Birthday(34)

“You sure? I feel like I should call somebody. Why don’t you come inside?”

“Fuck off,” I say. I don’t need his help.

The gas station attendant flips me the bird and yells for me to be gone in five minutes or he’ll call the cops. I pour myself onto my bike and stare into space for a moment, trying to figure out how to get to Eric’s house from here, then it hits me he might not even be home. It’s his birthday too. What if he’s still out celebrating without me? With his new friends? I push the thought away before it can make me feel ill. I don’t care. I need to see him.

I pull out my phone to call him and groan when I realize it’s dead. Whatever. I’ll bike there and figure things out as I go. If I stay alone with my thoughts one second longer I’m afraid something terrible will happen.

The ride itself is mostly a blur. There’s a buzzing sound in my head and my muscles refuse to relax. When I finally arrive at his house I don’t even feel tired—but something deep inside feels like it’s been strained to its breaking point.

All the windows are dark, but who cares? I don’t think I care about anything right now. It must be after his curfew though, so he should be home.

“Dude,” I hiss. I throw a piece of gravel at Eric’s second-floor window. “Dude, come on, I need you.”

I keep this up for I don’t know how long, maybe an hour, maybe ten minutes, when finally I hear Eric’s voice. But it’s coming from behind me, on the road.

“Morgan?” he says.

I turn around and there, where before there was only empty road, is Eric. He’s frozen, mid-dismount, in a flickering puddle of orange light. Moths flutter above him like a gray halo and somewhere, distant, a night bird lets loose a single lonely note.

But then I squint and lean forward because something’s wrong—he has Eric’s bike, and he sounds like Eric, but his head is completely shaved, except for a thin layer of blond fuzz. It can’t be him, because Eric loves his hair too much to cut it off. It’s the last rock-and-roll holdout his dad allows him. But then he rolls his bike into the driveway, and I see it really is him.

“Holy shit,” he says. “Morgan. Are you okay?”

“Where’s your hair?” I say in return, my voice hoarse. But looking at him settles the rough wheezing in my chest. Just the sight of his face makes me immediately feel calmer. And not that I would tell him, but the shaved look is kind of nice. It makes me realize how handsome he’s becoming every day. God, I’m gross.

Eric grimaces at my comment, running a hand over his head as he walks his bike into the garage. “You didn’t become a skinhead and not tell me, right?” I put my hands on my hips, feeling myself come back into my body. “And if you are a skin, please tell me you’re the hardcore kind and not the Nazi kind.”

“Black Flag is borderline unlistenable,” he says, joining me in the driveway, “and my girlfriend is Jewish. So, no to both.”

“Girlfriend?” I say. “Since when do you have a girlfriend?” He arches an eyebrow and I realize that was probably not the best way to ask that question.

“Since tonight, I guess,” he says with a shrug, and I feel a flash of jealousy for Susan before I push it away. It’s all so easy for him: just like that he suddenly has a girlfriend, and I’m over here like a walking disaster with stupid waterproof mascara stained under my eyes.

“Right, okay, girlfriend. Cool. And what about the hair?” I ask.

“I got dared to shave my head. Does it look stupid?”

“What?” I say. “No. You look…” I shrug. “You look good.”

He smiles ruefully. “You just asked if I was a Nazi,” he says.

“I mean, I just wasn’t expecting it.” I sniffle and rub at my nose with my sleeve. He looks so different—more grown up, manly, yet still Eric. I picture myself with hair that short. He’s growing up into a man, and I’m turning into … what?

The more I look at Eric the more I wonder why I can’t be normal like him. And then a little voice echoes out of the dark recesses of my brain, hissing, Have you ever really tried it? Even when you were little, you never fully committed, sneaking home to watch movies about princesses and listening to Mom’s dance music. You liked the makeup, but have you ever really tried to be normal…?

If I can’t be a girl, then maybe I should really try being a boy—to lean into what I said to Dad. The football player, the perfect son. Maybe if I pretend, it’ll come true. Maybe I could be someone people won’t look away from or laugh at in the makeup aisle of a Kmart. Someone like Eric. The football player with a girlfriend, though it’s hard to imagine wanting that last part very much.

Could I do it? If I can’t be with Eric, then maybe I can be him? It sounds crazy, I know it does, but maybe …

“Well,” Eric says, taking in my silence. “Let’s go inside and you can tell me why you’ve been crying.”

With a nod, I rub my nose and follow him inside, feeling like an unwashed peasant as I step into his family’s polished, glimmering house. I know abstractly that this place used to feel like a second home to me, but with Eric’s busy schedule and Carson’s constant, simmering insinuation that he doesn’t want me around, that memory is distant. Only Jenny still seems to like me, checking in occasionally on how Dad and I are faring and making spaghetti whenever I come over, but lately I never know if she’s even going to be home, not that I can blame her. “I thought your parents had a rule about having friends over when they’re not home. I didn’t see their cars…”