Page 156 of Please Hate Me

“I am not,” she protested.

“Correction—She is not drunkyet.”

God, they really hadn’t changed at all during the whole time I was gone.

“Can y’all quit?” Cameron scolded. “How many rules do you need for a damn book, anyway?”

Lucian smirked as he held up three fingers, using them to point at Cameron.

“Third rule! Shut up.”

“I feel like we’ve given Lucky too much power… it’s already going to his head.” Sebastian sounded bored as he picked at the mound of plain chicken and vegetables in front of him. Looking at his dinner, I had to question his sanity. Only a serial killer would order such bland food from a Mexican restaurant.

“You shut up too.” Lucian finally popped his chip into his mouth. The soft crunch echoed off the dining room’s high ceiling.

“The real last rule is only touch the pages with clean hands… I’ll bereallyupset if anything happens to these.”

Aw, how sweet.

Finally, with the rules established, we all dug into our food as we took a stroll down memory lane.

The first album had photos from way before I ever set foot in America. The initial page opened to a much younger, very confused Lucian holding a baby Sebastian. Leona was close by, but not fully in the photo.

“Behold!” Lucian exclaimed, sweeping the book through the air. “The day I found out my dad was a whore.”

I choked on a laugh. I expected Sebastian to have a comeback; instead, he rolled his eyes.

“Nope, that’s it. I need a beer.” Cameron excused himself from the table.

“You’re going to end up part of the drunk no-sex rule,” Lucian warned.

“Oh, Cameron doesn’t follow that rule.” For emphasis, I rested a hand on my rounded stomach. A flutter of glee shot through me as my daughter came alive at my touch.

Sophia giggled at my joke like I was the funniest person in the world, but Lucian shot me a murderous glare. Refusing to acknowledge his ire, I unrolled my burrito and crunched up a handful of chips before sprinkling them atop the pile of veggies and imitation meat crumbles. He rolled his eyes, but elected to move on with his presentation.

We spent an hour looking through the first album, fawning over Lucian’s chubby cheeks and how cute Seb looked in his first pair of glasses. Sophia was in her fair share of the photos, too; she and the Castillo boys had been inseparable ever sinceHeather, one of her moms, became Sebastian’s nanny. There were more than a few photos of Sophia with her little hands on her hips, platinum pigtails mid-swing as she bossed the boys around.

When Lucian flipped to the last page, I was pleased to see that the last photo was a close-up of me and Sophia. She had her arm around my shoulders, and she was smiling so wide her eyes were squeezed shut. I was smiling too, but my expression carried an undercurrent of bewilderment.

Although my mom only spoke English and my dad was fluent, neither of them bothered to teach me. I always assumed they were just too busy. When my mom brought me to America, I couldn’t understand a word anyone said to me... but that didn’t stop Sophia from talking my ear off anyway. Come to think of it, the Whites and the Castillos were the first people who really cared to talk to me, other than my au pair back in France.

A lump formed in my throat; one I swallowed down with a drink of water. If anyone had asked, I would have blamed the emotion on pregnancy hormones.

Lucian’s second book began almost immediately after the first one left off. Though it was the same size, it took even longer to look through. There were all sorts of pictures from our high school days, especially the football games. I looked so happy back then, fucked-up teeth on full display as I grasped Lucian’s arm in one hand and my purple clarinet in the other.

Every so often, Cameron would stop and ask a question about what we were doing, or if there was a story behind why a photo was taken. Lucian and Sophia took turns answering those questions while I remained spellbound by the younger versions of ourselves. It seemed like every other photo, the style or color of my hair changed. But the bond between Lucian, Sophia, and I always remained the same.

Most of the time, a friend group with two girls and one guy was a recipe for disaster. Inevitably, the guy would start dating one of the girls, and someone would get hurt. But there had never been any struggle between Sophia and me when it came to Lucian. Even if they both had a crush on the other for God knows how long, they never acted on it. Not until I pushed them to, at least.

Although Lucian’s dad liked to say I corrupted his son, it was definitely a triad of mutual sin. Sophia introduced us to the idea that being gay was normal, and nothing to be ashamed of. Lucian was the one who encouraged Sophia and me to rebel, even if that word had very different meanings to both of us. My idea of teenage rebellion was drinking and experimenting with sex; Sophia’s was dying her hair brown exactly once. And I was the one who brought up the idea of polyamory, more or less.

Lucian and I were drunk in Sophia’s basement. I started crying, which wasn’t unusual for me, but the two of them always acted like it was the first time they’d ever seen me break down. Not that they were surprised, but they’d drop everything to make sure I was okay. That night, I told them I had a crush on both of them, but I was terrified to lose their friendship. I must have understood from a young age how terrible it was to love someone like me.

But they didn’t confirm my worst fears. Instead, we all ended up on the soft white carpet, staring at the ceiling with our heads pressed together. We spent hours talking about what a relationship with three people would even look like. I’d known Lucian and Sophia both had feelings for each other, so I was more than a little shocked to discover that they both felt the same way about me. The exact semantics of that night had faded over time, but I remember kissing Lucian and then Sophia before falling asleep at some point.

The next thing I remembered was Sophia’s mom, Heather, coming down the steps and throwing a pillow at Lucian.

As the memory flooded in, I couldn’t contain my laughter. The entire table looked at me, and I clamped a hand over my mouth.

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