by Elliot Wake
I glanced up into the light, as if it sealed the promise. I felt it in my bones: the power he’d taken from me, returned. Now he would live with fear. Always on guard, alert, vigilant. Analyzing every situation for a threat.
Welcome to how it feels, I thought, to move through this world like a woman.
At the door I looked back. Still blank-faced but his eyes were wet and bright.
“Don’t cry,” I said.
TODAY
VLOG #406: FIVE YEARS ON T
[A party at Umbra. All of Black Iris is present, including siblings and significant others. Ren leans over a giant cake that reads HAPPY FIFTH BIRTHDAY.]
REN: I can’t believe you guys are giving alcohol to a five-year-old.
ARMIN: Don’t get my license revoked.
BLYTHE: For your information, I’ve tasted all of these drinks and none of them are remotely alcoholic.
ARMIN/ELLIS: [Simultaneously.] Aussies.
BLYTHE: Christ, they’re getting along. I may vomit.
REN: That’s probably got more to do with tasting all the drinks.
BLYTHE: Don’t judge me, birthday boy.
TAMSIN: Laney’s got that look. Watch out.
LANEY: A toast.
EVERYONE: Toast! Toast!
LANEY: To a very brave boy.
BLYTHE: And handsome.
ELLIS: And kind.
ARMIN: And genuine.
TAMSIN: And good in bed.
EVERYONE: [Groans.]
BLYTHE: Nice, mate.
LANEY: And a very dear friend. Here’s to you, Ren. Happy birthday.
EVERYONE: Happy birthday!
———
[Ren and Tam drive to a house in the suburbs. Tam films Ren getting out of the car. He rings the bell and waits on the lawn until an older man emerges. The older man stops, staring.]
REN: Dad. Dad? It’s me.
MR. KHOURY: [Approaches.] Ya Allah, ya Allah . . . [Murmurs in Arabic.]
REN: Hey. It’s . . . been a while.
MR. KHOURY: [Clasps Ren’s hand.] Hello. How are you—
REN: You can call me Ren.
MR. KHOURY: Ren. Hello. Can I call you my son?
REN: Y-yeah. Yeah, that’s okay, too.
MR. KHOURY: Who is the young lady?
REN: My girlfriend, Tamsin.
TAMSIN: Hello, Mr. Khoury.
MR. KHOURY: Ahmad, please. So beautiful. What a lovely girl. Both of you, come inside, come inside.
REN: I can’t. You know how Mom is.
TAMSIN: We’re here to pick up the little ones.
MR. KHOURY: Yes, yes. But come inside for a minute and cool off.
REN: It’s forty-five degrees out here, Dad.
MR. KHOURY: Ah, he sees through my tricks. Okay. I’ll get the little ones.
[Mr. Khoury goes inside.]
TAMSIN: He called you “he” without a thought.
REN: Yeah.
TAMSIN: Are you all right?
REN: [Smiles.] Yeah.
———
[At the beach. Tamsin and Kari are playing tag near the lake, screaming with laughter. Ren and Mina, bundled in winter jackets, build a sand castle on the shore. The camera is propped beside them.]
MINA: Is Tamsin your girlfriend?
REN: Yep. Is that weird?
MINA: No.
[They dig a moat.]
MINA: Are you her boyfriend?
REN: Yep. Is that weird?
MINA: No.
[More digging.]
MINA: Do you love her?
REN: [Smiles.] Yep. Is that weird?
MINA: Yes!
REN: Why is that weird?
MINA: Because, love is stupid. It’s a dirty trick played on us to achieve the continuation of the species.
REN: [Laughs.] Where did you hear that?
MINA: [Scornfully.] I read it in a book.
REN: I think you found it on the Internet when you were looking up “love is stupid.” Because you have a crush on someone.
MINA: Shut up.
REN: Is it on a boy?
MINA: No.
REN: Girl?
MINA: No!
REN: Nonbinary person?
MINA: Huh? No.
REN: You don’t even know what that is.
MINA: It’s still no.
REN: Okay, I give up. Tell me.
MINA: [Sighs dramatically.] It’s on a fictional character.
REN: [Starts laughing.]
MINA: See! This is why I never tell you anything.
REN: You tell me everything. You literally never shut up.
MINA: Well, it’s not serious, because A: he’s not real, and B: Mom would kill me.
REN: Mom wants to kill all of us. Why did she even have kids?
MINA: I know.
[They build a bridge over the moat.]
MINA: Are you going to marry Tamsin?
REN: [Raises eyebrows.] I don’t know.
MINA: Don’t you want to get married?
REN: I think so. Someday.
MINA: Well, why not her?
REN: She gets a say in it, too.
MINA: She’d marry you.
REN: Why do you say that?
MINA: I just know these things.
REN: [Laughs.] You’re so wise, Mina. I’m not. I’m only twenty-four.
MINA: That is so old. You are ancient.
REN: You’re only saying that because you’re eleven.
MINA: Don’t be ageist.
REN: [Laughs.] You just called me old!
MINA: That means you’re supposed to be wise.
REN: What are you supposed to be?
MINA: [Flips her hair.] A princess.
REN: [Smiling.] Well, lucky for you, you are. Come on, Princess Mina. I miss the other royals.
[He kneels and offers his palm. She takes it and together they walk toward the water, dwindling against the sun, hand in hand.]
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are two stories in each of my novels. The first story is fiction, and it plays out over three hundred or so pages. The second story, the true one, takes place in the acknowledgments. It’s my story—a diary that’s spanned four novels, first as Leah, now as Elliot.
This book is where Leah’s story ends.
In this space I usually address you, my readers. All of you mean the world to me, and I’m beyond humbled and grateful that you’ve followed me on this journey through my books and in my life. Thank you. But there’s someone out there I’ve never thanked properly. Someone who deserves to have her strength and suffering recognized. So this time, I’m doing something different in this space.
This time I’m writing to her.
———
Dear Leah,
The last image I have of you is when you were writing the acknowledgments for your third book, Cam Girl. It’s late on a hot night in August 2015. Your boyfriend has gone to bed and you’re alone on a futon mattress on the floor, a little tipsy on tequila, spilling your heart onto the page. You’ve spent the past year battling the paralysis of depression by writing a book about someone like you: a girl who’s not really a girl.
That book is a step closer to your personal truth. Each novel has been both confession and acceptance: of becoming an adult in Unteachable, then your queerness in Black Iris, then your gender in Cam Girl. But the last one didn’t go far enough, and you know that.
And you’re terrified of the book you’re going to write next.
Because this one will go far enough. It’s going to drag you along, kicking and screaming and crying the whole way.
You already know the name you’ll take. You first heard it as a kid, in the movie E.T. It sounded wise, knowing. Later you discovered a poet with the same name, who spoke to the darkness inside you, and something about his name resonated—a hum in the center of your chest, your rib cage struck like a tuning fork. You’ll know it’s your name, but not why. It’ll come clear in time: Leah is contained inside the name Elliot. El-ee-et. Hear it?
/> You already know you’ll take testosterone, too. You’re terrified, trying to scare yourself off, but you know that without it, the body in the mirror will never match the one in your head. You’ve known this for years. You remember poring over your mom’s Sears catalogs, staring entranced at boys’ clothes and picturing yourself in that stuff, a self with short hair and straight hips and broad shoulders. You remember how much it hurt the day you beat R in a race, and M sneered, “It doesn’t matter because you’re just a girl,” and you felt no one could see that you were the same as R or any other boy, because of the stupid body you wore. You remember being called “dyke,” “fag,” “queer” (the latter of which you embraced, eventually), and being upset not because they were wrong, but for some other reason you couldn’t articulate. A “dyke” was a girl who liked girls. Only half of that was true for you. It would take years to understand which part of you those words were hurting.
You’re scared of T. Of losing your hair (you won’t), of getting teen-boy acne (you won’t), of losing the ability to feel things as intensely as you do on E (you won’t, but it will change).
You’re scared of losing your boyfriend when you transition. You will in some ways, but not all. He’ll surprise you, again and again, with how sensitive and accepting he is, how open to learning. You’ll both cry your eyes out and the particulars of your relationship will shift, but that’s why they say it’s a transition for you both.
Deep within you, in a place you don’t like looking because of the pettiness and vanity that dwells there, you’re scared you’ll find yourself repulsive once the changes start. That you’ll trade in one body you hate for another you’ll hate differently. From ugly girl to ugly boy. You’re so wrong. There’s nothing ugly about you—that’s dysphoria distorting your image. You’d never believe me now, but at four months on T you’ll share the first photographs of your face on Instagram. The response will be so kind and encouraging that you’ll soon be sharing selfies of your body, undressed, without a second thought. People will say nice things about the way you look, and the miracle is that you’ll finally believe them.
You already know you’re a man. The word sits weirdly now—you still recoil instinctively, remembering all the ways men have failed you, hurt you. You want everything that comes with manhood—muscles, beard, pronouns, “sir”—without having to acknowledge to yourself that yes, you are a man.
You’ll spend a lot of time trying to reconcile your feminism with your masculinity. Spoiler alert: it’s an eternal struggle. Like Ren, you’ll constantly seek a delicate balance between the two while staving off bitterness and indignation. But you’ll also find that people are surprisingly willing to listen. Men will tell you they’ve become aware of their own privilege when you discuss how society treats you differently as a man. Women will tell you they better understand the ways men experience emotion when you discuss how your emotional responses have changed.
What it means for you as a writer—as a human being—to have experienced both sides is invaluable. People will tell you, “You’ve opened my eyes,” but really, yours will be opened just as wide.
You already knew all of these things at the end of last summer. When you finished writing the acknowledgments for Cam Girl, you collapsed into major depression. You knew beyond a doubt you were transgender. You stayed up till dawn day after day, watching video after video on your laptop—Skylar, Chase, Ty, all the trans guys you envied and idolized. You googled everything you feared: permanent changes, transition regret, suicide.
One day, while Alex was at work, you knelt on your bedroom floor and screamed. Just screamed yourself raw, for who knows how many minutes. You said things like I can’t do this and I wish I was fucking dead and I don’t want to be me. When you washed your face, your gaze lingered on the shower rod, judging if it could take your weight.
You’d tried that years ago, with a belt. Almost succeeded. Your chest was numb for weeks. You would succeed, if there was a next time.
But a voice inside you kept telling you to hold on.
That was me.
At the end, you were so tired. So fucking sad, worn down, empty. You almost didn’t make it. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to write this, to open my eyes and wake up as Elliot. But you carried us both here. You spent your whole life shouldering both of our burdens. I’ve got this now, Leah. You can rest.
Thank you for holding on until I was ready.
———
As always, my deepest gratitude to the two women in publishing who’ve made my dreams come true: my agent and adviser, Jane Dystel; and my editor, Sarah Cantin, whose guidance and allyship have meant everything to me. Three years ago, I self-published a romance novel called Unteachable—and if Jane hadn’t seen the worth in it, and Sarah hadn’t seen the spark in me, I don’t think I’d be here today. Life is wild like that. Thank you both for helping me achieve my dreams as a writer, and in doing so enabling me to pursue the dream I never thought I’d realize: becoming the man I am.
Thank you to everyone at Dystel & Goderich and Atria Books for your support and sensitivity regarding my transition. It’s an honor to work with people who truly care about me as a person, and who advocate for work by marginalized authors like me. I’m proud to be published by you.
Thank you to my family, who have come to grips with this each in their own way. Thanks to my sister, Bethany, who made me cry when she called me her brother; to my father, Masoud, who cheerfully wrote back Dear Elliot to my coming-out letter; and to my mother, Rita, who has always loved me unequivocally, however I identify. Thank you to my partner and Life Dude, Alexander, who is the man most important to me in this whole world. I love you all so much. You didn’t lose me, and I’m so glad I didn’t lose any of you.
Thank you also to my dear friends and online supporters, including Ana, Bethany, Fox, James, Matt, and every single one of you who’s followed my transition journey under the Twitter hashtag #WakeUpElliot. Having a support network is critical when transitioning—and having you guys cheer at my victories and console me over setbacks is priceless.
And, of course, thank you. Yeah, you. The person holding this book. It’s because of readers like you that I went from someone who hated herself and her life and who self-published an escapist romance without believing anyone would read it, to this guy. This person who is only now starting to find his true place in the world. Thanks for reading my stories, and for letting me tell my own, book by book, in these final pages.
Here’s to Leah’s story ending happily—and to Elliot’s story, which is just beginning.
All my love,
Elliot Wake
Chicago, July 2016
For more darkly provocative novels by Elliot Wake (formerly Leah Raeder) . . .
When you can't get over that one-night-stand . . . with your teacher.
Unteachable
* * *
A twisted, suspenseful, and seductive tale of growing up and getting even.
Black Iris
* * *
Two best friends are torn apart by a life-shattering accident . . . and the secrets left behind.
Cam Girl
* * *
ORDER YOUR COPIES TODAY!
ELLIOT WAKE (formerly known as Leah Raeder) is the transgender author of Unteachable, Black Iris, and Cam Girl. Aside from reading his brains out, Elliot enjoys video games, weight lifting, and perfecting his dapper style. He lives with his partner in Chicago.
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ALSO BY ELLIOT WAKE
(writing as Leah Raeder)
Cam Girl
Black Iris
Unteachable
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Elliot Wake
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First Atria Books hardcover edition December 2016
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Wake, Elliot author.
Title: Bad boy : a novel / Elliot Wake.
Description: New York : Atria Books, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016022111 (print) | LCCN 2016028723 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501115011 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501115028 (eBook)
Classification: LCC PS3623.A356585 B34 2016 (print) | LCC PS3623.A356585 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23