Ange, by himself, met Hamme at a party. Hamme was still in school, they hadn't dropped out yet to run city art crews for kids who got in trouble with the law. Hamme was already friends with Anemon, those two met at school and came to one of these parties before either of them were really out yet to anyone but each other.

("Out yet," Ange explains, "meant neither of them had told anyone they were into dating guys, and Hamme hadn't told anyone yet about being a they.")

So my brother's boyfriend met Hamme at a party while Anemon was in the bathroom, Ange and Hamme hung out in the city a few days later, Ange brought Parro the next time and Hamme brought Anemon, and Anemon brought Sta since they knew each other from being neighbors as kids, then the whole group of them started meeting in the store, and that's how the group formed.

"Okay," I sign, over breakfast of fried bread. I'm up at the usual time, they're both early. Suspiciously.

Parro, in baggy blue clothes already, glances at Ange (still in fuzzy pajamas), then at me across the counter. "You're important to us," Parro signs, and my swim bladder drops, "and Wrass and our parents."

Ange nods at this, since our parents are basically his, except for when you think about that too hard.

"The group is important too. They have been since we all met, and they always will be."

"Okay," I sign slowly. I poke my bowl of bread, it's still hot.

"So," Ange signs, "we're telling you before anyone else. Basically, we want to expand the group."

"Okay?" I sign.

"We're thinking of adopting," Parro signs.

I stare.

"A baby," Parro adds.

Even though I got that.

"Okay?"

Parro smiles. Ange does too.

"What about Mackere?" I sign. "Is she in the group?"

"Of course," Ange signs. "We only recently met her though."

"Yeah, she's included for sure," Parro nods. "As long as things are good between her and Sta," he nudges Ange, but Ange just gives him a sideways look.

"So, you're not freaking out about us saying we want to have a kid," Ange signs.

I take a bite of my hot, fried bread. We want to have a kid. "I think I will freak out later today," I sign. We want to adopt. "I think when my head catches up."

Ange's shoulders slump and he shows his teeth. "Nice."

"Fantastic," Parro shows his teeth. "Wrass is coming today or tomorrow, so we're going to tell her too."

"Okay," I sign. I stare at my breakfast, my red fingers on the counter. We want to adopt.

Wait I think the pink kelp doll reminds me of me. I jolt up from the counter.

Parro eyes me. "Did your head just catch up?"

I shake my head. "I thought of the name for my doll," almost.

"The angler one we got at the concert?"

I shake my head. "No, that one is named Easel," I spell out E-A-S-E-L, and do the sign for a painting-easel.

"Nice," Parro says.

"I'm going back to bed," Ange signs, paddling away and causing currents that wobble my bowl. "Why do you wake up so early, Nudibranc?"

I shrug, fiddle my fingers around the fried bread lump. I started it to avoid the boring things people talk about at breakfast, I don't say. Then I kept doing it, because I started out doing it.

"You're waking yourself up, then," Parro signs after Ange. "I'm eating and going over to the store."

"What are you going to name the baby?" I ask.

Ange's out of the kitchen already and doesn't notice. Parro frowns at me. "We might be adopting a baby who's a year old. Or older. So we're not sure if he'll already have a name or not."

"Oh," I sign. The kelp doll reminds me of me, the pink dye looks like my fin color but faded, the long legs and arms mimic mine.

"But," Parro signs, swimming to the cupboards by the stove and taking out a bottle of milk, pinching the rubber top so a tiny bead of white floats out of it. "I've been thinking of ideas in case. Petre, maybe. Or Murr,"

"Oh," I sign. "But those are birds," I read a lot about birds in the school library, since I can't see the sky that well but Wrass would talk about herons and avocets and sandpipers and cranes whenever she visited Uncle in the estuary, so I wanted to find pictures.

Parro nods. "So what?"

"So..." I bend my fingers back and forth. "So Mum and Da are going to say you gave your kid a weird name."

Parro shrugs. "They already think I'm weird."

"Oh," I shovel fried bread into my mouth.

"Besides, Nudibranc, you named your angler doll after a painting easel," he shows his teeth. "I think I'm allowed to think of baby names--which might not even get used--inspired by some seabirds, instead of fish and mollusks like literally everyone else in the city," he rolls his eyes.

Easel isn't named after a painting tool. I narrow my eyes. Easel is...Easel has more feeling than that, the motion and letters are the same but it means differently.

"Anemones and starfish aren't mollusks or fish."

"Technicalities," Parro rolls his eyes again.

"And I would name my kid Lava," I sign. "Or Obsidian. Or Bubble."

Parro's eyes widen. "Those are...I think you should find a girlfriend before you get any kids."

My swim bladder twists itself in knots and I grip the edge of the counter.

"That way you'll have someone to kindly tell you those are terrible names before your kid gets stuck with one for their entire life."

Heart thumping, I shove the last of the fried bread into my mouth, staring at the wooden whorls in the counter. My back fins quiver violently. "I never...told you," I stare at the wooden whorls in the counter, counting them between crumbs of bread.

Parro stops. In my periphery, he signs, "Oops. I know you're not supposed to guess...wait have you not been obsessing over Sta since before the concert?"

I dig my elbows into the counter to keep from sinking, my heartbeat takes over my body. "You're not supposed to know that," I sign, close to my chest. "She's in a relationship."

"Don't worry," Parro quickly signs, "I don't think anyone else has noticed. Not even Ange, he's too worried about Mackere's friends being jerks to Sta, and Anemon's job situation..." he stops. "I'm sorry, are you okay?"

My elbows dig nto the wood, my skin prickles, I wriggle out my ankle fins. "I don't know."

"I'm sorry, that just came out."

"I'm better at keeping secrets than that," like the cave, like hiding in the aisles to quiver back fins, like people's boring conversations I don't pay attention to. "I feel dumb."

Parro swims over the counter to flutter by me. "Honestly, a similar thing happened with a few of my friends in school. I thought I was keeping my crush on Ange a secret, but Mora and Bluetan figured it out and basically told me I had no chance with him. One of the most embarrassing days of my school life."

"Oh."

"So...I'm extra sorry. Are you okay?"

"I don't know."

"Well...alright," Parro goes back over the counter for the milk bottle. He almost signs something else, but doesn't. I keep staring at the counter, not moving, to hide the fact my elbows planted there are keeping me from sinking. Because I'd definitely collide into the floor if I tried to leave.

"You can tell Ange," I sign. "It doesn't really matter."

"I think you should, not me. When he's awake."

I nod. And keep staring at the counter.

***

I spend the day in the store thinking about that kelp doll, who reminds me of me.

I spend the day in the store thinking about how Parro knew; what did I do when we made cookies at Sta's house, or the time before the Monsters of the Deep concert that gave it away? How did I give it away?

I spend the day in the back room, mostly, taking stock of what we have, since Wrass is coming today or tomorrow with new stuff. But I keep having to stop and wriggle out my fins because a niggling discomfort has taken root in my torso and it frustrates me why it's there.

The water's not hot or cold, the store's not shaking with vibrations, nothing is glowing hideously bright to assail my senses, so the discomfort isn't from any of those.

But I'm annoyed, and it's not at Parro, and it's not really at myself, or maybe it is since it took me forever to figure out that the kelp doll reminds me of me.

I was right there, how did I not compare the two of us?

The bitty eyes, the shape of the face, somehow the proportions remind me of mine in a mirror, like the school bathroom years ago, like Wrass's mirror on the back of her bedroom door that I snuck to many nights after womanhood hit and and I got those sharper lower teeth and pair of extra upper arm fins and broader shoulders; examining if my round face became more pointy or less--I don't think it changed at all, except the teeth.

I was right there, how did I not compare the two of us?

The pink kelp doll reminds me of me.

The last time I went to the cave, I thought the doll reminded me of Hamme, I thought the doll was a "they" doll, but if the doll reminds me of me...

No, I still think the doll is a "they" doll...I still think that...my fins go all shaky, this "they" doll has a face like mine, limbs like mine, their name they couldn't convey all this time is in fact close to my name.

"Nudibranc," my fingers sign to myself, angled into the shadows of the box maze, "do you have a secret you're keeping from yourself?"

I remember that day Ange made something on the stove with spices that itched my eyes and throat, he explained how "they" worked, and I went into my room and pictured everybody I knew inside boxes, for girls and boys, and Hamme on the floor outside them.

So beside the spare piled boxes in the corner of the back room, I imagine taking the doll of me--now suspiciously pink-colored like the doll in the cave--out of the girl box where I'm floating and set me beside Hamme, on the floor, in the little space between the boxes.

I squirm at this, the pink doll of me starts bobbing because I'm anxious and Hamme does too like we're too close, too in-between the girl box and the boy box.

So I pick us both up and I imagine I'm in the back room of the store but neater than my real surroundings; the floor's bare except for the shelves against the walls, the box maze, and the two boxes on the floor (just the two boxes, unlike our real, cluttered store); and I throw Hamme at the middle door and I throw me at the box maze and we're both happier that way, outside the boy box and girl box, lying on the floor with no relation to either box except that we're all on the floor, and no real relation to each other except that we're the only two outside the boy and girl boxes.

I mean, the Hamme doll lies by the middle door, and I lie by the box maze almost on the other end of the room, so technically Hamme's closer to the girl box and I'm closer to the boy box, but guess what? I switch the girl and the boy box's places and slide them around in circles and circles and across the room and back so really the only ones who make sense here are Hamme and me.