After a dinner of uncomfortable silence, I fled back to the safety of my room. I wasn't sure what my family thought I was doing to get so red in the face, but I'm glad they decided not to ask. I was still a bit overstimulated from the teasing I'd been subject to, even if it was kind of really nice, so I decided to get a head start on my homework. What I'd intended to spend tonight doing, instead of getting ridiculously flustered. I had some in pretty much every subject, but I wouldn't have enough time for all of them tonight. Since I was still a bit frazzled, I decided to start with the homework from Easy Maths. Easy Maths wasn't supposed to be easy, but compared to the advanced Specialist Mathematics course (Hard Maths, as I called it) that I'd pressured myself into doing, it was a cake-walk. Funnily enough, the most difficult part of the worksheet was the name section, as I accidentally started writing 'Grace' before I corrected myself back to my real name. Weird.

I got an early night that night. It was too late and I was too tired to even consider doing any more homework, so I went straight to bed. Not straight to sleep, mind you. That took a while.

Morning routine was much the same as usual. Breakfast. Shower. Shave. I actually felt up to it today, the good mood from last night had left enough residue that having to face myself in the mirror wasn't insurmountable. Walk the dog. She's really lovely. She keeps trying to jump up and lick my face. Ride to school.

First period today is English. That's good, it means I get to see May again. I like hanging out with May, even if it's just for class, he's like the only guy I know that I feel like I don't have to pretend around. Thinking about May, my mind wanders to the other May. The girl one. The one who I haven't technically met yet but still know a little about. It's a pretty weird coincidence that she has a classmate named June who she's friends with. But it is just a coincidence, after all. They're supposed to be weird. Besides, that May and June are both girls, even if one of them is an egg, whatever that means. We talked a little, but mostly focused on the work. I considered asking about his date, if it even was a date, but it felt too awkward to do something like that. And a part of me really didn't want to, because despite what I assured myself, I was definitely not okay with him having a girlfriend. I know it was weird and possessive of me but I couldn't help it. Although, I had looked up the definition of "polyamory" last night, after I saw the word, and- No, don't be ridiculous. There was no way something like *that* was a possibility. Besides, polyamory was, from what I'd seen, something primarily partaken of by queer people, which, to my knowledge, May was not. I guess it wasn't strictly speaking impossible, but it seemed far too unlikely to entertain the idea. Where was I?

Right, class. Yes, it would be too awkward to ask him about his date, and I couldn't really think of anything else worth talking about. And May had this look in his eye that he only got when there was a serious topic he was too afraid to breach, like that time he came clean about how he was struggling with depression. Or a few weeks ago where he said he really needed to get something off his chest but before he could work up the nerve the bell rang, and I rushed out of class because I didn't know what he was gonna say but I was terrified of what it might be. The kind of look that never preceded a comfortable conversation, but a necessary one. Usually sitting next to May felt safe, even if we weren't saying anything, but today the air between us was strained. Eventually the tension became too much for me to bear, so I broke the silence.

"How was your da-ate?"

His uncharacteristically serious expression wiped away, and he started going red. Much better. "I-it wasn't a date! I j-just went and hung out with a friend!"

"Right. You were just hanging out, with your girlfriend." I shot him a sly wink.

"Y-y-yeah..." Gosh, he was so cute when he stammered like that. Hey, stop thinking of your best friend as cute! Don't know if you noticed, but he literally has a girlfriend!

"Wow, you really like this girl, huh? I'm happy for you, man! What's the lucky girl's name?" He flinched slightly at being called man. Oh, right, forgot about that. He shared my distaste for all the classic masculine epithets.

"Oh, uhm, hehe, it's May.." He giggled slightly at that, as if there was a joke I wasn't getting, then tensed up as if he'd realised it was a joke he shouldn't have made. "Oh, shit, um, sorry, I mean Bridget. Her name's Bridget."

Huh. That's. A really unlikely coincidence. Like, successfully navigating an asteroid field unlikely. The kind of odds you don't wanna be told about. Could it potentially be the case that- No, who am I kidding. I cannot stress enough that the May and June that Bridget was talking about were both girls. Besides, I don't know that they live in the same city, or even the same state as me. There's gotta be tens of thousands of girls named May, June, and Bridget across the world. While this was certainly an uncanny coincidence, that's all it was. There wasn't a doubt in my mind. There was a shadow of a doubt, but no doubt itself.

"You ok there?" His face was plastered with concern. "Oh, do you know Bridget?"

"I know a Bridget, but there's no way it could be the same Bridget."

"Oh. Ok. She doesn't seem to know you, at least. I hope you don't mind but I told her a bit about you and she didn't seem to know you. She actually really wanted to meet you!"

Perfect! As much as I despised meeting people (more despised people having to meet me), meeting this Bridget in person would be the ideal opportunity to confirm they were, in fact, distinct people, and that the names were just a coincidence. Not that I had any doubt about that, but solid confirmation would be nice.

"I-I'd love to!"

"Really? You aren't normally a super sociable person, so I figured you wouldn't want to."

"No! I mean, yes! I mean, no, I'm not! But this girl must really be something special for you to tell her about me, so I have to meet her!"

His face adopted the stance it had been in at the start of the conversation. Guarded, yet undaunted. "Uhhm, before you do, there's something I should really get out of the way. Here really isn't the best place for it though. Meet me in our spot after school?"

"We have a spot?" This was the first I was hearing of it.

"Yeah. Our spot. You know, the hidden place we always go to talk?"

"I didn't know that was our spot! I thought it was just like, a spot that we went to!"

"What's the difference between a spot we go to and 'our spot'? It's all semantics!"

"Yeah, but I still feel awkward calling it 'our spot'. Like, it takes away from all the people who genuinely have a spot they meet up in, and we're just pretending to have a spot."

"Oh my god are you hearing yourself right now? We can just have a spot, if we want to. There's nothing stopping us. Deciding to have a spot is like, the entire criteria for having a spot."

The voice of our teacher coming from directly in front of us made me jump. "Boys, I'm sure you're having a very interesting conversation right now, but I would appreciate it if you could keep discussions on topic." We both mumbled assent, and didn't really talk again after that. The tension returned, tenfold. I couldn't stop thinking about what it was that May wanted to say to me. I laser-focused on it, so much so that I didn't even notice Easy Maths, Chemistry, or Hard Maths go by. Luckily, on Wednesday our classes finished early, so I wouldn't have to wait as long to find out.

I practically ran all the way to our spot. Gosh, it was surreal to be able to call it 'our spot'. Our spot, as it happened, was a little alcove with a bench on it by the back of the science buildings. People barely ever came our that way, so it was a nice secluded little spot to talk. As expected, May was already there, literally lying in wait. After all, if I knew his schedule right, and I made a point of knowing other people's schedules, he'd just had Earth Science, which was a lot closer to our spot than Hard Maths. He was playing some kind of game on his phone, arm perpendicular to his body. He looked so happy I considered leaving him to it for a while, but he must have heard me, because he stowed his phone and ran over to pull me into a hug. I wasn't much of a hugger (I was far too bony to give pleasant hugs), but I was grateful for the embrace.

"June! I'm so glad you're here! I was worried you weren't gonna come!" He pulled away, clearly realising that the hug was kind of awkward, mostly because of me.

I huffed. "Sorry, but some of us had to trek all the way across the school to get here." I worried that sounded too mean, so added "I am sorry for real, by the way. I came as quickly as I could."

"I'm glad. There's a lot of stuff I need to get off my chest, and I've been holding it in for a while, and I didn't mean to because it's not like you're not gonna be cool about it and I'm sure you can relate to a lot of the stuff I'm going through, but I just get so worried because I really treasure our friendship and-"

I pulled him into another hug. I'm sure it wasn't anywhere near as good as the one he gave me, but I had to do *something*. "Hey, hey. It's alright. I gotchu." He sniffled a little. Oh no, please don't cry. "Hey, I've got you. You're gonna be okay." God I hope I was doing this right. "Just go at your own pace, take as long as you need."

He looked back up at me, beaming. He pulled away and placed himself down on the bench, gesturing for me to do the same. "So you know my friend Kayla?"

"Yeah! She seems really cool, if a little intimidating. I really wanna be her friend, but like, I'm worried that she'll view that as like, unwanted advances from a guy, and I'm sure she gets more than enough of that already, y'know?"

"And how do you... feel about her, y'know... being gay?" His voice was the shadow of a mumble.

"Oh! It's really cool! I'm so happy for her, honestly. Like, to be honest I'm a little jealous of queer people, like the way they get to just be their authentic selves is so cool."

May pulled me into an awkward side-hug. "Th-thank you so much. I knew you'd be cool."

"'Course, May! I mean that's a pretty low bar to cross, why wouldn't someone be cool with gay people? Is there any reason you're asking this or did you just want to check?" Why was he asking this? I'm not an idiot, I considered that he might be gay, but like, he'd literally just been talking about having a girlfriend this morning, so it couldn't be that. Of course, his girlfriend! "Oh! Is this about your girlfriend? Is she like, bi, or something? That's cool as hell!"

"Uh, uhm, uh not quite." I looked at him with a raised eyebrow, waiting for him to finish the question. "She's, uh, she's a lesbian."

What?