Felix Ever After(7)
Ezra met me right at the beginning of my transition. We sat next to each other in class and gravitated to each other’s sarcastic comments, until we found ourselves spending practically every second of every day together. Ezra has only ever known me as Felix. I haven’t told him, or anyone else, my old name. I’ve tried to wipe out all evidence of my past life: photos or videos where I have long hair, or where I’m wearing dresses, or anything society’s prescribed to girls. It just isn’t who I am anymore—who I ever was. It’s funny. In a way, I guess I did experience reincarnation. I’ve started a new life, in a new physical form. I got exactly what I’d wished for.
My dad asked me to keep a few of my old pictures—for the memories, you never know if you’ll want to remember who you used to be one of these days. It wasn’t really for me. I could tell he wanted those pictures for himself, one last anchor to who he thinks I was, or who he thinks I still am, which is enough of a reason for me to want to delete each and every single one of them. I have the pictures stored on Instagram, and I’ve come pretty close to deleting the photos a few times. I get a lurch of nausea whenever I see the old me pop up in my gallery. But I still keep the pictures. It’s weird. He pisses me off, but he’s still my dad, and I shouldn’t feel like I owe him anything for helping me with my transition, but I do. I guess I figured it doesn’t really matter. I’ve hidden the photos from the public. Only I can access them anyway. It doesn’t really hurt to keep them around until my dad can finally accept me for who I am.
But . . . Even after coming out, even after starting my transition, sometimes I get this feeling. The feeling that something still isn’t right. Questions float to the surface. Those questions begin to pull on this thread of anxiety, and I’m afraid if I pull too hard, I’ll unweave and become completely undone. Maybe that’s why I hate my dad deadnaming me, more than anything else. It makes me wonder if I really am Felix, no matter how loud I shout that name.
Three
THE WALK TO ST. CATHERINE’S FROM EZRA’S PLACE IS pretty short. We step over cracks and dog shit on the sidewalk as we pass the basketball and tennis courts and the park, guys doing pull-ups on the monkey bars and little kids chasing each other and squealing as their moms sit and watch. There’s a new wood-paneled coffee shop on the corner—not quite a Starbucks, but all signs point to gentrification. I glance at Ezra. He might not be white, but he still has a million-dollar apartment down the street. And what about me? Even if we’re poor as fuck, my dad and I are basically doing the same thing by moving to Harlem, aren’t we?
Eventually, the apartments become smaller until there’s a series of bodegas and bars with rainbow Pride flags hanging on their doors, and the fenced-off campus with its hedges and trees appears. St. Catherine’s is affiliated with an arts college that takes up four blocks on its own, but we get a private building in the corner of the campus near the parking lot. We’ve got about one hundred students, all enrolled on talent, wealth, or both. Most people in my grade do the summer program to work on their portfolios for their college applications, and I need as much help on my portfolio as I can get. I don’t even know what my portfolio’s theme is going to be yet, while everyone else is almost halfway finished. Brown has one of the lowest acceptance rates in the country, and I have to get in—need to get that scholarship if I want to attend. Sure, there’re other good art colleges, and I’m applying to a bunch of them, too, but I don’t know . . . I want to prove, I guess, that I’m good enough for a school like Brown.
The St. Catherine’s building is old-school red brick with giant modern black-glass windows. Ezra and I get to the parking lot where a bunch of other students are hanging out in the shade of the trees. We automatically walk up to Marisol, who’s leaning up against the building’s brick wall as she talks to Leah, smoking next to the No Smoking within 25 Feet sign. I hate that I still can’t meet Marisol’s eye. She always has a steely gaze, hair and makeup and nails perfect, haughty smirk tugging on the edge of her lips. There’re some people who’re careful to only show the part of themselves they want others to see. I know that there are other sides to Marisol. She just never shows them to me.
“God, I need about another five hours of sleep,” Marisol says, offering her cigarette to Ezra. “Why the hell is this program so early?”
Ezra taps ash off the end of the cigarette. “That’s what I want to know.”
“I saw a study,” Leah says, “that says it’s really unhealthy to force teenagers to wake up at, like, seven in the morning. Something about our biological internal clocks.”
“Think we should make an official complaint to the dean?” Ezra says. “We could start a protest.”
“A sit-in,” Leah offers, “until classes begin at noon.”
Marisol snorts, playing with the ends of her thick, curled hair. “Tell me how it goes.”
They keep talking, but I can feel myself getting too wrapped up in my head to pay attention. When I first met Marisol in class, I’d been impressed by her—and intimidated. There was something . . . I don’t know, intoxicating about her confidence. Marisol knows that she’s beautiful and talented and intelligent. She doesn’t question if she’s worthy of respect and love. When I asked her out last summer, just a couple of months after my top surgery, I was still getting used to my new body, feeling a little insecure with all the stares I would get, people clearly confused about my gender . . . and I guess I hoped some of Marisol’s confidence would rub off on me.