Page 65 of Begin Again Again

“Hi,” he said. “Want that Coke?”

“Don’t you want to know what your sister told me?”

“Not particularly.”

Beth smirked.

“… although, if youwantedto tell me…?”

Beth grinned. “They said I seemed like a grown up and not to let you pull me into your vortex of immaturity.”

Byron groaned.

“They also said you were funny and weird. And that they once said, ‘Strangers are friends you haven’t met yet’ and you said, ‘Strangers are just more people that haven’t died.’”

“Jesus.”

Beth beamed up at him. “Did you say that? It’s quick. Very Blackadder.”

Byron didn’t know what Blackadder was. He looked up at the sky, faint stars twinkling beyond the light pollution. Sal always tore him open to other people. He both loved and hated that about them.

“Don’t worry,” Beth said. “I get sibling drama. None of mine would give me good PR.”

“How many brothers and sisters do you have?”

“Two brothers. One sister. What about you?”

“Just Sal. They’re enough.”

She smiled. “I like her—them. Sorry, I’ve never met anyone who’s… are they non-binary?”

He nodded.

“Non-binary,” she repeated. “It’s trickier to do neutral pronouns than I thought.”

“Sal doesn’t mind, as long as you try. I slipped up at first, but you get used to it.”

“You know what’s funny?”

“What?”

“Two years ago, I’d have been mega insulted to be called a grown up by a… twenty-three-year-old?”

“Twenty-two.”

Beth wrinkled her nose. “Well anyway, I’m super flattered your sister thinks I’m an adult.”

“Youarean adult.”

Beth nudged his side. “You know what I mean. A proper adult.”

“Why didn’t you think you were a proper adult?”

“I don’t know. I guess, I didn’t take any pleasure from the idea I was a grown up. I didn’t want that kind of responsibility. I was pretty immature until recently.”

“Why d’you reckon?” he asked, glad they’d moved away from the topic of him and Sal.

Beth chewed her lower lip. “I dunno. Maybe because I was still super close with my high school friends. We kind of kept each other in suspended adolescence.”

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