Chapter Thirty-Seven
After a few more group hugs, Julia and Gabriel tromp up the stairs together, arm in arm. They’re acting like the Lion and the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz, singing their own version of the main song from the movie.
“We’re off, thanks to the Wizard! The Wonderful Wizard of Ozzzzzz!”
I shake my head and smile faintly as I listen to their voices fade away into the stairwell. Finally, it’s quiet in the Bat Cave again. I turn to Sunny, who’s been unusually restrained during the impromptu show tune exit.
“Do you want to go for a walk?” I ask her.
Sunny sighs. She looks at me and bites her bottom lip. It’s funny to recognize that she looks extremely attractive right now and also realize in this moment that I’m not personally attracted to her. I’ve never really thought about the difference before. But there is a difference.
“Sure,” she says. “Why not?”
I lock up the school behind us, and we lean into the tilted streets, letting gravity lead us gently down to Golden Gate Park.
The wind can’t quite decide whether it wants to be refreshing and breezy or tip into blustering.
But the sun peeks out from the clouds at little moments, and Sutro Tower waves hello between the sporadic sheets of fog, and it feels like the most perfect day I can imagine.
“Strawberry Hill?” I ask after we cross Irving and step under the tree-lined canopy.
Sunny laughs. “No freaking way. I’m not in hiking gear.”
“Okay, then.” I point up ahead. “Shakespeare Garden?”
“That I can do.”
We walk under the delicate arched wrought-iron sign and past the sundial. Sunny finds a bench in the shade. She slides onto one side of the bench, leaving the other side open. I sit down next to her. Sunny shifts and faces me as soon as I’ve sat down.
“I’ve kind of wanted to tell you something,” she says carefully. “Over the last few weeks, I mean.”
“Oh,” I say, a bit surprised. I had thought I was going to have to be the one to dive into this subject. But I’m glad Sunny’s bringing it up. It’s good that she’s leading this conversation. “Okay. Yeah, tell me.”
“Don’t get mad.”
“I won’t be mad,” I say.
“You might get mad.”
“Sunny. Just tell me!”
She nods. “You’re right. So, here’s the thing: The day I saw you dancing with Cam, I was pissed.”
“Rightly so,” I say quickly. “I shouldn’t have lied to you and the group. I should have been talking to you that day after school about what you had told me—”
Sunny holds up a finger to get me to stop talking. “But here’s the thing, Ivy: When I saw you two together, I also felt this weird sort of relief.”
Relief? I swallow and wait for Sunny to keep going.
“After we voted Cam out of the group, and I chased you upstairs and said I had feelings for you…Well, I regretted it almost immediately. I knew I had messed things up somehow.”
“With our friendship,” I offer.
Sunny shakes her head. “No. It was more like I had the wrong translation. I’ve never been a part of GSA, Ivy.
I’ve never felt strong enough—or safe enough, really—to champion my sexuality.
Like, I’ve never even let myself think about it the way that you have.
But I still remember your poster on the LGBTQ+ acronym.
And how you wrote about why the acronym starts with the letter L. ”
“You remember that?” I ask.
Sunny gives me a smirk. “I mean, they hung it up in the main part of the hallway. I couldn’t avoid it.
But it stuck with me, you know? Like it was a clue to figuring myself out.
And this last month…it made me realize, I don’t have a crush on you, specifically.
But I do look up to you. I like how proud you are about your identity.
And…yeah, when I ran upstairs after you, what I really should have said was ‘I think I’m a lesbian. ’ Because, well, I am.”
She looks down into her lap shyly.
I leap up from the bench. I can barely contain myself.
“Sunny,” I say. “Sunny! That. Is. AMAZING!”
She looks up and smiles. “Yeah?”
“Hell yeah! The lesbians are lucky to have you!” I cup one hand to my ear. “I think I hear Hayley Kiyoko rejoicing at this very moment.”
Sunny laughs and swats my leg. I sit back down next to her. We’re grinning at each other at first. Then each of our smiles softens.
“I don’t think you’re a lesbian, though,” Sunny says.
“No,” I say in agreement. “I’m not. I’ll have to bring you all my gorgeous lesbian flag décor while I redecorate my room with colors from the pansexual flag.
Although…I did come across a Reductress article last week titled ‘Five Doc Marten Looks That Say, “I’m Attracted to All Women and Two Men,” ’ and that feels even more accurate at the moment. ”
Sunny nods approvingly. “You do rock some very sexy Doc Marten looks.”
“Thank you,” I say. I give a silly bow.
The wind blows through the garden like a deep breath, and just like that, we’re back to the way things were before. Except we’re not, actually. Because now things between us are even better. Sunny and I are friends. We’re really, really good friends.
A small tourist group filters under the archway, taking photos of the sign, the sundial, the bust of Shakespeare set inside the stone and brick wall at the far end. I look over at Sunny.
“Maybe we should give up our bench.”
“Yeah,” Sunny says, “give someone else a turn to have their own sexual-orientation awakening.”
We leave the garden and walk back along Seventh Avenue.
Sunny tugs me off the sidewalk as we pass by a coffee shop called The Beanery.
I wait next to the front sandwich sign, certain that Sunny’s off to grab her second (or possibly fifth) cup of coffee for the day.
But then she surprises me by pulling my wrist and leading me inside the shop behind her.
“Come on. This round’s on me.”
We find a small table in the corner, and I wait while Sunny brings our drinks over.
She sits across from me, and for a moment it’s like I’m back in Lady Business with Rachel.
Sunny’s so beautiful. She would be a perfect date.
But she’s my friend. And my mind isn’t really here at all with this gorgeous girl—it’s fixated on a boy I’m hopelessly crazy about.
Sunny smiles wryly at me, like she knows exactly what I’m thinking.
“So, why didn’t you find it?” she asks.
I blink at her.
“The treasure,” Sunny goes on. “Why didn’t you and Cam find it?”
“Oh.” I sit up and take a sip of my coffee. “Well, the clock installation thing was a total bust. Just like you three said it would be.”
I think of the inscription over The Gates of Hell sculpture, the one The Three Shades were all pointing to:
Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.
I should have known right then that the treasure wouldn’t be anywhere near the Legion of Honor museum. How could it? If The Three Shades were meant to be a symbol in Gilbert Baker’s drawing, they might as well have symbolized the dead opposite of Harvey Milk’s legacy.
“We were probably wrong about all of that stuff,” I say.
“Naturally,” Sunny says. She drinks her coffee and smiles. “But why did you give up?”
I give her a look. “Why do you think?”
Sunny purses her lips like she really is thinking about it. She places her index finger to her mouth in a pause, then points it at me. “Because Cam still thinks you’re a lesbian?”
“Oh, right,” I say, laughing. “I forgot. This treasure completely hinges on Cam and me figuring out our past and burying the hatchet or whatever.”
“Or digging it up,” Sunny says. She wiggles her eyebrows knowingly.
I squint at her. “No…I’m pretty sure the saying goes that you’re supposed to bury the hatchet.”
“Okay, fine, bury it,” she says. “Dig up something better. I meant what I said earlier, about your mind being too cloudy to see the real truth. But maybe that’s not Cam’s fault. You know what I’ve noticed about you two whenever you’re together?”
Sunny leans across the table. I can’t help scooting my drink to one side so I can meet her in this halfway huddle.
“What?” I ask.
“You don’t look at yourselves when you’re around each other,” she says.
“Like, of course you’re always giving each other these yearning sidelong glances.
But whenever you two pass by a mirror or a window reflection, you clam up.
You both look down at your feet. It’s like you’re afraid of what you look like together. As a couple.”
I just stare at her.
“And maybe that’s what’s holding you back,” Sunny continues. “That, right there, that’s the cloud. You guys started this hunt at one point and now you’re here at this new point, but you won’t connect the two together. And I think you sort of need to. If you want to finish it.”
She stands from the table. I watch as she pulls a small slip of paper from her pocket. It’s Beiye’s number, I realize.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Sunny says. “I have a very cool club to look into and a very hot girl to ask out on a date.”
I give Sunny a salute. “Bye, Tin Man.”
“Oh, you’re still the real Tin Man,” Sunny calls over her shoulder. “I call Dorothy now and forever.”
“Fine,” I say, relenting. “Bye, Dorothy.”
“Bye, Tin Man!” Sunny shoots me a coy smile. “Hope you get that weird-ass heart of yours fixed soon.”