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He closes his eyes, feels the touch, but not any sensation from it Time expands, and then he opens his eyes and looks at the clock and it contracts Cooper must have slept for a little bit Julian must have joined him Now Cooper startles awake, and Julian shifts beside him "What time is it?" Julian mumbles, and then they see what time it is, which is later than either of them want it to be "We must have drifted off," Julian says with a smile He stands up, puts his shirt on, then warns Cooper before he turns on the light "I think we need to call it a night," Julian tells hiet up at five-thirty So I should probably get to sleep Or get back to sleep, as the case may be Let ht of his car depresses him But even so, Cooper cannot believe what he says next Even as the words are leaving his lips, he cannot believe he is saying the them They make hiht?" he asks

Julian is not expecting this He looks at Cooper’s shirt, tangled on the floor

"Not this ti step for et up so dae from Cooper’s es to trap them, s them back down Were he a better liar, he could probably craft a story to justify the stateirlfriend over, a feeling the Jack and Coke is hitting him too hard to drive) But the lies are as inaccessible to him as the truth is to Julian

Cooper reaches down for his shirt and puts it on, then replaces the change that fell out of his pocket as he and Julian were rolling around He tells Julian he doesn’t need to drive him or walk him to his car He says he could use the walk, and that he doesn’t have nearly as early a start as Julian does Julian hasn’t put on his shoes yet, and because of this, and because Cooper doesn’t really look like he wants the coether they walk out of the bedrooain, but Cooper barely feels it at this point Before Julian opens the door, he asks Cooper for his phone nuain," Julian says in parting

"Yeah, thanks," Cooper replies Then he’s out the door

For a ood But that’s only because he isn’t thinking about anything else

Then he starts to think about other things, and he doesn’t feel good The noise has coain The flat, dead noise

We watch as Julian takes the two glasses into the kitchen, the ice cubes melted now We watch as he puts them in the sink, then stands over the sink, both hands on the counter, wondering what just happened

Miles away, Peter and Neil are feeling much more certainty After dinner, they hid in the basement and made out for a while--an intense interlude that ca conclusion Then they went online and chatted with friends,Kiss Finally, it was tioodnights: Peter in his boxers, Neil in his pajamas

"I could kiss you for hours and still be on my feet," Peter says

"Likewise," Neil says

Then they wave, and sign off into sluht, and asks hi tomorrow Would he be up for another drive?

Avery has about a s to do, but of course he says he’s free Co fros hith ht he looks into it and tries to see what Ryan sees, and all he gets in return is disappointe his body, toit He thinks it’s because he was born in the wrong body, but ant to whisper in his ears that n inside them, felt betrayed We completely misunderstood our bodies We punished them, berated them, held them to an Olympian ideal that was deeply unfair to them We loathed the hair in so to be tighter, stronger, harder, faster We rarely recognized our own beauty unless so it for us We starved or we pushed or we hid or we paraded, and there was always another body we thought was better than ours There was always so When ere healthy, ere ignorant We could never be content within our own skin

Breathe, ant to tell Avery Feel yourself breathe Because that is aselse

Avery, hisper, you are a marvel

And he is He may never believe it, but he is

It’s eleven o’clock on a Saturday night Since there is rarely anything to do on a Saturday night in Harry and Craig’s town, a lot of people are dropping by the lawn of the high school to see the two boys kissing Ataken--the disposable coirls have to shush their drunken boyfriends, ant to say so inappropriate Or h Not everybody is here to show support Some are just here because they think it’s a freak show

"I bet if anted to break the world record with a straight kiss, they’d never give us the high school," one guy complains, as if this is a particular aspiration that’s been robbed frorees

"This is bullshit," another guy loudly declares, his voice and confidence amplified by the Budweiser he’s consuirl next to him wants to say