I didn’t come up with the lie. It wasn’t mine. They handed the lie to me, and I tried like hell to make it work for a while.

I was thirteen. She wanted me to play a team sport. I would have none of it. ‘I’m gay’ was number four on my list of ten reasons it was a bad idea.” “You just slipped it in there, huh? Smooth.” “Right between ‘I’m allergic to Gatorade’ and ‘The other boys smell like sneakers.

If a fight looks like a lot of fun, you should be suspicious. ‘If you ain’t scared of standing up for what’s right, you ain’t standing up for much.

I’m good. I mean, I want to die, but I’m good.

He could either be who everyone wanted him to be – and be miserable – or he could just ignore people who hated him, be himself, and be happy.

I’ve always wanted to wake up one day in a world where I liked the right people, and they lied me in return. I worry it’ll never happen.

I’m still not totally sure I know what’s true about me.

I never bought into what they meant by a real boy, anyway.

There are plenty of days when I don’t hear anything like that, but there aren’t too many days when I don’t feel as though . . . I don’t know. It always feels like other guys want me to disappear. Every day. I can tell they just wish I didn’t exist.

You know,” I said, “I think the thing that scared me most about admitting that I’m, you know, gay or whatever isn’t so much that people would taunt me by saying ‘Oh, James likes other boys,’ but that they would say stuff like, ‘Oh, turns out James isn’t a boy after all.’ You know?