“The bravest thing I ever did was decide that the truth of who I am was worth the cost of telling it.”
Portland, Oregon. Junior year. Alex Reyes has a plan: keep his head down, win the state debate championship, get into a good college, and never, ever let anyone see the part of him he has been hiding since the eighth grade — including his best argument partner, Jamie Okafor, who is nonbinary and brilliant and the most honest person Alex has ever met, and who is quietly becoming the person Alex can’t imagine his life without.
But Abuela Elena is visiting from Mexico with a suitcase full of secrets. His father Carmen is working doubles at the restaurant and doesn’t know his son at all. And the debate topic this year is “Does authenticity require courage?” — which is either the universe’s idea of a joke or the most important question anyone has ever put in front of Alex Reyes.
This is the story of a boy learning to be seen. Of a found family made of misfits. Of first love that arrives not like a lightning bolt but like morning — gradually, then completely. Of the courage it takes to say: this is who I am, in a room full of people you love, hoping they love you back.
1. The Boy With the Index Cards
5. The Argument That Actually Mattered
9. The Debate Topic Gets Personal
26. State Championship — Round One
27. State Championship Final — Saturday
38. What Jamie Said at Graduation