Beast(36)

Mom slaps me across the face, a thousand bees stinging me. “If you become half the man he was, you’re lucky.”

She rubs her hand and I struggle to see. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Enough.” Mom pounds up the staircase. The door slams. I look at my broken reflections jumping between the shattered shards of glass and I sink back down. The floor is cold. Like sitting on an ice floe.

I welcome the drift.





SIXTEEN


Mom didn’t help patch me up, and I didn’t ask her. I washed out the cuts, glued them together all by myself with Super Glue, covered them up as best I could with Band-Aids, and went to bed. It’s lunchtime, there’s a tray of two meatball subs and a bottle of iced tea before me, but I’m hustling to finish my homework before all my afternoon classes.

Every time someone asks me what happened to my hands, I just glare at the person until they slink away. Never been happier to look like an axe murderer. I wish the bandages were invisible. I wish even more that I was.

I don’t want to be here. Not when everything is red and infected.

My homework lies limp before me, and I don’t want to touch it. Not that it’s hard, because it’s not, but I’ve never felt dumber in my entire life and I hate it. Who cares if I can whip out this physics homework in under ten minutes? Everything I thought I knew has been turned upside down. Am I so f*cking desperate that I fell for a boy in a skirt?

Because I did. I fell ass over backward for a boy in a skirt. Hard.

I can’t believe I zoned out that day in group. I can’t believe I let this happen. If only I’d paid attention, I would’ve heard her…him…fine, Jamie is a her…say that bit about being trans and been like, whoa. Dodged a bullet. I wouldn’t have gotten on the bus, wouldn’t have let her buy me coffee. And there’s no way I would have frigging kiss— I can’t even finish the sentence in the privacy of my own head.

Everything I knew about myself is effed. All those Lego pieces I thought were clicking together to create my supposed self might as well be moldy avocado pits stacked in a slippery pile. I don’t recognize who I am anymore. I liked her so much, felt so good with her. Felt like home. To know I was completely into a boy in a skirt throws everything out the window. Who am I? Am I gay now—is this what it all means? I’m so frigging confused. And worst of all? JP knows.

He knew before I did.

The seat next to me is empty, ready for him. I already chased off Bryce from sitting there, he knows better, and even though I don’t really want to be here while JP holds court, I see him coming and brush crumbs off his waiting seat because here comes the king.

He acknowledges tables as he passes, gives a cheap wave here or there to his future girlfriends, before plunking down in his seat next to me. “Hey, man,” JP says above the din in the cafeteria. It’s so loud in here, you’d think this was the monkey house at the zoo. And I’ve been there; our cafeteria is way noisier than that. Especially sitting at this table with all these guys fighting to be heard.

“Hey,” I mutter.

“Just so you know, I got you.”

There is a small flare inside me that he’ll let this slide. That he’s my friend. We can do this weird thing where I’ll vent and he’ll listen and then we’ll both pledge to never speak about it again. That instead of JP going down his relationship memory lane and listing every girlfriend he’s ever had and what was wrong with them, he sits there and commiserates with me that my first attempt at an actual relationship was a cock-up of epic proportions. I mean, shit, between the two of us, I would’ve been the one to have an actual legit underline/bold/italics relationship. Jamie would’ve never been just another checkmark in a column, not to me. Then I could’ve been the one giving him advice. Doesn’t that count for something?

It’s not like I can tell any of this to Mom. So I’m anxious to hear what he has to say.

“I didn’t know that you were…you know.”

“That I what?” I ask.

“That you had a type.”

“I do have a type. It’s girls.”

“But she is a girl, right? Isn’t that the whole point?”

Dear Dad…I start a letter. Now that you’re done laughing your ass off at me and what an idiot I am, please help me not cause significant frontal lobe damage to JP. It is most tempting.

“You’ve been totally avoiding me,” JP says. “I texted you like a hundred times last night, tried to get you at your locker before almost every class. Look, all I’m trying to do is check in. What’s up?”

“Nothing.”

“She seems nice?” he tries.

Only eleven more minutes until the bell rings.

“Dylan, did you not know she was tra—”

“Could you just shut up?” I jump at him.

“Oh shit, you didn’t. Hey, look, it’s really no big deal. My cousin started dating this girl, but then we all found out her girlfriend lived as a dude for the first twenty years of her life. It was like a holy-shit-no-way thing, but you know what? It was fine. She’s a really nice person. I met her last Thanksgiving in Kentucky. She likes green olives, hates lumpy gravy, and says ‘cool beans’ like all the time. They’re still together. Lesbians and everything, four boobs, it’s all good. At the end of the day, more people will be happy for you guys than not, so who cares?”