Rosie and I scoured the apartment from top to bottom on Sunday. Either the Lysol fumes made me lightheaded, or being busy staved off my depression. “Mom’s sending over more sheets and blankets and towels,” Rosie said. “Kitchen stuff, too. I think she feels guilty about abandoning you.”

“Don’t.” I stopped scraping the gunk off the microwave to look at her . “Your mom’s great. You’re lucky and you know it.”

Rosie dipped her sponge into the bucket and continued scrubbing the wall.

“I was going to ask your mom…” I swallowed hard. “Never mind.”

"Ask her what?”

I sighed. "If she’d hire me part-time. I’m going to need more money. I’ll need to buy food and toothpaste and shampoo, everything. My job at Children's Cottage pays like crap.”

“I wish you'd told me you were thinking about that." Rosie swept a cobweb off her head. “Mom just hired a part-time helper. But," she snapped her lingers, “I bet my uncle would hire you at Hott ‘N Tott. He’s always looking for people to work the early shift.”

“Yeah?" My hopes soared. “That’d be great.”

“Iʼll talk to him tonight.”

I voiced my next thought: “I might have to quit school.”

Rosie spun around. “No. What are you talking about? You can’t quit. You have to graduate. You have to. What kind of example would it set if the student body president dropped out?”

I rolled my eyes. “Who cares?”

She flung her sponge into the bucket and charged across the room. Clenching my arms, she spun me around to face her and said, "I care. You have to graduate. You have to go to college. You have to think about your future.”

“You sound like my mother.”

“Oh, puhllease –” Rosie paused. She bit her lip. “You’re not serious, are you? You wouldn’t really quit school because of this. Because of…me?”

"It's not because of you. It’s not your fault.”

“Jennie,” she said, shaking me, “don't do it. Don’t do anything youʼll regret.”

Like promising to keep us a secret? I didn’t say it. Her tightening grip was hurting my arms and I twisted away. “I probably wonʼt quit,” I muttered.

“Promise."

When I didn’t right away, Rosie said in my face, “Promise!”

“Okay, I promise.” Geez.

Smiling, she patted my arms and said, “Thatʼs my girl.”

Why did she make me feel like she was my mother and father and friend and lover all rolled into one? Because she was. She was my everything. “What are you doing next year?" I asked as she returned to her bucket. "Staying at Seoul or going back to Melbourne?”

“I’m never going back there,” she said. "I can't."

Canʼt? "What do you mean?”

She replied, “Turn up the radio. I love this song.”

I amped the volume on the portable radio Rosie had brought over. She began to dance and rock out, obviously avoiding the question.

I resumed scraping. That solved one problem, anyway. I wasn't leaving to go to college out of state – if I was going at all. Right now college was the furthest thing from my mind. Surviving day to day took priority.

The song finished and Rosie’s sponge plopped in the water. She flung herself backward across the bed and said in a yawn, “Let’s go get a pizza or something. I’m wiped.”

I set my knife on top of the microwave, trudged over, and sprawled out beside her. We gazed up into the cracked and blistered ceiling. Facing her, I said, “You want to try it out?”

A slow smile snaked across her lips. "I thought you'd never ask.”

***

Quitting school was never an option, really. Well, maybe it was, but there were only eight weeks left. No sense throwing it all away, like Mom had. Like her life was so ruined. Her future was destroyed.

The resentment, the anger toward her began to consume me and I couldn’t let it. I had three midterms and a presentation next week, not to mention the leadership conference. Kai had gone ahead and organised the whole event, which I felt guilty as hell about. I wanted to thank him, to tell him he’d done a fantastic job, but try to talk to him. He acted like I was the Scourge.

Art class was my salvation. I could totally zone while Mackal assumed I was visualising the next Sistine Chapel. Occasionally, Rosie would glance back at me, looking worried, and press a fist to her heart, making me squeal with ecstasy. On the inside only, of course.

One Friday afternoon, feeling wasted from all the stress and overwork, I slid into my seat in art and ran through my usual routine: Check the phone, pull out my sketchbook, stare at the back of Rosie’s head. Soji showed us slides of various objects and talked about how to draw perspective. How to give dimension to buildings, rooms, furniture.

A vision came to me. My dump. I dug out a pencil and began to sketch it. That was depressing. I ripped out the page.

Soji eyed me. I grimaced an apology. What about drawing my vision of what the room could be?

Okay, it had possibilities. See beyond the surface, So ji had said.

The act of creating, of transferring my altered vision to the page was oddly comforting. Possibilities. They were there.

***

We were sitting in a booth sharing a box of donut shards and refilling napkin holders when Rosie looked up and smiled. I twisted around. Hwa stood at the counter, hungdog. "I brought your stuff," she grumbled, shoving a couple of Hefty trash bags at me.

So this is what my life has been reduced to, I thought. Hwa added, “She was going to throw it all out.”

An ache gnawed at my core. “Is my safe in there?" I sniped.

“No," Hwa said. “She kept that. She said…” Hwa stopped.

My eyes narrowed. “She said what?”

Hwa stuck her thumbnail in her mouth and started chewing.

“Never mind. I can guess.” Even though she’d never actually voiced the sentiment, I knew Mom felt that everything I had I owed to her. “How did you know where to find me?" I asked Hwa.

She and Rosie exchanged glances. I glared at Rosie. "I think I hear the cinnamon rolls rising,” she said, sliding out fast. “You two talk. You need each other." She touched Hwa’s shoulder and added, "Tell her.”

My glare engulfed Hwa. "Tell me what? Why you outed me?”

"I didn’t.” Hwa spit out a cuticle. "I’d never do that.”

I held her eyes.

She lowered her hand and repeated, "I didn’t do it.”

“But you apologized.”

"What?” Her eyebrows twitched. "Oh, yeah. For not defending you that night, not taking your side. I should have. It all just happened so fast.”

I studied her face, searching for the truth and getting nothing but a vacant sign. “Sit down." I motioned to the plasti-seat Rosie had vacated.

Hwa scotched in. I offered her a donut chunk from the box. She shook her head, then stuck her thumb in her mouth and began nibbling again.

“It’s hard to talk to you when you’re doing that,” I told her.

She dropped her hand. “Don’t be mad at Rosie," she said. “I made her tell me how to find you. I’ve been worried about you.”

She was worried about me? My shoulders slumped. At least somebody was. I felt guilty. For blaming her, for cursing her every time I crunched a cockroach in my bathroom. “So," I said forcing a smile,"how are you? How’s everything?”

She met my eyes. Stuck out her tongue in a gag.

“Do you know who told her about me?”

Hwa's eyes grazed the table. “I think so.”

I waited. She didn’t volunteer the information. I wanted to lunge at her, grab her around the neck, force her to look at me, talk to me, tell me –

Tell me what? That none of this had happened? That it was all her fault? Somebody else’s fault? Anyone’s but mine? Because it was mine. It did happen. The actions, the decisions, the consequences, they were all my responsibility.

Accept it, Jennie, my inner voice admonished. Get over it.

I was dealing. Still, I had to know. "Was it Bonnie Lucas?”

Hwa curled a lip. “Who?”

“Mom’s friend. The career counselor at school.”

“I donʼt know her.”

Another long, uncomfortable pause. Was I going to have to beat it out of Hwa? Because I would –

“Your mom called around to all your friends one Saturday to find you. You were supposed to go shopping for a dress or something?”

Oh, shit, the dress, which I’d agreed to buy under the false pretense I’d wear it to the governors dinner. Which I never did attend. After I became a homeless street urchin, dinner with the gov seemed a tad trifling.

“Nayeon," I seethed aloud. “I should’ve known.”

“No. Nayeon wasn’t home," Hwa said. "Jisoo was. She talked to Jisoo for a couple of minutes. Then she called someone else. I heard your mom say, ‘What girlfriend?' I'm pretty sure she was talking to Kai.”

"Kai?” My jaw unhinged. “But…” No, he wouldn’t tell my mother. Itʼd reflect on him. He wouldn't tell anyone. Would he? Is he the one who told Jisoo and Nayeon? Is he the one who leaked it to the world?

“After she hung up, your mom was like flaming all over the house. Totally psycho. She attacked me on the sofa and screamed at me to tell her what I knew. But I didn't. I swear. So she went through your room, trying to find something. Proof, I guess. She’s always pawing through your stuff, you know. Going through your drawers and your closet.”

“Youʼre kidding." I knew she went in to gather laundry.

“Nope.” Hwa helped herself to a donut chunk and added, “Anyway, I think she found what she was looking for. A card? Something like that." She nibbled on a chocolate sprinkle.

“The card from the flowers. But I put that in my safe.”

“So? She gets in there, too. And she checks your pills every day."

“What!" I gawked at Hwa. “My birth control pills?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“But that doesn't prove –”

A horn honked outside and Hwa flinchcd. She shoved the rest of the donut into her mouth and garbled, “I gotta go. Dad's waiting.”

My eyes followed hers out the window to the parking lot, where Woo Bin sat in his Ford Explorer, tapping the steering wheel impatiently. When our eyes met, he smiled stupidly. “Hwa.” I caught her arm on the way by. “l’m sorry." I stood up and folded her in an embrace. “I'm really sorry.”

"Me too," she said.

“I wish it could've been different between us. I wish I’d…” Tears stung my eyes. I wish I’d been more of a sister to you, I wanted to say. Even a friend. I wish I’d trusted you. But no, I took one look at you and slapped on a label. Freak. Weirdo. I never once made an effort to dig beneath the surface. I was such a hypocrite. No wonder she couldn’t stand me.

“Yeah," she said, “I wish I woulda stolen that Dixie Chicks CD when I had the chance.” Hwa stuck out her tongue in a gag.

I smacked her arm.

She added with a smile, “I really like Rosie. I’m glad for you.”

She was the only person who’d ever said that, and I needed to hear it so badly. I hugged her again, fiercely. “Do something for me, will you?" I asked.

“Anything," Hwa said. "I'd do anything for you.”

My throat caught. “Just…give Ella a kiss for me?”

"Oh, I have been. I talk about you all the time, especially in front of your mother." Hwa smirked. "I won’t let Ella forget you."

In my blur of tears, Hwa disappeared.

***

I missed the blowout. Rosie said she and her parents had a knock-down-drag-out when she told them she wanted to stay with me at Taggert House. They absolutely refused. Rosie threatened to run away. She told them they'd have to call the cops to haul her ass back home, then lock her in her room at night to keep her there.

So they compromised. What choice did they have? Rosie could sleep over on the weekends, Friday and Saturday nights. Her parents had to hate me. They had to blame me for causing a rupture in their family.

I lay in my lumpy bed, listening to the creaking walls, to the flushing of a toilet downstairs. A train whistle mourned in the distance. Rosie had come in late, looking exhilarated and babbling for an hour before finally crashing. Everything seemed normal with her, perfect. But I knew she was a good actress. I wanted to confront her about where she’d been tonight.

She had told me she was working, that her uncle had called and asked her to fill in for one of the cooks who was sick. I thought I’d surprise her. Stop in with a Starbucks espresso, her favorite. Pure sludge. It cost too much for coffee, but it’d be worth it to see her face light up.

Except, she wasn't working. The regular staff was all there. The trace of stage makeup around her hairline was telling.

I rolled over onto my back. Why was she lying to me? What was going on? After that first show, Rosie never wanted me around when Unity was rehearsing or performing. She never once introduced me to her friends. Why? What was the chance it’d get back to Seoul high? Wasn’t she proud of me? Was that it? I wasn’t gay enough?

What if she’d rather be with “them” than me? What if she left me? The thought of it made my stomach hurt. Rosie was all I had. Without her, I’d be totally alone in the world.

Oh, God. I probed her gentle face, her receptive dream state. What would I do without you?

Stop it, my brain screamed. She’s here with you now. That's what matters.

I took a deep breath to quell my anxiety. Try to. I needed her. Rosie was a part of me now. The me that felt solid and sure and strong. She was the one thing in my life that kept me going, made me happy.

And that happiness hadn't come without a price. I'd given up a lot to be with Rosie: my home, friends, family. Maybe even my future family. Plus this sense of belonging I’d always had. The sense of fitting in, knowing where I stood. It might not be so bad if I could be like her. Out. Proud. With a new place of belonging in the gay community. With new friends. A new family.

But what I’d lost was insignificant compared to what I’d found. Me. The missing part of myself. And Rosie. Knowing love. Being loved.

“Please, God," I whispered into the night. “Let me be loved.”

Beside me, Rosie whimpered a little and rolled onto her side. She snaked an arm around my hip and pulled me close. Rosie gave me life, she nurtured me, and I burrowed into the warm cocoon of her.

***

Mr. Han started off the student council meeting with an announcement: Prom had to be moved back two weeks because the ballroom we usually rented at the COEX Hotel wasn't being refurbished.

Prom. I glanced down the table at Kai, who avoided eye contact not only with me but with everyone else. I’m sorry, I sent him a mental message. Please forgive me?

If his dead expression was any indication, his mind was closed to mental telepathy.

After the meeting I had to make a pit stop before art. Exiting the stall, I found Nayeon at the mirror, brushing her hair. “Hello, Jennie," she said. Her tone of voice made me tense. “Would you mind if I went to the prom with Kai?”

"He asked you?" My voice rose an octave.

Her face hardened.

“I didn't mean that the way it sounded." Or did I?

“I'm going to ask him.” She pulled her hair up into a ponytail. "I think he should experience what it’s like doing it with someone other than a queer.”

All the blood rushed to my face. “That isn’t funny, Nayeon.”

"Oh, was it meant to be?” she asked.

I started for the door.

“Players,” she said at my back. “Let’s talk about players.”

I closed my eyes. “Leave it alone, Nayeon.”

"At least I only play one side of the fence.”

I whirled on her. “Shut up." My ragged breath betrayed me. “I broke up with Kai, okay? I’m free to do as I please.”

She cocked her head. “So you are." Hoisting her purse onto her shoulder, she shoved me out the door. Halfway through, she twisted back and added, “And now we all know what your pleasure is. Dyke.”

Thank God I was still in the restroom because next thing I knew I was heaving in the toilet.

I didn’t think my day could get any worse, then Dean asked me to the prom. At first I just stared at him, stunned. When my voice returned, I stammered, "Wow, I’m uh, really flattered, Dean. But I, I…canʼt.”

His brow furrowed. "You broke up with that Kai guy, didn’t you?"

"Yeah."

“Oh, I get it." His face fell. “You're already going with somebody else. I knew I should’ve asked –”

“That’s not it," I cut in. “I just can’t go with you.”

His eyes sliced through me like machetes. I realised too late how that must’ve sounded. Before I could retract, or explain, he snarled, “I thought you were different. You're just like the rest of them." He stood, cramming his art supplies into his briefcase. Then he crashed through a row of empty chairs and wound his way to the front, to a seat as far away from me as possible.

Everyone swiveled their heads to stare at me. Especially Rosie. She mouthed, What was that about?

I shot to my feet and tore out of there. God! It was all so fucked.