Imogen obviously, p.2
Imogen, Obviously, page 2
Lili veers off the quad, leading me down one of the residential streets near campus—mostly frat houses with giant Greek letters on display, populated by shirtless guys on lawn chairs. All of whom seem to have missed the memo that it’s March in upstate New York.
She stops in front of a slatted wood house with colorful flags draped from most of the windows. “So . . . this is Rainbow Manor. It’s kind of the queer frat house? People live here, but they also do events and community outreach work. Stuff like that.” She shoots me the quickest half smile. “And they throw the best parties.”
It’s like stepping into an alternate universe—sorry, but I’ve known Lili Cardoso since she was three years old, and parties are her personal hell. This is a girl who carried thick, dog-eared Tamora Pierce books all around camp every summer, just in case there was unexpected free time and someone tried to talk to her.
It must be different with her college friends. Her so-called pack of queers. They found each other at an orientation-week mixer, and they’ve been a ride-or-die squad ever since. Lili’s first real queer friendships.
I’m really happy for her. Obviously.
Even if I feel a little far away from her sometimes.
It’s hard to explain, because it’s not like she’s trying to phase me out. I’ve lost track of how many times she’s invited me to crash in her dorm for a weekend. And when her roommate moved off campus after winter break, it was basically a standing invitation.
I really meant to take her up on it.
But sometimes I get in my head about things like this. I think it’s the way Lili talks about this place—not a trace of snark or cynicism. Pure marshmallow. I know it’s a good thing, but it’s a little unnerving. It’s like her whole life clicked into place as soon as she left.
Which makes me the backstory. A relic of Lili’s heteronormative small-town childhood. I even look the part—a cardigan that’s almost as long as my skirt, my sandy-brown ponytail bobby-pinned on the sides. Even my purse looks a little too hometown preppy—a miniature crossbody satchel in brown fake leather.
Maybe this would be easier if I looked like Gretchen—cotton-candy pink hair and a wardrobe ripped straight from the set of Euphoria.
“For real, are you okay?” Lili asks. “You’re eerily quiet.”
I blink. “Oh! Sor—”
“Don’t apologize—I’m just saying. Also, we’re home!” Lili gestures at a trio of brick buildings arranged around a cozy grass courtyard. “The middle one’s Rosewood—that’s us. But all three are mostly freshmen.”
I pause to take it all in. The three structures—mismatched but complementary, connected by a network of intersecting paths. Everywhere I look, there are students on benches, on blankets, roaming in packs of two or three or six, with messenger bags and backpacks. Absolutely none of them look like freshmen. They look years and years older than me.
“Let’s drop off your bag,” Lili says. “Are you hungry? When do you want to eat?”
“Whenever—”
“Immy, no. Don’t do the people-pleasing thing.”
“I’m not!”
“You are!”
“Well, I don’t mean to!”
“Yeah, I know.” She laughs a little, then exhales. “Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry—”
“Or not! Let’s just not. We’re not sorry. We’re remorseless. Got it?” She hugs me sideways.
I grin. “Got it.”
We’ve barely taken two steps toward the dorm when a guy sneaks up behind Lili, covering her eyes with his hands. “Guess who!”
Lili doesn’t even pause. “Declan, meet—”
“Imogen!” He kisses my cheek. “Finally.”
He breaks into a smile, revealing a tiny gap between his front teeth, and for a moment, I’m speechless. I know him from Lili’s pictures, of course—this runway model of a boy. He’s white, with icy-blond hair and an angular face. Meeting him in person really does feel like a celebrity encounter.
Except for the part where he recognized me, too. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that I might exist to Lili’s new friends the same way they exist to me.
Declan grabs my suitcase, brushing off my startled thanks. “Babe, we’ve been waiting. We’ve heard quite a lot about you.”
I glance sideways at Lili. “Oh yeah?”
“I talked some serious shit,” she says. “They hate your guts now.”
“Not even close.” He turns to me, lowering his voice to a stage whisper. “Don’t worry, I tune out every time she starts talking—”
Lili shoves him. “Hey, what’s the plan for dinner?”
“Funny you should ask! We were just about to head to Winterfield. Hoping to ‘beat the rush,’ as the young folk say.”
“Oh, those young folk. Always beating the rush. What a smoking-hot new slang expression.”
Declan laughs, opening his mouth to respond, but he’s interrupted by a pair of new arrivals—Mika and Kayla. And it’s that same unnerving déjà vu.
I recognize Mika from TikTok, of course. They’re Japanese American and nonbinary, styled with their own blend of masculine and feminine aesthetics—soft-glam makeup and hair barrettes, boy-cut jeans, and a bird-printed button-down. I think Lili told me they’re from the Minneapolis suburbs. It’s still so strange to me that someone in Minnesota would even have upstate New York on their radar. Kayla being from Albany makes a little more sense. She’s tall and lanky, with deep brown skin, angular cheekbones, and Sisterlocks pulled into a bun. I know she’s an anime geek—Lili said she used to do cosplay. She does a jokey fake gasp when she sees me. “Is this the Imogen?”
“Yes. Hi! Kayla, right?” My hand twitches at my side—I don’t know if I’m supposed to put it out for a handshake, or what. Is this a hugging situation? Should I go in for the cheek kiss like Declan?
Mika tucks a lock of hair behind their ear and smiles. “Feels like we already know each other.”
“You’re coming here in the fall, right?” Kayla asks. “Like, officially?”
“Yup! Yeah, I’m excited,” I say, nodding really fast—mostly to distract from what Edith calls my Resting Bunny Face: wide-eyed, soft, forever on high alert. I don’t think it’s as bad as it used to be—now I only really slip into bunny mode when I’m meeting someone new. I can always feel when it’s happening, because it’s like my mouth unhooks from my brain for a minute. Even if I’m in the middle of talking. It’s fun.
I come by it honestly, though, because my dad does it too. He’s always been shy, the way I am. My mom loves telling the story of how she thought Dad was a huge film buff for years, since he took her to so many movies when they first started dating. Really, it was just so he wouldn’t have to talk. But then Mom got him a vintage popcorn bucket for Christmas, so he had to spend the next few years pretending to be into movies, because he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Pure Imogen energy, basically.
But Dad hides it better than I do—either that, or he’s better at disappearing to the basement when he needs to. Still, I can always tell when his brain goes offline. It’s sort of tucked into the pauses when he talks.
“I think it’s going to be amazing,” my mouth adds. “I know how much Lili loves it here.”
I play it back in my head—okay, good. I sound mostly normal. Amazing. Lili loves it. Just some basic Imogenericisms.
“Okay, I love that?” says Kayla. “The maturity. Love to see it.”
Lili rubs her forehead. “Ha. Okay, so. I don’t want to hold you guys up. We still need to drop this bag off, but we can meet you at dinner. Is Tessa coming?”
“Haven’t heard from her yet. Probably still with the himbos,” says Declan.
“I’ll poke my head in just in case.” Lili turns to me. “Her room’s right next to ours. Actually, you share a wall with her.”
The way Lili talks about it, you’d think I was moving in permanently.
What’s weird is realizing she’s not entirely wrong.
Texts with Gretchen
IS: Awwww, thanks
IS: I’m good though, seriously
IS: Everyone’s really nice!!
IS: Gretch it’s so beautiful here
GP: Good!!!! Just got back
GP: Wait
GP: Did you meet Mika
IS: Yes
GP: gsfdgjhsjfj;lk;k’;
GP: Tell them I say hiiiiiiiiii
GP: WAIT
GP: don’t do that
GP: Play it cool
IS: I’ll try haha
IS: I think we’re meeting them for dinner later
GP: SHUT UP
GP: IMOGEN YOU’RE HANGING OUT WITH MIKA HIYASHI
GP: okay okay we’re cool, we’re chill
GP: I mean, what are they like in person?!!!! Tell me EVERYTHING
3
The halls of Lili’s dorm are narrow, with white cinder-block walls, tightly looped gray carpets, and the same rectangular flourescent light fixtures we have at school. But there are homey touches, too—the word hello spelled out in washi-tape block letters, taped event flyers, and a giant white sheet of paper tacked up near the bathroom, half-covered with doodles and handwritten quotes. Right away, I spot one attributed to Lili, written with purple marker in someone else’s handwriting: To be or not to be; that is the chest hair.
I wouldn’t call it a gut punch—more like a tiny, sharp poke beneath my rib cage. Other people’s inside jokes always hit me like that, but I can never quite pin down the feeling. A variation on loneliness, maybe.
“Okay, brace yourself,” Lili says, pulling out her room key. “My room is basically a closet.”
There’s a dry-erase white board stuck to Lili’s door, featuring a chibi-style drawing of two cats with their tails looped into a heart. Taped above it are a pair of cloud-shaped construction-paper signs, just like the ones I’ve seen on most of the doors we passed.
WELCOME, EMILIA
WELCOME, SYDNEY
I let out a laugh as soon as Lili opens the door. “So when you said it’s the size of a closet, you meant Kylie Jenner’s closet.”
“Okay, it’s small for a double!”
“How often does Sydney stay here again?”
She makes a face at me, parking my suitcase next to one of the beds. There are two of them, flush against perpendicular walls, both made with quilts and sheets I recognize from home—Lili’s home. Her favorite rainbow-haired unicorn, Puppy, is tucked under the covers of one of them.
I guess it’s a little on the cozy side—less because the room itself is small, and more because the furniture comes in pairs. Two desks, two dressers, two wardrobes, two short wooden bookshelves. But it’s all so covered in Lili’s familiar clutter, I feel instantly at home. There’s an assortment of Pop-Tarts and granola bar boxes on top of one of the dressers, intermingling with ceramic horse figurines and month-old birthday cards. Her bookshelves are pure chaos—Homer, Virgil, Euripides, and Aristophanes, alongside Madeline Miller, Roxane Gay, and a memoir by someone who used to be on The Bachelor. And of course, Lili’s postcard collection is on full display, sticky-blobbed to the walls in random clusters. Niagara Falls next to the printed cover of Issue 1 of Check, Please! “Tracy Mitrano for Congress” next to “Bem-vindo a São Paulo.”
But above both beds, it’s just photos—rows of prints, sloping subtly downward because Lili’s never met a straight line in her life. The ones above my bed are mostly from this year—group selfies and sunny snapshots of her friends in various combinations. But the ones above Lili’s bed are from home.
I cross her room for a closer look, smiling at the lineup: my family’s barn at sunset, Penn Yan’s Main Street, a double rainbow over Keuka Lake. Small-town New York state in tiny four-by-six glimpses. And mixed throughout: family portraits, childhood pictures. Naturally, there are at least a dozen pictures of Mel, plus the one from my tenth birthday where Lili’s dressed as Mel. I’m standing beside her in that one, dressed as my cat Quincy, and we’re both wearing glow necklaces and holding up our overstuffed trick-or-treat pillowcases. There’s one of Lili and Otávio, ages seven and five, beaming, in matching white Corinthians soccer jerseys—and beside it, taken almost a decade later, Lili literally crying while getting a book signed by Casey McQuiston. She’s even got the photo her mom insisted on snapping two summers ago, the year we scooped ice cream at Seneca Farms. Lili was at the height of her moody black eyeliner phase, glaring over the counter. I’m posed dutifully beside her with a metal scoop and a how-can-I-help-you smile.
But my favorite picture of us is the one from last summer’s Pride, a week after Lili came out. She’s wrapped in a pink, yellow, and turquoise flag, and I’m leaning against her, elbow propped on her shoulder. Edith took the picture, and she must have said something funny right beforehand, because we’re clearly both howling with laughter.
“I love everything about this,” I say, settling onto Lili’s bed.
“Ha—thanks.” Lili plops down beside me. Then she stares straight ahead for a moment without speaking. “Okay, we gotta talk,” she says finally.
My heart flips. “Oh—”
“Nothing bad! I mean, not, like, catastrophic? I don’t know.” I nod slowly, and she looks at me. “So. My friends—”
“Seem great! Seriously. They’re so nice.”
“Yeah, no, definitely, but that’s . . .” She trails off, scooping her dark hair off her neck—twisting it up, letting it fall. “I know that was a little weird out there—not because of you,” she adds. “Imogen, no. If you apologize right now, I will actually kill you.”
I press a muffling hand over my mouth, and she laughs.
But then she sighs. “So here’s the thing. My friends here are so queer.”
“So are you.” I pause, furrowing my brow. “Oh, God—do they think—I don’t want anyone to feel unsafe, or—”
“Immy, come on—no one thinks you’re a queerphobe.” She shakes her head at me, smiling. “And yes, I know I’m queer. I’m valid. All of that. I guess it’s just me seeing the way—I don’t know. They have their shit together, you know?”
“Okay—”
“Like Kayla?” she adds. “She came out in middle school. She took a girl to the eighth-grade dance and kissed her on the dance floor. Right in the school gym.”
“Whoa, nice!” I say, cringing before the words have even left my lips. My voice always pitches higher when people talk about girls kissing—which makes literally no sense, seeing as I’m surrounded by queer people 24/7. I know Gretchen finds it annoying sometimes. Though other times, she says it’s adorable, and that I’m an innocent bean with Mommy’s-first-day-at-PFLAG energy. But that just makes me even more self-conscious.
Maybe the awkwardness is just one of those small-town things you have to shake off and unlearn. Apart from Pride Alliance meetings, it’s not like Penn Yan is some sort of queer haven. I can’t even fathom two girls kissing on the dance floor of my middle-school gym. The image doesn’t compute. I know there were one or two gay couples in my grade back then, but it was kind of a quieter thing. Not a secret, but definitely not front and center.
And everyone in Pride Alliance talks about how hard it is to date people from our school. Gretchen says it’s because everyone knows everyone in Penn Yan. And you can’t exactly hold hands with a girl in the cafeteria when your teachers are friends with your homophobic parents. Hypothetically speaking, that is, since Mama Patterson isn’t homophobic, and neither are my parents or Lili’s. But I guess homophobia managed to leak into the atmosphere somehow. Even Edith, who’s basically never not been out, hadn’t dated anyone before Zora.
I really wish I could be more casual about this stuff.
“So that’s Kayla,” says Lili. “Tessa and Mika both had girlfriends in high school. Actually, middle school too, for Mika—they were with their ex for, like, five years. And Dec’s from Manhattan, so who even knows? He’s on a whole other level. It’s hard not to feel inadequate, you know?”
“Because you haven’t dated anyone?”
Lili and I used to joke about that a lot. We were the Forever Alone Club. No boyfriends. No random hookups. Just a pair of perpetually single besties who spent way more time hanging around animals than boys.
It’s not that I didn’t want a boyfriend. I did. I do. I fall in and out of crushes all the time. It’s just not something I talk about much—I don’t even get into the specifics with Gretchen and Lili. Crushes have always felt viscerally private to me. I know that’s weird. It’s definitely sort of lonely. But I don’t think being single ever made me feel inadequate.
“It’s not that.” Lili frowns. “Not exactly? I just feel like such a baby queer sometimes. I’d only been out for three months when I got here.”
“They shouldn’t judge you for that.”
“They didn’t.” Lili pauses. “I kind of told them I came out in high school.”
I feel so out of my depth. “Do people really care when you came out?”
“I mean, my friends don’t.” Lili covers her face with both hands. “I don’t know, I was being a dumbass, and—okay.” She gives a short, muffled moan before pulling her hands away. “I have to tell you something.”
Suddenly, it’s summer again—that Sunday evening in June. Lili had been roped into stopping by this girl Brianna’s graduation party, which was exactly as boring and awkward as we’d expected. So we left early. She drove me home. I remember it was raining, just barely, and I was a little hypnotized by the droplets streaking down the passenger window. And then Lili stopped at a red light on Main Street and said my name out of nowhere.
“So I think—I’m probably pan. Like pansexual?”
She was staring straight ahead when she said it, didn’t even miss a beat when the light turned green. But she was biting her lip just like she is now, and I almost wonder—
“Um.” She laughs nervously, and I’m jolted straight back. Lili’s dorm room. Something she needs to tell me. “Promise you won’t hate me,” she says.
