I Wish You All the Best

by Mason Deaver

  “I don’t want you to be afraid to correct me, okay? Please. I don’t want to hurt you. Never again. Not if I can help it.”

  “I will.” I don’t make myself any promises, but for him I think I’d do almost anything. “And we’ll figure it out. When you leave in August. Maybe I can visit you.” If this project with Mariam pans out, I can probably afford to go every few months.

  “Guess that’s why you’re my person, huh?” He wraps his arms around me and pulls me in as close as he can. “We’ll figure it out,” he repeats.

  “We’ll have to figure a lot of things out, won’t we?”

  “Yeah.” His grip on me tightens. “But at least we can do it together, right?” He leans in and kisses me again, and I never want him to stop.

  “Come on, lovebirds!” Meleika screams from across the parking lot. We should hurry. It’s the last day of summer break and everyone knows it, because the parking lot is flooded with cars. I can’t even imagine how the beach looks right now.

  But I don’t want to move, because I don’t want this to end.

  “What’s wrong?” Nathan asks me, his hands moving to the back of my head, playing with the tie that’s keeping my hair up.

  I swallow. “I’m going to miss you.”

  “Please.” He rolls his eyes and leans in close to me. “You’re Ben-ing again.”

  “I’m ‘Ben-ing’?” Since when am I a verb?

  “Hey, you got that right.” He laughs, the corners of his mouth poking up, and my heart flutters. Every single damn time. “You’re worrying about nothing.”

  I glance toward Sophie and Meleika. They’re waiting at the ramp that’ll take us down to the beach. The God-awful sand. But Nathan wanted to go. Just as one last hurrah, we’d driven down to Emerald Isle in the hopes that the crowds might’ve died down a little.

  Different oceans, I guess. Technically. Definitely different sand.

  “What are you smiling at?” he asks.

  “Nothing.” I look over at him, at that grin I fell in love with, and those brown eyes. “I’m still going to miss you,” I say again.

  He rolls his eyes, grinning like a fool. “Come on, it’s one day.”

  “I know, but it’s one day I won’t see you. An entire day without Nathan Allan.”

  “Ben-ing,” he repeats. “Though I suppose I’d be sad too if I had to go a day without this face.”

  “Hate you.”

  “Love you too.” He leans over and kisses me. “It’s your fault, anyway. It’s what you get for booking your flight late.”

  “Shut up.” I kiss him again. “You’re the one who distracted me, so really it all goes back to you.”

  Nathan sighs and rolls his eyes. “Just like everything else.”

  There’s a tap on the window that makes us both jump. “If y’all don’t hurry up, we’re dragging you out of that car,” Sophie huffs.

  “I didn’t spend three hours in a car to watch you two make out.” Meleika’s standing behind her.

  “Come on. Our party awaits.” He grabs the huge white blanket out of the back seat and pops the trunk so I can grab the umbrella. No way I’m flying to Los Angeles red as a lobster. I still can’t believe it’s happening, that I’m leaving this place. January feels like such a lifetime ago.

  But when Mariam asked me to help them with a new project they’re starting, there was no way I was going to turn them down. Even if it meant leaving Hannah and Thomas. And Meleika. And Sophie. All while providing a little emotional support for my boyfriend, while he spends long nights writing papers and drinking way too much coffee. Of course, he has to live in the dorms for the first year, but Mariam and I have worked something out.

  My boyfriend.

  That still feels weird to say. But the good weird. The weird that I never want to stop. Because Nathan Allan is my boyfriend. It’s taken us both some time to really get used to it. Because dating wasn’t exactly different from being the kind of friends we were before.

  Nathan had suspected that he’s bisexual for a while. And when he started going to the safe space meetings with me, everything sort of clicked for him. His parents took it well. Honestly, they really didn’t care who he was dating as long as whatever we did involved condoms, a talk neither of us was really too thrilled to have. Hannah and Thomas weren’t all that surprised, but we did have to leave the door open anytime Nathan was over.

  I sink in the sand, and it’s already burning the bottoms of my feet. “Sand should be illegal.” I try to shake it from between my toes.

  “Quit whining.” Nathan leans over and kisses my cheek.

  Meleika mimes sticking her finger down her throat to Sophie, and I flip them both off.

  “Jealousy isn’t a good color, girls.”

  “Whatever.” Meleika rolls her eyes. “You’re gonna let me repaint those today, right?” She waves around the bag of nail polish she’s holding. “I’m thinking polka dots, for your big day.”

  “Of course,” I say. My nails are looking pretty rough, the black paint chipped in a few spots. This is the first time I’ve been able to wear it long enough for it to chip away.

  I’ll have to find YouTube tutorials or something. I don’t think it’ll be very lucrative to fly back and forth between California and North Carolina just for Meleika to do my nails.

  The beach is as crowded as I thought it would be, but we find a spot that isn’t too far from the entrance. I hammer the umbrella stand into the sand, going a few rounds so I know the wind won’t blow it away. I’m already hot and sweaty when I’m done, but I don’t feel like taking off my shirt. I collapse beneath the shade of the umbrella and look up at Nathan, and even though I’ve seen his bare chest a dozen times now, I still can’t stop myself from staring.

  “Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” He balls up the shirt and tosses it to me.

  “Funny boy.”

  “You aren’t even going to try and get in the water.”

  I shake my head. This is why I brought the sketch pad. “No way.”

  “Come on, it’s your last chance.” Nathan holds out his hands.

  “They have oceans in California.”

  He does that weird eyebrow wiggle thing that he knows drives me up a wall. “But not this ocean.” I sigh and take his hand. “You might want to leave that here.” He pulls at the hem of my shirt.

  “Is this some elaborate plan to get me to take my shirt off?” Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve both been shirtless around each other. Won’t be last. At least, I hope it won’t be.

  “Come on. It’s a science.”

  “Okay, you’ll have to explain that one.”

  “Your shirt gets all wet and you’re uncomfortable for the rest of the day because you’ve got this gross heavy thing weighing you down.”

  “Yes, all science.” I slip my arms through the gaping holes of my tank top and leave it on the towel next to Meleika and Sophie. They both already look like they’re asleep in their chairs, but the sunglasses make it hard to guess.

  “Have fun.” Sophie waves at us. “Don’t cut yourself on a seashell.”

  “I regret telling you that,” I say before Nathan drags me down the sand and toward the water.

  We wade around for a few minutes before I’m ready to sit back on dry land, but I tolerate it, at least for Nathan. I can do that for him. But eventually he gets tired too, and we head back to our spot, the sand sticking to the bottoms of my feet. It’s terrible. But for once I don’t mind.

  The beach starts clearing out after a while, the sun slowly setting until it’s this huge ball in the sky. That’s when Meleika and Sophie decide to head into the water, never going more than thigh deep.

  “Hey.” Nathan’s hands wrap around mine. He’s sitting behind me, his legs stretched out around me, his stomach pressed to my back, so his chin can rest on my shoulder.

  “Hey.” I squeeze. I really can’t believe I’m this lucky.

  “You look like you’re thinking about something.” Nathan pul
ls on the hair tie and the curls fall to my shoulder, his fingers threading through them to try and untangle them. Good luck.

  I try to laugh. “Am I Ben-ing again?”

  “A little bit.”

  “Just nervous,” I say. “Just Mariam, and Hannah, and moving, and I don’t … I don’t know.” There are actually a thousand different things to worry about. The things I am going to take to California, finding another psychiatrist as amazing as Dr. Taylor, worrying about Meleika and Sophie and hoping our friendship will survive two of us moving across the country.

  Over the last three months, Mariam and I worked from the second we both woke up to when we both passed out in front of our webcams on ideas and things we could do. Mariam wants me to join their channel, to speak with them at conferences and events.

  To build something that could continue to help kids who are like us.

  It’d taken a lot for me to say yes, mostly because I didn’t feel like I deserved it. My track record with talking about my identity wasn’t the best. But I had Nathan there with me.

  Eventually I worked up the courage to start going to the group therapy sessions. It was difficult at first, but I got used to that. Especially with Nathan there beside me. And, with his help, I was able to come out to Sophie and Meleika. They both had a few questions, but they seemed to understand and apologized for the months of accidental misgendering.

  I thought about making a big Facebook post or something, but I decided against it. Just didn’t seem right.

  “You’re going to do great, I know it,” Nathan tells me, and I feel his skin against mine and the way he’s relaxed against me. And for the first time in a while, it really does feel like things may be okay.

  “What about Hannah?”

  “It feels like we sort of just fixed things. And now I’m the one leaving her.” It hadn’t dawned on me until I told Hannah and Thomas about the project. But I’d be moving across the country.

  They were both happy, but I could see the look on Hannah’s face, that split second before she was congratulating me. “I’m a terrible sibling.”

  “Except you aren’t,” Nathan says.

  “But I—”

  “Hush, hush, hush,” he whispers in my ear. “Just hush. This isn’t the same kind of situation, you both know that.”

  I sigh, tucking my knees close to my chest. “You don’t think she hates me?”

  “I think it’d take a lot for her to hate you.”

  “You promise?”

  He nods. “You know as well as she does that this isn’t the same situation. You’ll be talking to each other every day. You both actually have cell phones now, and you can FaceTime. Believe me, Ben, she doesn’t resent you for moving.”

  “It feels like we just became siblings again.”

  I feel Nathan’s skin against mine. “And this isn’t going to ruin that. Don’t you think she’s proud of you? This project … It’s important, babe.”

  “I know.” I feel my chest unclench a little. And deep down, I do know that. Nathan’s right, anyway. Hannah made me promise we’d talk every day. Over the summer, things have gotten better. Slowly but surely, we’ve come out the other side. Together. “And did you just call me babe?”

  “Trying something new, schnookums.” He kisses my neck again. “No good?”

  I relax against him. “Let’s stick with ‘babe’ if we have to.”

  “I can. Besides, you should be more nervous about that meeting next week.”

  “Please don’t remind me.”

  “I’ll be right there in the audience, cheering you on.”

  I angle myself so I can kiss him. Those soft lips have quickly become my favorite part of Nathan. “No audience in this kind of meeting.”

  “I’ll just sneak in. I told you, emotional support comes before modeling.” He lets out a deep sigh and we both stare at the sun, slowly but surely sinking beneath the surface of the dark ocean. “I wish you all the best, Benjamin De Backer.”

  They aren’t the same words, but I know exactly what he means.

  “I love you too.”

  I started writing I Wish You All the Best when I decided I wanted to tell the story that I needed when I was younger. This book is what I needed when I was fifteen, when I was eighteen, and it’s still the story I need in my twenties. This is how a lot of stories are born: out of necessity.

  Writing this book helped me confront my own anxieties and depression, and, ultimately, it helped me confront myself. I realize it may be harder for some readers to understand this, and for others, it’ll be an all too relatable reality. For a long time, I struggled to realize who exactly I am, and in a lot of ways I still do. I struggle believing myself when I tell people that I’m nonbinary. I still have a hard time correcting others when they use the wrong pronouns because I don’t want to make them uncomfortable or make them feel bad. Some mornings I look in the mirror and hate what I see because I feel as if my body isn’t up to the standard as other members of the queer community.

  Some days are better than others. Days where my confidence is off the charts and I feel perfectly comfortable in my body and my incredibly tacky style. And as I’ve gotten older and have surrounded myself with people like me, I find that those days happen more often than not.

  When I set out to write this book, my one hope was that it would make people feel less alone, no matter how or why you related to Ben. Or even Nathan, or Hannah, or anyone else in this book. I wanted to do for others what I’d helped do for myself: to let readers be able to see a piece of themselves in these words.

  And remember: Whatever happens, I wish you all the best.

  —Mason Deaver

  So yeah, I Wish You All the Best is out, it’s here, it’s in your hands in some form or another. It’s been a journey. A weird, long journey through which I discovered that I am terrible at writing emails, a tad impatient, and apparently incapable of not working on something while the waiting eats at me from the inside out.

  But I survived, mostly thanks to my amazing support system and friends who kept me going by encouraging me, even when I was at my lowest.

  Robin, one of my dearest friends and to whom this book is dedicated: Without you, this book would not exist. Literally. Our texts and late-night calls helped pull me out of writing funks. You’ve been there since the start of Ben and Nathan, when they were two kids in college, staring up at the night sky and denying their feelings for each other. Seriously, it might not sound like it, but this book went through a lot of changes, and you were there for all of them. Start to finish.

  Mariam Haidari, who let me borrow their name for this book: You’ve been the best parent to Ben and Nathan, and your support has meant the most to me. The way you talked about these kids, the way you loved them and supported them. It made me believe they would one day be real. And now they are. Your status as their #1 parent is cemented in these words. And here is where I’ll apologize for all the mysterious notes I send you that cause you to worry over the well-being of all your future fictional kids.

  Shauna, Cam, and Huong: You three are some of my best friends in the world, and I can’t imagine going on this journey without the three of you there to share the experience with.

  Becky Albertalli for her priceless help during the editing stages and for her books that kept me going. For her kinds words and optimism about the future of this story, and her help along the way. Seriously, I owe you so much. Besides, you gave me my first piece of Ben fan art!

  My agent, Lauren Abramo, who left me absolutely speechless during our first phone call. A lot of people believed in Ben and Nathan, but Lauren was the first person who I felt truly understood what I wanted to do with this story. I knew from the first call that we’d be great together, and I’m glad I trusted my gut.

  Jeffrey West, who has been an absolute dream editor and has seen things where I haven’t and helped me make this story into something truly fantastic. I’ve been lucky to find two people to work with who truly understood the
story I was trying to tell.

  To my early readers who gave me their sound advice and careful eyes. But mostly, you guys kept me going during hard times. Ava, Cody, Camryn, Kav, Fadwa, Megan, and Sarah.

  Roseanne Wells, who first proposed a huge revision and made this book all the better for it, even if you are team pancake.

  To Caleb, Kari, TJ, and Alice, who helped bring Ben and Nathan to life with their stunning artwork, which I love with all my heart.

  And to all my amazing friends online who gave their constant support through this whole journey. Through the writing and the editing and the waiting. Jonas (who gave me the name De Backer), Claribel, Sabina, both Jays, Nic, Olivia, Sandhya, Meleika (who also let me borrow their name!), Kimberly, Janani, Meredith, Sona, Zoraida, and anyone else who has followed this book since it was nothing more than three hundred poorly written pages with the name #EnbyLoveStory. Seriously, you all kept me going through this entire journey, and your support means the world to me.

  In the words of Andrew Gold, though preferably sung by Cynthia Fee: Thank you for being a friend.

  Lastly, to my mother, who is one of the bravest people I know and the person I love most in this world.

  And to my father: You never got the chance to see these words, to know about this book in all its detail. Truthfully, I don’t know if you would’ve liked it, and I don’t know if you would’ve liked me, but we’ll never really know, will we? You only told me that you wanted me to be the next J. K. Rowling. And while I’m not sure I’d want that, I hope this is close enough.

  Mason Deaver is a nonbinary author and bookseller from a small town in North Carolina where the word “y’all” is used in abundance. When they aren’t writing or working, they’re typically found in their kitchen baking something that’s bad for them or out in their garden complaining about the toad that likes to dig holes around their hydrangeas. You can find them online at masondeaverwrites.com and on Twitter at @masondeaver.

  Copyright © 2019 by Mason Deaver