“Okay.” She eyes the fire in the pit, which is high and bright and loud. She throws a few more pieces of wood into it, and there’s a series of loud pops. The smell of burning pinesap fills the air, tinny and acrid. “Do you want to do this, or should I?”
“I think you,” I say cautiously. “I think it’ll be worse if I do it. Worse for you, I mean.”
“Okay,” she says. “Okay. Okay.” She blows out a long stream of air. “Okay.” She opens the backpack and pulls out the liver. It’s shiny and taut, darker than I would have expected. Almost purple. She holds it in both hands and looks from it to me. “I’m scared,” she whispers. “Like, really scared. I’m freaked out, Alexis.” Her brown eyes are wide, and I can see her trying to be brave.
“I’m here,” I say. It’s the only thing I can say. It’s the only comfort I can offer, and I know it isn’t enough. “It’ll be okay.”
Marcelina looks back down at the liver. “What if I lose something really big?” she asks it. “What if I don’t lose anything and someone else loses something instead? What if it’s not okay?”
“Then we’ll all be not-okay with you,” I tell her. Her mouth twitches into the briefest of smiles.
“It’s not fair when you use my own lines back at me,” she says. Then she takes in a gulp of air like she’s about to jump into a swimming pool, and she throws the liver onto the fire.
Nothing crazy happens. The fire doesn’t change color, and a chill wind doesn’t rustle through the trees. The liver sizzles and smokes, and a smell that’s uncomfortably reminiscent of barbecue fills the air. Handsome and Fritz both lift their noses to take in the aroma.
“Okay,” Marcelina says again. She takes her hair down and runs her fingers through it nervously.
“How do you feel?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Fine, I think. Maybe it’s not done yet.”
She sits in the grass, leaning back on her hands and watching the fire. I sit next to her. Handsome and Fritz attempt to drape themselves across our laps, and there’s a brief moment of chaos as we simultaneously try to push the two wriggling dogs off us. “You’re too big,” I tell them both, but they just wag their tails and pretend not to understand.
“So, you also told your dads that you’re …” She waves her hands vaguely. “Whatever? What did you tell them? Bisexual?”
“Um, kind of. I told them that I’m still figuring out where I land, and I guess bisexual is the closest thing to true?”
She nods. “You’ve never really said it out loud before. It’s okay if things change later, you know?”
“Yeah, that’s what they said. And they both also said that they already knew and they thought I knew they knew? So it wasn’t really a big deal, I guess.”
“It’s still a big deal, even if it wasn’t a big deal,” she says, scratching under Fritz’s collar.
“Pop said something weird,” I say as casually as I can. “I think he was just trying to be supportive or whatever, but he said that he thinks I should ask Roya out.” I catch Marcelina rolling her eyes. “What?”
“What?”
“Why are you rolling your eyes at that?”
She does it again. I use a little spark of magic to tell Fritz to lick her in retaliation, and she tries to shove him away, but he nails her right in the ear. She makes an euuuaaaghh noise. “Gross, Fritz, you have toad-breath.”
“Good boy, Fritz,” I say, rubbing the hard-to-reach spot under his ear.
Not to be outdone, Handsome tries to shove his nose into her other ear. “Call off your goons, Alexis!” she cries, shoving at the big shaggy dog.
I grab Handsome by the collar and he settles for shoving his nose into my ear, which isn’t my favorite sensation, but which isn’t nearly so bad as getting licked. “You don’t have toad-breath,” I whisper, even though he kind of does.
“Look, I just think that it’s sort of obvious that you should ask Roya out, isn’t it?” Marcelina grabs a long, forked stick and pushes the black lump of liver deeper into the fire. “We all thought you were going to ask her to prom, but—”
“She wanted to go with Tall Matt,” I say bitterly.
“Um, no,” she says. “She wanted to go with you, but then you never asked her and Tall Matt did. They were there as friends.”
“She was just saying that because she’s afraid of commitment,” I snap. Marcelina gives me an oh hell no, how did you just try to talk to me? look and I grimace. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snipe.”
“Damn right you didn’t,” she mutters. “And you need to give Roya more credit than that. She wouldn’t lie about not being into Tall Matt. She likes him as a friend. Did you even see them dancing at prom, or were you too busy getting groped by Josh? Who, I am delighted to remind you, you don’t even like?”
“Didn’t,” I murmur. Her face softens.
“What were you doing with him, Lex?” She combs her fingers through Fritz’s fur. His eyes close in contentment and he does some tiny tail-wags that tap against my thigh. “I know everyone’s been asking you and you’re super grumpy about it, but … it just doesn’t make any sense.”
“Why not?” I purse my lips, trying not to get snappy with her again. “I’ve dated guys too. What, just because I’m”—vague hand waving—“whatever kind of queer I am, I can’t still hook up with dudes?”
“You’re full of shit,” Marcelina says mildly, still dragging her fingers through the long, coarse fur on Fritz’s head. “You know that’s not what I mean. And don’t try to play it like you’ve ever slept with a guy before. We both know that would have been your first time.” She shakes her head. “And it would
