I'm laying on my back on my bed in my room. My eyes are shut. I'm not asleep, but I wonder if maybe I should be, since it's like, three in the morning. I guess it's like, anxiety or whatever, that's keeping me up. Or maybe it's insomnia. I don't know. A mixture of both—I can't get to sleep, I don't want to get to sleep, and my stomach just happens to be in knots at the thought of waking up even though (because I'm not asleep) I have nothing to wake up from. My phone vibrates again.

Eleven minutes ago, I was writing poetry and eating popcorn and writing (bad) poetry about popcorn. Then I ran out of popcorn, so I threw my notebook aside and laid down. My room still smells like popcorn, salty and buttery. Crunchy. Good. I think I want more popcorn, but it's three in the morning, like I said and my stepfather and my mother would be disappointed to see me awake at three in the morning just making popcorn. My stepfather might ask me if I'm high—he's kind of weird about drugs, but only really with me. My phone vibrates for the twenty ninth time and I finally think to open my eyes and grab my phone Deming has sent me a total of ninety eight text messages, highlights of which include, "They eat their pb&js with the CRUSTS on? What kind of HEATHENS—and they don't like guacamole!" and, "I can only fly two hundred feet and I'm not in antartica, what am I?" The last nineteen is just "ThE WInDow, YoU DoOrFuCkk!"

I go to the window in my bedroom. The screen fell out forever ago. I'm on the bottom floor. I poke my head out and look around. "Deming?" I call out. There's no response—in the distance, crickets sing an offbeat lullaby to the slowly leaving night.

I frown and close the window, going back in. I grab my phone off my bed and am about to text him.

There's a loud THUD on the glass of the window and I start, barely managing to clamp my hand to my mouth before I scream. A hand, a pale palm on a tan arm, is pressed against the glass. I see the smarmy grin on Deming's face. I open the window. "What the fuck, Deming!" I hiss. I'd shout, but it's three in the morning and while both my mom and my stepfather are very deep sleepers, every sound feels louder in the dark and these walls are paper thin—yesterday, they would have been twice as thick, but the wallpaper is beginning to fall apart, so instead of two paper thin things, it's just the wall.

   He sniggers and jumps into my bedroom—normally, a boy in your bedroom in the middle of the night would mean something that's usually illegal for sixteen year olds to do, but the most illegal thing we've ever done is look at bad fanfiction with badly written sex because we were bored. I still feel like the cops are gonna knock on our door at any point in time and take me in. He sprawls out onto my bed and I lie next to him. "What the fuck is up, my dude?"

I snicker. "I'ven't been a dude in three years, Deming."

"Oh, right, right, sorry." He clears his throat. "What the fuck is up, my valid trans girl I will still call a dude until the day I die even though I thoroughly respect your gender identity."

"You have to greet me like that every day now," I say. I rub at my eyes.

"That's too long, I'll just greet you with a 'What the fuck is up, girl?'" He tucks an arm beneath his head and sighs. "So. What up, girl?"

"Can't sleep," I say. "Want popcorn."

"Mood." I don't know if people still actually say 'mood,' but Deming says all sorts of weird shit. I don't question it. "You want to know what I'm doing up at this hour?" He grins.

"Do I?" I ask.

"Of course you do—Kohl took me out for a milkshake!"

"That's so sweet," I tell him. "Did you hold hands?"

"What kind of dumbass whore question is that?" Deming asks. "Of course we did."

"Fuck you, bitch."

"Oh my god, I love you, Rozhan." He laughs, flicking some of his hair out of his eyes. He has a bowl cut—at the roots, it's black and he'd be paler than death if Kohl didn't buy him a spray tan every once in awhile, but he dyed his hair this weird turquoise color that looks great on him. It gives him an excuse to wear just white and black, he says, and then when his clothes for some reason don't match, he says it's because of his hair. "But seriously, are you okay?"

   "Tired," I respond.

   "Then sleep, d—girl."

   "Can't," I sigh. "But like, not that type of tired. I don't want to go to school tomorrow."

   He smiles gently. "Then don't. We'll take a road trip to Seattle instead, and eat donut holes and drink smoothies and talk about...I don't know, something random and weird, but we'll get into a serious discussion over it. And we'll set the streets on fire, dress to the nines and paint the town."

"Deming," I sigh. "We can't do that."

"We could," he says. "Even though you haven't gotten a new outfit in three years and half of your clothes are still for men. ...Even though I can't even afford to have a packet of top ramen every day."

"How would we?"

"Steal a car," he suggests, eyes half lidded, trained on the ceiling above my bed, smoke damaged. "Rob a bank and then a gas station."

   "Yeah," I say. "Then we'll be on the run. Good plan."

   "Great plan," he yawns. "I'll bring Kohl along and we'll travel all across the country. It'll be fun."

   I smile. It does sound like fun, when I think about it. In that way that I know it'll never happen, we will never do it, but it's a nice thought. I could buy some new clothes, or estrogen. Oh, GOD, I want some goddamn estrogen! I yawn—it's not that Deming's boring or anything, but he's been my best friend for years. We used to paint each other's nails on the playground, used to sneak bottles of nail polish outside, back when we got weird looks and were asked if we'd like to play with trucks or dinosaurs or whatever the "other (normal) boys" were doing and playing with. I mean, dinosaurs and trucks are still cool, and my femininity and girlhood isn't defined by the fact that I would have rather painted my nails then played with a truck, but I remember it was something that brought us closer together. Anyway, Deming—he's been my best friend for years and I'm only really ever at my most calm when I'm near him. ...They should make greeting cards that say that.

   "Did..." His words are beginning to slur together. "Did I literally just come over here to fall asleep next to you?"

   "Yeah," I yawn. My bed is warm—the air still smells like butter. "It's like a sleepover."

   "This is the worst sleepover I've ever been to," he says and rolls over on his side. With that, we both fall asleep.

   Less than three hours later, my alarm goes off.