Birthday(30)

I’m a little dazed as I try to concentrate on my transformed face. I want to get an idea of what I look like, a real objective idea, like when I looked myself over before, but my eyes won’t focus. My fingers feel numb and they’re shaking. I have to brace my elbow to put on lip gloss. And then I rub the excess off on the back of my hand, smack my lips, step back, and let my eyes take in my whole reflection.

And there she is.

I touch my jaw and she touches hers. I watch her lips part in awe and, for the first time in a long time, it’s not in a tight frown. She blinks slowly. I blink slowly. Because this is me.

All I can do is stare. At some point the stretched-out neckline of my ratty thrift-store shirt slipped off my shoulder. A strand of hair falls across my face. A girl who could be my sister stares back at me—it’s not even that I did a good job with the makeup, because I didn’t, but she’s there.

There’s a surge of vertigo as I realize this is what it’s like to bridge the gap between me-the-body and me-the-self. Or the start of it. It feels like waves are crashing in my ears, warm foam rising up to envelop me. I wrap my arms around my stomach and take a long, clean breath. And that’s really it—I feel clean for the first time in years. I feel—

Whatever epiphany I was closing in on shatters when I hear the front door open and Dad’s heavy footfalls down the hall. Of all the days for him to come home early, of course it’s today. I scramble, trying to shove all the makeup out of sight, but mostly dropping it on the floor. I kick what’s visible behind the toilet. I’m hyperventilating and it’s hard to think. I have to wash my face. I have to wash my face.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Hey, bud?” Dad calls. I hear him puttering somewhere between the main area and the kitchen. “You home? I cut practice short so I could get us a birthday dinner. You still like Chinese, right?”

“Yeah!” I say. My voice cracks, displaying how it’s deepened—yet another act of betrayal. “Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Bathroom. Uh.” I run the tap hot and grab a washrag. “Minute. Be out in a minute.”

“Take your time. Got a surprise when you get out!”

I make do with the hand soap, but even when I scrub so hard my skin hurts all it does is smudge everything. I blink the water out of my eyes and look up to find a panic-stricken raccoon staring back at me in the mirror. Makeup wipes. I was supposed to buy fucking makeup wipes. And of course he came home early. It’s my birthday. How could I be so stupid? Except I guess I’m a broken, stupid person, so maybe it’s not surprising at all. Everything’s going to be ruined. And all for what, for this mental illness? This fetish? This … this whatever this is?

I slam the heel of my hand into the sink, and a bolt of pain shoots up to my elbow. I yell in frustration, and that’s all it takes to break me. The roiling thunderstorm in my chest crackles forth, the one always rumbling just under the layer of numbness. I hold onto the sides of the sink and feel my breathing go ragged and hot.

My mouth peels apart and a guttural scream comes out. I open my eyes, only to see my reflection glaring back at me, this disgusting body again, always, and forever. Before I know what I’m doing, I cock my arm and punch, then again, then a third time, crunching glass drowning out my voice.

It wouldn’t be so bad if I could just stop thinking about it. About what a freak I am.

Freak.

I hear footsteps in the hallway. Through my blurred vision I notice blood dripping from my knuckles. I smear it on my pants and hiss fire through clenched teeth. Dad pounds at the door. Why can’t I just be normal? I think back to the drawings from last year, to all the futures Mom imagined for me, and I can feel them sloughing off with every second I keep wallowing in this. He keeps pounding and I feel the vibration inside my skull. He’s going to break the door.

“What?” I scream.

“Morgan!” Dad says. “What the hell’s goin’ on in there?”

“Nothing!”

“Don’t lie to me,” Dad says. “Open the door.”

“No,” I shout. “Go away.”

“Morgan, hey,” Dad says, his voice taking on a softer tone. “Whatever it is, we can … we can talk about it. I know you’ve been stressed, and I’ve tried to give you space, but you’re still my son.”

God.

“Go away.”

“Morgan, please,” Dad says. I want him to yell. Part of me, a deep, animal part, wants him to kick the door down, notice the makeup under the sink, put two and two together, and force me to confess. The rest of me notices the quiver in his voice and it tells me, not for the first time, that I’m the worst thing that’s ever happened to everyone I love.

“GO AWAY!”

“You’re all I’ve got left,” he finally says, his voice catching.

All I’ve got left.

All I’ve got left.

I don’t say anything, just press my back to the wall and slide down until I’m sitting with my face buried in my knees.

“I … listen, I know I haven’t been the best dad since … since everything. I know you’ve needed me, and I haven’t … I mean. I’m here. Now. If you wanna talk.”

My lips part a millimeter, but then, as my thoughts stumble through the wreckage of this breakdown, a memory I haven’t thought of in years catches my attention: I was nine, maybe ten, and it was past my bedtime but I couldn’t sleep. I wanted a glass of milk and an Oreo, so I snuck through the living room, behind the couch where Mom and Dad sat, her watching a late-night talk show while he scribbled plays in his big red binder. And as I was coming back from the kitchen, unnoticed as usual, something on the show caught my eye.