Page 79 of The Rebel's Guide to Pride

“I happen to like who you are,” Cohen said with a smirk. “Besides, your ‘Rebel’s Guide to Pride’ is what got us here.”

“It can only get us so far, though,” I admitted. We’d all done everything we could this summer, and there wasn’t a guarantee it was enough. “What’s our plan B if…if all our work amounts to nothing?”

“That’s easy,” Sawyer began, the headlights of a passing car glinting off her glasses. “We’ll fight for our Pride no matter what.”

“We don’t call ourselves the QS-SLAY for nothing,” Cohen added.

I fell silent as Kennedy brought up new-member orientation, absently staring at the spray paint by herbag.Whatever happened next, we had to find ways to move forward—I had to keep moving forward. When school started back up in a few weeks, I’d try to be a better student. Get my life back on track. Keep working at Roaring Mechanics. Maybe I’d take up Billy Peak’s offer to rejoin the baseball team for senior year, or maybe I’d try something entirely new. That was my choice to make now.

My future isn’t that billboard,I thought, casting a glance back at the square.

The kid in that ten-foot picture might’ve once had a life laid out before him, but I got to decide what I did next. My first step toward who I wanted to be had come in the form of a giant graffitied penis. I’d climbed up onto that catwalk to send a message to my father, to let him know he couldn’t control me. Now Buchannan and his supporters were trying to control us.

Maybe we should send them a message too…

“I just had an idea for the rally tomorrow,” I said suddenly, twisting around. My eyes clocked each of their questioning stares before falling to the rainbow cans by Kennedy’s bag. “And I’m gonna need help.”

Chapter 33

Ever since December, I’d been trying fix the past, as though I could travel back to when it all went wrong in eighth grade. My eyes had been opened when Sawyer and I had watchedDoctor Whofor the first time the summer before; however, my father forced me to keep them shut. I’d kept them closed while he made me get dressed up for a matching photo. While he paraded me around Chapman Law’s fiftieth anniversary celebration. While he’d unveiled my future in front of strangers while I suffocated.

I’d come face-to-face with that version of me again last night. This time, though, I wasn’t alone. My friends had climbed up that rusty ladder to the top of Jones Hardware with me. Together, we tore down that ten-foot picture of my father and me to reveal a blank billboard—a fresh start. It had felt like ripping a hole in the space-time continuum. As though I’d reached into the past and pulled that scared little boy through to the future I’d created for us.

And now, it was time for the sleepy-eyed town of Beggs to wake up.

I stared up at the billboard, squinting against the morning sunshine. The bright beams were a spotlight on the rainbow-colored wordsWE’LL FIGHT FOR OUR PRIDE.Sawyer’s words couldn’t be truer. That was our plan B, a promise to Buchanan that we wouldn’t let him erase us. We were demanding our right to exist. I wouldn’t beg for signatures to celebrate Pride, to be me, ever again.

Tightening my grip on the voter registration sign, I started toward the QSA tent. The square felt almost like it had on Pride Day. The parade float, rows of tents set up like before, same flags waving…But it felt different.Iwas different. Pride had once felt like a war between who I was and who I should be. Now I knew what it meant to me—speaking up and demanding to exist as myself.

I held my head high and marched onward. Community supporters waved as I passed by, each gesture a salute. Their welcoming smiles were co-signatures on the graffiti we’d tagged on the billboard. I returned both in kind, startling when I heard my name yelled. It was an excited yip that sounded like laughter and took me back to the rec center. To that day Cohen had trained me to mentor and told me I was doing something right.Addi,I remembered as their afro poofs bounced while they darted from the nature preserve’s setup.

“Zeke!” they exclaimed again, grinning as they ran up to me. “I’ve missed you!”

“Good morning, Addi,” I said. “I’ve missed seeing you at the rec center. You doing okay?”

“Better now with Mayor Butthead leaving office,” they said.

“We don’t know who will win,” a gruff voice added as Owen followed after them, “but we’re here to vote foryou,kid.”

Addi rolled their eyes, spinning on their heels. “But maybe the rec center will get the program back if Miss Bedolla wins, though, Daddy,” they reminded him. “I felt safe there, more than I did at school.”

He and I exchanged a look, both of us recalling what he’d said when we built the platform. No matter what happened in the election, he’d still fight for Addi. I had to keep fighting too.

“You know,” I heard myself say, “I’ve gotten pretty good at doing things the mayor might not like, so I promise to figure out how to do the mentorship program again, okay?”

“Okay!” Addi said, bouncing on their heels. “Where’s Momma? I need to go tell her.”

He pointed across to the other row of tents. I followed his line of sight to the animal shelter, catching Sawyer’s eye as she started our way. He shook his head with a laugh as Addi bounded up to the woman setting up the adoption drive. “I want to thank you, Zeke,” he began, turning back to me, “for what you’ve done to make Beggs a safe space for Addi.”

“Yes, sir,” I replied. “I think—No, I know I’ll keep doing everything I can to make it safe for us.”

He held my gaze for a beat before taking off after his child. There was gratitude in his parting smile. A promise that no matter what happened today, he’d be right by my side fighting. I felt myself standing taller as I glanced back up at the billboard.

“Did you really mean that?” Sawyer asked as she came up beside me. “About the mentorship program?”

“If I made the speakeasies happen,” I started, watchingOwen and his family, “then why not underground mentorship programs? Or more? Whatever we have to do if Carmen doesn’t win. Because I can’t go back to hiding in fear.”To living in that shoebox.

“Z, I really am proud of you.”

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