text: I point my still-tripping-over-my-two-left-feet-exiting-the-apartment body toward home with the intention of checking in with the parental unit, maybe doing some schoolwork, and then with whatever time was left returning to the hunt.
  
  I begin walking when a particular ping lets me know I have a DM on my twitter. It's Dan, telling me he has nothing to tell me. Yeah, I am not surprised. That kind of morning.
  
  But I DM back, giving him my best graciousness. Hey, you never know. And now, being as I am in Chelsea, I think I should maybe stroll along the High Line for at least a few blocks, which lets my mind roam, and leads me back to thinking about last night. And fascination ...
  
  So I sit down on one of my benches. Versus infatuation.
  
  And then I text the parental unit to say all is good, be home in a few hours, and then ...then I reach a decision and ping Ari.
  
  An hour or so later, this is where she finds me, occupying my usual High Line bench, affectionately known as "my office." Part of me thinks I need to get less predictable, but mostly I am grateful it's not raining so I don't have to think about a different place.
  
  And for the next few minutes we just sit there, side by side, sharing my bench, staring out, watching the world walk by. I watch a small cluster of clouds race across the sky, apparently having places to go, people to rain on.
  
  We hang for what seems like forever, but is most likely five minutes, looking across the way and taking in the city. All those windows, all with people behind them. I wonder sometimes what they're like. The people, not the windows. I read a book once where the train stops outside this girl's window. And she sees a girl her age staring back. I don't really remember too much else, other than it was an el train.
  
  Sometimes I wonder if maybe there's a girl out there looking at me, only I can't see her.
  
  Exhale. Big sigh.
  
  It's time. I screw up my courage and turn to Ari. "How do you know if you're attracted to someone?'
  
  Ari doesn't say anything. But she does turn and look straight at me. Waiting. Apparently for me to continue.
  
  This is like ripping off a Band-Aid. However much it hurts, do it fast.
  
  "I don't mean it that way exactly. I mean, what if you think you might have feelings for someone but they aren't the someone you think you should have feelings for?" And as soon as I rush the last of that thought out, I find a study of my knuckles is desperately needed. "I mean maybe they're not feelings. Well, of course they're feelings but maybe they're not those kinds of feelings."
  
  "Hey Sid?"
  
  I take a brief second before I peer up. "Yeah?"
  
  Ari leans over and gently pushes my hair down. Without product it has a mind of its own. "This will be a lot easier if we just use proper nouns."
  
  Nouns? I mull that over. Nouns could be good.
  
  "I'm going to guess our topic is Fenny slash Ze."
  
  And just like that, it's out there. And I'm a rubber band ball of emotions, embarrassed, thankful she said it, really super thankful she already knows about the Ze of it all, ashamed I need this, and incredibly afraid that if I bounce and hit a band the wrong way, it will snap.
  
  "Your challenge, Sid, is that you are a sapiosexual." And with that pronouncement my head jerks up. "The issue is, you think brains are sexy. Which for the record, I concur."
  
  Ari pauses, watching me closely. "And do not be looking at me that way. We do, you know, go to the same school. I, too, can be very vocab forward."
  
  I tip my imaginary hat and think, touché, but say nothing. Perhaps because I am too busy thinking, Brains? Brains are sexy. But so are fingers? Brains, fingers? Who knew? I didn't. I so did not know fingers could be so ...maybe I should check out typists? Think about all the finger workouts they get.
  
  Unaware of my drifting, Ari returns to her Sid diagnosis mode, which wisely interrupts my inner voice.
  
  "And it is better than being, what's the word?" Ari looks at me expectantly.
  
  And although I'm good, I need a bit more than that.
  
  "You know, the one for being attracted to fools?"
  
  "Insipiosexual?"
  
  "That's it. Thank you. And no. No I don't really see you as someone who would be attracted to a fool. But then again ..." Ari's face breaks into a small teasing smile, accompanied by a small shoulder shove, "...they do say love is blind."
  
  "Ari, do you know the rest of that quote?" My question is redundant, so I don't bother to wait for an answer. "And lovers do not see the follies that they themselves commit."
  
  And if we're gonna sit here and quote Shakespeare, here's my rub. My problem is there is no "they." There is only an I. I do not see the follies that I myself commit.
  
  "Aw, Sid," Ari's arm snakes over my shoulder, "listen to Doctor Ari. You, my friend, are just having a bout of perfectionist paralysis. You take an idea, create everything in your head, and then you expect it to follow precisely the way you planned it in life. This won't happen.
  
  "And you know, Sid," Ari pushes away, once again waiting to catch my eye, "even if this is a folly. A folly or two won't kill you."
  
  And it never ceases to fascinate me. Even when she's being my friend, she always wraps her spiel up in such a way that she is doing that cat paw/lick thing.
  
  We continue to just hang out and pass the afternoon, sitting on the bench, watching people go by, letting the litany of languages, the lilting of accents, and the variety of customs wash over us, their passing patter as much a part of our city as Lady Liberty herself. Occasionally we become invested enough in a passerby or two to deem them worthy of a thumbs up, but more routinely only breaking our silence to deliver the snarkiest of observations.
  
  And betwixt and between, we chat.
  
  "Hey, Sid?" Ari breaks the silence. "Why me?"
  
  And I can hear the second part of that question, the part she isn't giving voice to. "I would have thought you would have called Imani?"
  
  And I have to think on this before I answer. I watch a Hasidic family cross in front of us, the little boys with their long peyes, laughing and running. Ari's right. If you were guessing, you'd assume Imani is who I would have called. And yet I didn't. But I know why.
  
  It's because, at least to me, Ari is way more sophisticated about these things than Imani. Not sophisticated in knowing more gay people or nonbinary people or pangender people, but it's just kind of like she's just more sexually advanced or maybe astute or maybe just out there. I do know I'm not sure how best to say this without it sounding like I'm making it a bad thing or something.
  
  "I don't know." I stop and think, trying to find words that are both honest and nonjudgmental. "I think maybe because you're in control of who you are. You own you."
  
  And I know that's true, even if it's not all of the truth. Ari is defiantly Ari. And that's the piece I trust about her.
  
  Instead of a solemn, "I get it" or "Thank you," I am taken aback by the shlaughter aka shout of laughter that bursts from her. Not the kind of laughing between friends or at a joke, but rather that short, mean kind of laughter that brings me up short.
  
  "Hey, Sid." Ari stands up, crosses to the other side of the path, and then walks back slowly, a kind of bitter amusement on her face. She stops in front of me, suddenly towering. "I'm going to share one last secret with you. None of us is in control of who we are. That's the great cosmic fuster cluck."
  
  Ari looks at me and seems to come to some kind of decision. But she doesn't sit down. She motions to me, and we cross to the other side and lean against the rail, looking over the city. "You know how you always ask, why Vik?"
  
  All of a sudden, with the sharpest of screaming clarity, it crosses my mind I don't really want to know. That it's not going to be a funny, flirty story.
  
  But I don't reach out to stop her.
  
  "Here's why. I was raped by my stepfather." Ari turns sideways, looking directly to me. "It was my eleventh birthday present." Her voice never changes. She could be telling a stranger to take a left at the corner. And that's the giveaway. "It took my mother a full year to throw him out."
  
  Ari pushes herself back, getting a bit of physical distance from both me and the rail. "So to say it left me with issues would be an understatement. And, as I know you know," Ari suddenly gives off her characteristic smile and head toss, "I drank too much and I partied too much and I screwed around way too much."
  
  As she's talking, and acknowledging how I knew her then, I realize I have kind of forgotten all about that. I mean it wasn't so long ago she was all that, but now she's just my friend.
  
  "And then I wound up in Carson's chemistry class and I was assigned Vik as my partner." Ari laughs, lost in that moment. And I'm happy because I know that moment is happier for her. "And god, he had that terrible emo flap and he was such a geek, but you know, Sid, he thought I was the bomb. And not in some cheap, 'I hear she'll put out' way, but as in, I was the girl just beyond his reach."
  
  "And one day, Sid, I actually asked him out, because I wanted to be," Ari pauses for just a second, not looking at me, searching for something. "No, that's not quite right," she amends herself. "It's because I needed to be, the girl he saw."
  
  Even though Ari falls silent, I don't say anything, because I somehow don't think she is finished. And I am right. She isn't. But her finish, I think, is less for me than for her.
  
  "And you know what, Sid?" A small grin begins to break through. "Now there are some days, actually a lot of days, I truly am that girl."
  
  With that, we both fall silent again. I'm kind of awestruck. I never thought any of that. In my mind I always knew exactly why Vik dated Ari. Only now it turns out I never really did know any of it.
  
  Slowly we turn, making our way along, until we find ourselves by the waterfront, heading down to grab a slice.
  
  "So, Sid, what's with you and Mae Ann and Mae Lee?"
  
  Now I could pretend I don't know what she's talking about, but that would be incredibly uncool at this point in our day. I resort to a shrug, leaving the interpretation of said gesture wide open. Could mean, I dunno what you're talking about or could mean, I dunno what's with it? Noncommittal, not to mention nonverbal, seems my wisest choice of action.
  
  "You know their real story, don't you?"
  
  "You mean, the whole their-mother-died thing and Grandma came over ...yeah."
  
  "Yeah, well, it wasn't quite like that. When they tell it or we hear it or whatever, it's kind of heroic sounding. But actually their mother committed suicide. She climbed into their crib with them. And when they found her, they were on either side of her, wet diapers and crying. They say they don't remember that part, but they do know their dad didn't even want to look at them. So her mother came over from China and did all the proper things, but basically hated their dad for taking her daughter away, and the two of them, because they replaced her daughter. So all they were left with was each other."
  
  And I don't think I said it out loud, but I know I did manage to stop mid-pizza bite, dripping both sauce and cheese onto my chin, which one could translate as, "no way, and you know this how?"
  
  "I was out shopping. And I ran into them. They were looking at a wall where someone had done those tiles with single Chinese symbols on them for like, luck or hope. And they weren't capable of reading them. And they're kind of basic." Ari scrunches her nose. "Or at least they should be."
  
  Ari pauses, assessing me somehow, searching me for an answer, only I don't know the question.
  
  "And I guess I'm telling you all this because maybe if you have some context, you can see a few things better. Like why they are so attached." Ari once again pauses, still calculating something. "And Sid, maybe if you see them better, you'll also see them differently. Like maybe you'll see why Mae Ann chose to stay on the coding team?"
  
  I don't know exactly what she is trying to tell me, but I am too over the day to ask, and honestly not particularly interested. The sun is sinking, and it's getting exponentially colder. And I look at Ari, backlit, wind blowing through her hair, watching as it lifts, the strands separating and all the colors shimmering— the blond with the pinks, blue, purple and, ooohhh, a hint of green ...
  
  And you know, I don't know if I get it. I do know I get that it's different. I get that Ze is different, and I get that Ari is different, and I get that we're all doing the best we can. But I don't know if I get what Ari thinks I do.
  
  "Hey Ari?" I know we're about to head our own ways, but I have one last question for her. "Did you ever read The Wizard of Oz books ...you know, The Road to Oz and so on?"
  
  "Nope."
  
  "Well there's a character in them. Her name's Polychrome. And at one point, she says to Dorothy, 'You have some queer friends, Dorothy.'" And I pause for a moment before I finish, "To which Dorothy answers, 'The queerness doesn't matter, so long as they're friends.'"
  
  And we both pause for another minute. Watching the world go by. Watching Ari's rainbow hair blow around. "Thanks, Ari."