This Is Me

by Finn

  “I’m so confused,” Trent whispered, leaning toward me, and I shook my head.

  “Don’t worry. I’m just gonna break this up before it becomes a train wreck.”

  Pushing myself off the wall, I stepped forward and came in between Blaire and Cooper as both of them had begun blushing furiously.

  I missed something.

  “I love your hair,” Blaire said, running her hand through her own hair, and Cooper’s blush became more crimson.

  “Thanks! My mum actually did it for me. She’s a hairdresser.” Cooper smiled, and I looked from one to the other.

  Blaire was handling herself rather well. I had seen the look she now held in her eyes before when she saw a boy that she found attractive, and it never ended well. Her usual badass self became a blundering fool who could barely string a sentence together and continuously stumbled over her words.

  She may have looked like a tomato at the moment, but at least she wasn’t making a fool of herself. Yet, anyway.

  “Trent is also here,” Trent said suddenly, and I stopped myself from laughing. “In case you wanted to say hello to him, too.”

  “She can’t hear you,” I said, turning back to face Trent. “She is only focusing on Cooper. Trust me.”

  “Why?”

  “She finds Cooper attractive.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Because her ovaries are expanding,” I said sarcastically, gesturing toward Blaire. “Seriously, though. You can’t tell me you don’t see the eye-boner Blaire has for Cooper right now.”

  “I… I have no idea what that means,” Trent confessed with a chuckle.

  “You know, like, heart-eyes.”

  I was horrible with my words.

  “You know what? I like eye-boner better.”

  Trent and I both grinned at each other as we watched Blaire and Cooper continue to whisper with each other. It was a little weird seeing a friend I had known for years interacting with the one I had just met. It was even more bizarre to see them flirting and to see how much Blaire was blushing.

  Was that what I looked like when I used to speak to Leroy? Did I wear that same stupid smile?

  “Well, it was good to meet you, Coop,” Blaire said, and I quickly looked away from the both of them, acting as though I hadn’t been watching them.

  “You, too, Blaire. You should sit with us one day,” Cooper suggested, and Blaire chuckled.

  It was not a typical chuckle either. It was high-pitched, and unlike any sound I had ever heard come out of Blaire’s mouth before.

  “Maybe. I’ll have to see.”

  Looking up, I saw Blaire and Cooper shaking hands once again, and I waited for them to finish.

  “I should be getting home. I need to go over some things with my mum,” Cooper said, breaking up the handshake, and dropping his hand to his side.

  “Yeah, Pete, you should be getting home, too,” Blaire said, turning toward me, noticing me for the first time since she’d laid eyes on Cooper. “It’s, uh, the big day. Isn’t it?”

  At Blaire’s words, my chest began to feel heavier, and it seemed like a hole in my stomach had appeared—leaving an empty space where I could have sworn there should have been some organs.

  After everything that had been happening today, I had completely forgotten that I had planned to go home and face my parents. To be who I was in front of them. My overall plan was to act as though nothing had happened. That was the goal. Whether that would happen, though, was unknown.

  Ever since Saturday, when the video had gone live, I had only heard from my parents once. Of course, I had been asleep when they’d tried to contact me, but I got their message when I woke up. Apart from that, I hadn’t heard from them. Brad had told them to give me space, and after hearing that I was okay, they did precisely that.

  I never expected them to actually give me the space I needed, so colour me surprised that they did. A part of me, however, was a little disappointed that they hadn’t tried to contact me since.

  Yes, it was stupid to be disappointed when you got what you asked for, but maybe if they’d kept trying to contact me, I would know what to expect when I went home. I would have a little insight into what was going to happen. As I stood now, I had nothing. I was going in blind, and I was terrified.

  What if they didn’t accept me? Or they didn’t want me anymore?

  We had been the perfect family. We had a perfect house in a perfect neighbourhood. What if there wasn’t any place for someone like me in that perfect picture?

  There was a large ebbing in the back of my mind that scolded me for wanting more. Why would I want more when I seemingly already had everything? Why couldn’t I just be happy?

  No matter how hard I tried to shake that voice away, I could never do it. Sometimes, it got smaller and started to fade. Over the last few days, it had almost been non-existent as I bathed in the relief of finally being myself, but it was still there. Now, it was growing more prominent again.

  I was happy being who I was. Showing the world who I was and not wearing a mask anymore. I didn’t think I could go back to not doing that. I didn’t want to go back to locking away parts of who I was. But that was something I would have to do if they didn’t accept me. If my parents didn’t want to see who I was.

  I didn’t want to have to hide, but I didn’t want to leave them behind either. However, if they didn’t want to see me without the mask they had grown so accustomed to me wearing, I didn’t think I’d be able to stay.

  With all this worrying plaguing my mind, I tried to put on a brave face for my friends.

  “It sure is,” I said, trying to force a smile, though I could feel it was coming off as more of a grimace.

  “Do you want me to come with you?” Blaire asked, moving to my side, continually shooting glances at Cooper.

  I was fighting the urge to roll my eyes at the pair of them.

  “No, no. I need to do this alone.”

  “Trent will also be going home,” Trent interjected, and the rest of us laughed. “Just in case anyone was wondering.”

  “Alright, alright. I think we should all disperse. I shouldn’t run into anyone in the parking lot now,” I added in a mumble, and Blaire nodded.

  “Same place on the field for lunch tomorrow?” Cooper asked, and I looked over at him and Trent who had begun to move back out into the open.

  “Sounds like a good plan,” I said with a smile on my face, trying not to let my current fear show.

  “Alright, well, good luck with your big thing,” Cooper said, kicking at the back of Trent’s heels as they walked past.

  “See you tomorrow, Pete,” Trent called, recovering from Cooper’s kick and trying to step on his shoes.

  “Thanks. See you later!” I waved at their backs, even though I knew they weren’t looking at me.

  “They seem nice,” Blaire said, hooking her arm through mine, and we followed in the footsteps of Cooper and Trent.

  “Yeah. Especially Cooper.” I grinned at Blaire and gently bumped into her shoulder.

  “Why Cooper specifically?” Blaire asked innocently, and I rolled my eyes.

  “You don’t need to play dumb with me. It’s me. Peter. Someone who could use the distraction of what you call flirting.”

  “What I call flirting?” Blaire questioned, and I looked at her raised eyebrows as we reached the near-empty parking lot and began walking across it. “You of all people cannot judge my flirting.”

  “I have never tried to flirt with anybody in my life!” I lied, doing my best to defend myself.

  “What a load of shit.”

  “Well, I haven’t in front of you.”

  “Not with words. But you do it with weird looks and horrible body language,” Blaire pointed out, causing me to shake my head.

  “No, no. That isn’t flirting. That’s just me being an awkward gay mess.”

  Scoffing to herself, Blaire gave me a light shove as we reached my car, and she moved around to the passenger side and
waited for me to unlock the car.

  “Do all the boys have that effect on you? Or is it just the ones you can’t have?” Blaire asked, and at her words, I felt my heart stutter.

  “Low blow,” I muttered, unlocking the car and getting in, throwing my bag into the backseat with my other bag.

  “Sorry, you wanted a distraction,” Blaire said softly, putting her seatbelt on and holding her bag in her lap. “Cooper is cute.”

  “He is.”

  “Hot, even,” Blaire murmured, and I tilted my head at her as I started the car. “What?”

  “Nothing. Just… thought you had eyes for someone else.”

  “Yeah. Riley. What I wouldn’t give to get under that body,” Blaire said dreamily, and I squinted my eyes at her before focusing my attention forward.

  “Don’t flirt with Cooper if you have something for someone else.”

  I didn’t think I would already be feeling this protective over Cooper, but something clicked in me after hearing Blaire’s words. I didn’t want to see Cooper get hurt, and by looking at how he acted when talking to Blaire, he thought she was cute, at least.

  Blaire’s talk about another boy wasn’t my only concern about the whole thing, though. The fact that Blaire didn’t know Cooper was transgender also made me feel uneasy. I didn’t want Cooper to build his hopes up and get close to Blaire only for her to turn him down at that information.

  Was it even my place to be thinking about it or worrying about it? I mean, Cooper was openly transgender. Did that put the responsibility on Blaire’s shoulders?

  I had no idea. I knew nothing.

  So much for a distraction.

  My mind was not only focused on what would happen when I arrived at home, but also on Blaire and Cooper and the fear that it may not end well. I had faith that Blaire would never do anything to hurt someone I cared about, but emotions could be a fickle thing. If anyone knew that, it was me.

  Quickly trying to clear my mind, I started driving and pulled out of the school’s parking lot. I didn’t need the holy trinity of my problems to be plaguing my mind on the trip home. My heart was already on the verge of jumping out of my chest.

  However, even though I was trying harder than ever to keep my mind clear and focus on driving, Leroy managed to slip in.

  Leroy and his damn smile.

  -Twenty-

  Home

  “Jesus Christ, Pete!” Blaire yelled as the car jolted forward, and the engine stalled.

  “I’m sorry!” I quickly said, scrambling to get the engine going again as to not hold traffic up too much. “I thought I was getting the hang of it,” I mumbled.

  Clearing my mind of what was to come, Leroy, and everything else, was proving much more complicated than I had hoped, and it seemed to be impacting my driving. Not that I was the best at driving a manual to start with, but I wasn’t usually this bad.

  Sometimes.

  “Clearly not.” Blaire laughed, holding her hand over her heart. “Scared the shit out of me.”

  “Me, too,” I said with an incredibly forced chuckled.

  The constant spinning of all of the thoughts in my mind was dizzying, and the rhythmic pumping of my heart sending pulses of blood to thump in my ears was not helping.

  As a horn came from behind me, my car came to life and I quickly, but carefully, began driving again, making sure to pay a lot of attention on changing the gears.

  “Anyway, now that I know we aren’t going to die, let’s continue,” Blaire said, resting back into her chair.

  “Well, there’s still time,” I smirked, shaking the wheel slightly.

  “Peter, I swear to God!”

  “Don’t be so dramatic then.”

  “Back on to the topic,” Blaire said, crossing her arms in a huff, and I smiled to myself, keeping my eyes trained on the road.

  “You mean the topic of me hopefully being still welcome at home?” I questioned, slumping in my chair.

  Blaire had been making a point of trying to get me to talk about how I was feeling about going home since the distraction of her talking about Cooper hadn’t worked.

  I wasn’t sure how she knew that talking about her flirting with Cooper was making me uneasy, but she seemed to pick up on it.

  Sadly, she did not take that as a hint to stop talking about everything and brought my family up.

  “I’m sure you are. I mean, last time you heard from them, they were worried, right? In that message, asking if you were okay?” Blaire asked, and I nodded.

  “Yeah. It’s probably all in my head. I never even tried before. To stay, I mean.”

  “I’ll miss having you at my house,” Blaire said. “I know Jordan will.”

  “It has been pretty cool staying with you.” I chuckled as I came to a stop in front of Blaire’s house and killed my car's engine before a new realisation came over me.

  The Friday afternoon I spent at Leroy’s—when everything had gone wrong—I had missed the football game.

  Sure, I may not have been in the headspace to go or enjoy it, but I couldn’t believe it had taken me this long to realise that I missed it.

  “I missed the game,” I muttered, past Blaire and up at her house.

  “Oh, yeah. But, so did I,” Blaire said, patting me on the shoulder and giving me a solemn smile.

  “But it was last game before the finals. Did we win?” I asked, tilting my head toward Blaire as she shook her head.

  “No. No, we got our ass kicked, apparently.”

  This week just kept getting worse.

  Sadness started to bubble up inside of me, replacing the worry I had been feeling. I had no idea why I was getting so emotional over missing the last game of football our team would be playing, but I couldn’t seem to stop my emotions.

  Maybe it was because I already had so many conflicting emotions raging around in my body, and I had only just been able to hold myself together, that this was the final straw. The thing that pushed me over the edge. And as I felt a tear slip from my eye, I broke down.

  More tears flowed effortlessly down my face as Blaire undid both of our seatbelts and pulled me into a hug, gently rubbing my back as I cried into her shoulder. The game was no longer on my mind, and all I could think about was my parents and Leroy.

  “I-I don’t want to l-lose them,” I spluttered into Blaire’s shirt as she continued to hold me.

  The middle console was planting itself firmly in my side as Blaire gently rocked me, but I didn’t care. The pain it was causing was nothing compared to what I was already feeling.

  “You won’t, Pete. You won’t,” Blaire muttered, but her words fell on deaf ears.

  Everything I had been trying to hold in and hide kept pouring out as I leant into Blaire’s warmth. Trying to get it to envelop me and fight off the coldness I had created. To fill the holes that I could blame no one else for but myself.

  “I just w-want to b-be normal,” I choked out, trying to catch what little breath I could.

  I don’t know where those words came from, but I couldn’t stop them from coming out or from echoing in my head.

  ‘I just want to be normal.’

  I couldn’t count how many times I had said that or thought that, but it had always been something that played on my mind. For the past few days, I had thought I was past that kind of thinking. That I was finally moving on from that and learning to accept myself and who I was.

  I guess it wasn’t that easy.

  “You are normal, Pete,” Blaire whispered, doing her best to calm me down, but I knew she had no idea what to say.

  Why would she? She had no clue what I was going through or what was happening in my mind, though I didn’t blame her. Even I was having trouble keeping up with it.

  One moment I was fine, laughing and enjoying myself with new friends. Two people who were like me. That I had inspired to come out and be themselves.

  Then, the next, I was lost again. Wishing for anything other than to be me.

  If only they could see
me now.

  “Leroy doesn’t think so,” I said, managing to keep my voice steady as I wiped my eyes, pulling away from Blaire.

  Tears were still falling from my eyes as I sat up straight and turned away from Blaire, looking out the driver’s side window. My body shook as I took in jagged breaths, and my mind came to rest on Leroy again.

  It was him.

  If he hadn’t walked away, I wouldn’t be feeling like this. If he hadn’t turned his back on me, I wouldn’t feel worthless and like I wasn’t good enough. I wouldn’t feel like I wasn’t normal.

  It was him.

  The tears slowly stopped falling, as the sadness and worry seeped out of my body, and I stopped shaking. I had been feeling good about myself for the first time in a long time. Even when Leroy first turned his back on me, and after my conversation with Jordan, I had given Leroy the benefit of the doubt, but I was done.

  Fuck blaming myself and fuck feeling as though I’m nothing.

  I am something, and I should be proud of who I am. Of how far I’ve come.

  Wiping my face one more time, I turned to look back at Blaire, who hadn’t said anything since I’d mentioned Leroy. She looked at me with worry and sympathy, and I mustered up a smile for her before taking in a deep, shaky breath.

  “Why do we even have school football this late in the year?” I said quietly, my voice cracking with almost every word. “I mean, it’s November for God sake.”

  I wiped my eyes one more time as Blaire gave me a small smile and put her hand on my shoulder again.

  “To try not to interfere with the out of school season,” Blaire answered, and I was thankful she played along.

  I needed to get rid of the anger I was feeling. Not because it was unwarranted, but because I needed to face my parents with a clear mind.

  “Do you want to stay for dinner?” Blaire asked suddenly, dropped her hand from my shoulder. “Or, just hang here until… until you’re ready?”

  Taking a moment to think about the offer, I nodded. It would be nice to thank the Brodies for all they had done for me, especially Jordan.

  “I mean, I’m sure dinner is already planned for you anyway,” Blaire pointed out with a shrug.