I thank her, tell her to have a good day, and pass through the halls. I’ve already done research—that’s what helped me realize that I’m trans in the first place . . . but, I don’t know, maybe Sophia is right. Maybe it’d be worth continuing to look around online. There’s got to be an answer somewhere, right?
It’s a quick ride on the train into Brooklyn. I keep rubbing my thigh, imagining the testosterone sinking into me like a magical drug. It’s kind of stupid, I guess, but sometimes I feel like trans folk are superheroes. It’s a little like I’m Peter Parker, bitten by the T-shot, magically going through all these changes—or like Captain America, getting that experimental drug. When I first started doing my research, a Tumblr post I saw said that trans people used to be considered gods in a bunch of different cultures and religions. Dionysus was the god of transgender people, and Loki could change genders at will, too. We’re still considered spiritual guides in some places around the world. That’s pretty cool to think about.
The train rumbles to a stop—doors open, doors close—and it continues on. I see a couple of other kids in my classes. Leah and Tyler stand by the doors as Tyler holds on to his bike, laughing, Leah fiddling with the camera around her neck. Leah catches my eye and waves. Hazel sits a few seats from me with her earbuds in and swipes through images on her phone. Elliott is fast asleep in the corner.
Who is the person behind the gallery and the messages? It could be anyone. Any of the other one hundred students at St. Catherine’s.
Somehow, knowing for a fact that it isn’t Declan makes all of this so much worse.
I shake my head and bury my face in my hands. It wasn’t Declan Keane.
A big part of me knew it wasn’t him. I just didn’t care. I wanted it to be him, so at the time, that’s all that mattered. But now, I can’t hide from the fact that he didn’t put up the photos—that there’s a transphobic asshole I go to school with, sending me anonymous messages. All the feelings from the gallery that I’d initially pushed down and suppressed are starting to rise to the surface.
I sit back up, letting out a deep sigh, the back of my head leaning against the subway window.
Leah makes a face at me across the train. “I know, right? It’s so freaking early.”
I hold out my phone and swipe through my messages.
I hope you tell me who you are.
Because this is what’s weirdest of all. Sorry in advance.
But I think I might be falling for you.
I squint at the message. I did the same thing last night. I just squinted and stared at the message for a solid thirty minutes.
I mean, what the fuck?
My heart feels like it’s bouncing around in my rib cage. I read and reread the text.
But I think I might be falling for you.
I mean, seriously—what the actual, holy fuck?
Okay, so first question is: How could Declan Keane ever fall for someone? After he dumped Ezra, that was it—he chose his popular jock friends and made it clear that the only person he really cares about is himself. So, that Declan would ever say he has a crush on someone is absolutely, 100 percent effing shocking.
My second question: How the hell could Declan fall for someone he’s never even met? Because one thing’s for sure: I’m not Lucky, so Declan doesn’t have a crush on me. I mean, yes, I know that Lucky had to come from somewhere, and I did text genuine shit sometimes, but if Declan ever found out that I’m Lucky, I’m pretty sure . . .
I have no idea what he would do.
He already hates me—he admitted exactly that last night—so not much would really change. Maybe he’d go back to the dean, say that me kicking his chair wasn’t an accident after all, go through those long months of disciplinary hearings to make sure I’m expelled and have no chance at Brown.
I guess how Declan would react doesn’t really matter, because I know one thing for sure now: I have no reason to respond to him.
The whole point was to get close to Declan—to figure out a secret of his, to hurt him like he hurt me. But now that I know for a fact that he wasn’t behind the gallery, and that he isn’t sending those messages, I don’t have any purpose to continue this plot for revenge.
No reason to keep messing with him. No reason to keep talking to him.
The problem? I kind of want to.
By the time I get to St. Cat’s, there’re only a few minutes until the bell is supposed to ring. I drag my feet as I walk, and nod at Leah and Hazel as they pass by. Everyone stands around in their groups, talking and laughing and sharing their phones to look at videos and texts. My heart—I can’t help it, I really can’t—starts to beat harder the second I see Declan. He’s alone under the shade of a tree. I remember what he’d told me: that he doesn’t have any friends here, not really, not even James and Marc. He’s got dark circles under his eyes—probably from staying up late, like I did—and he keeps glancing at the phone in his hand as if he’s waiting for something.
It hits me. He just confessed his feelings to Lucky, and he’s waiting for Lucky to say something. Anything.
He must be freaking the fuck out right now. I mean, I would be, if I told a guy I liked him, and he didn’t respond.
Crap. I almost feel bad.
Okay, no—I do feel bad.
I walk past Declan, staring hard at my Converses. I’m having a hard time breathing. I half expect Declan to look up, to smile and acknowledge me—but why would he? He doesn’t know that I’m the person he spent all night talking to.
I cross the parking lot to the school’s entrance. Ezra’s leaning against the brick wall near the doors with Leah and Hazel, who’ve made it here before me, along with James and Marisol. Mari smokes next to the No Smoking within 25 Feet sign, as usual. Austin is there, too. Ezra told me that he and Austin have been texting, but it’s still weird to see someone new hanging out with him. There’s something a little uglier, too, buried in my chest. Jealousy, I guess, for Ezra and his new maybe-boyfriend.
As I get closer, Ezra waves me over. I feel awkward. I don’t want to admit to Ezra that he was right: Declan didn’t put up the gallery after all. I also know I shouldn’t tell him about Declan’s text. I think I might be falling for you. Ezra would just shrug, say that he doesn’t care—and I don’t know, maybe he really wouldn’t—but I think something like that has to sting. The guy you once loved, telling your best friend he’s got a crush on them?
Christ, what a fucking mess.
When I join the group, Austin looks from Ezra, to me, and back to Ezra. It’s not like I’ve never spoken with Austin before—but, suddenly, I have absolutely no idea what to say to him.
“Felix, true or false,” Leah says. “Aliens exist.”
“True,” I say. Hazel and James roll their eyes.
“Two against five,” Leah says with a grin.
“Of course you guys believe in aliens,” James says with a tone of fucking losers as he checks his phone.
“Come on,” Leah says. “How can aliens not exist? Do you really think we’re the only ones in this entire universe?”
“I’ll believe it when there’s proof,” Hazel says.
“We literally have videos of orbs hanging in the sky and pilots saying they’ve been chased by nonhuman spacecraft. What more proof do you need?”
“An actual alien.”
Austin smiles at me while Leah argues with Hazel. Now that I know he’s Ezra’s new maybe-special friend, I pay a little more attention to him than I would have before. He kind of reminds me of a golden retriever, with his floppy blond hair and blue eyes. The first time I saw him in acrylics class, I kind of immediately hated the guy. He’s the sort of person the world adores, just based on the way he looks, a little like the way people obsess over men like Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans and Chris Pine and all the other famous Chrises, plus Ryan Gosling, claiming that they’re liberal and that they aren’t racist and that they’re feminists, but not really thinking about why they’re so obsessed with white men, and
why they don’t love any people of color the same way. I love that I have brown skin. I love that I’m queer, and that I’m trans. But sometimes, I can’t help but think how much easier my life would be if I was someone like Austin.
“How’s your portfolio going?” Austin asks me. “I’m hitting a wall. I have no idea what I want to do. I’ve just been painting the same landscapes.”
“I’ve been brainstorming,” I say, which is technically true.
“Have you guys heard the theory,” Leah says, “that aliens are actually just humans from the future, and that we’ve put ourselves into some sort of simulated world so that our future selves can observe us for an experiment?”
“No,” Ezra says slowly, “but now I’ll have nightmares about that for the rest of my life. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
James doesn’t look up from his phone. “You’re such nerds.”
Leah gives a confused half smile, like she isn’t sure if James is joking or not. “Well, you’re hanging out with us, so . . .”
“I’m not hanging out with you,” he says. “I’m hanging out with Hazel, who is hanging out with you.”
“Is it because you’re waiting on her so you can hook up in the supply closet?” Marisol asks. If she’s looking for a reaction, she doesn’t get what she wants. Neither bats an eyelash.
There’s an uncomfortable pause.
“I thought it was cool to be a nerd,” Ezra says, filling in the silence.
“According to nerds, yeah,” Hazel tells him.
Marisol shares her cigarette with Ezra. “I notice you didn’t actually answer the question,” she says to Hazel.
“Because it’s none of your business.”
It’s obvious what’s happening: Hazel wants to make Marisol jealous, and it looks like it’s working.
“But everyone knows that you’re hooking up in the supply closet,” Marisol says.
“Then why even ask about it?”
I can’t help but scrunch my face. “Can’t you go somewhere else?” I say without thinking. Eyes meet mine again, and I hesitate, but it’s too late to backtrack now. “I mean . . . that’s where we keep the canvases and paintbrushes and everything.”
“You don’t judge me; I don’t judge you,” James says.
There’s another awkward pause.
Ezra frowns. “What does that mean? Why would you judge him?”
James shrugs, still with his phone out, scrolling through Instagram.
There’s a tension building in my chest. James has always been a jackass. I mean, he deadnamed me the first chance he got. It wouldn’t be crazy to think that he could be homophobic or transphobic or any other sort of phobic. The silence stretches.
“Why would you judge Felix?” Ezra asks again, his expression carefully blank. Ezra’s always been protective of me, but especially now after the gallery, and when he knows I’ve been getting those Instagram messages, I’m worried about what might happen if the conversation escalates.
James shrugs again. “He’s just weird, is all.”
“I’m weird?” I repeat.
“You’re all proud of being weird nerds, right?”
“Depends on the kind of weird you mean,” Leah says. “Are you saying he’s weird because he thinks aliens are real and he likes anime and stuff like that? Or are you saying he’s weird because he’s . . .” She pauses, glancing at me awkwardly, but it’s obvious which words are stuck in her mouth: Black, queer, and trans.
“That isn’t what I meant,” James says, rolling his eyes.
“That’s what it sounded like,” Ezra tells him.
“Why does it always have to come back to that crap?” he asks. “It always comes back to that shit for you guys.”
“It really only comes up when dumbasses say ignorant shit,” Ezra says smoothly.
“I just think the dude is weird. That’s all.”
“Yeah. We’ve heard.”
“So, what, now I’m racist and all that shit because I think Felix is weird?”
“You know what?” Leah says. “Maybe. Yeah. It’s a possibility.”
James is turning red in the face. He was annoyed before, but he’s really getting angry now. “How the fuck does that make me racist?”
Leah doesn’t back down. “Would you think Felix is weird if he were also white and straight and cis? Or would you think he’s cool? You don’t even consider why you think Felix is weird, or anyone else who isn’t just like you—you just decide you don’t like them, and then get defensive when someone calls you out on it.”
“It goes both ways, right?” he says. “You decided you don’t like me because I’m white, straight, and whatever-the-fuck-the-last-word-was.”
“Cis,” Ezra says, staring at him blankly. “Cisgender.”
“And I didn’t decide I dislike you because you’re a white, straight, cis guy,” Leah says. “I decided I don’t like you because you told me lesbians aren’t real—we just haven’t met you yet.”
“It was a fucking joke,” James says under his breath. “It’s like no one’s allowed to joke about anything anymore. Jesus Christ.”
“It’s a joke to you,” Marisol says. “You get to make everyone else the butt of your joke. We don’t.”
James rolls his eyes. “All right. This was fun. I’m going upstairs now,” he says, giving Hazel a pointed look.
“Idiot,” Leah says the second he’s out of hearing.
“He’s not that bad,” Hazel says.
Marisol breathes out a puff of smoke, drops the cigarette to the ground, and puts it out with the twist of her foot. “You can do better,” she tells Hazel.
Hazel sneers. “Who?” she says. “You?”
Marisol shrugs, but the obvious answer is yes.
“He says, like, the most ignorant shit sometimes, and then pretends that he’s joking, but I get the feeling he isn’t really joking, you know?” Leah says.
Hazel shrugs. “He’s hot.”
Leah shakes her head. “I don’t know. Somehow, when someone is a jerk, their hotness level drops by at least fifty percent.”
“Really? I guess I can look past that to focus on the physical.”
“Don’t you think their personality kind of affects the physical?” Leah asks. “When a girl is super smart and knows a bunch of random facts and has poetry memorized and stuff, I think she’s really attractive, no matter what she looks like.”
“Isn’t that just, I don’t know, too hard to find? Too long to wait for?”
“I’m assuming it’d be worth it,” Leah says. “Better than waiting for someone like James, anyway.”
James is disgusting, we all know that he is. He’s the kind of guy who says inappropriate shit and tells anyone who gets mad that they’re being too sensitive. I glance across the parking lot, at Declan standing alone under the tree’s shade. How lonely must Declan be, to hang out with someone as fucking horrible as James?
And it hits me. James. I’d been so focused on Declan being the one behind the gallery that I hadn’t thought to consider anyone else. The sorts of messages that grandequeen69’s been sending—they’re exactly the sort of thing James would say. Even the name grandequeen69, whatever the hell that means, sounds like something immature he would come up with.
I feel like I can’t look at anyone without thinking that they might be grandequeen69. It could’ve been Marisol, keeping up with her ignorant, transphobic shit, but what if it was James, making a “joke” only he would think was funny? It could’ve been anyone, and the longer I go without knowing who it was, the more the pressure grows in my chest.
Twelve
THE BELL RINGS, AND JILL AMBLES IN AFTER THE REST OF the class to give us her usual morning speech (today is on trying something new, continuing to expand and grow). I look around at everyone in the class. I never paid much attention to any of the other students before, not when it came to the gallery and which of them could be a suspect—I’d been so focused on Declan—but now I stare
at each and every single one of them. Leah, when she smiles at me. Harper, who sits at the front of the class, taking notes on everything Jill says. Nasira, whispering to Tyler. Elliott, sketching in his notepad. James, who catches me looking and rolls his eyes before staring forward again.
When Jill releases us to our regular workstations, Ezra is quiet, still pissed about everything James said. He glances at me over and over again, like he’s waiting for permission to ask if I’m all right. Neither of us speaks for a few minutes, but the truth is building inside me, and even if I don’t want to admit it, I know I have to.
I glance around, even though it’s just the two of us in this corner, and lean in to whisper. “It wasn’t Declan.”
He narrows his eyes in confusion for a second, before the realization makes them widen. “What? How do you know?”
“He told me himself. We were texting. He was going on about how he’d never do something like that, and he feels sorry for me.”
Ezra’s eyes soften. “Really?”
When I look around the edge of the wall I’m working on, I can see Declan in the far corner, his back to the classroom. “Yes. But then he went on to say that he also hates me, so he’s still an asshole.”
Ezra sighs. “Oh.” We each have our globs of acrylic, paintbrushes poised and ready. “What’re you going to do?” he whispers.
“I don’t know. Try to find out who actually did it, I guess. I mean, I have no idea how.”
“Yeah,” he mumbles. “I could ask Marisol if she knows anything. She might’ve heard a rumor or something.”
I don’t want Marisol anywhere near this, not when she’s done her own damage. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Ezra frowns at me. “What’s wrong with asking Marisol?”
I don’t want to get into it now, but Ezra’s watching me, waiting for an answer. I shrug. “Nothing. I just wonder if . . .” I glance around the corner again, eyes scanning the room. Leah is toward the front, painting a rose on her canvas.
“How likely do you think it is that the person who did the gallery is a photography student?” I ask Ezra.
Felix Ever After Page 12