Felix Ever After(27)

He recovers quickly, looking at the white tile. “Sorry, I guess,” he says, “for mentioning the gallery.”

He turns on his heel, leaving me in the lobby with nothing but an echoing sensation of What in the holy fuck just happened?





Eight


DECLAN KEANE HAS NEVER APOLOGIZED. NOT ONCE, NOT ever, not for anything he pulled with me and Ezra.

“Maybe he’s just not as much of an asshole as we like to think he is,” Ezra says, eyes closed. He sounds bored, like he’s already over talking about Declan for the day—and, I mean, if I’m going to be honest, I think Ezra’s been tired of talking about Declan since the minute they broke up. It’s kind of impressive, actually: when Ezra’s feelings were hurt, he said he would move on, and that’s exactly what he did. Unlike me. When someone hurts me, I either obsess over how to convince them I’m worthy of their love or obsess over how to destroy them.

We’re lying down in the park grass with warm cans of Pabst hidden in our backpacks. Classes are over, and it’s a quiet Tuesday—no cookouts, no barking dogs or screaming children. Just the breeze and some faraway chatter from an older couple sitting on a park bench. Ezra’s phone is playing Solange and SZA and Mila J singing about how she’s in airplane mode and don’t need no drama, and it’s so calming, so relaxing, the heat from the sun beating down on my face and my shoulders and my arms.

“I mean,” Ezra continues, “no one likes to admit it, but we can all be assholes. We all fuck up sometimes. As long as we learn and grow and do better next time. Right?”

“It almost sounds like you’re trying to make excuses for Declan.”

He frowns a little, eyes still closed. “No. I’m just saying—I don’t know, maybe we don’t know the full story. Maybe he’s not as bad as we like to think he is. It’s easy to assign roles to people. Easier to just think that Declan Keane is an asshole, and that’s that.”

I squint at him. “Are you high?”

He opens one eye. “No. Why?”

“You just sound a little high.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Wasn’t a compliment, but okay.”

He reaches up and hooks an arm around my neck so that in about three seconds flat we’re wrestling in the grass. Ezra wins, of course, pinning me down, grinning at me—until he just collapses, cackling as I struggle to push him off. He rolls over onto the grass again. The elderly couple is watching us with a smile.

“I guess I kind of understand what you were saying, though,” I tell Ezra. “With locking in an idea of someone in your head.”

“Yeah?”

The words are coming out faster than I can keep up with them. “Yeah. And, like, I think we do that for ourselves, too.”

“How so?”

I’m not sure I’m even ready to talk about this. It’s hard, maybe even impossible, to articulate the feelings I’ve got swarming through me—all of these questions about my identity. But I’ve already started, and Ezra’s watching me expectantly, and—I don’t know, maybe speaking about all of this will help me understand.

“With me, for example,” I tell him. “I locked in this idea of who I was. I told myself I’m a guy, and that’s that, nothing else to really think about.”

Ezra goes quiet. He props his head up as he watches me, waiting.

“And I mean, for a long time, that’s what I thought, no questions asked, since I did the whole coming-out thing, and I put my dad through so much.”

“Okay, sorry, just—let me interrupt you real quick,” Ezra says. “You didn’t put your dad through anything. But okay. Yes. Continue.”

“Well, whatever,” I say. “I mean I made this big deal about being a guy, and now . . .”

“And now?”

I shrug a little, embarrassed to actually say it. I feel guilty—ashamed, that I’ve been questioning my identity all over again. “Sometimes I feel like I’m definitely a guy, no doubt about it. But then other times . . .” I take a deep breath and let the words out. “There’s just this niggling.”

“Niggling?”

“Yeah. A niggling. Like something isn’t quite right, you know? I’ve been doing research online, trying to figure it out, and . . .”

Ezra’s nodding slowly, but I don’t think he really gets it, and now I feel embarrassed and ashamed and stupid on top of that.

“Never mind,” I say quickly, hiding my head in my folded arms, lying down on my stomach.

“No, hey,” Ezra said. “Okay, I don’t really know what you mean, because I’ve never really questioned my gender identity before—but that doesn’t mean I’m not listening. It’s okay to keep questioning, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I say, a little hesitation creeping into my voice. “I guess it’s just kind of like—I don’t know, when Declan called me a fraud . . .”

“Oh, come on. No, really. You’re going to let something that asshole said get in your head?”

“I thought he wasn’t an asshole.”

“I said he might not be as much of an asshole as we think, not that he isn’t one.” Ezra grins at me, but even as it fades, he keeps watching me carefully. “Seriously. Forget him or what anyone else thinks. Do what you need for yourself.”