Felix Ever After

by Kacen Callender

He thinks about it for a second. “Pretty likely, I guess.”

  I hesitate. “Maybe we should talk to Leah.”

  “You think it was Leah?”

  “No—I mean, I guess it’s impossible to know for sure, but I don’t think it was her. But maybe she has an idea of who it could’ve been. She might’ve noticed someone in her class talking shit about me or something.”

  He nods. “Okay, yeah. Let’s grab her after class.”

  When I ask Leah if I can talk to her, she seems a little surprised. I guess I can’t blame her. We’re not exactly friends, even though we’ve hung out before. Leah’s always been nice to me, the kind of person who seems to be constantly smiling and eternally optimistic, which doesn’t sit well with my dark, Slytherin soul. I know I’ve been a bit standoffish to her. I kind of regret that now.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks as Ezra and I follow her into the photography classroom. There’re black curtains leading to the darkroom, and there are clotheslines hanging around the walls with black-and-white photography clipped to the string. The room’s empty. Everyone’s at lunch.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I say. “Well, I mean, something’s wrong, but it’s nothing that you did—well, I mean, I hope it’s nothing that you did . . .”

  Leah raises a single eyebrow. Ezra makes a Get to the point, Felix face.

  “You know that gallery?” I say. “The one—I mean, the one that was of me.”

  Leah’s face pales. She stands taller and nods.

  “Ezra and I . . . well, I guess mostly me . . . I was thinking that it might’ve been a photography student. I mean, I guess anyone could hack into my phone to get to my Instagram account, but they figured out how to blow up my pictures, and knew how to frame and label everything, and—I don’t know, I just thought . . .”

  I feel pretty stupid right now, but Leah isn’t laughing. “God, it was so horrible,” she says. “I know I’ve said it before, but—I don’t know, I’m just really sorry that happened to you.”

  I bite the corner of my lip. It annoyed me whenever people told me how sorry they were, but right now, I can feel that Leah’s being genuine. “Thanks.”

  “Do you think someone in the photography class might’ve done it?” Ezra asks. “I know you’re not in photography this summer, but usually . . .”

  Leah takes a breath, blinking, seeming to consider it. “I hope not. Everyone’s usually pretty cool. But I guess you never know, right?”

  It isn’t exactly helpful, but what did I think? That she’d say, Actually, yes, there’s this one particular transphobe . . .

  “So you think the person hacked your phone?” she says.

  “I have no idea how else they would’ve gotten my pictures.”

  “They could’ve just hacked your Instagram,” she says. “There’re a bunch of apps for that. It’s a lot easier than you think.”

  Ezra and I exchange looks. Leah looks a little embarrassed. “Not that I’d ever hack an Instagram account. I’m more of a cracker.” She notices our confusion. “Cracking is another form of what people know as hacking. But hacking is illegal. That’s what people do when they want to steal money, or spread viruses, that sort of thing. Cracking is just for fun. It’s like a giant puzzle. It’s actually pretty easy.” She pauses and makes an expression like she’s thinking of telling us something I probably don’t want to know. She lowers her voice. “I like to crack into computers and cell phones to leave positive affirmations where people can easily find them.”

  I’m not totally sure how to respond. Ezra stares at her blankly.

  “That’s—uh—cool,” I say.

  She shrugs and looks like she’s trying to bite back a smile. “It’s not a big deal. A lot more people crack into phones than you’d think.”

  There isn’t really anything else to say after a classmate says that they crack into other people’s phones for fun. Ezra asks Leah where she’s going for lunch, and she says she’ll probably go to White Castle, like usual. As we’re walking to the door, the idea strikes me. It’s a ridiculous idea, really fucking stupid, but I also don’t really have any other way to figure out who could be behind the gallery, who is sending me those Instagram messages. . . .

  “Hey, Leah,” I say, slowing to a stop. She and Ezra turn around to look at me. “Do you think it’d be possible to—I don’t know, crack into other student’s phones to see who might’ve put up the gallery?”

  She doesn’t hesitate. “Hack.”

  “What?”

  “If I’m hacking into phones for personal information, then it isn’t cracking. It’s hacking.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “And yes,” she adds. “It’s possible. There’re a bunch of programs these days.”

  Ezra looks hesitant. This is definitely in get-kicked-out-of-school territory, not to mention pretty illegal. But Leah seems to consider it.

  “It’s kind of a good idea, actually,” she says. “It’d be easy to see traces of hacking cookies on someone else’s phone—if they’d downloaded hacking programs, or if they even still have those pictures saved in their gallery. . . .”

  I hesitate. “The person’s also been sending me Instagram messages.”

  “That’s even better,” she says. “I can definitely look at their Instagram message history.”

  I scratch my head. “I can’t—I mean, I don’t really have any money. . . .”

  “Oh, no,” Leah says, and looks almost offended, “I wouldn’t take your money. I’m happy to do what I can to help and take this fucking asshole down.” She smirks. “I’ve always wanted to be a badass vigilante.”

  Ezra’s eyebrows shoot up, and he glances at me like he’s impressed.

  Leah grins. “I’d accept a White Castle slider for lunch, though.”

  “Sold,” Ez says.

  They continue toward the door, already talking possible suspects—Ezra catches Leah up on how we’d suspected Declan, but we now know it wasn’t him, and he wonders if we should check out James and Marc, since they’re his best friends, and since James can be such an ignorant jackass—but I pause. The two seem excited, but I know it’s a long shot, and the chances of figuring out who was behind the gallery are pretty low. Ezra must see the hopelessness on my face, because he walks back to me and slings an arm over my shoulder, messing with my hair. “We’ll find out who did it. I promise.”

  I know he’s trying to make me feel better, but he also doesn’t know the whole story—doesn’t even know what’s really bugging me.

  When we get outside and into the parking lot, I see Declan hanging out on one of the benches with James and Marc. And I can’t stop looking at him. Not through lunch while we sit across the parking lot from each other, not in the hallway and back to class, not through our entire thesis session. Declan checked his phone maybe a million times that morning, but after lunch, he must’ve given up, because he keeps his bleary gaze on the work in front of him, a pinch in between his eyebrows.

  He said that he thinks he might be falling for Lucky. And while I’m confused, and even a little incredulous, I have to admit that there’s a spark of excitement in me, too. No one’s ever fallen for me before, even if they’re actually only falling for some fake online version of me. It’s scary, this excitement—like if I let myself be happy for even one moment, Declan’s going to send a message to Lucky, saying that he’s changed his mind, he’s realized that he doesn’t have feelings for Lucky after all.

  I should be trying to focus on my artwork also, but the blank canvas in front of me is as empty as it’s always been. I have my phone out, staring at the message Declan sent me.

  Should I respond?

  What would I even say?

  I’m staring at the text from Declan when a new Instagram alert pops up at the top of my screen. I stop breathing. It’s a new message from grandequeen69.

  Why’re you pretending to be a boy?

  Who are you? Why’re you trolling me?

  I’m not pretending to be a boy. Just be
cause 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’m not trolling you. I’m just telling you the truth. You were born a girl. You’ll always be a girl.

  I’m not a girl. You don’t get to tell me who I am. You don’t have that power. What do you get out of messaging me like this?

  It feels good to tell you the truth.

  My heart is in my throat. I stare at the words, trying to dissect them, to see if I can figure out who might’ve written them. I look around the room. The piece of shit could be here, right now, messaging me this crap.

  I stand up and tell Ezra I’m going to take a walk. I wander the halls, not really paying attention to where I’m going or where I’m walking—just lost in my thoughts, in the numbness that’s starting to crawl over me. When I look up, I’m back in the deserted acrylics classroom, as if my feet automatically took me down the familiar path and in through the doors. The room feels odd with no one else around: empty tables, empty stools, empty pink corduroy couch. I head for the supply closet. I need to relax, and I know it’s strange, but I’ve always found prepping canvases calming. I push my phone into my back pocket and get to work, grabbing a roll of canvas and cutting off a piece, finding boards a couple of feet long for the backing and hammering them together, stapling and stretching the canvas across the wood. I do that, over and over again, canvas after canvas. I take up the center of the room, pushing and scraping stools out of my way, steady in my work, until I have seven canvases prepped and spread across the floor.

  There’s the squeak of a shoe behind me. I leap to my feet, spinning around, guilt thrumming through me. Jill stands there with a to-go coffee cup in her hand.

  “Felix,” she says, surprised.

  “Sorry,” I say fast, though I’m not even sure what I’m sorry for.

  “I forgot my keys,” Jill says slowly, ignoring my apology as she begins to inspect the canvases that take up about half of her classroom floor. She raises her eyebrows as she looks my way again. “Plan on actually using those supplies?” she asks.

  I hesitate. I hadn’t even thought of the enormous waste these canvases would be if I don’t actually paint anything on them. “Uh,” I say, then nod. “Yeah.”

  She smiles like she’s in on the joke that, no, I hadn’t really been planning on it, but I sure as hell am now. She heads to her desk beside the pink sofa, opens up drawers, and clunks through whatever’s in there as she rummages for her keys. “You know, Felix,” she says, “you’re clearly talented, but your paintings are always . . . Well, they’re fine.”

  I wince. The critique is like a stab to the chest. No artist wants their work to be thought of as just fine. From the jingle in her hand, I guess Jill’s found the keys. She closes her drawer.

  “You’re probably one of the best artists in the school, to be honest,” she says. “It’s obvious that you have the eye, the imagination, the creativity . . . But you don’t apply yourself like you should.”

  “I apply myself.”

  She peers down at me. “Have you figured out your thesis project yet?”

  Jill already knows the answer to that. I cross my arms, then realize how defensive that looks and force myself to put them at my sides, then realize how awkward that looks, so end up crossing them again. “No,” I finally admit, “not really.”

  “Why not?” she asks. Her tone is soft. I know that she’s just trying to help.

  I shrug, but she’s waiting for a real response. “It’s just—hard. It’s like there’s all this pressure, I guess, to make the portfolio perfect so that I can get into Brown and get the scholarship, and then I keep having these blocks, and I have no idea what to do, and it’s just . . . hard,” I say again.

  “Well, no one chooses to be an artist because it’s easy,” Jill tells me. “If they do, they’re in for a rude awakening.” She smiles at her own joke before she pauses for a moment. I can tell there’s something else she wants to say, but she wants to be careful about how she says it. “I’m always struck by your portraits, Felix. You manage to capture the spirit, the essence of your subject. But I’m usually left with the sense that you could be pushing yourself in some way.” She plays with her keys in her hand, twirling the ring around a finger. “You end up doing the same thing. Painting portraits of Ezra and your classmates.”

  “And that’s bad?” I ask, only a little defensively now.

  “No, it’s not bad. It’s just that I’ve wondered what else you might have in you, if you pushed yourself to try something new. I noticed that you never paint yourself. Why is that?”

  I’m surprised by the question—not so much because Jill asked it, but more because I never thought about it before. It’d never really crossed my mind, I guess, to think about doing self-portraits. They’ve always felt a little narcissistic to me, and I’m not exactly the kind of guy who wants to, or is even able to, stare at myself all day. I never take selfies, and I barely like glancing at myself in mirrors. Dysphoria’s played a huge part in that. It’s what Dr. Rodriguez first called the feeling I have when I see myself and I know that I don’t look the way I’m supposed to—the discomfort I used to have, in seeing my hair long and a chest that wasn’t flat. I’ve been lucky enough to see most of the changes I want to see, but I’m still the shortest guy of all my classmates, and sometimes, I can feel strangers’ stares as they watch me, questioning my gender.

  “Self-portraits are empowering,” Jill says. “They force you to see yourself in a way that’s different than just looking in a mirror, or snapping a picture on your phone. Painting a self-portrait makes you recognize and accept yourself, both on the outside and within—your beauty, your intricacies, even your flaws. It isn’t easy, by any means,” she tells me, then shrugs. “But, anything that reveals you—the real you—isn’t easy.”

  She holds up her keys. “It’s just a thought. I’ll leave you to it. And make sure you put all of the supplies away when you’re done.”

  She leaves the room, clicking the door shut behind her.

  The real me?

  I pull out acrylics, a palette covered with dried and peeling paint, brushes of different sizes, some bristles frayed or hardened, and stare at one of the blank canvases. The critique of fine still stings, but being at St. Cat’s for the past few years has taught me to breathe in critique and breathe it back out again. Maybe a part of me also knows that Jill is right.

  The real me.

  I take a deep breath, pull out my phone, and snap a picture. I look at the photo, and I feel a flare of embarrassment in my stomach. I have dots of acne, my nose and eyes and mouth are too big, my jaw not square, not as square as I’d like—and in my eyes, I can see the fear. The dread in doing this, in confronting myself—in searching for the beauty, in admitting to the flaws. I lean the phone against the leg of a table, kneel down, dip a brush, and begin some simple strokes of red in the corner of the canvas. I grab the yellow, streaks blending into orange, almost like a sunrise, coloring my skin. The green is next, then the blue around my mouth. A bright burst, like a firework, in my eyes blues and purples swirling together like smoke that shadows my nose, a streak of green on my cheek—

  My phone buzzes, a message appearing for a moment before it vanishes. The colors, the mixtures, the textures—I sink into the canvas, letting myself fall into the image of me. White, almost like a cloud, twisting around a drop of red where my heart—

  My phone buzzes again. I sigh and stand up, dropping the brush into a mason jar of brown water and wiping my hand off on my jeans so that I can grab my phone from the floor. I’m afraid that it could be grandequeen69 again, but it’s just Ezra wanting to know where the hell I am, if I’m okay. I look at the time in the corner of the phone. Four. It’s four o’ fucking clock. I’ve been in here for three hours?

  I take a step back from the canvas. I haven’t even filled half of it, but what I have f
illed . . .

  It’s beautiful. I hate how arrogant that sounds, but it’s true. Not me—I don’t think that I’m beautiful—but the painting itself. My skin is flecks of red and gold, as though I’m on fire. The colors almost look like a piece of a galaxy, twisting together bits of light blooming out of the darkness. My eyes hold the same fear, the same dread, but there’s a strength, an intensity, a determination I hadn’t really noticed.

  I’m not really thinking when I pull out my phone and scroll past my conversation with Ezra, pulling up Declan’s last message to me.

  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 bite my lip, staring at the messages, and I take a breath—type and release:

  I can’t tell you who I am.

  If I were Declan, I would’ve purposely waited at least five hours to respond as payback for my all-day silence, but he gives zero fucks—he answers right away:

  Okay. I won’t push you to tell me.

  I try to imagine him answering his messages—maybe he’s at home, curled up in front of the TV on the sofa, or maybe he’s hanging out with James and Marc, trying to hide his phone as he texts. Is he surprised I answered? Relieved? I hesitate, then type: You say you’re falling for me. How can you like me if you don’t even know who I am?

  Declan takes a little longer to respond to that one. I know it’s stupid. You could be literally anyone. I’ve been driving myself crazy all day, looking at everyone around me, wondering who you might be. And I don’t even know if you really go to St. Catherine’s or not.

  Same thing I’ve been doing—looking around, wondering who was behind the gallery, who might still be sending me those Instagram messages. I feel a pinch of guilt. I know how he feels. I sit down beside my canvas, cross-legged. Are you mad I won’t tell you who I am?

  No. A little frustrated. But only because I wish we could talk in person.

  I don’t respond to that. Another text comes in.

  I’m really happy you texted me back. I was afraid I scared you off.