“Only one?”
“One, I promise. After that, you can decide if you want to keep seeing her.”
“Fine,” I say, resisting the urge to unbuckle my seat belt and roll out of the car. At least that’d buy me a few weeks in a hospital without having to meet with a therapist. Though Hannah’s case would probably get stronger if I did that.
“I’ll call her when we get home, okay? Maybe she’ll have an opening next week.”
“Great.”
“I just think it would help, maybe talk out the things that happened at home.”
“Yeah.” I stare out the window, carefully watching everything we pass by. I want to ask her if she went to some kind of therapy, but in my head that sounds like an insult.
“Did they ever get any better?” Hannah asks. And I can feel that knot in my stomach slowly crawling up my throat.
“They didn’t really change,” I tell her.
“I’m … I’m really sorry …” Hannah stares down at the wheel. “For leaving you like that. I just couldn’t stand it anymore, and when I found my chance, I took it.”
I glance over at her, the guilt on her face obvious. She left just after her graduation. We were supposed to go eat lunch, but Hannah never showed. And when we got home, her room was completely empty. Mom and Dad both tried to call her, but she wouldn’t answer her phone.
It took me almost a week to find the note hidden in our bathroom, the one with the name of her college and her cell phone number. Telling me to call her if I needed anything. I think it was supposed to be comforting, but really, it just made me mad. Because she’d left.
She’d left me with them, to fend for myself.
After that, Mom and Dad changed. I sort of became the punching bag for all of Dad’s issues. He didn’t actually hit me, but overnight, I essentially became an only child. The focus of anything and everything. If I did something wrong, it was blown way out of proportion. It was almost like they’d seen what’d happened with Hannah and were determined to make sure I didn’t turn out the same way. Except I don’t know how getting more frustrated with me over school and chores was supposed to change that.
“Hey, you okay?” She nudges me.
“Just thinking,” I say. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I should’ve … I just …”
I shrug. “Whatever.” I don’t want to have this conversation. Not right now.
And if I have the choice, not ever.
Sunday is a day of nothings. I sleep in way too late, not recognizing my room when I open my eyes.
“Breathe,” I tell myself out loud, and for a second I don’t recognize my own voice. My heart pounding in my chest. “Just breathe. This is Hannah’s house, you live with her now.” I will my hands to unclench from around my sheets, but I can feel the sweat in the small of my back. I don’t remember what my dream was about, but Hannah was there, and Mom. “Breathe.”
I spend most of the day in my room, sort of in this haze. I eventually try to draw something, anything, really, but any time I so much as pick up my pencil, it’s like my hand refuses to cooperate. After that, I try to watch TV with Thomas and Hannah, just doodling in the corners of the paper. Nothing too elaborate.
I waste the rest of the day chatting with Mariam for a bit, trying to catch them up with everything that’s happened this weekend, before lying down. It’s hard to believe that it’s almost been a week since that night. It feels so impossibly long ago. My alarm comes way too early Monday morning. For the first time in a while, I’ve managed to get a full night’s sleep and I can’t even enjoy it that much.
Then I remember my appointment with Dr. Taylor. Hannah took care of setting it up for me, but there was only one slot open, at noon today, so she is going to pick me up from school early and take me. I sit up with a groan and walk to the bathroom. Try as I might, there’s no avoiding my reflection while I wait for the water to warm. I eye the faint stubble that doesn’t belong. I still haven’t found the time or the energy to shave, even though I hate the way it makes me look. And then I notice the bags under my eyes, the way my hair falls over my forehead, and the scars my acne has left behind.
Such a contrast to the other nonbinary people I’ve seen online. Their smooth, hairless, acneless faces, their trimmed hair that always seems perfect. These things I could never be. Because no matter how hard I will it, my body isn’t how I want to see myself. Not that there’s anything wrong with those kinds of enby people, I just … it’s hard to describe. Bodies are fucking weird, especially when it feels like you don’t belong in your own. But it’s too late for things like puberty blockers, and surgery isn’t something I want.
Hell, even my name isn’t very “neutral.” It’s a boy’s name, even if there really isn’t such a thing. But changing it is long, and complicated, and I don’t even know what I’d change it to. I’m Ben; that’s just who I am.
I don’t know what I really want, but it isn’t this body. It’s almost like it knows, with the way it taunts me. It takes everything I have not to climb back into bed, even though I know Hannah won’t let me miss this appointment. “What is wrong with me?” I whisper.
I just need to make it through half a day. That’s it. Hannah’s going to pick me up before lunch and take me to the appointment. But even half a day feels like it will be too much. I breathe in and out. I can do this.
“I don’t think I can do this,” I whisper to myself.
“So where are you going during lunch?” Nathan leans over the counter, head tilted to the side like a puppy.
We’re sitting in Chemistry. Thomas finished the lesson early today, so I decided to get a jump on all the homework I’ve been given. It’s a lot to handle after just a few days, especially since I’ve apparently missed the deadline on a few things. I also have to play catch-up in a few classes. I’m pretty much good in Art and Calculus, and Thomas promised me he’d help me catch up in Chemistry. But I can already tell I’m going to need a tutor for English. I’ve never been good at the whole paper-writing thing anyway. Too many rules that are too hard to remember.
“What do you mean?” I rub at my eyes. All this stuff is starting to blend together. Dozens of signature lines and trying to figure out how much everything is going to cost me here. Or, I guess, cost Hannah.
“I mean, we have the same lunch period, but I haven’t seen you there once.” Nathan sticks up his hand.
“I go somewhere else,” I say, not really interested in this conversation.
But clearly he is. “Where?”
“Does it matter?” I sigh, shoving all the papers back into my bag, zipping it up with a little too much satisfaction. It hasn’t taken me long to figure out the quad is the “official-unofficial” smoking area. What they smoke varies between them all apparently, but they leave me alone and I leave them alone. It’s quickly becoming one of the best relationships I have at this school.
I did the same thing at Wayne, except there wasn’t a courtyard or anything like it, so I used the back entrance of the gym. The one no one really thought about. There, I could be alone. I never had to worry about someone finding me or bothering me or asking me what I was working on.