Chapter 1

Sometimes you have to face your fears, whether you want to or not.

And I was absolutely terrified of heights. The metal edge of the billboard’s catwalk scraped my knees as I tried to muster the courage to stand. Climbing the rusty ladder up two stories to the roof of Jones Hardware hadn’t been easy, especially with a can of paint in tow. I’ve made it this far, I encouraged myself, taking a steady breath of warm night air. Just don’t look--

The concrete sidewalk of the town square waited below, and my eyes snapped shut. A gust of wind tousled my long, grown-out hair as I gripped the edge. If my father were here, he would ask me one simple question. It was the same question he’d asked when I came to him afraid of the boogeyman or when I was nervous while learning to ride a bicycle. “Anthony Zeke Chapman,” he’d drone, “what have I told you about fear? ”

Don’t let anyone see it.

That was what I’d heard my entire life, him telling me to hide my weaknesses so I could be the best version of myself. The version he’d molded me into. For the longest time, I’d thought that was who I wanted to be too. The best reputation, the best grades, the best type of gay--silent, so the world wouldn’t put a target on my back.

“Piss off,” I said to all the memories of James Anthony Chapman, the JACass.

I forced myself to open my eyes and stand. My hands were shaking as I checked the time on my phone. Its lit screen flashed three a.m., and I shoved it back into the pocket of my vintage leather jacket. Summer break officially began three hours ago. My nosedive of a junior year was over, my life free from the shitshow it had become since last December. If I were still talking to my father, he’d say that he had tried to warn me about coming out . . .

Gripping my backpack straps with white knuckles, I turned to see how high I’d climbed. A halo hovered over the town square thanks to the orange-hued street-lamps. But it was the darkness lapping at the edge of their receding glow that captured my attention. That was exactly how it felt living in Beggs, Alabama. Growing up here had taught me that everyone expected you to blend in, with that same perfunctory shine. And if you couldn’t--or if you refused to--fit it into their defini-tion of “good,” you weren’t welcome.

“Learned that the hard way,” I whispered under my breath, the words lost with no one around to hear them.

Somewhere deep inside was the old version of me, who still answered to Anthony, my first name, inherited from my father. I wondered what Anthony would be doing right now. If he was still on the varsity baseball team, the Wildcats, or if he was partying out in the cow pastures and pretending to flirt with cheerleaders or if he was in bed without a worry instead of roaming the streets. But it didn’t really matter, because this new version of me, who went by my middle name, Zeke, was here, just out of reach of the town’s deceiving glow, and he was no longer welcome.

And that made me angry.

I’d given up on sleep hours earlier, the news Mom dropped at dinner still too loud in my head: the divorce was final after five months of back-and-forth between their lawyers. I’d snuck out of the apartment and jumped on my dirt bike. Drove to the Fort Wood neighborhood, where we once lived. Climbed through my old bed-room window to get the shoebox I’d secretly kept in the bench seat beneath the sill. I had left it behind when we moved out because I’d thought I wouldn’t need it anymore. Thought the secrets I’d been forced to keep didn’t belong in our new life, where I wasn’t his son anymore. But leaving it there with him didn’t feel right either.

It weighed heavily in my backpack as I turned to look up at the billboard. The smil-ing father-and-son duo was a ten-foot reminder of the past, a promise that Chapman Law was a family business. That version of me was as much a stranger now as the father beside him. Other than my blond hair and his brown, we were so much alike. Same blue eyes and fake smile and dress clothes. We weren’t the same, though. Not anymore.

That Anthony Chapman was supposed to graduate as valedictorian next year. He’d go on to study at University of Alabama, where he’d get accepted into the School of Law. Eventually, he would pass the bar exam and join the firm. Then he’d be just another JACass . . .

“Fuck that,” I swore, rage outranking my fear of heights.

I bent down to grab the paint can and brush. They’d been sitting on our old back porch from when he’d had the house repainted. The cheerful sky blue felt symbolic of his fresh start, but now it was time for my own.

My body froze as an engine sounded, and I peered over the edge. A cop car slowly crept around below me. Panicked heartbeats sent me crouching against the cat-walk, hoping the officer wouldn’t see me. A minute passed excruciatingly slowly, without any flashing lights or yells for me to “stop right there!” I risked a glance over the catwalk’s edge and saw that I was alone again.

“Figures,” I breathed out.

Beggs was too sleepy-eyed of a town to notice. Everyone believed what they were told instead of actually paying attention. They worked on their cattle farms and plowed their fields with tractors and carried on none the wiser. They couldn’t see through the picture-perfect lie my father sold them. And it was time to finally expose him for who he really was after the hell he had put us through.

Laughter bubbled out of my throat when I stepped off the ladder. The last flutters of fear made it come out in a stutter. “Ah-ha-hah.” I wiped the grit from my palms on the ripped, old jeans my father loathed, and I looked up with a grin.

So worth it.

A giant penis in sky blue stretched across the ten-foot picture of my father. I’d made it as graphic as possible, complete with two very large testicles. The perfect metaphor. I let out another laugh and grabbed my phone to take a souvenir picture. My handiwork wouldn’t stay there long after he saw it in the morning. At least he’d know exactly what I thought of him.

“Suck on that,” I muttered, focusing the camera.

Right as the flash went off, muffled voices sounded just inside the hardware store. Then the metal side door sprang open with a loud screech. I jumped as fluorescent light washed over me, then stumbled back on my ass by the dumpster.

“Bro, you can’t drive home,” someone was saying.

That smooth, deep voice was a ghost from the dugout. I knew it belonged to the tall guy whose figure was complemented by the baseball uniform in ways I’d fantasized about. Damian Jones shuffled outside, and I froze so he wouldn’t see me. He had his arm around a stumbling Billy Peak, the new pitcher since I’d quit the team.

“You’re still lit, man,” Damian added, struggling to keep Billy upright.

“Am not,” Billy slurred in contradiction. His pale face was pinched, his legs wob-bling as he tried to keep up with Damian’s strides. “Give me my keys--”

“You just spent the last hour barfing in the cornfield.” Damian cut him off. He leaned Billy up against the building and locked up the side door. “Bro, you owe me big time for cleaning your ass up in my dad’s bathroom.”

“I gotchu next time, ugh--” Billy dry heaved, and Damian groaned.

They’d obviously been at Josh Boone’s barn blowout to celebrate the start of sum-mer. I’d gone the last two years, dragging my best friend, Sawyer, along even though she hated my old jock friends. Those so-called friends had deliberately ex-cluded me tonight. Not that I wanted to go. But the fact that his party had hap-pened without me made me miss who I used to be. I could’ve been there tonight, pretending to be the guy everyone loved instead of dealing with so much shit.

“C’mon, I’ll drop you off at your house,” Damian began, steadying Billy, “but I swear if you spew in my truck . . .” He fell silent as he squinted in my direction. “Anth--er, I mean, Zeke? ”

Billy twisted around, nearly falling, and slurred, “Tha hell you doin’ here? ” Another heave. “C’mere so I can kick your ass, Fastball.”

The old nickname sent a jolt of anger through me. I sprang back to my feet. “Fuck you, Peak,” I bit out. He didn’t get to call me that, not after he’d accidentally outed me last fall.

“You wish--”

“Bro, you’re drunk.” Damian put a hand on Billy’s chest as Billy lunged at me. “Don’t start shit.”

As much as it pained me to admit, my father had been at least partially right about coming out. It made me a target. If I hadn’t left my phone unlocked, if Billy hadn’t tried to prank me and seen the private browser tab I’d forgotten to close, if he hadn’t called me a slur--maybe then I wouldn’t have had to come out and endure all the hell that followed. But in that moment, it’d felt like he was daring me to deny it, and I refused to be manipulated by someone else.

“Yeah, Peak,” I said, squaring my shoulders. “I thought you learned your lesson.”

“Zeke, don’t,” Damian warned as Billy struggled to find words.

Billy had made sure the guys on the team wouldn’t be chill with me in the locker room by spreading a rumor: “Anthony Chapman is only on the team to suck down our ‘brotein.’ ” I had tried to play it off, but it was clear I wasn’t welcome when my gear was trashed. That was the final push I’d needed to quit before the holiday break . . . right after I rubbed poison ivy all over Billy’s jockstrap.

“Thought you learned yours, Fastball,” Billy finally managed with a sneer, trying to shove Damian back. “Or should I call you Brotein now? ”

His haphazard smirk rattled me. That stupid rumor had only been the beginning, with more spreading after the new year. Eventually, I used them to my advantage. The rumors became step one in getting back at my father. His obsession with me having the best reputation was the reason I was determined to have the worst. I’d taken my golden-boy status and tarnished it. No more class president who won by a landslide or perfect student who gave more than 100 percent or all-star who took the Wildcats to the state playoffs two years running.

My popularity had been a double-edged sword, but now it was time to live up to who I’d become. “You wanna go? ” I asked, dropping my backpack to the ground. “Or are you still too busy scratching your rashy balls? ”

“Not again,” Damian groaned in exasperation. He rubbed a hand over his face, eyes pleading with me not to start something. Then the corners of his mouth grimaced against the rich brown of his cheeks. At one time we’d been good friends, but now he looked at me like I was trouble. That’s all he and everyone else did: stared and made assumptions about my life.

I turned around and almost let it go. Almost grabbed my bag and ignored the both of them. Almost started toward home so I could sleep before Sawyer and I went swimming. Almost. Until Billy called out the same slur he’d thrown around count-less times in the locker room. Once, I might’ve been scared of him and of being called that, but not anymore.

“Dare you to say that again,” I said slowly, spinning on my heels.

“I said you’re a--”

My fist knocked the word out of his mouth. Pain radiated from my knuckles up through my elbow, but I felt too damn good to care. And for a moment, I relished his shocked expression. Then I remembered why his nickname was “Lightning.” His punch came out of nowhere. I was suddenly flat on my back with my eye throb-bing, staring at the penis-graffitied billboard. A chuckle rattled through me imag-ining my father’s reaction, hoping he’d feel the same way I did just now. Put in his place.

Chapter 2

“What’s the plan for this summer? ”

No reply as sounds of destruction rang out. I squinted at Sawyer Grayson, my right eye obnoxiously swollen behind the Wayfarer sunglasses I’d scored thrifting. She sat cross-legged in a dinosaur-print bathing suit while she played on her phone. Her blue-tipped black hair swept across her sunburned shoulders as she leaned closer to the screen. She bit her bottom lip, and more explosions sounded from the X-Men gaming app.

“Almost, almooost, c’mon!” she yelled in concentration. That was the thing about her--she was always focused. From starting the first Queer-Straight Alliance at school to having her top colleges already picked out, she set her sights on a goal and rarely missed. Sometimes she also set goals for me, and then she’d push me to reach them with just as much determination.

“Stop playing that game,” I demanded, waving a hand in front of her face, “and give me attention.”

“Stooop, dickhead,” she huffed without looking at me. “I’m trying to level Storm up.”

The X-Men was how she and I became besties in middle school. We’d been enemies long before then, thanks to her bullying me during dodgeball at recess. Her jealousy over the fact I was always the teacher’s favorite had spiked when we were in seventh grade. We were at Estrella Books and both reached for the last copy of an X-Men graphic novel. Neither of us wanted to let it go, and hands would’ve been thrown if our moms hadn’t made us share it. Somehow, while we sat on the tiny chairs in the children’s section, I realized she wasn’t so bad.

That was the start of Sawyer-and-Zeke’s list of traditions.

Since then, reading the comics together had become a staple of our relationship. Over time, we added fall concerts, video game marathons for winter, and hiking adventures in the spring. However, summer came with its own traditions: binge sessions of our favorite Doctor Who episodes, my sneaky birthday celebration, the library’s movie night, the Ferris wheel on Founder’s Day, but, most importantly, celebrating our first day of freedom at Beggs Blue Hole in the nature preserve.

I let out a resigned sigh and lay back on my jacket while Sawyer played her game. She’d given me hell for turning into a “bad boy” trope when I’d started wearing leather, but it was extra protection on my dirt bike, not to mention it was a size too small and enhanced my biceps. Its woodsy scent was soothing as I tilted my aching face toward the sun and tried to relax. The weight of finals, an anchor that had finally sunk my GPA, had lifted. The JACass couldn’t pressure me anymore, and I wouldn’t let him take my freedom before senior year. Before he’d inevitably fight me on his future dream.