And there he was, but backlit. None of his features were visible, just his walk, coming toward me.
Breckin threw the Frisbee, and my wide, searching eyes caught the heart of the sun, and the disk sailed straight past me.
When the bright spot finally dissolved from my vision, I looked past Breckin again. The figure was closer now, but it wasn’t Sebastian after all. It was someone else with great posture, chin up, a loose right-handed fist.
A close match, but not him.
I remember learning in biology in eleventh grade that the neurons that signal pain, called C fibers, actually have some of the slowest-conducting axons. The sensation of pain takes longer to get to the brain than nearly any other type of information—including the conscious awareness that pain is coming. The teacher asked us why we thought this might be evolutionarily advantageous, and it seemed so simple at the time: We need to be able to escape the source of pain before we’re debilitated by it.
I like to think this is how I was somehow already braced against the pain of realization. In this case, the blinding sunshine reached me first, warning me of the painful signal ahead—hope. Reminding me that of course it couldn’t be Sebastian. I was in LA. He was somewhere else, gathering souls. Of course he wasn’t there.
He is never going to be here, I thought. He is never coming back.
Was I okay with it? No. But missing him every day for the rest of my life was still easier than the fight Sebastian had: to stuff himself inside a box every morning and tuck that box inside his heart and pray that his heart kept beating around the obstacle. Every day I could go to class as exactly the person I am, and meet new people, and come outside later for some fresh air and Frisbee. Every day I would be grateful that no one who matters to me questions whether I am too masculine, too feminine, too open, too closed.
Every day I would be grateful for what I have, and that I can be who I am without judgment.
So every day I would fight for Sebastian, and people in the same boat, who don’t have what I do, who struggle to find themselves in a world that tells them white and straight and narrow gets first pick in the schoolyard game of life.
My chest was congested with regret, and relief, and resolve. Give me more of those, I thought to whoever was listening—whether it was God, or Oz, or the three sisters of Fate. Give me those moments where I think he’s coming back. I can take the hurt. The reminder that he’s not coming back—and why—will keep me fighting.
I picked up the Frisbee, tossed it to Breckin. He caught it one-handed, and I hopped side to side, elbows out, reenergized. “Make me run for it.”
He lifted his chin, laughing. “Dude, watch out.”
“I’m good. Throw it.”
Breckin jerked his chin again, more urgently. “You’re going to hit him.”
Startled, I tucked in my elbows, wheeling around to apologize to whoever was there.
And he was there, maybe two feet from me, leaning back like I might in fact elbow him in the face.
Losing control of my legs in an instant, I sat ass-down on the grass. He wasn’t backlit anymore. There was no halo of sun behind him. Just sky.
He crouched, resting his forearms on his thighs. Concern pulled his brows down, drew his lips into a gentle frown. “Are you okay?”
Breckin jogged over. “Dude, are you okay?”
“W-w-w—” I started, and then let out a long, shaking exhale. “Sebastian?”
Breckin slowly backed away. I don’t know where he went, but looking back, the rest of it was just me, and Sebastian, and an enormous stretch of green grass and blue sky.
“Yeah?”
“Sebastian?”
Oh God. The sweetly cocky grin, the joke everyone can be in on. “Yeah?”
“I swear I just imagined you walking from clear across the quad and thought God was giving me some life lesson, and not twenty seconds later you’re standing right there.”
He reached out, took my hand. “Hey.”
“You’re supposed to be in Cambodia.”
“Cleveland, in fact.”
“I didn’t actually know. I just made that up.”
“I could tell.” He grinned again, and the sight of it set about building a scaffold around my heart. “I didn’t go.”
“Shouldn’t you be in Mormon jail?”
He laughed, sitting down and facing me. Sebastian. Here. He took my hands in his. “We’re working out the details of my parole.”
The banter fell away in my head. “Seriously. I’m . . .” I blinked, light-headed. It felt like the world was too slowly coming into focus. “I don’t even know what’s going on.”
“I flew to LA this morning.” He studied my reaction, before adding, “To find you.”
I remembered the day I found him outside my house, flayed by his parents’ silence. Panic crawled up my neck. It was my turn to ask, “Are you okay?”
“I mean, LAX is sort of a nightmare.”
I bit my lip, fighting a grin, fighting a sob. “I’m serious.”
He did a little side-to-side nod. “I’m getting there. I’m worlds better seeing you, though.” A pause. “I missed you.” He looked skyward, and then back at me. On their return trip, his eyes were glassy and tight. “I missed you a lot. I have a lot of forgiveness to earn. If you’ll let me.”
Words were a jumbled mess in my head. “What happened?”
“Seeing you at the signing really threw me. It was like being shaken awake.” He squinted from the sun. “I went on my book tour. I read your book almost every day.”
“What?”
“It started to feel like a new holy book.” His laugh was sweetly self-deprecating. “That sounds crazy, but it did. It was a love letter. It reminded me every day who I am and how much I was loved.”
“Are loved.”
He inhaled sharply at this, and then added, voice quieter, “A few weeks after I came home from New York, my letter came—my mission call. Mom planned this huge party. There were probably fifty people coming to our house, more waiting to watch on Facebook.”
“Autumn told me. I think she watched it, but I wouldn’t let her tell me anything.”
He swallowed, shaking his head. “We didn’t do it in the end. I told my parents that night that I didn’t think I could go. I mean,” he amended, “I knew I could talk to people about the church, and my testimony, and what Heavenly Father wants for us.” He bent, pressing his mouth to my knuckles, eyes closed. It felt like worship. “But I didn’t think I could do it the way they wanted: tied off from you, and them, and trying to be someone I’m not.”
“So you’re not going?”
He shook his head, his lips brushing back and forth over the back of my hand. “I withdrew from BYU too. I’ll probably transfer somewhere else.”
This time, hope beat every other reaction to the punch: “Here?”
“We’ll see. The advance on my book is giving me some breathing room. I have some time to think.”
“What about your family?”
“It’s a mess right now. We’re working our way back to each other, but I don’t know what it will look like.” He tilted his face up, wincing. “I don’t know yet.”
I want this burden, I thought. And maybe that’s what just happened. Maybe I earned it. I want to be at least partly responsible for showing him that what he might lose is outweighed by owning his life, completely.
“I’m not afraid of having some work ahead of us.”
“I’m not either.” He smiled up at me, bared his teeth against my hand, and with his playful growl, blood rushed hot to the surface of my skin.
I took ten seconds, eyes closed, to calm down. Breathe in and out, and in and out, and in and out, and in and out.
And then I leaned forward, pouncing, tackling him. He fell backward in surprise, and I landed on top, staring down at his wide, sparkling lake-eyes. My heart pounded against my breastbone, pounded against his, banging on the door to be let in.
“You’re here,” I sa
id.
“I’m here.” He looked around where we stretched out on the grass, instinctively hyperaware. Not a single person was paying any attention.
So he let me kiss him, just once. I made it a good one, though, offering up my bottom lip.
“You’re here,” he said. I felt his arms slide around my waist, hands linking at my lower back.
“I’m here.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It isn’t necessarily fair to expect authors to have only one “book of their heart,” but it is true that if we had to choose, Autoboyography would claim that tender spot.
We started talking about this book years ago; Christina worked in a junior high counseling office in Utah, and saw teen after teen coming through who honestly believed, devastatingly, that their parents would probably rather have a dead child than a gay one. As a woman who grew up bi in the queer-friendly world of the Bay Area, Lauren felt a social obligation to reach out to teens whose experiences weren’t as easy. We did a great deal of research before we began drafting, including taking a trip to BYU and Temple Square with our dear friend Matty Kulisch. By the time we actually sat down to write Tanner’s story, it nearly came out as a single typed stream.
For the push and encouragement to WRITE THIS BOOK, we love you, Christopher Rice, Margie Stohl, and Cecilia Tan. Thank you for the support and enthusiasm and the wisdom. And in addition, Chris, yes, we are writers, but we will never be able to express what it felt to read your notes after you finished. The time and thought—and amount of YOU that you put into that critique letter—was without question the most generous act we could imagine, and we are forever devoted to you.
Dahlia Adler, thank you for reading the first draft of the manuscript, for the back-and-forth, for being open to all questions—even the stupid ones, though you’d never call them that. You are a true gem to your author peers, and we hope you know how grateful we are for what you’ve given us.
Kiersten White, your feedback was stunning, and your blurb still makes us cry. Your esteem here has meant the world to us; thank you endlessly. Candice Montgomery, Amy Olsen, and Tonya Irving, thank you for taking time in your busy lives to read this, to give us thoughtful feedback, and to be the vocal cheerleaders you have been for so long now.
Our team holds strong for this, our eighteenth book. Erin Service, you are what keeps us sane. Adam Wilson, your eyes and hands steer this ship, every time. Holly Root, you are more than our rock, you are our gravity. Kristin Dwyer, you are the glue and the heart. Our families have seen us rabid for this project from the second it began and are as excited for it as we are; we are lucky, lucky women. Zareen Jaffery, thank you for working to make this manuscript stronger, for loving these boys the way we do. And thank you to everyone at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers for working to get this book into readers’ hands.
Last but most important, these final words of thanks:
Anne Jamison, none of this would have happened if you hadn’t talked it out with us, pushed us to make things harder for our boys, to embrace reality and angst. Thank you for connecting us with Matty, for always making time for us—dare we say “for taking the time to shepherd us”? WE DARE.
And to Matty . . . What can we say here that isn’t better saved for the time we can hand you the hard copy and lose our minds together? This almost feels like too public a space for sharing something so personal, but the three of us know how our lives have changed from this experience. We love you massively. Thank you for all of it, for every perfect, honest, loving second of that first trip, and every other one we will take together.
BOOKS AND RESOURCES WE LOVE
The following are books and resources we turned to before, during, or just after drafting Tanner and Sebastian’s story. Each of these deals with LGBTQ identity in ways that resonated with us or expanded our thinking in important ways. We highly recommend them.
Books (Nonfiction)
Before Night Falls
by Reinaldo Arenas
Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin
by John D’Emilio
And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
by Randy Shilts
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
by Alison Bechdel
Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution
by David Carter
Same-Sex Dynamics among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example
by D. Michael Quinn
Books (Fiction/Poetry)
At Swim, Two Boys
by Jamie O’Neill
The Song of Achilles
by Madeline Miller
We the Animals
by Justin Torres
Call Me by Your Name
by André Aciman
Autobiography of Red
by Anne Carson
Night Sky with Exit Wounds
by Ocean Vuong
An Arrow’s Flight
by Mark Merlis
Giovanni’s Room
by James Baldwin
Two Boys Kissing
by David Levithan
How to Repair a Mechanical Heart
by J.C. Lillis
At the Edge of the Universe
by Shaun David Hutchinson
A Density of Souls
by Christopher Rice
The Snow Garden
by Christopher Rice
Last Seen Leaving
by Caleb Roehrig
True Letters from a Fictional Life
by Kenneth Logan
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda
by Becky Albertalli
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
by Benjamin Alire Saenz
More Happy Than Not
by Adam Silvera
Georgia Peaches and
Other Forbidden Fruit
by Jaye Robin Brown
Boy Meets Boy
by David Levithan
How to Make a Wish
by Ashley Herring Blake
Films
Moonlight (2016)
Tangerine (2015)
Carol (2015)
Weekend (2011)
A Single Man (2009)
Milk (2008)
C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005)
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
But I’m a Cheerleader (1999)
Happy Together (1997)
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)
Paris Is Burning (1990)
Websites
The Trevor Project:
thetrevorproject.org
GLAAD Resource List:
glaad.org/resourcelist
American Psychological
Association, LGBT Youth
Resources: apa.org/pi/lgbt/programs/safe-supportive/lgbt
It Gets Better Project:
itgetsbetter.org
LGBT National Help Center: glbthotline.org
Groups
Encircle: encircletogether.org
LDS Family Fellowship: ldsfamilyfellowship.org
Utah Pride Center: utahpridecenter.org
LGBT Therapists Guild: lgbtqtherapists.com
PFLAG: pflag.org
Affirmation: affirmation.org
Soulforce: soulforce.org
Book Recommendation Sites
LGBTQ Reads:
LGBTQReads.com
The Gay YA: gayya.org
Bisexual Books: bisexualbooks.com
Lambda Literary:
lambdaliterary.org
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHRISTINA LAUREN is the combined pen name of longtime writing partners/besties/soul mates/brain twins Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings. The coauthor duo writes both young adult and adult fiction, and has produced ten New York Times bestselling novels, including Beautiful Bastard and Sweet Filthy Boy from Gallery Books. Their books have been translated into more than twentythree languages. You can find them online at ChristinaLaurenBooks.com, facebook.com/Ch
ristinaLaurenBooks, or on Twitter at @Lolashoes (Lauren) and @seeCwrite (Christina) or follow @ChristinaLauren for official news.
Simon & Schuster • New York
Visit us at simonandschuster.com/teen
Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Christina-Lauren
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CHRISTINA LAUREN
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2017 by Lauren Billings and Christina Hobbs
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