Felix Ever After(81)
“How’d I do that?”
“I wanted to talk to Ezra,” he says, “and it was like I could never get a chance to speak to him alone. You were always with him, and he was always fawning all over you, and it was bullshit, because he’s into guys, and you—you’re not even—”
Leah interrupts him. “Don’t,” she says. Her eyes are wet, her cheeks red. She’s crying. “Don’t you dare say that, Austin.”
He has the decency to look a little ashamed. “It felt unfair,” he says. “It’s not like it’s easy to be gay, even if we are in Brooklyn, even if this is New York City, and now we have to deal with people like you taking our identity, taking our space.”
“I can’t believe this,” Leah says.
“Trans people aren’t taking anything,” I tell him.
“Is that why you wanted me to show you my hacking programs?” Leah’s shaking her head, eyes wide.
“And it’s annoying, too,” he says, “seeing you—I don’t know, pushing it in our face that you’re transgender. Not everyone can be as open. Not everyone gets to be out. I don’t get to be out. My parents wouldn’t accept me. But you’re just flaunting it every chance that you get.”
“I’m not flaunting anything. I’m just existing. This is me. I can’t hide myself. I can’t disappear. And even if I could, I don’t fucking want to. I have the same right to be here. I have the same right to exist.”
He’s staring at the surface of the table, still refusing to look up. “I just hoped Ezra would see the gallery and remember that you’re transgender and not be interested in you anymore. That’s all.”
“Remember that I’m transgender and not be interested,” I repeat. “Like, what, because you think trans people are unlovable? You’re wrong, Austin. You know that you’re wrong.”
“Fucking hell,” Leah says, her voice getting louder. “You know, Austin, the real issue isn’t that you’re jealous of Felix, or that you’re pining after Ezra—which, by the way, will never fucking happen, so get the fuck over it. The real issue is that you’re used to having everything. You’re used to being a white guy in Brooklyn, used to always getting your way—no, fuck, I don’t care that you’re fucking gay, because people like Felix are queer and trans and Black, and they have to deal with so much more bullshit than you or me. And, okay, yes, you are marginalized for being gay, but instead of being a fucking ally to other marginalized people, people even more marginalized than you, you buy into the racist and patriarchal bullshit and act like you’re above them because you’re a white guy, and you act like they’re taking your space, and you think that you’re owed this whole fucking world, and when you don’t get what you want, you act like a fucking asshole, and God fucking damnit, Austin!”
She’s screaming now. Her voice echoes through the room, and I’m surprised that people haven’t opened the door to see what’s going on. Austin is staring at her, wide-eyed, as though she’d reached across the table and slapped him across the face. He’s crying. I’m crying. We’re all crying.
“I’m sorry,” Austin whispers, his voice hoarse.
Leah rolls her eyes, wiping them. “That’s not enough. Saying that you’re sorry isn’t enough.”
He can’t look at me at all now. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “I don’t know what else you want me to say. I’m sorry.”
God, this is so fucked-up, so fucking wrong in a million fucking ways. But the longer I sit here in the quiet, watching Austin as he stares at the surface of the table, the more the rage I have dissolves, leaving only an echo behind. Yeah, he hurt me, and yeah, the anger is still there—but it’s never been more obvious that Austin is just so ignorant. He’s created his bubble of privilege, where no one is allowed but people like him, and because of that he doesn’t understand the world around him—doesn’t want to understand the world around him, because it’s too scary for him, too challenging. I start to feel a little sorry for Austin. I think of the gender-identity discussion group, with Bex and the others—Callen-Lorde and the LGBT Center and all the different types of people, different genders and ages and races, a quilt of identities that ties all of us together. The people he’ll never be able to meet, to learn from and love. Even though he’s a white guy, and he has so much more privilege than I do, I realize that he’ll never get to experience the world in the way that I can. How can I stay angry at someone like that? I don’t want this anger inside me, eating me up from the inside out.
Leah tells him, honestly, that she has no idea if they can get past this—that she never thought her own family would do something like this, and Austin says that he’s sorry, again and again. I actually do believe that he’s sorry, even if it’s only because he was caught. But I also know it’s my choice to not accept his apology. To not forgive him. I don’t have anything else to say to him. I stand, scraping my chair back, and Leah follows me, holding my hand as I go to Dean Fletcher’s office, exactly like I should’ve from the very beginning.
Twenty-Four
TODAY’S THE PRIDE PARADE. THE LAST TIME I WENT TO THE march, I couldn’t even see the parade itself because the streets were so packed with a crushing wall of bodies standing on tiptoe and each other’s shoulders, people cheering and clapping and blowing whistles with every float that passed by. It’s everything I hate. It’s everything Ezra loves.