When he's called in Asher says, "hey, Lev, come hang out with us today."

"...okay...?"

When Asher, Sasha, and Lev are out of earshot, Asher says, "where were you and Marlo last night?"

Raine is leaning against Asher with her cheek on his shoulder; she doesn't get enough chances to be touching him. 

"...There's a secret ex-ex-gay camp."

— now she's awake. 

"How do you find it?" 

"Guy with a van at the corner of Spruce and Almond every night at 11. He has books and cookies and a spare bedroom you can cuddle people in and-- other things-- I think he mentioned, like, makeup? And STI tests?"

She makes a tiny wanting sound before she can stop herself. 

Asher kisses her temple. "We can go."

"Christine knows you're dating."

"...we can deal with that when it comes up. But if I can just — not be trapped, for a night —" 

"Maybe in a couple days so I can go with you? I kind of took caffeine pills instead of sleeping and I should probably get a good night's sleep at least every other night."

"Yeah. In a couple of days. 

— you've never actually seen me the way I would look if I could." 

"I bet you'd look really pretty," he doesn't say.

His face maybe makes it obvious that he's thinking it.

It kind of does. 

Lev is very cute. 

"How do you know that Christine knows about us?"

"Ron-- that's the guy who runs ex-ex-gay camp-- says he's been doing this for ten years and he's never known Christine to miss that someone was dating someone else. She doesn't kick you out for it. She just... talks to you and tries to get you to want to be straight? And if that doesn't work she tells your parents at the end of the session that it didn't work."

"Fuck."

...the smile fades. 

"It's not even a month in, we don't have to break up yet," she says, like she's trying to convince herself. 

"Ron says that people can graduate in good standing if they dated guys early on and visited him and then confess to her and make it really really plausible but-- she's good at people, she can tell if you're faking it."

"Fuuuuuck."

Raine curls up against Asher and doesn't say any of the things she's thinking. 

"I don't-- actually think I can fake not loving you."

"I'd say I can fake a lot of things but I don't actually think I can do better than the very best of ten years' worth of people." 

"Ron says that he knows people who are willing to give their couches or spare bedrooms or whatever to gay kids running away from the camp."