Then one day we sort of just stopped going. Guess it wasn’t fun for her anymore.
I stop walking, my heart twisting in my chest.
Nathan gestures to me. “And now it’s your turn.”
“Huh? Oh, are you from here?”
His mouth folds into a smile. “Nothing more interesting?”
I shrug.
“My family moved here the summer before I started middle school.”
“Where from?”
“Nuh-uh.” Nathan wiggles a finger back and forth. “I get a question.”
I wonder if there are any limits to the kinds of questions he’ll ask. “All right.”
“What do you like to draw?”
“Oh, um.” And suddenly everything I’ve ever drawn just vanishes from my brain.
Poof! Gone.
“Um, anything really, I guess.” I have a few characters I like to draw; landscapes are always fun to paint too, but I hardly get a chance to do that.
“Anything?” Nathan raises an eyebrow like that’s supposed to mean something. “Maybe I could take a look at your sketchbook one day?”
“Yeah …” I rub my arm. “Maybe.”
Definitely not going to happen. Not in a million years.
“Excellent! Now come on.” I feel Nathan’s hand on my elbow. “Let’s go to the art room, I have a feeling you’re going to freak!” He leads me outside and we walk along the breezeway to the front of the building. “Technically it’s its own building, they added it on a few years ago, and before that, it was where the drama room is now. Mrs. Liu is really cool too.”
“Yeah?”
“Definitely, there’s no way I should’ve passed last year. Even my stick figures are hideous. But she passed me anyway. Guess Mrs. Liu could tell I was trying at least.” Nathan stops at this outside door, propped open with a huge can of paint. “Oh, Mrs. Liu,” Nathan sings, tapping on the door.
There’s a loud crash somewhere near the back of the room. I try to rush to help, but Nathan hangs back, so I figure I should too.
“Oh, crap in a basket!” someone hisses, followed by a long groan and the sound of approaching footsteps. Mrs. Liu is a short Chinese American woman, with her hair tied into a messy knot and a pen tucked behind her ear. The apron she’s wearing is stained with paint splatters, and so is the white blouse underneath. At least it looks dried.
“Nathan!” She rushes toward us when she realizes who’s here, wrapping Nathan in a hug. “What are you doing here so early?”
“Showing the new guy around.” He hugs her back. “Ben, this is Mrs. Liu.”
“Nice to meet you.” I hold out my hand.
She shakes it so quickly that I’m pretty sure my arm’s going to pop right out of the socket. “It is so good to meet you too! How are you liking North Wake so far?”
“It’s fine,” I say.
“Well, I look forward to having you. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough kids for an Art 4 class this year, so you’ll pretty much be by yourself.”
“By myself?” I ask.
“At your level, you’ll pretty much have free rein, after I get to know you a little better, of course.” She beams. “But I’ll be teaching a freshman class in here. And—” She motions for Nathan and me to follow her through this small hallway. On the other side there’s another classroom. I can’t tell if this one is bigger since there aren’t any desks, but it feels that way. “You’ll be working back here.”
“Oh.” I take it all in. The walls are covered with paintings, cabinets left wide open, showing off tubes of paint and racks upon racks of canvases and easels. It’s all sort of marvelous. We probably had about half of this back in Goldsboro. “Wow.”
“Impressed?” I hear Nathan ask me.
“Yeah.” I nod slowly, taking it all in. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.
First days are weird, especially when you’re the new kid. Walking into class isn’t this super awkward moment where everyone goes silent and just stares me down. But I do catch a few strange looks, and the people sitting beside me do try to talk to me. But I guess they give up when they realize I’m not as interesting as I seem.
Thankfully none of my teachers make me introduce myself to the class. They just pretend like I’ve always been here.
When the bell for lunch rings in Chemistry, I hang back in Thomas’s classroom, heading in the opposite direction of the cafeteria once the hallways are clear. There’s this really nice quad area that sort of resembles an amphitheater at the back of the school. A crowd of kids is already huddled at one end, but no one tells me to get lost when I take a seat at the other side, and for the first time in a long time, I can draw in peace and quiet.
Out here I can breathe.
Not that I don’t appreciate everything he’s done, but Nathan can be a little … suffocating. In a good way. If there really is a good way to suffocate. He just seems so eager to do everything. And Thomas decided to seat me next to him in Chemistry. So every day I’ll be getting at least an hour-and-a-half dose of Nathan Allan.
I flip open the brand-new sketchbook, a gift from Mrs. Liu after I said I lost my last one.
It’s weird to think this one is totally empty. My previous drawings and doodles and notes all gone. Probably forever. I stare at the first empty page and try to think of what I can draw.
“I can pay you back, when I get a job, I mean,” I whisper to Hannah when the guy at the store goes into the back to get my new phone.
Hannah just rolls her eyes. “Don’t worry about it, br—” She stops herself short. “Ben. Can I call you bro? That’s not okay, right? I should find something else.”
On the message boards, I found many enby people asked their brothers and sisters to call them sib, short for “sibling.” I liked the idea myself but had never really played with the notion that someone might actually get to use it for me.
“Sib is good,” I say. “Instead of bro or whatever.”
“Sib. Got it. Well, sib, you don’t have to worry about paying me back, it’s fine.”
It feels good to have a phone again, even if I can’t help but feel slightly guilty. “Hey. I know what you can do to pay me back.” Hannah sort of looks at me funny when we get in the car.
Uh-oh.
“Just go to one meeting with Bridgette.”
“Bridgette?” I ask. I don’t remember any Bridgettes.
“Dr. Taylor. The psychiatrist I told you about?”
“You can have your phone back.” I pull the box out of the bag and hand it back to her.
“Ben, please.” She pulls the car out onto the street. “Just one meeting.”
I slouch down in the seat. “Hannah—”
“Just one. I really think she could help you.”
“Why?”
“Because this hasn’t exactly been the easiest time for you, and I think that talking it out with someone could help you.” She almost spouts all of this in a single breath. I’d be impressed if I wasn’t getting so annoyed. “Just one appointment,” she says again. “That’s all I’m asking.”