Are you kidding me, Holland thought, with an extra modifier in the middle of the sentence. They couldn’t believe Danny was dragging Marissa into this—that he was insecure because she’d slept with Ruben but, apparently, not him yet. Holland didn’t need to know what their friends had and hadn’t done, although they did anyway because Marissa had talked to them about this too. She’d tried to apologize for the Ruben thing despite Holland repeatedly telling her that they didn’t need an apology. Things had been over between Holland and Ruben for months, after all. Holland had reminded Marissa of this before they agreed to accept the apology on the grounds that it would make Marissa feel better.

That had turned into a conversation about Marissa’s new relationship. Marissa had made her concerns clear: between the staff and the first-years she had tons of family around school, compared to Danny’s one sister, and sneaking around in broomsheds wasn’t how she wanted to do things with Danny. She’d said Danny was still upset about her and Ruben, but Holland hadn’t entirely believed her because it seemed so petty. How could Danny not see that the circumstances were different?

And as for Holland… there was one piece of information that jumped out as something they had shared with Ruben but not Danny. Few enough people at RMI knew Holland’s assigned sex. Four staff members, by necessity: Headmaster Bonilla, DH Nanda, Mr. Tennant, Medic Rock. Three students, by choice: Emmett, Ruben, Maverick. Danny was one of their best friends, and Holland trusted him to keep private information private, but they weren’t convinced he’d think about them the same way if he knew. People who knew—like their older family members who had known Holland before they came out—treated them differently, and Holland thought that might be especially true for their friends who grew up believing in the binary and strict gender roles. Danny might have guessed (after all, he had been around them throughout puberty) but Holland didn’t want to test that with certain knowledge.

If they met Danny now—if that meeting had been delayed six years, and seventeen-year-old Holland met a seventeen-year-old Danny with whom they had never been friends—Holland wasn’t sure they would be friends. Holland was less patient now than they had been at age eleven, less willing to educate when ignorance was thrown at them, less polite in correcting repeated misgendering. Lucien had proved that last year, although Holland had still given the upperclassman many chances to get it right before they’d finally confronted him.

Maybe some of this impatience had come from their having had Danny and the rest of their group as friends the last six years. Knowing that you had people at the end of the day made it easier to pass up other potential relationships. First-year Holland had felt like they couldn’t afford to not be nice; of-age Holland had no qualms about that.

Danny resented and hated that Holland had told their significant other things he didn’t know about them? Screw that. “You’re right,” Holland said flatly. “Ruben knows things about me that you don’t because he needed to.” They were sure the reverse was true: Marissa must know things about Danny that Holland didn’t. That was fine; that was how it should be. “What makes you feel entitled to the things I share with people I’m dating?”