

“It’s about damn time,” she said too excitedly, too loudly. “Y’all have had this back-and-forth verbal foreplay—”

“It was only kissing!” I hissed.But was it?

“Suuure.” She scoffed and rushed to ask, “How was it? Tongue? No tongue? Did it give you tingles, or did it give your, you know,thetingle?”

“Ohmygod.” She made suggestive gestures with her hands, and I glanced over at Cohen again. He tapped his phone to pay for the sno-cones. Any minute now they’d be back, and I had to shut Sawyer up. “It was great, no notes. Tongue.Bothof the tingles. And before you grill me, he’s a good kisser. His lips are soft…And okay. Fine. Maybe my crush on him never really went away. Is that what you want to hear?”

“What I want to hear,” she started as they began making their way over, “is that you’re not gonna Z-step.”

Over the last month, I’d let my guard down with bedmas_22—with Cohen. He knew me and didn’t run. Knew me and still kissed me back. “I’m not Z-stepping,” I said under my breath.

She shot me a look that said she’d hold me to it as they neared. “Then ask him to come with us to the outdoor movie night tomorrow,” she suggested.

“I don’t know—”

“Got your favorite,” Kennedy cut me off, offering Sawyer a bright-red sno-cone, with a disgusted tilt to her lips. “Tiger’s blood.”

“Don’t judge me,” Sawyer said, and gave me a wink. “The flavor combo hits different.”

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