Felix Ever After(56)
“That’s ridiculous,” Declan says in regular pretentious-asshole-Declan fashion—except this time, his words make my chest warm.
It’s hard to explain. “I guess it just feels like I have one marginalization too many, sometimes. So many differences that I can never fit in with everyone else. I can feel people are uncomfortable with me, so I end up feeling uncomfortable, too, and then I end up standing and watching everyone else make connections, fall in love with each other, and I . . .”
I don’t finish. Declan doesn’t answer, not for a while. I feel relaxed, sitting there in the tub, phone pressed to my ear, knowing that he’s on the other end, even if neither of us is speaking.
“I think I might be falling in love with you,” he says. I bury my face in my knees. “Does that help?”
I shake my head, even though he can’t see me.
“Tell me who you are,” he says when I don’t answer him. “Please.”
“What if you don’t like the answer?”
“You really are Jill, then?”
“No, I’m not Jill.”
“You somehow made your voice a lot deeper, Jill.”
I laugh into my knees.
“I just want to talk to you in person. I just want to meet you. That’s all I want.”
I sink into the tub until I’m lying on my back. I take a moment. Try to imagine meeting with Declan. Even if he doesn’t freak out that I’m Lucky, and that I’d been trying to hurt him for revenge, I’d also have to explain everything to Ezra. And then, even if Ezra was okay with this—thing, whatever is going on between me and Declan—there’d be other little details to consider. If Declan still, after all that, wanted to date me, would he be interested in me . . . physically? As far as I know, Declan’s only ever dated guys. I know that trans guys are guys, and I know that there’re plenty of gay guys who’re into trans guys, because certain equipment doesn’t always matter, and shouldn’t always matter. But, still, there are parts that I don’t have that most guys do, parts that I don’t even want, that Declan might end up missing. Even more confusing is that I’m not sure I identify as a trans guy anymore, anyway.
It would suck—really, really effing suck—to go through all of that, just for Declan to reject me.
“Lucky?” Declan says, voice soft. “You still there?”
“Yeah.” I sit up, tapping my fingers on the side of the tub. “I’m sorry. I am. I just . . . I can’t.”
He lets out a breath of impatience that I’m very familiar with and is quiet on the other end for a while. Then, “All right. I’ll just have to respect that.”
I swallow. “If you don’t want to talk to me anymore, I understand.” That’s what I say, but internally, all of my being is screaming no. I’ve gotten too used to speaking to Declan. To opening up to him about things I’m not sure I can tell anyone else, not even Ezra. To feeling, for once in my life, like I’m the kind of person who gets to be loved, too. I can already feel a hollow loss growing in my chest, at the thought of Declan saying that he doesn’t want to speak to me anymore.
“I probably should cut things off,” he says, “but I’m not sure I could stop talking to you at this point, even if I wanted to.”
I try not to smile. Fuck. This is so weird, and I’m in so deep. “Same,” I say.
Seventeen
DECLAN AND I KEEP TALKING FOR HOURS, SPEAKING ABOUT anything and everything, total bullshit about MCU movies and whether Steve and Bucky are a canonical couple, to our theories on love.
“The issue is that we’ve never really gotten to see our own stories,” Declan tells me. “We have to make those stories ourselves. Even if a creator made a character to be straight, they put those characters out into the world, right? So those characters are mine now. And I say that Steve and Bucky are gay as hell.”
We play music for each other through the phones. From Khalid to Billie Holiday, until we eventually fall into a pattern of Sigur Rós–like instrumentals. There’s a song that Declan tells me played in that Amy Adams alien movie that has me burying my face into my pillow so he won’t hear me cry, because there’s something about that song, the highs and lows and depth, and hearing Declan’s voice asking me if this isn’t one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard, that makes me too fucking emotional.
On Friday morning, I wake up after about only two hours of sleep. I’m back at my Harlem apartment. My dad’s already up, making scrambled eggs.
“I’m surprised you’re awake,” he says to me from across the kitchen counter. “I got up at five to use the bathroom and saw your bedroom light was still on.”
“Oh,” I say, trying to pretend like it isn’t a big deal. “Must’ve fallen asleep without turning it off again.”
He gives me his I don’t believe you face, and I give him my I know, and I don’t care face. I sit at the counter while he slides my plate over. My dad takes a bite of toast, watching me carefully. I raise an eyebrow.
“Is there something on my face?”
“You seem really happy,” he says.
I raise both eyebrows this time. “Really?”
“It’s a good look, kid,” he says, reaching out to land a meaty hand on my head. “Smiling does wonders for you.”