“They call me a boy. They tell me I’m gay because I ride bikes. And say I have two dads.”

My steps stop and my hand moves from her jacket to her wrist. I’m over a foot taller than Mercedes, and the thought of kneeling on the wet cement crosses my mind before I realize she will likely find the gesture demeaning. Instead, I shake my head again and rake a hand across my forehead until I feel a familiar purse of skin from a long-forgotten scar. “That’s bullshit, Mercedes. Complete and total bullshit.” My hand smoothes the hairs that fell while I was running, and I look across the street, focusing on a trail of leaves blowing. “I don’t know why the terrible things said to us are what we hear while we try to sleep, or what feed us when we’re struggling and starved for encouragement. I guess it’s because as much as we don’t want to care what others think, we do.” My eyes move back to her face and catch her gaze for a second before she drops it to my feet. “They’re trying to get a rise out of you because that’s how they feed their ugliness and insecurities. They’re likely so afraid to be the next target, and their victims are too concerned with wondering if the attacks hold any truth that no one sees that the person behind the hurtful words is the one with the problems.”

Her eyes look away from me. Either she has been told something similar, or she isn’t ready to believe my words.

“If you’re gay, that’s no one’s business but your own.”

“I’m not gay.”

“I’m not saying you are. I’m just saying that your sexual preferences are yours. God, what am I saying? You’re ten. You shouldn’t have sexual preferences.” Mercedes’ chin drops to the side, and she shoots a leveling look to me. “If riding bikes is something that you love, then you can’t let them ruin it for you. Being different doesn’t make you a freak; it makes you brave. And that bullshit about two dads? I don’t even know where to start on that one.” A chill shoots down my spine as I catch several drops of rain in the face from looking up, and I shrug before facing her again. “It doesn’t matter if a person is purple, green, male, female, gay, or straight. All that matters is that they love you, protect you, and care for you. Hell, even with your brooding attitude and death glares, I’ve started to fall in love with you and feel these really weird surges of motherhood that scare the shit out of me because I don’t want to have kids. Obviously you have something great in you for that to occur.”

I feel like I’m modeling in front of a class of artists again with the way she’s reading each of my features.

“Are you ready to go home?” I ask.

“Yeah.” Her reply nearly gets lost in the sounds of the city, her voice is so quiet.

“Let’s go. We’ll order a pizza on the bus.”

The two of us turn, my hand still firmly gripping her shoulder, now less because of my fear that she’ll run and more because I want to comfort her.

“Hey, Lo?”

I’m sure my surprise at her calling me Lo is written across my face as a small smile turns her lips up. “I only like cheese on my pizza.”

“I’m good with that.”

Her smile widens, and I know I’ll be sketching this expression in the near future. It’s frame worthy.

I PULL the third load of laundry for the day—a heap of white shirts—from the washer and shove them into the dryer. My hands freeze. I think all of me has. A familiar scent is tickling all of my senses, causing my thoughts to race in a void of blankness. I reach for the same pile of shirts and bring them to my nose. The clean, crisp scent of the laundry detergent is prevalent, but there’s also the faint trace of men’s cologne, or body wash—something male. I take another deep breath before dropping them back into the dryer. Maybe it’s the same laundry detergent my mom uses? Or the cologne from someone I know? Or maybe it’s simply the act of doing laundry that’s making a piece of my mind think of home, but something has me feeling weak and dazed with nostalgia.

“Lo, you know you don’t have to keep cleaning, right?”

I turn to acknowledge Kash. I’ve started calling him the nickname that the others all use in the last week, though it sometimes still rolls off my tongue a little strangely. My cheeks heat as my nails run along my forehead. “Yeah, I know.” I don’t see much of him, and when I do, Summer and Parker are usually close behind. The way Summer watches him, tracking his movements and always being a step ahead of what he seems to ask or think of, makes me fairly confident she has feelings for him, but Kash is difficult to figure out. He is flirty and kind to her, but he is with me as well. I think it’s just his personality to be that way.

He smiles and takes a step back so I can exit the laundry room.

“How’s it going? Are things working out with your professor now that you’re attending your Wednesday class?” Kash tilts his head with a slight mock lighting his eyes. I finally had to approach him and discuss coming later on Wednesdays so I could attend my Comparative Art History class after being reminded by a friend that attendance alone is thirty-five percent of my grade.

“Yeah, thanks.” My professor is still intentionally calling on me more than any of the other students to prove his point, but thankfully, I’m catching up.

“How have things been going here?”

“Good. Mercedes is in her room finishing homework, so I thought I would put in a load really quick,” I say as we head back upstairs.

“Homework? I didn’t hear any complaining.”

“Yeah, I bribed her with ice cream.”

Kash laughs, following me into the kitchen where he leans both elbows on the granite counter covering the bar. “So, I saw on your paperwork that you’re from Montana.”

Appreciative of the change in topic, I nod. He can’t be oblivious to the fact that he’s a slob, and I sort of fear that my efforts are being seen as intrusive, but thus far, he hasn’t spoken to me about it until now. “Yeah. Have you been over there?”

“I went to Yellowstone once, as a kid.”

“That’s usually what people go for.”

Kash returns the smile I’m giving him to show my statement, though true, is intended to be lighthearted. “What do you think of Portland?”

“I love it. I love the people and the buzz around the city. I love the peaceful tranquility you find outside, and the food and music. I even love the rain.”

His head shakes as he quietly laughs. “Nobody loves the rain.”

“There’s something beautiful about it here. It’s intense. Almost cleansing.”

“Yeah, until you nearly drown in a puddle or get pulled down a river running down Highway 26.”

My cheeks lift so high my vision is slightly obscured as I nod my head in agreement. “I do sometimes feel like I need a raft. But there’s something special about this place. It just feels different.”

“Is it all of the weirdos?”

My cheeks are still stretched as I shake my head. “No. I have learned in my three years of being an unofficial Oregonian to recognize the transplants. There’s authentic weird, and then there’s trying to be weird.”

There’s a quiet rumble of laughter from Kashton as he leans farther against the counter. “You don’t seem to try to pose as weird. Are you sticking to your clean-air, backwoods Montana image?”

“Backwoods?” My eyebrows rise and my chin drops, making Kash’s laughter increase. “I am the definition of weird! I go to school for art.”

“I ride a bike for a living,” he counters.

“I know, but that’s cool. You do tricks, and jump, and…” my hands lift in the air to reflect movement, “…you do all that crazy stuff.”

“You have no idea what I do, do you?”

I shake my head and fight my lips from turning upward. “No, I really don’t.”

“I’ll show you. Next week I get to be in the editing process of some videos and images that are going with this Swiss campaign. You can come check it out. Give me your expert art advice.”