I Wish You All the Best(97)

“You look like you’re thinking about something.” Nathan pulls on the hair tie and the curls fall to my shoulder, his fingers threading through them to try and untangle them. Good luck.

I try to laugh. “Am I Ben-ing again?”

“A little bit.”

“Just nervous,” I say. “Just Mariam, and Hannah, and moving, and I don’t … I don’t know.” There are actually a thousand different things to worry about. The things I am going to take to California, finding another psychiatrist as amazing as Dr. Taylor, worrying about Meleika and Sophie and hoping our friendship will survive two of us moving across the country.

Over the last three months, Mariam and I worked from the second we both woke up to when we both passed out in front of our webcams on ideas and things we could do. Mariam wants me to join their channel, to speak with them at conferences and events.

To build something that could continue to help kids who are like us.

It’d taken a lot for me to say yes, mostly because I didn’t feel like I deserved it. My track record with talking about my identity wasn’t the best. But I had Nathan there with me.

Eventually I worked up the courage to start going to the group therapy sessions. It was difficult at first, but I got used to that. Especially with Nathan there beside me. And, with his help, I was able to come out to Sophie and Meleika. They both had a few questions, but they seemed to understand and apologized for the months of accidental misgendering.

I thought about making a big Facebook post or something, but I decided against it. Just didn’t seem right.

“You’re going to do great, I know it,” Nathan tells me, and I feel his skin against mine and the way he’s relaxed against me. And for the first time in a while, it really does feel like things may be okay.

“What about Hannah?”

“It feels like we sort of just fixed things. And now I’m the one leaving her.” It hadn’t dawned on me until I told Hannah and Thomas about the project. But I’d be moving across the country.

They were both happy, but I could see the look on Hannah’s face, that split second before she was congratulating me. “I’m a terrible sibling.”

“Except you aren’t,” Nathan says.

“But I—”

“Hush, hush, hush,” he whispers in my ear. “Just hush. This isn’t the same kind of situation, you both know that.”

I sigh, tucking my knees close to my chest. “You don’t think she hates me?”

“I think it’d take a lot for her to hate you.”

“You promise?”

He nods. “You know as well as she does that this isn’t the same situation. You’ll be talking to each other every day. You both actually have cell phones now, and you can FaceTime. Believe me, Ben, she doesn’t resent you for moving.”

“It feels like we just became siblings again.”

I feel Nathan’s skin against mine. “And this isn’t going to ruin that. Don’t you think she’s proud of you? This project … It’s important, babe.”

“I know.” I feel my chest unclench a little. And deep down, I do know that. Nathan’s right, anyway. Hannah made me promise we’d talk every day. Over the summer, things have gotten better. Slowly but surely, we’ve come out the other side. Together. “And did you just call me babe?”

“Trying something new, schnookums.” He kisses my neck again. “No good?”

I relax against him. “Let’s stick with ‘babe’ if we have to.”

“I can. Besides, you should be more nervous about that meeting next week.”

“Please don’t remind me.”

“I’ll be right there in the audience, cheering you on.”

I angle myself so I can kiss him. Those soft lips have quickly become my favorite part of Nathan. “No audience in this kind of meeting.”

“I’ll just sneak in. I told you, emotional support comes before modeling.” He lets out a deep sigh and we both stare at the sun, slowly but surely sinking beneath the surface of the dark ocean. “I wish you all the best, Benjamin De Backer.”

They aren’t the same words, but I know exactly what he means.

“I love you too.”





I started writing I Wish You All the Best when I decided I wanted to tell the story that I needed when I was younger. This book is what I needed when I was fifteen, when I was eighteen, and it’s still the story I need in my twenties. This is how a lot of stories are born: out of necessity.

Writing this book helped me confront my own anxieties and depression, and, ultimately, it helped me confront myself. I realize it may be harder for some readers to understand this, and for others, it’ll be an all too relatable reality. For a long time, I struggled to realize who exactly I am, and in a lot of ways I still do. I struggle believing myself when I tell people that I’m nonbinary. I still have a hard time correcting others when they use the wrong pronouns because I don’t want to make them uncomfortable or make them feel bad. Some mornings I look in the mirror and hate what I see because I feel as if my body isn’t up to the standard as other members of the queer community.

Some days are better than others. Days where my confidence is off the charts and I feel perfectly comfortable in my body and my incredibly tacky style. And as I’ve gotten older and have surrounded myself with people like me, I find that those days happen more often than not.