Felix Ever After(20)

“Probably just not looking at her phone,” Leah tells her. “Anyone would jump for a chance to make out with you.” I have a feeling that Leah is only half joking.

“I know, right?” Marisol says, then adds with a laugh, “Sorry you never got a chance, Felix.”

I’m on my stomach, head on my folded arms. There’s a pinch of shame in my chest. “Thanks, I guess?”

Ezra’s heard us from the window. He groans with a grin. “Totally forgot you two dated.” He pauses. “Is it weird that you went out for, like, approximately three seconds?”

“First of all, fuck you, it was two weeks,” Marisol says. “And second of all . . .” In the dim light of the muted TV and the blinking Christmas lights, she sits up to face me. “Well, it isn’t weird for me. It just didn’t work out. It happens. Is it weird for you, Felix?”

She smiles a little, like she’s taunting me. She knows that things are weird as fuck. I hesitate. I never told Ezra about what Marisol said. It’s embarrassing, on the edge of humiliating, and I don’t want to deal with the awkwardness. Ezra would be pissed, he and Marisol would fight, and there’d be unnecessary drama at St. Cat’s. Marisol’s stupid-ass comment isn’t worth fucking up my last school year over. Unlike Declan Keane’s gallery.

“Uh,” I say, suddenly aware that everyone’s staring at me. “No. Not weird.”

Leah scratches the back of her neck, and Austin bites his lip. Ezra gives a Chrissy Teigen grimace-smile. “So, really fucking awkward, then?”

Marisol shrugs. “I had no idea you felt awkward,” she tells me. “We can talk about it, I guess, if you want to.”

No, I definitely don’t want to talk about it—especially when Marisol somehow has a way of making things out to be my problem. As if she has nothing to do with why I’m uncomfortable with her. As if she has no memory of telling me that I’m a misogynist.

Ezra walks over, plopping down beside me on the mattress. Austin puts out the bud and follows, sitting cross-legged next to Leah on the floor. “We can make a Dr. Phil episode out of it,” Ezra suggests.

“Dr. Phil?” Marisol echoes. “What are you, fifty?”

Ezra ignores her. “Group therapy. It could be good for us.”

I can’t think of anything more awful. “Thanks,” I say, “but no thanks.”

Leah grins up at me. Her face becomes extraordinarily red when she’s intoxicated. “Felix, can I ask you a question?” She goes on without waiting for my response. “You dated Marisol,” she says, “but are you also into guys? Since you went out with Ezra, I mean.”

Marisol begins cackling. Ezra chokes on air, and I screw my face up in confusion. “What?”

Leah’s surprised. “You two went out, didn’t you?”

“No, we really didn’t.”

Marisol’s laughter gets louder.

“Oh,” Leah says, looking at Marisol and Austin in confusion. “I thought you went out. I’m not the only one who thought that, right?”

“Everyone always thinks that we did,” Ezra says, giving a small, embarrassed smile without looking at Austin. Austin takes a sip from Leah’s beer bottle. Awkward.

“Yeah,” I say, “I’m also into guys. Why?”

Leah recovers quickly. “I was just wondering if you consider yourself bisexual or pansexual or anything. I thought I was bisexual,” Leah tells us, “but I think it was only because it was like I had to be. It was almost like a habit, until finally one day, I was like—wait, why do I say I’m attracted to guys when literally the last guy I thought was cute was Simba?”

There’s silence. Marisol blinks at Leah. “You know that Simba was a lion, right?”

Austin adds, “And a cartoon.”

“Simba was fucking hot, okay?” Leah says. “That jungle scene with Nala? Come on now.” She pauses. “Though now that I think about it, maybe I was actually more attracted to Nala . . .”

“I thought Kovu was pretty hot,” Ezra tells us, leaning against the wall.

“I was all about Lilo’s sister,” Marisol says. “Those curves. Seriously.”

“Zuko, too,” Ezra adds.

“Oh,” Leah says, sitting up. “What about Mulan? And those fucking Li Shang bisexual vibes?”

I’d been super into Mulan, I suddenly remember, until she started dressing like a girl again. I was disappointed when she was forced to leave the army, forced to say that she was a woman. It’s funny—I hadn’t really thought about it until now, but it’s yet another clue. My memories are peppered with little pieces of evidence that I’d always been trans, even before I knew what trans was. Sometimes, I’m a little frustrated with myself. What if I’d been one of the folks who knew, without a doubt, that they were trans since the time they were toddlers? How many years have I wasted living this lie, and all because I hadn’t even known that I could’ve been living my truth all along? But I’m also grateful. Happy that I’d figured it out at all.

“Wait,” Ezra says, “is everyone here queer?”

“Yeah, of course,” Marisol says. “I only hang out with gay people.”

Leah twists a curl around her finger. “Straight people are so exhausting.”