She’d refused to let us turn on the election coverage since I got there, partly because her mom was asleep upstairs and we had to be quiet, but probably also because she was nervous. It was easier to hear it secondhand from Peter than straight from the TV. “Don’t bother with Eleven. Mom had it on earlier and they were only talking about the stupid governor’s race.”
While we sat squashed together in Sharon’s living room, her brother, ironically, was at my house, with my roommates and some of his, too. When I’d left the Mission every house had a TV blaring. Every gay and bi person in the entire state of California was in front of a screen right now, collectively biting their nails to shreds.
Well, except Sharon and me. But being with her was better than being in front of a hundred screens.
“We only need to win San Francisco,” I said. It’s the same refrain Evelyn and Lisa keep repeating. I don’t know if Sharon found it comforting—I didn’t—but it was all we had to hold on to. Winning San Francisco would definitely be good, but we’d need the rest of the state to stop Briggs’s initiative from becoming law.
Still, we’d done absolutely everything we could. The bookstore crew had gone on a dozen bus trips to knock on doors, and we’d folded so many pamphlets my paper cuts would probably never fully heal.
Sharon had managed to join us a few more times. Her mother had partially ungrounded her a month after we got back from the debate, but her new curfew was strict, so trips to our part of town were rare. Fortunately, we’ve gone back to writing each other letters every other day, and I’ve gotten good at sneaking in through a window off her kitchen.
But if things work out the way we hope, we might not have to do it much longer. Peter’s coming over to their house for Thanksgiving, and he and Sharon are planning to just start talking about Dean and me during dinner, as though there’s nothing strange about it. Even though she’s been keeping my letters hidden, Sharon has a feeling her mom knows about us, and Peter and Dean, too, but they never talk about it. Sharon and Peter both think it’s time to start. They don’t think she wants to keep fighting. The whole family’s had enough of that for three lifetimes.
Maybe someday it’ll seem normal for all of us to talk about our lives. To live our lives. Maybe next Thanksgiving I can come over and have dinner with them, without having to hide the truth.
But even if her mom does try to stop us, she can’t do it forever. We’ll both be eighteen next year.
“If we can beat Prop 6 here, the rest of the state will follow when it’s ready,” I said when things had been quiet too long, even though we all knew I was only parroting Evelyn again.
“I want to beat Prop 6 everywhere,” Sharon said.
“Don’t we all.” Peter paused through the phone. “Wait—wait, they’re getting ready to say something.”
“What?” Sharon said, way too loud.
“Shush!” I told her.
“Hey, everybody!” Peter called into the room behind him. “Shut up so we can hear!”
“Oh, my God.” I couldn’t handle the tension. “What are they saying? Tell us what they’re—”
“They—wait—They’re saying—” Peter choked on the words.
“WE WON!” someone shouted in the room behind him, loud enough for us to hear. I think it was Alex. “We fucking won!”
“What?” I couldn’t believe it. “Peter, what did it say? We won San Francisco?”
“We won L.A.—we won California!” There were tears in his voice. “Prop 6 is done!”
I started laughing, from shock and from happiness. “Really!?”
“Hell yeah!” Sharon cried. I could hear whoops and cheers coming from the room behind Peter.
Oh, my God, oh, my God, this was real!
“Three to two against!” Peter shouted. “It’s over!”
We did it, Harvey!!!
“Oh, my God!” I dropped the phone, leaped off the couch and started jumping up and down in the middle of the living room carpet. Sharon leaped up