Chapter 1 Chapter 1
“EY, YOU GONNA READ YOUR letter?”

“Shhhhh. I can’t hear the man.”

Camilo, aka Cammy, aka Cam, takes his phone from his bag and lays his “fresh tips,” as he calls them, beside his letter. Modeling his very best gel pen, he focuses the camera on the neatly handwritten page on his desk and snaps a pic.

We’re in second period, Mr. Villarreal’s notoriously difficult AP Language and Composition class. It’s the last day of junior year. Finals week. Stressful. Tense. High stakes af. Yes, all of the above. In front of me sits my letter. It was between Ariana Grande and Michelle Obama, and ultimately, I decided on Michelle Obama, though I seriously believe I could’ve written a great letter to both. #growingconfidence #forthereals

At the front of the class, Villarreal paces. He’s this really smart, really down-for-his-Brown teacher who went to UCLA and USC, with his plaid shirts and his dark Mexican tío mustache, his fierce bow ties and his brilliant-ass laugh, which can light up the room, and of course, his notorious Instagram, which I feel guilty looking at, but I do anyway, and he’s gay and funny and is all about anti-racism and women’s rights and no homophobia or transphobia and doing something real with your life, something that makes the world a better place.

Sipping his Coke Zero, Villarreal walks row by row, glancing at the letters. “Each of you should have composed a persuasive letter, a composition that establishes and, using the rhetorical techniques you’ve learned, supports the claim that your letter, and you, as the writer and speaker, are proposing. Not just any letter—no, the most important letter you’ve ever written in your lives.”

If our classroom had a soundtrack, this would be the perfect moment for a very dramatic crescendo. Sure, we’ve presented our asses off in this class, but today is different. More significant. “It’s like the New York Fashion Week of high school English,” Cammy said at lunch the day Villarreal gave us the exam topic.

“I’m quite eager to hear these fierce letters. Me siento muy… muy… muy… excited.”

We laugh. I mean, it’s a Selena reference, so how can you not at the very least crack a smile? Anything for Salinas.

“Now, remember, this letter has to ask the person whom you’ve addressed to take an action, to not take an action, or to continue an action. Again, this is the most important letter you’ve ever written. Even more important than those letters you wrote to Santa all those years ago, or last year, in the case of Mr. Michelangelo Villanueva.”

The class chuckles.

Michelangelo, who goes by Mikey, stands up. “Ey, I wanted a new PlayStation 4, sir. Really bad. Everywhere was sold out. Santa was my last resort.”

The class laughs. Mr. Villarreal smirks.

Mikey moved here from LA at the start of second semester. He’s tall—well, not that tall, actually—but he’s taller than I am, which isn’t saying much, because at five foot six, pretty much everybody’s taller than me. Mikey’s Filipino, and he’s hot. Like supes-hot af. And he wears nice-ass clothes and smells good, he always has a crisp, fresh-ass fade, and he wears this shiny-ass gold chain that dangles between his big pecs like the first star showing up in the night sky. He also has giant arms. #swoonaf #fanclub. Yeah, I’ve noticed.

“Thank you, Michaelangelo. Now, take your seat, please. Unless you’d like to read first?”

Quickly, Mikey leaps back into his seat and turns away.

“Will you be taking volunteers, Mr. Villarreal? If so, I’d like to go first.” It’s Montgomery Suarez, the smartest girl in the universe. Always the first to volunteer.

“Patience. Before we jump in, I just have to take a moment and say this.” Villarreal pauses. “It’s kind of hard to think the year is over, isn’t it?”

I nod. Seriously. The year’s flown by.

Across the room, I notice Hot Mikey, as I call him whenever I talk about him to my dog Kimber, nodding too. And I know. I know. Who has full-fledged convos about hot boys with their dogs, right? Well, I do. #handraised #notashamed. Besides, Kimber’s listening skills are top-tier, and I can’t really talk to anyone else about these things. Maybe my sister B, but she’s hardly home anymore, now that she practically lives with her girlfriend Clari’s family, and definitely not Cammy, whom I’ve watched use people’s crushes against them. So nope. Not me.

Speaking of Cammy, I look over, and he’s giving this serious, introspective vibe that I don’t usually get from him. Noting that I’m watching, Cam looks over at me and serves me his biggest, fakest smile, which I absolutely effing love. I don’t know why exactly fake smiles light me up. But then we both smile real smiles, the kind that good friends flash at each other when they understand that the shit they’re experiencing is special. And no doubt, thinking about junior year coming to an end is definitely a moment.

Mr. Villarreal sets down his drink. “You have been a wonderful class. One of my all-time favorite classes.” A few awwwws emerge across the classroom, and I typically don’t get into this kind of sentimentality, but I hear myself being one of the voices going awwww.

Villarreal then adds, “And for those of you who plan on asking me for a letter of recommendation, you’ll need to ask in a formal email with at least two weeks’ prior notice. No email, no letter.” He looks directly at the front row—Montgomery and Hermelinda, Florencio and Frank and Lulu, all the top kids—when he announces this. “And now, returning to the business of the day, the letters.”

Instantly, like seven hands shoot up.

Mr. Villarreal chooses Montgomery to begin. As expected, she delivers a badass letter, written to Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, praising the justice for being such a powerful model for mujeres and then urging her to rule in favor of students’ safety if an automatic weapons ban ever comes before the Supreme Court. Mr. Villarreal is “gagged” by her letter, as Camilo would say. And while I’m not a huge fan of Montgomery personally, homegirl works hard and her letter takes on a real-ass problem, and so how can I not respect that energy?

After this, a few other students share their letters, and while they’re fine, none of them are “stunning.” That’s another one of Cammy’s words that I’ve stolen. Along with my sister B, who’s a beast point guard and also a big lesbian, Cammy’s a huge reason why I came out, not to everybody but to Cam and B and Kimber and most importantly, to myself. Coming out to my dad—that’s another story. My dad is my dad, and I love him, most days, even if he’s a major conspiracy theorist and a racist and a misogynist and a homophobe and even if he thinks “immigrants are ruining our great country” and “Democrats are all Communists” and “drag queens are groomers.” It’s a lot. So, one day, but not anytime soon. Baby steps, right? Cammy tells me there’s a lot to learn about the gay world and not to jump in too fast because then you just look thirsty and “overdone,” another one of his words that I’m making mine.

As class continues, I start to get a little bit a lot bored listening to these letters. Honestly, I just want stunning. Like who doesn’t love stunning? I’m semi-hopeful when Rita Arevalo starts reading her letter to a supermodel about beauty standards. Her intro starts off really intense, because she’s describing waking up in the morning, looking in the mirror, and not feeling good enough or pretty enough and having issues with her body, which grabs me by the balls. I mean, come on, that’s like most of my life story right there. But then, it’s like she suddenly became afraid of what she was writing and the ideas kinda just fall off the page. So, not stunning. I wanna be gagged, and nobody is gagging me. Until Mr. Villarreal calls on Florencio Martinez.

So, Florencio’s one of those pretty boys. He has the longest, darkest eyelashes, which Cammy says look “fake af.” They look real to me, but what do I know? Florencio’s my friend Benny’s younger brother, and he’s quiet and polite, which is completely different from Benny, whom I’ve played baseball with since like first grade and who can act like a major ass and also totally enjoys having all eyes on him. Florencio is friends with, like, all the girls. Even the girls who’ve hated each other since kindergarten somehow put aside their differences to talk to Flor, as well as some of the really churchy ones who are brainwashed into hating gays.

Wearing a perfectly white, white button-up, tight dark indigo jeans, low-heeled boots, and gloss, Flor walks up to the front of the class. He looks expensive. At Mr. Villarreal’s lectern, Flor arranges his papers.

The room goes quiet.

“Good luck,” Kennedy Lozano says.

Flor takes a deep breath. He pulls out a tube of gloss from his pocket and rolls it across his already very glossed lips.

Someone in the class snickers, which Hermelinda Vasquez responds to by looking around protectively.

“Ugh. Lewk kween,” Cammy mutters under his breath.

With all eyes on him, Florencio shakes a little, then picks up his letter. Watching his wrists quiver makes me sit up. Oh, shit, I think. Is he gonna crack?

Looking out at the class, Florencio smiles, or attempts to smile, though the shape on his face is less a sign of happiness and more an arrangement of glossy lips and powdered skin that says uncertainty, which is totally different from all the confidence he has given every other time he’s presented before. When Flor finally begins talking, I struggle to hear him.

“You’re going to have to speak louder, please, Florencio.” Mr. Villarreal’s voice moves over the room smoothly, like a cloud.

Florencio clears his throat.

Even from the back of the room, I can feel Flor’s nervousness, and now I feel nervous too, and I’m not even the one up there.

Florencio just stands there, holding his air inside him like that’s the only way to hold himself together.

“She’s not gonna be able to do it,” Cammy whispers loudly, causing Chelsea Figueroa to lean back, give him a shitty look, and shush him.

Not liking this, Cam shushes her right back.

And that’s when I hear someone singing: “Just keep breathin’ and breathin’ and breathin’ and breathin’.”

I recognize these words, recognize them with all the parts of me that are afraid to say out loud that I’m different. A million times at home in my room on my bed with Kimber, I’ve heard them and even sang them out loud, which is a shitshow in and of itself, because, if there’s one thing I can’t do, it’s sing. Trust me on this one. I strain to see who’s singing—and #wow #supeswow—it’s Hot Mikey, apparently throwing out a lifeline to a pretty-ass boy with thick-ass eyelashes and bangs that bounce a little each time he moves.

Florencio smiles for reals, then. Like an effing Invisalign commercial.

“Just breathe, sis.” From the front row, Kennedy jumps in.

“My, my air. My air,” Flor sings quietly, and with that, a few of us in class giggle a little, because a lot of us in that room, we know exactly where these words are coming from.

“Yasssss!” Cammy snaps. “Come through, Ariana Fan Club!”

“You can do this, babe,” Hermelinda, who’s good friends with Florencio and captain of the dance team, says. Honestly, Hermelinda has the best hair in the whole school. Like maybe in all of San Antonio and maybe even in all of Texas, which says a whole lot, because there’s a lot of good hair in Texas.

Come on, I think. “Come through.” I meant to think it, but I’m pretty sure I say it out loud.

After a few seconds, the air in Mr. Villarreal’s room shifts.

Florencio keeps breathing. He pushes the bangs away from his eyes and blinks.

“OMG. Okay. I didn’t think this would be so hard… So, this letter I wrote,” Florencio begins, “this letter is to a performer I love and respect with all my heart. She has given me strength that I did not know I had. She has been a light in my darkest times. Her name is Valentina. For those of you who don’t know Valentina, she was a fierce competitor on RuPaul’s Drag Race Season Nine and RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season Four. She’s a star. She is beautiful. She is glamorous. She is gay, and she is Mexican. She is diva everything. So, this is for you, Valentina, mi amor.”

“Yasssss!!” It’s Hot Mikey who blurts out his affirmation.

Then Cammy follows: “All right, Miss Valentina stan!!” and “Come on, sis!! Werk!”

Hermelinda and Kennedy chime in too. “We love you, Flor!”

Sitting at my desk, I’ve never heard anything like it before. The cheers of high school gay boys and their best straight girlfriends. I wanna scream out something supportive, but I don’t know what to say or how I’d even say it. The only phrase that pops in my head is “Let’s gooooo!” which we’d yell in baseball all the time, but here, somehow, it just doesn’t fit.

As Flor reads his letter, I forget that I’m sitting in my high school, in Mr. Villarreal’s class, in my hometown. I forget that I’m seventeen and anxious most days to be gay and a little bit lonely af. But right now, I no longer feel small, like I might never be understood or have friends I can show my whole life to. Friends who just let me be without telling me how to be or what to do. OMG. Friends who listen, who actually listen! I want laughter that shoots up from the reddest part of my heart. I wanna kiss a boy and hold his hand, feel him up with my fingers and breath. I don’t confess to anyone that I want these things, not even to Cammy, but I want them, and listening to Florencio’s letter, I can feel something inside myself clicking.

“…so, Valentina, I urge you to keep performing, to keep giving them all the Miss Colombia pageant realness you have to give,” Florencio continues amid a wave of snaps and yasssses. “Keep living your best life, Valentina, because when you do, people like me know we can live our best lives too. To be honest with you, Valentina”—Florencio takes a deep breath here, his voice snagging somewhere inside him—“sometimes I think of those minutes in my life… when I would sit in my room alone, feeling so… ugly and so lost, and I wondered if maybe…” Florencio pauses here and looks out at us, and we can all feel it. Like a fist made of air grabbing that whole room. The tension in Flor’s body is apparent.

From his seat, Mr. Villarrreal interrupts. “Florencio, you can sit down now if you like. You’ve done a fierce job.”

“No. I’d like to keep going…. I’d like to keep reading, please.”

And that’s exactly what Florencio does. He takes a big-ass breath, exhales, and goes on: “I wondered if maybe I just did not belong here, if maybe I should… not be alive…”

Deep, hard-ass gasps. That sound of people not knowing what to do with heavy news. I feel like a boulder has crashed on my chest, slowly moving all its weight into my throat.

Just keep breathing, I think, though I don’t know if I’m saying this for Florencio or for myself.

“But, girl,” Flor says, “in those dark moments, I thought of you, Valentina. My hero. My French Vanilla Fantasy. Mi amor. I thought that if you were here sitting beside me, you would grab my perfectly manicured hand—” Florencio stops here and holds out his hand like he’s inspecting his nails and smiles.

Mikey, Chelsea, Hermelinda, Kennedy, and Cammy all “yasss” simultaneously.

Flor’s smile glows.

Looking at my own too short, crooked-ass nails, I kinda smile too.

Flor continues, “—and you would look me right in the eye with your Latina goddess face and Latina goddess hair and your Latina goddess smile of strength and Latina goddess bravery, and you’d just say, ‘Girl, love who you are and love what you do.’ And I would take every word and live it. Because of you, I can love myself and I can love what I do. So, in conclusion, Valentina, mi amor, I am so ‘Into You’ and I always will be. Forever and por vida, I thank you, Valentina. I thank you with all my heart. Girl, thank you for giving me my life.”

And then, just like that, it’s over.

And then, just like that, my life is changed. And I don’t know whether I should cry my ass off right there in the back of the classroom or jump to my feet and shower Florencio with applause.

One by one, people get up from their seats and put their arms around him, first Hermelinda and Kennedy and Chelsea and then Montgomery and then Cammy, who I thought low-key hard-core disliked Florencio, and then Mikey… and then me. I take Florencio’s hands, I look him in the eyes, and I say, “Wow. Soooo good. Full-on max pro beast-mode letter. And the Ariana reference! F-word brilliant. God, I love Ariana Grande. She’s my favorite. OMG. Seriously. Top-tier peak letter. I’m rambling. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Florencio smiles, squeezing my hands real tight. “And Ariana’s my fave too! Moment. Vibe. And diva everything. I mean, she is everything, right??!!”

It’s almost instantaneous. The connection. It’s like, one minute we’re virtually strangers, and then bam! Chorizo, baby!! We’re suddenly like almost kind of related, which is crazy, because honestly, I’ve known Flor for nearly my entire life. I’ve been over to his house to hang out with Benny and our friend Duncan from baseball like ten thousand times, and yet, all those times I went over to Benny’s, Flor would just disappear or go off with their mom. He never spoke a word to me. And even when we’ve had classes together, I’ve gotten this vibe, and maybe it’s all in my head, but I’ve kinda felt maybe Florencio thought he was better than me. From the fancy-ass clothes he wears, his good phone, and the rich girls he hangs out with. It’s like we were from two totally different worlds.

But today is different.

Today, it’s like we’re standing in front of the same window. Breathing the same air, fluent in the shared language of icons we love. Today feels like we might actually come from the same place.

Mr. Villarreal calls for a five-minute “brain break,” which means he knows we need a moment.

Amid the chatter, the phone-checking, and the nervous energy about who’s going to read their letters next, Cammy’s going on and on about how effing gorge Hermelinda’s hair looks. “You’re like giving me full-on Adriana Lima, girl. Stunting. And I’m sure you already know this, because you’re like the hottest girl in the school,” Cammy says, which strikes me because he says it while looking directly at Chelsea Figueroa, who most people say is the hottest girl in school. Chelsea looks up and conspicuously rolls her eyes at him.

When I turn away from Cam’s drama, I notice Flor motioning to Mikey Villanueva.

“Mikey, do you know my friend Mac?” Flor asks.

Okay, stop the music. First, did Flor just refer to me as “my friend”? And secondly, and more gag-worthy than that, is Flor actually introducing me to Hot Mikey?

Of course my hands start to sweat, and my pits get steamy af.

Mikey reaches out to shake my hand, and what do I do? I give him a fist bump. Ugh. It’s awkward, because my fist misses his hand, and we try again, reversing roles, with my palm open and his fist balled up, reaching over to connect, and again, we miss.

It’s ridiculous.

Flor laughs.

Mikey smiles. “This shouldn’t be that hard.”

I hold my hand out then. Leave it there open, waiting. It’s the only thing I can think of doing, aside from shoving my hand in my pocket or running out of the room screaming.

And when Mikey puts his hand in my hand, I look him in the eyes, and he looks right back at mine, and I think it’s a little bit like magic right then, that moment, maybe, that first feeling of the world stopping for a whole second so that all the stars can look right at me and say, This is for you. This is what life can be. And it feels like that. Beyond ordinary, like magic.

I smile.

It’s all I can do. It’s all I know how to do, let my face be my face, since I don’t have a game plan or a strategy right now, all of this coming at me so fast, and I think that’s probably a good thing, because otherwise I might’ve overthought this moment and tripped myself up. Judging from the glow coming from Mikey’s eyes, I think it’s enough.

I’m not sure what to do or say next. But I don’t have to say anything, because before I know it, Cammy has abandoned his conversation with Hermelinda and squeezes himself between Mikey and me, grabbing Mikey’s hand too.

Cammy’s handshake is extra af and almost topples Mikey into Flor, who graciously grabs onto my arm for support while helping Hot Mikey stay on his feet. Flor looks at me like, Ummm. What is she doing?

Pulling back his hand, Mikey laughs it off.

I look at Mikey and think, Holy shit, he’s got the best laugh.

I smile more. Instantly, Mikey returns the smile, flexing his hand, like he’s trying to relieve the soreness from Cammy’s too-aggressive grip. When I try to meet Mikey’s eyes again, I get the sense he’s looking right at my chest instead of at me.

“You know, we should hang out.” Flor taps my arm, and his invitation pulls me back into the moment.

“That’s a great idea. It can be like our very own Fierce Bitches Club,” Cammy jumps in.

Flor looks like he doesn’t know what to say or do.

“Bitch, you’re too much,” Mikey says.

“Thanks, boo. I get that a lot,” Cammy says.

Mikey makes a weird face—like he’s both rolling his eyes and smelling something gross at the same time—which is funny af, and I’m nodding. OMG. I’m smiling and nodding like my head is on a permanent swivel, a seesaw or a lever. I don’t know. All I know is that I feel excitement and eagerness swelling inside me, and it’s the last day of school, and here I am making friends—making gay friends—on the brink of what just might be the best summer ever.

Glancing at the clock, Mr. Villarreal announces, “If you can hear my voice, clap three times,” which is the signal that we’re reconvening.

Beneath the shuffling and the sighs of relief, including mine, Flor says, “Really. Y’all should come by my house tonight. We can make gourmet pizzas. Girl, we can kiki.”

“Pizza’s my love language,” Mikey jokes.

“Bitch, count us in.” Cam looks at me, grabbing my arm. I totally wanna go, but I have work. Also, I don’t even know what a kiki is.

“Seven thirty, eight-ish? Message me on Insta.” With that, Flor takes his seat, and Cam and I go to ours, and the whole time, I’m thinking, Holy shit. Did I just flirt with Hot Mikey? And OMG! Did he just flirt back with me? And OMG! Did Hot Mikey just check out my chest? And OMG! Did Cammy just crash Flor’s invite? And OMG! What do you even do at a kiki? And ummmm OMG! Did I just make gay friends? #buryme #foundmypeople #webelong #valentinamiamor #summervibes #newfriends #friendshipsreallydochangetheworld