a giant speaker as two drag queens have a lip-sync dance-off. Cheers come from all around, making my spirits lift instantly. Sophie takes my hand, and we look out on a sea of rainbow, full of pure energy.
“I’m so sorry to do this to you,” she says, before throwing a handful of glitter up in the air and letting it cover us completely.
Rio comes up behind me and gently slaps a rainbow sticker on my face. I turn to her and shake some of the glitter out of my hair before looking back at the rest of our group. Ajay’s donned the bi flag as a cape. Shane and Pierce start painting pride flags on each other’s faces.
Dani appears next to me, dripping in glitter. I turn to her, and she shrugs.
“Let’s hope the judges like a little sparkle,” I say.
“If they’re going to schedule an audition during London Pride, they should expect nothing else.” She picks up her flute case, now covered in Rio’s stickers. “You ready?”
“Let’s do this!” I shout.
We make everyone promise not to have too much fun while we’re gone, and then we head out to the audition, our friends cheering for us the whole way.
12 MONTHS AGO
DIARY ENTRY 10
I’m still not turning in this diary, but I wanted to finish the project anyway. The assignment was ten journal entries about an experience you had over the summer, which sounds easy enough. Actually … I stand by my earlier point that it’s a little juvenile. Regardless, I’m finishing this project with the real story, for me.
When Megan has to take this class, she’ll flat-out refuse to do it. When Skye has to take the class, he’ll spend the day before school starts writing up these diary entries about a real event that happened over the summer. But I’ll try something new: I’ll write the diary entries, but about a fake experience.
I’m not a liar, but I need to do this.
So I’ll redo the London trip through my journal entries. They’ll be through a rosy lens where everything is all right. Where we stumble upon a pride parade, and my parents show me who they are—but “who they are” turns out to be accepting, loving, and understanding.
Maybe I’ll refurbish the story. Mom didn’t pick up that discarded rainbow flag to throw it in the garbage; maybe she started waving it around. Dad will find us the best spot to stand so we can see the floats, so the colors can be absorbed into my soul and I know I’m welcome somewhere.
Maybe in this version I didn’t bomb my audition, which means I’ll be on my way to London in eleven months. On my way to London, one of the only cities where I’ve found true acceptance—from pride, sure, but also from Shane and Aunt Leah.
Because otherwise, I’d have to turn in this diary. One that shows a guy who doesn’t have a future. In music or in the real world. But that’s not going to happen, because I think I have a plan. And until I can leave this place, and find my own family, make my own life … I’ll just lie. Smile. Keep my head down. And get out of here.
I may be gay. I may be flailing.
But I won’t suffocate.
THIRTY-EIGHT
After avoiding it for literal months, I decided to fix the one thing still sticking out from everything that happened this summer. The email I sent Megan was short, yet took hours to write. I could feel things resolving around me. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Megan,
You know me better than any person on this planet. Sometimes that’s good, like how you’d choose the perfect playlist to match my mood whenever you picked me up for school. Sometimes that isn’t as good. You know how to get a rise out of me, you know how to make me uncomfortable.
You like making me uncomfortable.
I’m trying to be someone else. A better version of myself. Someone who’s more present, happier. The person you always wanted me to be.
But that couldn’t be my story. I ended the email with a few lines that took seconds to draft and hours to make right.
But I have to do it for me. Not for you.
Oh, and I really love the scrapbook. It’s something that I’ll look back on many times in the next few years and remember how much fun we had together.
Marty
Had.
That word tripped me up. Because we’re in the past tense now. You don’t