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“So, you see, Abigail, that’s why I can never leave the house again,” I said, clapping my hands together as if I had just made an indisputable case. I grinned charmingly, like that ever paid off, and hoped for the best.

Dr. Alessio blinked slowly at me, hardly even glancing down at her iPad to finish typing her notes. She knew I needed the full stare-down after that performance. I pushed my dark hair back off my forehead, trying to shake it off. But inevitably, my gaze dropped to the floor in defeat.

I really was trying to get better at owning my feelings instead of twisting them into some dumb joke I could finger-gun my way out of. But even a year later, it was hard to fully open up to someone who I knew was psychoanalyzing my every move. I swore she could tell my past secrets solely based on the way I drank my iced coffee.

Now, though Dr. Alessio looked like she wanted to smack me across the face just as much as she wanted to hug me. This was the typical reaction I drew from others. But she was not like the others. She was my therapist.

Dr. Alessio adjusted the round glasses on her nose and loosened her scarf, as though my dramatics were choking the life out of her.

“So, let me just recap to make sure I got everything,” she said, scrolling back up through her notes. I squinted as the sunlight from the window reflected off the screen. “Your friends are taking you out to a gay nightclub for your twenty-second birthday tonight, and you don’t want to go because your ex-boyfriend works there.”

I narrowed my eyes. I had trained her better than this.

“Not just any ex-boyfriend,” I specified seriously. “The Ex-Boyfriend.”

“Right.”

“And they had this whole thing all planned, and they’ve been so excited, and they kept it a secret until today, and now it’s way too late to tell them I don’t wanna go, ’cause then they’ll be suspicious, and then I’ll have to get into all this shit again, and I just don’t wanna tonight. Not on my birthday. But I’ll sort of need to once they see him, if they even realize it’s him, so I dunno. I’ll just pretend I’m dead or something. Maybe then they’ll either leave me alone or Weekend-At-Bernie’s me so I wouldn’t have to talk while I’m there, you know?”

Dr. Alessio smiled warmly. Apparently, I was charming when I did not want to be, but was not when I really needed it to pay off.

“It’s great that you have friends that care about you,” she reminded me, because that had been a whole big thing with me last year when I first went to her, thinking everyone hated me. It was a feeling that came and went, but I almost wished they did hate me a little this weekend.

Or maybe they did. And that was why they were forcing me to see him.

Or not. Probably not.

“Yeah, whatever. I’m way passed that,” I muttered.

“Are you afraid of being triggered tonight?” she pressed.

“No.”

This was not an entire lie. I was not afraid of being negatively triggered. That was never the issue. Because nothing in my relationship with him had been wrong, per se. It was that I had been wrong. I was not mature enough. He was embarrassed by me, and for good reason. I had come to accept that a long time ago. But I had feigned some self-respect back then, our freshman year, and I broke it off, as if that would help me take care of myself.

That was not how it worked, though.

I had other problems (that I now worked on in therapy) that really stood in the way of the success we had thought was inevitable, because real life got in the way, and it sucked.

So, so badly.

It was like I was standing on a cliff, trapped with all the shit I had already done that still haunted me, and my future was across a ravine, just mocking me with a sign that read “Adult.”

I was certain I would never be that. Not at this rate.

“So why are you worried about seeing him?” Dr. Alessio pushed.

Because I still stalked him on Instagram on nights when I wanted to hate myself but could hide it behind laughter so my friends did not worry about me. They never realized I did this. I had made them all hate him by shit-talking him even though I did not believe an actual word I said. I was certain they wanted me nowhere near him anymore.

Or maybe I was worried because we had never unfollowed each other. Just deleted the pictures, at least from Instagram. Our prom pictures were still shoved in a box under my bed at my mom’s house. I could not stand to get rid of them. My sister Candace had found them when she was stealing things for her dorm this year, asking if she could throw them away, and I had to, embarrassingly, admit that I was keeping them for an undetermined amount of time.

So would I be negatively triggered as in, would I go full-on panic attack in the middle of the club with a bunch of oily men trying to take ones out of my butt pocket with their teeth?

No.

Would I perhaps see the most attractive and loving and moody and mysterious boy I ever met and melt into a nostalgic puddle?

Probably.

And that was what I was afraid of, because I had given up hope for us. For the first year and a half after our break up, I thought that if we were meant to be together, the universe would make it happen. But that hope dwindled as time wore on and I started vaping CBD to calm me down in intense situations.

I shrugged on Dr. Alessio’s futon, as though I had not just remembered exactly what his laugh sounded like, even though I had not heard it in years.

“I dunno. I just don’t like associating with my past, I guess,” I mustered. Keeping my back to my demons while I stared across the ravine did not make them disappear, though. “But you already knew that. I just don’t wanna fixate, which is what we’re trying to get me away from anyway. Plus, I always expect the worst-case scenario.”

“Which would be what?”

“Him seeing me and then not talking to me,” I admitted.

It had happened once at a party in sophomore year. We did not have the same friends, but we had both wound up there, me with a guy I was fooling around with, and him with a serious boyfriend. We had unsuccessfully avoided each other, because the apartment was small, but we never talked. So, I had ended the party by jealously trying to make out with my hook-up, but I vomited all over the floor and his shoes instead.

And that was that. Despite Temple University being a relatively small campus, we had not seen each other since.

“That’s always a possibility, but you have the skills to get through it,” Dr. Alessio said. “Plus, I have some friends who frequent that club. It seems pretty easy avoid people there if you want to.”

Right. But she did not know that it was his literal job to demand the spotlight.

I considered myself an interesting person to be stuck with my entire life. I thought this often due to my sense of humor, since I was the funniest person I knew, but it especially struck me around my birthday. I always deeply craved to be treated like a princess but pretended I did not want the attention in the slightest.

Luckily, my friends saw through my humble bullshit long ago, and the moment the door swung open to my apartment, Miranda was on me in a hug. She squealed directly into my ear, which was a fairly typical noise for her to emit.

“Happy birthday, my deepest and most everlasting love,” she sighed, squeezing my waist until I choked out a cough, her signal to stop threatening my life with affection.

She blinked at me with her round eyes. She was clearly in the middle of getting ready for our evening at large. She only sported a lacy bralette, and her foundation was done, but her eyebrows were still way too light for her bottle-dyed hair, and her lashes were nonexistent. She never went outside without her face completely done up, even if we were just going to grab breakfast somewhere when we were hungover.

“People are always watching, so I might as well give them something to look at,” she had told me once our sophomore year, just a few months after we had met in one of my general education classes.

People who did not know me well sometimes asked how Miranda and I got along so well with two huge egos duking it out for attention. Surprisingly, I was usually okay with letting her win. It made less work for me, making sure I did not say something that sounded even stupider than it did in my head.

Plus, neither of us were that princess-y when it was just the two of us at our apartment without the Dirty One (her name was Jenna) and the Obvious Cheater (his name was Marco). When it was just us, we could drink wine and get into our feelings. There were never egos there. Just the daily support we were in constant need of.

“Did you get my note this morning?” she asked eagerly.

Get ready to Burn this City!

It had been taped to the door of my bedroom. In my sleepy haze, I had not known at all what it meant. I just thought it meant we would be getting wasted like we always did on my birthday, but then it dawned on me throughout the day.

Burn this City.

Burning City.

The Philadelphia burlesque club.

Only it was not female burlesque.

It was BOYLESQUE.

“You’re taking me to see mostly naked men in makeup for my birthday,” I said grinning, because her excitement was stronger than my will to ruin my own day.

Miranda squealed again.

“Jesus, shut up,” D’Ante said from the couch with a laugh, entirely blocked by Miranda’s overwhelming form. I walked around Miranda and shook his hand. “Happy birthday, man.”

“I genuinely cannot believe you agreed to come tonight,” I said as Miranda scurried back into her bedroom, half-heartedly calling out that Raven was on her way with Zach, her brand-new boyfriend.

D’Ante gave zero shits that I was gay and would scream his support for me from the rooftops of every building in Philly, but he generally did not attend flamboyant events with me. We were gym buddies (despite me only going twice a week and him going everyday), and he was the only person who had kept me sane through all my gen-eds. Unfortunately, he abandoned me for our final one when he refused to sign up for dance, too, in our last semester. He was insistent that he wanted to start yoga.

“I need to chill the fuck out,” he had told me during a one-on-one pick-up basketball game. He had divulged this information only after he had almost shattered my elbow, so I really had no choice but to agree with him.

“Listen, it’s your birthday, and Miranda wouldn’t take no for an answer,” he said, smiling.

For reasons I could not explain, D’Ante, who was the tallest guy I had ever seen in my life and not the skinniest either, was absolutely terrified of my five-foot firecracker of a best friend. Maybe she reminded him of his grandma or something, because there was really no explanation. But they adored each other all the same.

“I appreciate it,” I said.

“Stop talking, and go get ready!” Miranda yelled from across the apartment. I silently apologized, for not the first time, to the people who lived on either side of us.

I walked into my bedroom as D’Ante synced his phone to the speaker on our coffee table, pumping out some kind of chill EDM hybrid. I threw open my closet doors and scanned for what button down I could to wear to show that I wanted to dress cute on my birthday but also did not care if someone accidentally spilled their drink on it.

It was still warm enough for short-sleeves, but I had destroyed the skin of my arms every time I was in the bathroom today. I had picked at every bump on my skin as I looped through the endless scenarios I could potentially encounter when I saw him.

So, I needed long sleeves that I could roll. I would look like a pretentious businessman (sorry, D’Ante), but at least I would not get too many concerned looks from Raven. We had bonded over anxiety, which was cool, I guess, but she was too concerned about me sometimes. So, it was better to just avoid the topic all together.

I pulled off my glasses and placed them down on my desk before dragging my sweatshirt off over my head. With my mind derailed from clothes and onto my skin, I hurried into the bathroom and grabbed my concealer from the cabinet behind my mirror. It had not only been rough for my arms today, but for my face, too.

“Just trying to fit in with the dancers?” Miranda asked dramatically, and I nearly launched myself through the ceiling. I had not heard her walk in. She could be pretty sneaky when she wanted to be.

“Shut up. My face is a mess,” I muttered, accidentally dropping my beauty blender into the sink but deciding to use it anyway. It was a wonder where all those blackheads came from, since I was so focused on my cleanliness and all.

“You’re still, like, the hottest guy I’ve ever seen,” she tried.

“Ha,” I deadpanned in return, leaning as close to the mirror as I could. I caked the concealer over my skin and blended it in. If it looked like I had no pores, there would be nothing to pick at.

Miranda was not only my greatest source of comfort at school, but she was also my hype-man, and refused to let me say anything bad about myself. Even in a deep heart-to-heart, she would always respectfully let me finish, but once I closed my mouth, she would not relent until I followed up all the self-hatred with a compliment, too.

I was being so meticulous with my face that I did not notice how Miranda’s expression shifted from uncomfortably positive to mildly unsure.

“Are you really excited about tonight?” she asked hesitantly.

I finally pulled my gaze away from myself long enough to make eye contact. “Yeah, of course. It’s just not something I’ve done before. And you know how I get about things I haven’t done before.”

“I know,” Miranda said, smiling at me, because I could charm her pretty easily, too, without even trying. “I just want you to have fun on your birthday.”

I put the concealer and my blender back behind the mirror and met her where she stood by my open closet.

“It’s gonna be great, ’cause you planned it,” I insisted. I noticed her trying not to look at my arms as I spoke. She did not bring it up like Raven would have, but she still noticed. I forced a smile onto my face and nudged her shoulder. “Okay, time to get out so I can change my pants.”

“I wouldn’t care,” she protested over her shoulder.

“I’m gay, not part of your girl squad dance team. I like to get changed by myself,” I said, thankful to have her eyes off of me. She did not need to know how much the waistband of my boxers muffin-topped me.

“Fine,” she huffed, and I closed the door before she could turn back around.

But instead of getting dressed, I tossed myself down on my bed. I was careful not to rub my perfected face off on my comforter and enjoyed the time alone.

I warmed up my vape.

I counted my breaths.

I was better at deep breathing now. I was better at letting myself think about things without spiraling out of control.

I was better.

More mature.

I was always trying to be more mature now. I took vitamins. I actually tried to eat salad a whole one time. Even my gym two times a week was better than it had been a year ago. I told myself it was because I was preparing to be a Real Adult next year, to get to that other cliff.

And that was definitely part of it.

But that was not the entire reason, and no amount of deep breathing could convince me of that.