Phoenix (19 page)

shift in his self-perception. He felt whole—right—and settled

for the first time ever.

He knew why. Ethan saw him as nothing but male.

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lake’s high was brought down the next afternoon when

B he was walking to class. He hated that he’d decided to

where everyone seemed to know each other, because it

seemed Dominic’s breaking news had spread to the entire

school.

He really thought that the staring and the snickering

behind their hands would be left in high school, but these

college kids were, doing it, the laughing and mocking thing,

just like they did back home. Their beady-eyed stares

followed him as he walked, burning the words ‘freak’,

‘weirdo’ and even ‘tranny’ into his back and his mind.

Blake’s skin crawled as he walked past a tight knot of

guys, and he glanced furtively over his shoulder. Sure

enough, they were laughing at him. Dominic was right in

the middle of the knot and pointing at him, whispering

poison in their ears and disclosing his status without any

choice of his own.

God, that really pissed him off. That wasn’t his place, at

all.

“Hey!” one of them called at him, and Blake turned his

head, ignoring him quite effectively until the other man

followed him. “Yo, girl, I’m talkin’ to you!”

When that didn’t get Blake’s attention, Toby grabbed him

by his elbow and jerked him out of his stride. Blake whipped

around and glared hotly at him. “What?” he snapped, voice

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Phoenix

low with agitation. Oddly enough, though, he felt more

confident about this interaction than any previous ones.

“Ooh, is someone on her period?” Toby taunted both with

his voice and his dark green eyes, and Blake’s eyes

narrowed.

“Fuck you, no. I don’t
have
a period, thank you, because

despite what your little friend thinks, I’m a guy and guys

don’t
get
periods, so shut your fucking mouth before I shut it

for you,” Blake retorted, heat coursing through his words.

“Oh quit with the getup, we all saw you wearing a
bra
,”

Toby spat, crossing his arms over his chest and looking like

the most arrogant prick in the world. Which was
almost
true,

if Dominic didn’t already have that covered.

“It wasn’t a bra, fuckwit,” Blake said in as even a tone as

he possibly could. “It was a pre-surgery binder. I’m going to

have surgery to remove a tumor on my chest in a few weeks,

and I have to wear the damn thing until I get the procedure

for medical purposes. So you can fucking shove your

prejudice bullshit down Dominic’s throat, since I know

that’s where it came from.” It wasn’t
exactly
true, but these

fuckwits wouldn’t understand the meaning of the word

‘transgender.’

“Nice try, girl,” Dominic piped up from behind Toby, and

Blake rolled his eyes. “Then how do you explain your name

being Jillian on every single transcription in the office?”

“You know, it’s not nice to violate someone’s privacy,

Dominic. I doubt you’re actually supposed to be in those

records and if I tell someone about that, you could probably

get into a lot of trouble for that,” Blake said, crossing his

arms over his chest and tilting his head as Dominic merely

smirked at him. “You know, you’re after me so much, I

almost wonder if you want me. Too bad there isn’t a

snowball’s chance in hell of that happening.”

“Yeah fuckin’ right! I wouldn’t wanna be with a

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Joey James Hook

half-crazed dyke bitch like you anyway!” Dominic crowed,

but Blake had already turned on his heel and had begun to

walk.

“Methinks the lady doth protest too much. And by the

way, I’m
gay
so you can take the
dyke
thing back,” Blake

tossed over his shoulder with a dry chuckle and a smirk

before he turned back and kept walking. He felt a little better

about himself even if people kept staring at him, more in

awe than gawking now, though.

He finally reached his Personality Psych class and

collapsed into his seat with a heavy sigh, letting his head fall

against the desk. He felt rustling beside him and despite the

fact that he knew it was probably Ethan, he tensed up. He

lifted his head, furrowing his brows as someone other than

his boyfriend sat beside him.

Her name was Lola. She had long, flowing auburn brown

hair and makeup around her blue-green eyes was always

perfect, but her jaw line was always a bit too pronounced

and her brows were just a little too thick. She got just as

much shit as he did about being trans.

“Hey, Blake,” she said, her voice a low alto on a good day.

“How’s it going?”

“Hey, Lola,” Blake replied. His voice sounded exhausted

and he knew it. “Not going too well. The people at this

school are fucking psychotic.”

“Don’t I know it, honey,” she said with a low laugh,

brushing her hair off her shoulder. “I heard you’ve been

having a rough time of it lately.”

“Yeah, Dominic kinda has a vendetta against me and he

seems to think it’s funny to try and out me every chance he

gets,” Blake said with a sigh.

Lola was probably one of the few people who knew for

sure that he was indeed transgender. The reason for that was

because first semester they’d been partnered in a biology

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Phoenix

class and had gotten to talking. Afterward, Ethan had

convinced Blake to go to the college’s Gay Straight Alliance,

and she’d been there, and had come out to the whole

congregation. Blake had never had the balls to do that.

“Honey, he probably wants to get with you,” Lola said.

Blake always thought that she sounded somewhere between

a Southern belle and an African American woman who’d

smoked one too many packs of menthols.

“Most disgusting thought in the world,” Blake remarked

with a shudder, running his hand through his hair before

rubbing his eyes. “I’m thinking of going to the GSA and

seeing what they can do about this, because this is straight

up bullying.”

“I’ll see what I can do to help, Blake,” Lola said, heavy

palm resting on Blake’s shoulder before she stood. “I should

skedaddle, your boy’s coming in and I know how much he

loves sitting next to you.”

“Thanks. See ya, Lola,” Blake said, nodding at her and

looking to Ethan, who settled down beside him with a small

smile that lit his eyes. The class started not long after that,

and even as they listened to the teacher, their fingers were

laced together in a bracing knot of happiness and love.

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Joey James Hook

hat feeling of security waned over the next week or so as

T midterms started and more people picked on both him

and Ethan for what had happened. It kept getting worse no

matter what either of them said to try and diffuse anything.

He would think that midterms would distract people, but

apparently it made them focus more on gossip. He knew it

was hard on Ethan and he felt guilty as hell for bringing all

of this upon him.

After another particularly verbose standoff with Dominic,

Blake stepped into the classroom and sat beside Ethan. His

boyfriend was standing quietly and looked pale and

distracted. Those were two signs that something was

definitely wrong. “Hey, babe, you okay?”

“Yeah,” Ethan said quietly, sitting beside him and pulling

out his books. The word sounded automatic, though, and

that worried him.

“Are you sure?” Blake asked in the same soft, earnest

tone. He furrowed his brows when Ethan shook his head,

but that was when the teacher came in.

“I’ll talk to you about it later, babe. Okay?” Ethan said,

looking at Blake with a wan smile. Blake smiled cautiously

back at him and rested his palm on his boyfriend’s thigh

before turning his attention back to the teacher. If he wasn’t

mistaken, he felt Ethan’s muscles stiffen under his hand, and

he hated the guilt and worry that flooded him when he felt

it.

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Phoenix

He was putting Ethan through hell and he knew it.

* * * *

Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite as easy to be alone with Ethan

after class. They went back to Blake’s dorm, but he found

that Devon was there, and so was Riley. Riley was sprawled

out on Devon’s bed, and Devon was settled beside him on

the bed, barely able to fit but perfectly happy about being

where he was.

“You guys look about as happy as two people goin’ to the

morgue,” Riley said with one of his broad, dimpled smiles,

and normally Blake would have caved immediately, but

fuck if he wasn’t on edge right now.

“Shut up, Riley,” he said, his voice not unkind but hard

nonetheless as he threw down his messenger bag and leaned

against the bedframe. Riley stared at him with a mixture of

confusion and hurt for a moment before the expression was

effectively masked.

“What’s wrong?” Devon asked in a quick tone, and Blake

could tell that Riley was on his way to asking the same

question.

It dug at him, though, the asking. There was so much

wrong with the situation, and he could feel his T-levels

going crazy. He wasn’t going to be able to take the hormones

this week because of the surgery, and the thought fucking

sucked.

“Just the people at this fucking school are stupid, let’s

leave it at that,” Blake replied, sitting on the bed even

though he felt like he was on pins and needles. “Toby’s a

fucking idiot and Dominic’s a douche, that’s all I gotta say.”

“Agreed on both fronts,” Riley piped up, though his voice

was a bit reserved, and Blake felt bad about snapping at him.

“Sorry for snapping, Riley. It’s just been a rough day,”

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Joey James Hook

Blake said, and Riley just gave him a small smile and a shrug

that said ‘it’s all good’ without him even saying the words.

“I think I’m gonna go back to my dorm, I’ve got a lot of

studying to do for class tomorrow,” Ethan said in a soft

voice, lingering near the door.

“You want me to come with? I can help,” he offered, and

even as Ethan shot him a tight smile, he knew he had to go

with him even if he didn’t want to.

“Sure,” was his soft retort.

Blake stood and turned to the other couple. “See you guys

later,” he said, following Ethan out of the dorm. “Hey,

what’s up, baby?” he asked, gently putting his hand on the

small of Ethan’s back.

“Let’s go down to the courtyard and we can talk. I don’t

wanna be around anyone else right now,” Ethan said, his

voice sounding odd. His thoughts were obviously

somewhere else.

“Okay,” Blake said, letting Ethan lead them down to a

small, secluded area of the courtyard. He let Ethan settle in

the grass before he sunk down beside him. He reached out

and rested his hand on his knee, silently asking again. He

knew it got annoying sometimes when he kept asking and

asking.

“This is gonna sound weird and I’m not sure how to

explain it,” Ethan started, fiddling with a blade of grass and

pulling it out of the ground.

“I doubt it,” Blake said in a supportive tone, rubbing his

palm up Ethan’s back. “Come on, Ethan. You can tell me, it’s

okay.”

There was a spell of silence before Ethan let out a heavy

sigh and rubbed at his eyebrow with the heel of his palm.

“You know how you explain your dysphoria, like what you

see isn’t what you know is there? Sometimes, I feel like that

too, like…like with you. I’ve never seen you as anything but

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Phoenix

a guy. I can’t understand what they’re talking about. All this

bullying and bullshit’s really brought that to the surface,” he

explained. I don’t know how they see something different

than I do.”

Blake felt like someone had just punched him in the

stomach with a fist of ice. He’d never wanted Ethan to feel

the kind of dysphoria he felt whenever he looked at himself.

It was such an awful feeling and he couldn’t breathe around

the idea that he was inflicting it upon the man he loved

most. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking down at his fingers neatly