Beast (12 page)

“But why couldn't you cut to the chase and say, ‘Hi, my name is Jamie and I was born a boy'?”

Her eyes ignore mine hard. “I'll never say that because it's not true. I was assigned male at birth, but my gender is a girl.”

“Look, I know it's bad form for people to barge in with questions, but you can't say we're all a bunch of dummies because we can't read your mind.”

“That's so far from reality, it's stupid,” Jamie says.

“Why did you never mention anything about being trans? Like, ever?”

“I was as out with you as I was comfortable with,” she says. “I'm pretty low-key about it, to be honest. Most of the time I have other things on my mind. Did I forget my lunch money? Why did my dog pee by the back door when she just went out ten minutes ago? Things. Thoughts. You know, life.”

“All I'm saying is a little clarity is a good thing.”

“When was I unclear? Was it what I wore, every word I ever said? The pictures I took? The stories I told? Being happy being out with you? Who I frigging AM? Because I thought I was opening up to you, more than to any boy I've ever met before. So please, you're so smart, when was I ever hiding who I really, truly was?”

My mouth shuts. I didn't realize it was open.

The timer buzzes. I hop over to the oven and get a mitt. Tray in hand, I let the door slam shut and rest the baking sheet full of deformed patties on top of the burners. I hop backward and we both stare at them, for they are very sad.

“It's fake crabmeat,” I say.

“Hmmm. Like our so-called relationship.”

Burn. “The diabetes thing,” I point out. “That was a lie.”

“By omission.”

“Why lie about that?”

“Because when you followed me onto the bus, I was scared. You're very big. And we were alone. I didn't want to get into my personal medical business with a virtual stranger, because I don't have to. Ever. And didn't want to risk getting beat up again.”

“That other guy knew?”

“Yeah. His name was Colin and he knew. Just like I thought you did.” Jamie wanders over to a crab cake and pokes it. She pries off the half-charred corner and nibbles it. “Not bad. But yeah, I used to rule my old school with all the girls I hung around with. We were the law of the land. They thought I was their gay BFF, but I wasn't. I was me pretending to be a gay BFF.” She looks at me. “Isn't that nuts?”

“Why is that so crazy?”

“Because as long as I was the catty gay boy who was all, yaaaaas, mama, WORK, you are so fierce,” she says, snapping her fingers in a loop, “and went shopping with them and did their hair and makeup, and teased Colin, just like they did, it was fine. Like, normal even to be all, ‘Oh girl, would you look at what my favorite piece of meat is wearing today? I see trade!' and then they'd think it was hilarious. Queens of the eighth grade, the five of us.”

“I'm afraid to ask, but I need to know. What's trade?”

“Straight-looking dudes who bang gay guys for money,” she says. “You'd be rough trade because you're bulk goods.”

“Oh.” Now I know. “It sounds like you were a very fabulous stereotype.”

“Not a stereotype; I copied this guy I knew from a continuing-ed class where we learned how to use a darkroom. All the chemicals and stuff. He was the most phenomenal human being ever, completely fearless. I admired him so much. After that, I began to act like him too.” She shrugs. “I feel bad I had to steal his personality, but it helped cover up my own. So…yeah.”

“You always knew you were a girl trapped in a boy's body?”

“Nope.”

Every clip I researched on YouTube has lied to me. “But…that's what everyone says.”

“That's fine for them, but I say something different. I had very cool parents growing up. They never minded buying me nail polish and whatever. For them it was like a point of pride. But when I was twelve, I started to realize I wasn't a boy who liked glitter and had crushes on boys…I was a girl who liked glitter and had crushes on boys,” she says. “That's when things started to go downhill.”

“I get that.”

“It was the scariest thing I've ever known,” she says in a light voice. “It's very practical being with popular girls—they make the rules. They protect you from everything, and that's how I adapted. But then I just couldn't do it anymore. The depression…It was bad. So I started wearing clothes I liked and wearing my hair the way I liked. And I started living life the way I felt good. How I felt right. The girls were okay-ish. Two of them did everything they could for me; we're still close. Two of them broke away. One girl even said I couldn't ‘do this to her' because it ruined ‘her balance.' I mean, what? We don't talk.”

“What about this Colin guy?”

Jamie leans next to the stove and grazes on her patty. “We were alone one day and I didn't even say anything near as stupid as before, you know? No messing around like with the ‘Would you look at this piece!' stuff. I just had a little crush on him. Nothing major. I wasn't even rude about it. All I said was, ‘You look nice today.' That's it!” She shakes her head. “When he knew me as Jeff, he thought it was all a joke. This time, as me, as Jamie, when I was genuine with him, he didn't like it. He let it be known. I thought he broke my cheekbone, he shoved me into the locker so hard.” She touches her face. The same spot she touched in the rose garden. “The two girls who broke off teamed up with him and all his crew and they made my life a living hell. My parents panicked that I'd be beat up again, or worse. Transferred schools and that's that.”

“Fresh start.”

“Hmmm.” She chews. “These crab cakes aren't half bad.”

“Thanks.”

I'm not thinking she looks cute in my kitchen munching away on food I made. I'm not thinking about looking up this Colin person and pummeling him into pudding. I'm not thinking about how much I'd enjoy it, mashing his stupid face into goo for what he did to her. I'm not thinking any of that—nope, I'm not.

“It's weird, you know? I thought you were my boyfriend. My first boyfriend. All that lofty la-la stuff. The walks in the park, trips to the corn maze, holding hands, riding on a Ferris wheel and getting stuck at the top…” She sighs, and it thumps me in the ribs. “But that's all gone.”

“Right.”

“I'm still the same girl, though, and you're the same guy. It's crazy.”

“What's crazy?”

“You're not even my type. I'm completely into skater boys.” She laughs to herself. “Never thought I'd go for…”

“A beast?” I say.

She shrugs, the grin on her face saying it all. I lean against the counter. Standing hurts. And she thinks I'm the Beast. She's just like everyone else. Fine. Bring on the plan.

“I need to tell you something.”

“Shoot,” she says.

“Word got around in my school that you were trans, and a couple guys said bad things, so I'm going to protect you now.”

“I'm sorry, what?”

“I'm going to be your new bodyguard,” I declare, puffing up like the untouchable nightmare monster I am.

Jamie brushes crumbs from her hands and the corners of her mouth. “That's nice, but no thank you.”

“Wait a minute.” I deflate. “I want to do right by you.”

“Uh-huh, I bet, and no thank you. I do not need your assistance.”

“These guys made a threat. I want you to call me anytime you need me. I'll be there.”

She ogles my cast. “You're just gonna hop on over then, huh?”

“Jamie…”

“I get it, you're trying to be all gallant, but look.” She reaches into her bag, moves past her camera, and brings up two black canister-looking things.

“What are those?”

“One is Mace and one is a kubaton, like a little hard metal staff. Here, give me your hand.”

I stick my hand out and she lays the kubaton right below my thumb and presses down. A burst of pain makes me yelp, and I yank my thumb away, cradling it to my chest.

“I learned that in my all-girls safety class. Isn't it cool that girls need to learn this stuff to feel safe? That was sarcasm, by the way. But that's just one way of using the kubaton; there are loads more. Here, let me see your neck.”

“No way, you sadist.”

She puts the Mace and evil kubaton back in her bag. “Like I said, thanks for the offer but I'll be okay.”

“What if you get jumped?”

“If I get jumped, what am I gonna do—tell the attackers to hold that thought for a minute, I need to call my bodyguard? Be serious, Dylan,” she says. “Why don't you tell your boys to chill out. That might be more effective than you finding a white horse.”

But what if I want to save the day?

Jamie gathers up her bag and swings it over her shoulder. “Was the bodyguard thing what you wanted to say? That the reason I had to come all the way over here on a school night?”

“I…guess so.”

“Cool. Thanks for the crab cakes. I got homework now,” she says, heading for the front door.

“Do you want to stay and do homework together?”

“Nope. See you 'round, friend-o.”

The door opens with a creak and shuts with a bang.

Before Mom has a chance to fly in and get all in my face, I take my homework upstairs and lie on my bed underneath my blue ceiling.
Oh, Dad,
I think to the infinite nothingness beyond our roof.
That did not go as well as I hoped.
And then I wonder, did Dad have anything to do with that?

I wish I knew what his answer might be. It dawns on me I would give anything to have five minutes with him. Just five minutes. To see his face. Hear his voice. Ask him all the questions I ask the air because all I want is to know him.

But I can't. And I never will. So I try to keep moving, keep dealing with stuff and things. Fill my head up, ignore the void. Forget what I'll never have. I take out my stack of five thick books with one hand and drop them on the bed. Homework. Time to do just that.

Another day of epic bullshit; signed, sealed, and delivered. What fun I had pretending people weren't laughing under their breath as I hobbled by. How delightful it was trying to get up the nerve to ask Ethan and Bryce to confirm that they were only kidding, right? They're not really going after Jamie? And oh! How proud I was of myself when I chickened out every time.

I didn't eat lunch today. I didn't know where I would sit, didn't know who would have me. What if the entire school has secretly hated me this whole time and I never knew? I didn't feel like finding out.

This was supposed to be my year, dammit.

I shuffle over to the bed in my room. My pillow waits for me and I smother my face with it and yell. Not loud, but enough. I take the pillow off my face and stare at the blue, blue, blue ceiling above. When I was in the second grade, I wanted to paint it sky blue because that's where my dad was. Up in the clouds.

Hey, Dad.

It's me. I know it's been awhile.

If you're in heaven, you're really tall now, like miles high, so here's a joke I get all the time: How's the weather up there?

If you thought that was funny, ha-ha, me too! I love it when people say that to me, it never gets old! If you didn't, I don't like that joke either. It drives me insane hearing it over and over, right? Except I don't know your thoughts on the matter. I wish I did. I wish I knew what made you laugh, because even though everyone tells me you were a funny guy, that could mean anything. I really don't know what your sense of humor was like.

I want to.

I wish you'd talk to me and help me out, like you do for Mom. She misses you. I miss you too, in case you didn't think I did, because I do. I just pretend I don't sometimes. Like when I shrug off seeing other kids' dads pick them up after school and stuff. It's easier that way, but it doesn't make me miss you any less.

I'm hoping you can help me out, just for a second.

I'm thinking if I was dead inside and soulless, it'd be a really handy way to get through high school. You've seen JP—you know what a dick he is. And I'm stuck because he has the entire school on lockdown. He put me on the outs and that's it for me; I'm done.

So please make me horrible. But not like with Jamie how we used to be horrible, and how we had the greatest days of my life together. I mean really authentically awful, so if I can't be with her, I can at least survive the rest of high school as a miserable stone-faced curmudgeon.

P.S. Please make me stop growing.

And make me six inches shorter.

And a hundred pounds lighter.

And have no back hair.

Thank you.

Bye, Dad.

I miss you every day.

I close the door on my letter to a dead man and add an addendum to the universe: please, someway, somehow, take away my feelings for Jamie.

That has to go in the postscript, because I don't want my dad to know how bad it is. All I want more than anything is a sign from above. Since I don't know what he thinks—what he thought—about any of this stuff, I'm worried all I have is his disapproval. I mean, what if I like Jamie and Dad doesn't? I'll never get that sign. He'll never talk to me.

As if the thought of my dad never talking to me weren't scary enough, I'm worried my clock is ticking too. If my candle is set to go out at the age of twenty-six, just like his, then I kinda want Dad up in heaven to be waiting for me with open arms.

But this connection I have with Jamie won't go away. As soon as the front door shut last night, I knew I was sunk. It's a very strange and uncomfortable feeling because I don't know which equation will solve the problem.

I have these crazy thoughts where I reach my hands into my own chest, through the skin and muscle and past the sternum, and grip my feelings for her. It's like dipping my hands into a barrel full of warm rice, pressing from all sides. Soothing and awesome. I take it, gather up all these scattered grains, each one a different atom of her, and pull them from my heart and hold them. Her wit, her laughter, her jokes. How she surprises me, how I want to hear what she has to say. How I want to tell her things.

They're too wonderful to throw away in the Dumpster, but I'm terrified to put them back.

I can't stop thinking about Jamie. In an aching, need-to-be-with-her way. But if I've learned anything from missing my dad, it's that I'm really good at cramming all this stuff away in a drawer for later.

Or never.

There's a knock at my door, and I slam that drawer shut. Mom hasn't come here to talk to me forever. If there's ever a time for one of her cheesy “You're superduper” pep talks, it's now. I've been missing them, but I'll never tell her that. “Hi, Mom,” I call out.

The door opens and I sink. It's JP. “What the fuck are you doing here?” I tear over to him, ready to rip him in half like a phone book before he gets the chance to say it's taco night. Because he's always here for taco night. “Get the hell out, JP, or I'm going to finally do to you what I couldn't in the cafeteria.”

He grabs on to the doorjamb, as if that will stop me. “Go ahead, you frigging animal, I'm not here for you anyway. I'm here for me.”

I snort and it's bitter.

“What does that mean?”

“Of course you're here for you,” I say. “Since when isn't it all about The Amazing JP?”

“Oh my god, you're so up your own ass.”

“Are you kidding? You lit me on fire and told the whole school to pour gasoline. You think I'm going to let that slide? I should tear you apart right now, starting with your face.”

“Okay, hold up for two reasons. One, I'm helping you guys. You two need my approval so everyone else gets the deal. And two, you're like the biggest fucking baby I've ever met.”

“Your approval? I'm the baby? What the shit, JP,” I say. He's too busy with his perfect body and his perfect hair and his perfect girlfriend parade to even guess what it's like being me. “Why are you here?” To torture me? To rub it in?

“Because I can't take it anymore and I need to know why you never give a shit about my mom.”

My stomach loosens. “I…”

Because it makes me terribly, horribly uncomfortable.

“You act like it's this nothing forever, always leaving, always changing the subject, and then when I'm all trying to be like, ‘Yay, Dylan,' you shove my mom in my face? Who does that?”

I stand there.

Hop once to check my balance.

“Do you know how cold the tree house is? Don't you know I'd give anything to be able to sleep in my own bed and know everything's going to be okay when I wake up? That maybe she'll be downstairs making breakfast for once? And not because she feels guilty and orders takeout, but like real food because she wants to feed me. Because I'm her kid and that's what moms do,” he says, shaking his head when I say nothing. “Why'd you have to go there?”

“I thought you were here for taco night.”

JP nearly slams his forehead on the door. “Are you serious? You and your mom are the only two people in the world I trust with this, and you turn into, like, a pile of bricks whenever I bring it up.”

“What do you want from me?” I say. “You're coming over and making me feel like shit and digging up all this business with your mom and whatever, and never not once did you say sorry for embarrassing me at lunch.”

“You shouldn't be embarrassed for liking Jamie. She's cool.”

“Get off it. You know what you did.”

“Maybe.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

We both fold our arms at the same time and that's weird, so we both throw them down and then that's weird, so I hunch into Minotaur mode and he head-kicks his perfect hair out of his eyes.

“I dumped Bailey,” he says.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Just saying. We used to talk about this kind of stuff.”

“You talked. I never had anything to contribute.”

“Well, now you have Jamie.”

“No, I don't.”

“You can get her back. You guys were mad happy together,” he says. “I could tell.”

“Would you shut up already?”

“I'll make you a deal,” he says.

“Super fuck your deal.”

“We need each other. You and I. How about I make it the best thing—the official best thing ever—for you and Jamie to be together, so no one at school gives you grief. I'm talking social media hashtag campaigns and shit. Hashtag DylanLuvsJamie4evs. Like, getting the entire student body cheering when the five o'clock news team comes and films you two all dressed up at the dance.”

I ponder the notion.

“You know I can.”

I can't disagree. He has that intangible thing that makes people get in line.

“And all you have to do, like seriously the only thing, is get Adam Michaels for me.”

“That's what this is about? You didn't get your frigging money?” I blow, honest to god ready to throw him into next week. “It was never about your mom, was it? You've always used it to get me to get the money because you know I can't deal. Get the fuck out of my house.”

“Okay-okay-okay, don't hurt me.” He zips out of reach and down the stairs.

I scramble for my cane. Plummeting down the stairs, I can hear my mom and JP muttering and laughing. Everyone cheered for Jack after he stole all the giant's stuff and ran back down a beanstalk. No one cares that maybe the giant was trying to get away from little shitstains like Jack.

I hit the first floor and hobble over to them. “I want him gone,” I say.

“Dylan?” Mom cries out. “What are you saying? What happened?”

JP stuffs his arms into his coat. Of course it looks good on him. “No worries,” he says. “I was just leaving.”

My mom rises to stop him. “Wait, what's going on with you two?”

JP silences her with a look.

“Sorry,” she says.

“Don't apologize to him,” I say, ready to drop-kick him outside.

JP speeds fast out of the kitchen into the darkness of the hallway, protecting his neck the whole time. “I'm going, I'm going.”

“Get out.” I slam the door in his face.

“Dylan!” Mom charges toward me. “How dare you chase him away like that!”

“News flash, Mom—JP is a piece of human garbage.”

“He was scared of you. Didn't you see how he was cowering? He thought you were going to hurt him. What's wrong with you?” She hugs herself instead of me. “I know you two are having a rough patch. And that's normal. All friendships encounter some rocky times here and there. As long as you guys have open communication, you'll be fine.”

I want to scream, but I don't. My pillow's all the way upstairs. “Mom, he's using you just like he uses everyone else.”

“He is not. I swear, Dylan, you are so selfish, it's infuriating. He comes here for a little piece of comfort and security—he's a very sensitive young man.”

“He's a manipulative asshole!”

“His mother is a full-blown alcoholic. Where is your compassion?”

“Mom…”

“I'm serious, Dylan, what is up with you these days? Turning your back on your lifelong friend? You two never even play video games anymore.” She pauses. “You know, I blame Jamie.”

“What?”

“I do! Ever since you met her, you're destructive, you're moody, you insult your father's memory, I don't know what to do with you anymore.” She walks back into the kitchen and flings dirty dishes into the dishwasher. “And I know it's Jamie because her poor mother told me the same thing. She's bending over backward for her son, and then once he declares he's a she, her new ‘daughter' treats her worse than dirt. Jamie's a bad influence on you.”

“What the hell are you talking about? I don't treat you bad.”

Mom wraps her fingers together. “We used to be so close, Dylan.”

“We still are.”

“Do you even want me around anymore?”

“Of course I do. Is this why you can't get enough of JP? Because he's a needy prick and I'm not?”

“Enough! That's Jamie talking; I can hear it.”

I take a breath and hold it, letting it out slower than slug trails. “Mom. I need you in my life. I love you. Everything between you and me has nothing to do with Jamie or JP or anyone else.”

“But we've always looked after JP. You two used to call yourselves brothers.”

“Leave him alone!” I slam my hands on the counter.

Looming over her, I can almost see steam flying from my nostrils. Mom looks up at me with wide eyes. “I see.” She picks up her book, steps into her house shoes, and leaves me.

“Mom,” I say, hoping to coax her back. Now is the time, I want to say. Shake the Mom-Poms
™
and tell me how everything is going to be okay.

“Sleep off your anger, Dylan. Calm yourself. We'll talk about it again in the morning,” she says with a dull voice from the living room. The TV clicks on so she can double down on ignoring me with her trashy novel and blaring a hideous crime drama with raped-up little kids and murderers, murderers everywhere.

I catch my reflection in the window. My head hangs low. I touch the top of my scalp. My hair's growing back. Just like the rest of me. Growing, growing, always growing.

I disappear to the basement.

Down in the cool clamminess of the cement walls filled with clumps of pebbles and rocks, I hop across the lost chunks of broken glass still hiding in thin cracks on the floor and make my way over to the trains.

Tiny broken trees and tracks. If Dad was as big as me, it's strange to think he sank so much time into making something so small. I kneel down and come face to face with the tiny town. Flaps of grass and uneven terrain. Splayed wiring tangled in between bumps of fake moss. I nudge a few tracks into place with my fat finger. I smooth a raggedy row of shingles flat.