“In the spring and summer, people race little boats,” Marius says, pointing toward the ice-skaters. “And there’s a restaurant at the edge of the park.”
“It’s gigantic.” I can’t stop staring. “I didn’t think you guys had this much free space.”
“Hey,” he says. “There are tons of parks in New York. This is just the biggest one.”
There’s a grin on his face. I can’t really get over how much I love it when he smiles. I really do. His face already makes him look young, but when he smiles, it’s even better, like this rash expression of boyish joy I’ve always found annoying on everyone else. It makes me want to smile, too.
We probably look odd to everyone walking past. We’re standing in the middle of the path and people have to step around us to get by and we’re both smiling like idiots. When I stare at Marius, he doesn’t look away like I do. He’s not uncomfortable with attention—giving it or receiving it.
I grab his hand and start walking again. Something about holding Marius’s hand feels really intimate. It’s like the most I’ve ever touched anyone. Before this, I was so conscious of the way I touched him, trying to stay clear of every single accidental meeting of skin. It feels like electricity shooting through my fingertips.
There’s a huge amount of space in Central Park, but that doesn’t stop some random woman from trying to walk right between us. Marius pulls me to the side. I’m still pissed off.
“People are so rude,” I say, loud enough for her to hear. “We’re obviously walking here. I don’t know why they can’t just wait or walk around or something.”
“Oh my God.”
A group of white girls stops next to me, clogging up the path even more. There are about four of them, and they all have a variation of the same dirty blond hair. The one in the front clutches a pink phone in her hand. They’re staring, but not at me. I glance up at Marius. His eyes have widened slightly.
“Uh, hi,” the girl in the front says. “You’re Marius Canet, right?”
Someone grumbles as they shove through us. I step to the side, up onto the grass, but no one follows me until Marius does the same.
“Yeah,” he says, smiling. He can’t even say anything else before the other girls squeal.
“Oh my God, okay,” the girl in the front says. “We saw some clips of Incident on 57th Street online and you were amazing.”
“Oh, wow,” Marius says. His cheeks are pink, but I’m guessing it’s not from the cold. The smile on his face gets wider. “Thank you so much.”
“Could we have a picture?” a girl in the back asks. “All of us together?”
“Oh.” Marius glances at me. “Do you mind?”
One by one, each girl looks at me. My stomach tightens and my air constricts and I’m immediately sure they’re thinking the worst things about me: trying to figure out what Marius is doing with me, what I’m wearing, why I’m standing the way I am.
“You can be in the picture,” one of the other girls says to me. “If you want.”
I stare at her. These girls look perfect, like they walked out of a glossy magazine ad for the Beautiful College Student Store. I don’t see any blemishes or scars or pimples. When they smile, they look like they could be models. They look like sisters. Meanwhile, everything about me is different—my hair, my skin, my belly, my thighs. At the back of my mind, I know being different doesn’t mean I’m ugly. Staring at them just makes it harder to believe myself.
These girls are everything I always wanted to be. Even when I started complimenting myself in the mirror, a big part of me wanted to look like these girls. I wanted straighter hair and a flat stomach. Looking at them makes me want to be like them, but I know I can’t. All of the diets I’ve tried—Weight Watchers, Atkins, drinking nothing but lemonade for an entire day, counting calories until I was eating nothing at all—only kept the weight off for a few weeks. My hair doesn’t look like theirs, even after I straighten it. I’m never going to be them. I’m never going to be skinny or have good hair or be white. I’ve known this, but it still hurts, especially looking at them next to Marius.
“It’s fine,” I say, shoving my hands into my pockets. “You guys go ahead.”
“Actually, could you take the picture for us?”
I take the pink phone and hold the screen up so I can see. They all look like they belong together, especially with Marius in the center. As time goes on and Marius’s career takes off, there are going to be more and more people coming up to him and asking for pictures. Will I still be around, standing behind the camera, taking pictures of people who belong in them?
“Smile,” I say. One of the girls blinks. I take the picture anyway.
@JosieTheJournalist: queer kids are the coolest
The next day, the entire cast is doing an event for LGBTQ youth. It’s in a big auditorium with flyers advertising after-school programs and different Pride flags all around. There are tons of teenagers here. It’s kind of weird. At almost all of the events up to now, everyone has been adults, but these people are my age and younger, waiting in line when everyone is ushered into the screening room. There are people with braces, green hair, pins on their jackets, backpacks. It’s almost jarring how much it
