Felix Ever After(32)
Ezra collapses into the bed and groans into his arm, then shouts back, “We’ll be there in a second!” He sighs, pushing himself to his feet. “Come on. Let’s get changed.”
He goes down to his walk-in closet, as if we hadn’t just had an emotional heart-to-heart, and he pulls out a white, long-sleeved shirt that’s way too big on me, tucking it into my shorts. I look like an idiot, but Ezra says he likes the style and changes into a similar pair of shorts and a white-collared shirt.
When we step outside, it looks like over one hundred guests in glittering gowns and three-piece suits have magically appeared. We get a bunch of stares and double takes, and one woman literally raises her nose at us in disgust, but something tells me this is the way Ezra likes it. He grins, laughing in the face of the snobs of New York City. This is his way of fighting back. But I don’t like this. It’s a whole other world—one where I don’t feel comfortable at all. I don’t like the way the guests and Ezra’s parents stare at me, or the way I feel embarrassed after laughing too loudly into a champagne glass while Ezra and I get drunk in a corner.
My heart breaks for Ezra. I don’t know how the hell he survived so many years in this penthouse, with these galas and balls. I feel like even more of a horrible person after the shit I told him earlier, and to make it worse, Ezra really seems like he’s already over it—like he’s just happy that I’m here with him, distracting him from his privileged and perfectly fucked-up life.
Ezra suggests we hijack the DJ and start playing trap music so that we can dance, but before we make it across the room, my phone buzzes. I think it might be my dad, asking me where I am, but I see that it’s a notification from Instagram. I get a bad feeling, and the feeling sinks even lower when I see who the message is from: grandequeen69. I already know that reading the message is a bad fucking idea, but I open my in-box anyway.
Why’re you pretending to be a boy?
I stare at the message. There’s a whoosh that goes through me, and I can feel my emotions become still as numbness prickles. Besides the gallery, I’ve never really had to experience this kind of hate for who I am before—not directly. I always see it on the news. The ways the government is trying to erase me, the ways politicians try to pretend transgender people don’t exist, even though we do exist, and always have, and always will. I see the articles, the stories about transgender people being refused health care, students like me bullied and forced into the wrong bathrooms, teens my own age being kicked out of their homes, adults being fired from their jobs just for being who they are, so many of us attacked and killed just for walking down the street—so many of us deciding to take our own lives because we aren’t accepted.
I know that, as a trans person of color, my life expectancy is in my early thirties, just because of the sort of violence people like me face every day. I know all of this—but somehow, everything’s always felt so far away. I can exit out of the articles online, switch the channel from the news, laugh with Ezra in the park and eat chicken wings and smoke weed and drink cheap chardonnay and only worry about things like my future and what I’m going to do with my life. I’ve felt safe, even with the mistakes my dad makes, even with a mom who I’m pretty sure doesn’t love me anymore, if she ever did. I’m ashamed of it, but these messages—they’re almost surprising. Like I somehow thought that the sort of hate I see every day, happening to other trans people, would never actually touch me.
Ezra notices something’s wrong—asks what it is—but I don’t want to tell him. A part of me wants to close the app and pretend it never happened . . . but I’m not sure I can actually ignore the message this time. Ezra turns my hand gently with his fingers, taking a look at my phone.
“What the fuck?” His gaze cuts to me. “Felix, what the hell is this?”
I don’t answer him. I stare at the message, biting my lip. I begin typing.
Who are you? Why’re you trolling me?
And, when grandequeen69 doesn’t respond, I keep going.
I’m not pretending to be a boy. Just because you haven’t evolved to realize gender identity doesn’t equal biology, doesn’t mean you get to say who I am and who I’m not. You don’t have that power. Only I have the power to say who I am.
I hit send, feeling a bit proud of myself for fighting back, even if I shouldn’t have had to in the first place—but the victory feels short-lived, tinged with anger and unease. I’m already dreading the moment grandequeen69 sends a message again.
Ten
EZRA WANTS ME TO STAY SO THAT WE CAN RETREAT TO HIS bedroom and talk about the Instagram message, but I can’t wait to leave the penthouse. I was already uncomfortable, but the message from grandequeen69 really fucked with my head. Rage and fear and anxiety buzz through me, my stomach tightening until I feel queasy—and suddenly, even pretending to have fun at the Patel gala isn’t a whole lot of fun anymore. There’s only one thing I want to do: get home, pull out my phone, and fuck with Declan Keane.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Ezra asks, again and again, and even his concern is starting to get to me. No, I’m not all right, but I have to pretend that I am so that he won’t worry about me, which takes its own emotional toll. I nod, and he kisses my forehead goodbye so that I can take the A train uptown to 145th Street.