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somehow instead it cemented our doggy brotherly bond.
    The best I could do was, “Real gay dudes don’t talk about harming their dicks.”
    She shrugged. I glanced over at her. She looked back at me. We made kind of a lot of eye contact. I didn’t know what to do.
    â€œYou’re in two lanes,” she said, and I was, so I dealt with that in hopefully a calm and commanding way, causing Corey to make an irritable groaning noise.
    It’s impossible to talk about how a girl is hot without sounding gross or embarrassing, but here’s how she was hot. She was just very, very confident. I mean, she was also pretty and vaguely athletic and stuff, but the main thing was she had this way of carrying herself with her chin tilted up and her shoulders kind of back in this way that was like, yeah, I have kind of small probably great-looking boobs and in general am just really hot, and if you don’t agree, then definitely go fuck yourself. Somehow all of that was conveyed by how she carried herself. It was hot. Okay. I’ll shut up.
    â€œWhat about you? Are you gay?” I said, in a transparent attempt to turn the tables.
    â€œI used to think I was gay,” she said. “Now I think I’m not.”
    â€œWhy,” I said.
    â€œWhy which.”
    â€œUh, why both.”
    â€œI thought maybe I was gay because I didn’t want to hookup with boys. But after a while I realized I didn’t want to hook up with girls, either.”
    â€œMmmm,” I said. I was both disappointed and extremely interested in hearing more. But I didn’t want to tip my hand. So I was attempting to say “Mmmm” in a way that would convey the idea of, “Cool. Thanks for telling me this. By the way, this is no big deal. Girls tell me about their evolving sexuality all the time.”
    â€œYou’ve always liked girls, huh,” she said, and turned to me, and in my peripheral vision I could tell she was looking at me in this careful, studying way, and I tried to make a face of relaxed uninterestedness, but it was probably more the face of someone in a coma.
    â€œYeah,” I said.
    â€œHave you hooked up with a bunch of girls?”
    â€œI wouldn’t say a bunch.”
    â€œHow many would you say.”
    â€œUhhhhhh.”
    I probably spent a few too many seconds pretending to count how many fake hookups.
    â€œZero,” she said.
    â€œNo. Hang on. I’m counting.”
    â€œIt’s fine if it’s zero,” she said. “We’re in a band. We have to be open with each other or this isn’t going to work.”
    â€œIt’s just embarrassing saying zero,” I kind of blurted. I hated the sound of my voice. I sounded like a little kid.
    â€œHey,” she said. I looked over at her. She had a look on her face that I couldn’t really classify. “Zero’s not bad. Zero meanssomeone gets to be your first. That’s a good thing to have. Once you’ve lost it, you’ll want it back.”
    â€œI definitely won’t,” I told her.
    â€œYou’re in two lanes again,” she said, and I was.
    â€œWhat if you drove not like a herb,” mumbled Corey from the backseat.
    By 6 A.M. the sun was above the horizon. The Virginia landscape looked more or less identical to the Pennsylvania landscape except maybe the trees were fluffier. Every five minutes I found myself reaching for my phone, and it wasn’t there, and I felt a little bit like my mind was disintegrating.
    â€œHow come Corey’s parents are going to freak out but not yours,” Ash said.
    â€œWes has the greatest parents of all time,” Corey announced. “They probably won’t even notice he’s gone.”
    â€œNnnnnnnope,” I said. I was trying to sound amped about it.

11.
MY PARENTS VERSUS COREY’S PARENTS
    Here’s the difference between my parents and Corey’s parents. Corey has never once successfully left his