It isn't that you don't like boys. It's that you only like boys you want to be. David with his jaw carved out of the side of a cliff. Malcolm who doesn't have secrets just stories he owes no one. Chris the basketball hero with a tic blinks fifteen times when he makes a shot. You spend hours blinking in the mirror wishing you could be a star like him. Mary Levine calls you a dyke and you don't have the language to tell her she's wrong and right. You just show up to her house promising to paint your fingernails red with what will gush from her busted face if she ever says it again. You're in 7th grade. You don't even know you want a girlfriend. You still believe in the people who believe in Jesus can't even feel that desire through its hell threat. You just want to kick your desk on the way to the principal's office slouch in detention cut your hair and spit out whatever you don't want in your mouth your own name even skirting around the truth.