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known this would happen? I feel my disappointment like some foreign object lodged in my chest. Completely irrational.
    It’s like what Gil’s mamãe told me, when Mother first got engaged to Auntie Yaha five months after my papai died. Love is complicated , she said, and it never works the way you think it should .
    Gil and Enki don’t speak. Or maybe they do, but none of us can hear it. Maybe in the way Gil touches Enki’s palms, the way Enki’s feet start that shuffle-shuffle, there’s a conversation. I’ve loved you for so long and You’re beautiful, won’t you dance? I didn’t bring a fono with me, but there’s a holo array on the far wall, behind the band, and I can see them reflected in it from different angles. Gil and I have been in the background of a dozen gossip items — inevitable, when your stepmother is an Auntie — but this is the first time anyone will remember our names.
    Gil, the one who caught the eye of the new summer king.
    June, the one left behind.
    Above me, the buzzing camera bots let me know I’m in their eyes, a lone figure suspended over the city. I wonder how my skin lights will look on the holos. Can they see the swirls? The colors? Can they see how frantically they pulse when I look at the two of them, together?
    I can’t tell if Gil is leading, or Enki. They move slowly — the song has switched to “Velha Infãncia” and though I know they both could be flashy, they instead make a dance of their intimacy. Enki pauses,still and watchful as a deer. His hand is raised. Fingertips hardly touching, Gil moves in a circle around him — a satellite orbiting our newly chosen moon. Enki smiles at him, full and uninhibited, and my hands cover my mouth, my lights strobe helplessly.
    Gil closes his eyes for a moment. He stops moving. Slowly, he sinks to his knees like he’s falling through water. The singer falters and then it’s just the violin and the guitar and the drums, insistent as a heartbeat.
    Gil kneels there, head bent, penitent and worshipful before our new summer king. Alone on the dance floor, I am the only one facing Enki. I’m the only one who can see his surprise, the slight bob in his throat as he regards the top of my best friend’s head. I expect Enki to touch his shoulder, like the Queen would a petitioner. I expect him to say something that acknowledges Gil’s gesture without exposing too much of himself.
    But this is Enki, and I should know better.
    “Coração,” Enki whispers. I have never heard his voice in person before. It is the same, but it makes me shiver — a ghost from my dreams has entered my waking life. Gil’s shoulders begin to tremble. I think he is crying. I want to go to him, and I know I have no place in this.
    Enki squats, bending so his head is below Gil’s. He puts one hand under Gil’s chin and lifts.
    “Thank you,” Enki mouths.
    And then they kiss.
    Have I stumbled? Or just lost the feeling in my feet? Because I feel the smooth glass of the floor through the thin fabric of my dress and I think I’ve fallen. I wonder if I’ve stopped breathing. Suddenly, Auntie Yaha is beside me.
    “June, June,” she says, so insistently I wonder how long she’s tried to get my attention. I look up at her, expecting disapproval, and getting something that confuses me. Her lips frown, but her eyes are sad. It’s her eyes that make me take her hand.
    “Come,” she says, “filha, come. Your mother and I will take you home.”

    I spend the night alone and shivering, my cheek pressed against the window and my body covered in a nest of blankets. I tried sleeping, but all I could think of were the lights of the city and the ruffle of wind on the bay. The worst is this feeling that I’ve lost them both . The Enki of my foolish dreams and Gil, my best friend. He put me down on the glass and never once thought of me after. I’m afraid it will never be the same between us, and I’m furious for being afraid. How can I begrudge Gil that wide-eyed,