Beast(83)

I move to touch her, but my hand hovers. Waiting for a sign. I don’t know if I’m allowed to touch her in any way, but waiting for signs is a bullshit experience. Only sign I need is hers, and my hand comes down soft to rest on her shoulder.

She doesn’t shake it off. She doesn’t tell me to move it.

“I know that feeling,” I say.

“So does JP,” she says. “It’s funny, when he found me I was practically bleeding from your silence. And all of a sudden it was like, who is this broken little rich boy?”

“Who cares.”

“He doesn’t know how to tell you how important you are to him. We were both kind of moping around over you, isn’t that stupid? Especially since he disgusts me right now. What kind of ally does that? He is a very good listener, though.”

“That’s how he learns your soft spots.”

“At least I got a show out of it.”

“You did it on purpose?”

“I’m no angel,” Jamie says. “Every time JP wanted me to talk to you and I said no, because I was pissed at you, which I still am, he kept upping the ante and I was like, hmm, how far will this kid go to get what he wants?”

“JP will go the distance.”

“He told me about his mom.”

“Whoa. That’s major.”

“He said you and your mom were the only people who knew.”

“Well. That’s accurate.” I knew, but my mom did the listening and talking. Never me. But who knows, that could change. “So is that what you were thinking when you were out walking around for hours? How to bring me and JP back together?”

“Yes. No.” Jamie flips her arms free from the blanket and pushes up her sleeves. “I just kept walking around, worrying about my Spanish test on Friday and all this other crap, but underneath it all, you kept bubbling up.”

“In a good way?”

“Not really. I hate that I think about you all the time. I wish I didn’t. I wish I could take a bath and wash everything away, instead of having it build and build. I hate that I torture myself with all these memories of us. I feel like I scared you away and I hate myself for that.”

“You didn’t! Please don’t get that stuck in there. It was me. Maybe I wasn’t ready, maybe I was blaming my dad, maybe I was just an idiot. All of the above. Like, when you said you wanted to have sex, I was not expecting that. Made me nervous about future, um, endeavors.”

“But I only said that to keep you.”

“What?”

“I’m not ready either. That’s what my friend Keely said to do. She said that’s what boys want.” Jamie wraps the thick blanket tighter. “Ugh, I feel so dumb. Like Keely knows what the hell she’s talking about. She can’t keep a boyfriend longer than a month.”

“I wish you could’ve told me.”

“Maybe we could…talk? About stuff like that? Instead of feel dumb?”

“I’d love a chance to talk about anything with you.”

The new silence isn’t cold. It’s as warm as my hand that’s still resting on her shoulder.

“When we met, did you honestly not hear me in group?”

“I was in a pity spiral, so no.”

“Then why when you did learn the truth, why couldn’t you just say ‘Wow, I didn’t know you were trans, but I don’t care because I like you’ instead of spit on the sidewalk and make me feel like garbage, why? Even a polite ‘Thanks, but no thanks’ would’ve been better. Why did you have to be so awful? Why are you only okay with us in the dark?” Jamie finds her camera and starts twisting the lens cap with jittery fingers. “Why do I keep coming back to this?”

The lens cap falls and she struggles to fit it onto the camera, gives up, and thumps it down in her lap with a thud. “Just feels like I’ve been trapped in this world where I don’t know what’s true anymore. When I’m with you, I only want the good and I’m too blind to see the bad. Even after everything that’s happened, I’m still in this soupy shit. I hate—no, despise—myself for wanting the fairy tale.”

“But we all want that.”

“Well, make it stop,” she says. “Tell me you’re an all-star * and that if I stay here one more second you’ll hurt me. Again.”

“Jamie, I can’t stop thinking about you either.”

“No. Wrong answer.” She shuts her eyes tight. “Were we ever real?”

“Yes.”

“All those things you said in the tree house, were they true?”

“Every word.”

“And my hand was honestly the best thing you’ve ever held?”

Now I close my eyes, remembering. “Always.”

I’ve hurt a lot of people in the past, but nothing is worse than this.

Jamie hugs her knees. “Dylan, I think we…”

I wait, my comforter taking the form of tenterhooks, when Mom yells up the stairs, “Sweetheart! It’s time to go.”

“Where are you going?” Jamie asks.

“My cast comes off today. Want to come?” We have so much more to talk about.

The three of us pile into the car like it’s nothing. Oh, don’t mind us, we always travel in style with my mom driving the whip, my shotgun seat pushed back as far as it can go without breaking, and the girl of my literal dreams mashed in the backseat.