Beast (9 page)

But it's pretty cool when it's your song. I smile and she laughs with me. “I like you,” I tell her.

“I like you too,” she says. “You are a wonderfully horrible boy.”

She brings the camera down and our noses slowly creep closer.

The timer on her phone rings, splitting the air between us like a barb. The day I wished would last forever is done. I hobble and huff back to my chair. Jamie takes the handles and pushes me.

I let her.

I'm skeptical about luck.

Nothing dramatic, just real used to the fact that if I go to grab a lucky rabbit's foot, the bunny will whip around and bite me. When I was a kid and things would go south, I'd ask my dad to please help me out.
Please influence that kid to invite me to his birthday party, please give me all the right words before I try talking to that girl. Please let me know you can hear me.

If anything remotely good happens, it's my dad pulling a few sky strings from above, because luck and I are not on speaking terms.

It doesn't apply to school. As long as I do the work and study hard, my academic achievement is never touched by the chill finger of doom. It's everything else that occasionally goes to shit. Whenever things start to go my way, I sit back and wait for a kick in the teeth.

Oh, I just get an actual shirt that fits, like with buttons and everything? Just kidding. The armpit rips open as I reach for a jar on the high shelf. Maybe that one happy day when I found twenty bucks on the street? Oh man, I immediately started planning all the food I was going to buy with that thing. I'm talking double cheeseburgers, extra bacon, and several bags of Doritos to wash it down. All the stuff my mom hates me eating. But wait! Some ranting woman charged up and started hollering that I stole it from her. There's no way that was true, since she was at least twenty paces behind me when I found it, but that lady threw such a fit, people actually came out of their coffee shops to gawk, so I just gave it to her. When you look like the opposite of innocence, no wide eyes or cherubic cheek in sight, you end up sighing and shrugging a lot.

So when I asked Jamie if she wanted to meet up at Peninsula Park in the rose garden, I had my doubts things would continue being great. Just because.

I flag a bus and take a long, slow trip there because she said she would come. Doesn't matter how happy she sounded when I called; I'm still worried. Maybe this will be the day when she gives me the friendly pat on the head and says, “Stop dreaming.”

But that's it right there. I can't stop dreaming.

In my mind's eye we spend the day leisurely drifting in and out of straight rows exploding with flowers that surround the wide, circular fountain. Drops of water sparkle in the sunlight. Roses burst from their bushes in all colors and sizes. Tiny little white ones woven in between big lusty red ones. Thousands and thousands of roses blooming as one. Her feet treading across the weathered brick path, my wheels pushing along beside her. Perhaps we'll lean in to smell the same rose at the same time, and my lips will brush her cheek. The sun will beam down with golden rays of warmth, surging through our very beings and carrying us forward with the endless time of days.

Oh my god, shut up.

I dent the window of the bus with my head. Everything outside is bleak. Gray with dripping clouds. A small touch of hope thinks the sun will shine over the park, just for us, but an increasingly large feeling of dread rises up—it's the perfect backdrop for Jamie to sign off and go her way.

The bus slows to a stop. I'm right outside the park. There's a sidewalk and a ramp on either side of the rose garden, so that's nice. I'm even on time. Still, the dread grows. I want to cancel. Maybe stay on the bus and keep going.

Because what if Jamie is just humoring me?

The bus kneels and I get off. My stomach straightens out. I'm the one who called her, I remind myself. I want to see Jamie because maybe this is the one day my shirt won't burst apart. My nerves shake with each push to our meeting place by the little bandstand. I don't see her. I raced to get here as soon as the bell rang and I'm still covered in school. All loaded up with my book bag and wearing my uniform. I pause to take off the tie. I don't want it to seem like I'm trying too hard.

When I get to the bandstand, Jamie's not there. I check my phone for the time. I'm early and no messages from her. Maybe she's somewhere else taking pictures. A massive meadow, brown and dusty from last summer's relentless sun, lies surrounded by tall pine trees screaming up into the sky. She's not taking pictures of the grass or the trees, so instead I look for what might be rusty or cracked and check to see if she's crouched before it, working to find beauty in the forgotten and the grotesque.

“Boo!” Jamie's breath hits my ear like a shot.

“You scared the crap out of me!” I jump and land with a big, dumb smile on my face.

She hops in front of me with a little kick of her heel. “I wanted to surprise you.” Some of her hair got trapped in her lip gloss and she pulls it free. One tug with her finger and the tendril flies back and blends with the rest of her hair, which is long and smooth today. I think I smell perfume, but it could be the flowers.

“That was the best surprise all week,” I say. “Want to see the roses?”

“The roses? Uh…” Jamie makes a face. “I'm afraid I have bad news for you.”

Here it comes.

“Well, I mean, it was kind of inevitable, wasn't it?” she says.

“I know, I know.” Come on, let's rip the Band-Aid off already.

Jamie points toward the rose garden below the bandstand. “They're dead. It happens.”

“Wait, what's dead?”

“The roses? As in, there aren't any to see today?” she says in concerned tones. “Are you okay? You look a little off.”

I actually look at the rows of empty bushes. They're all pruned. Some are wrapped in burlap. Dreams dashed. “What happened to the flowers?”

“It's fall. They go dormant. Old ladies in funny hats come in with pruning shears and put them to bed.” Jamie takes a picture. “It's still a beautiful day, though.”

“Is it?” It's all cloudy and the roses are dead.

“Do you want it to be an awesome day, or would you rather mope all over it? Let me know so I can plan accordingly. Go get a poncho or something,” she says, not exactly hiding the sarcasm.

As her disappointment grows with her folded arms, my apprehension fades. Jamie's not telling me the next stop is Friendtopia. She's with me in a boring park on a shitty day with nothing to do but stare at a bunch of dried-up bushes. Meaning she actually wants to be here. With me. I want to give the world a high five.

Bravery surges through me like antidote after a snakebite.

“I'm glad you came,” I say.

“Me too. It's good to see you.”

Last time we hung out in a park, it ended with a kiss. I think we should begin with one today because I want it to be everything it should've been last week: stunningly perfect.

I stand next to her, using the bandstand for balance, and do what the violins tell me to do. The park melts away into a soundstage. It's our big close-up in a movie. Makeup artists fuss over Jamie, using all the crimson in their paint boxes for her lips. Fangirls are going to break Tumblr with GIFs of us kissing with Jamie swept into my arms like they're the last refuge on earth and me powerfully embracing her against the vicious winds of a ravaged tundra. Or jungle or postapocalyptic landscape or something more exciting than Portland on a cloudy day.

We're on set and as she turns toward me, the wind machines gently pick up, her face softly lit and glowing. The director helps me out and says, Lean in, little bit more…slower. Still slower. Now cup her cheek with the palm of your hand. Brush her skin lightly with your thumb, not too much, but just enough. Good, now—

Jamie grabs my hand and pulls it down. “What are you doing?”

I blink. The boom mikes and bounce lighting disappear.

The park sits around us, as dappled with midfall depression as ever.

“I was going to kiss you,” I say, deflated she smacked it down.

“I got that. And maybe you're going to think I'm a complete prude, but please don't do that.” Jamie edges back a touch and hugs herself. “I got to the park and it was like your brain evaporated and then, boom, all of a sudden you're all up in my face and I just…I don't know.”

I lower down into my chair.

“Don't be mad,” she says. “Can I tell you something?”

“Anything.”

“I'm terrified.”

“You are? Of what? Me?”

“No! It's just I've never done this before. The whole be-together-with-another-person thing.”

“No way.”

She laughs. “Why is that such a surprise?”

“Because I figured you've already had a whole ton of boyfriends, been going out with different guys since like the sixth grade or something.”

“Yeah? Not so much.”

“I don't mean it in a bad way. More like, how can someone like you be available?”

“Someone…like…me…,” Jamie says with painful slowness. Her eyes narrow.

“Funny! Smart! Pretty!” I say because she's looking at me with a bit of a death stare.

“Oh.” She smiles. I love it when she smiles. Jamie's grin covers her head to toe.

“You should've been snapped up a long time ago,” I say. “I mean, it's obvious why I haven't been. You're a different story.”

“But you're smart and funny too.”

“You forgot pretty.”

She looks away. She knows it. “You're a guy; you don't have to be pretty,” she says. “But I've had crushes. There've been boys I've liked. I've just been too afraid to make a move. Actually, scratch that. I tried once. It did not go well.” Jamie lays a hand against her face. Like she's hiding a freckle or something.

“His loss.”

“Maybe I'm being too hard on you.”

“If you don't want to kiss, then we shouldn't.” I fiddle with the armrest. “I figured that since we almost, you know…I guess I want too much.”

“And what's that?”

To love someone else. To be loved.

That missing spark that I've never had before. I wanted to be her movie star, and now I'm feeling like the guy sweeping up popcorn and scraping old gum and boogers off the seats.

Jamie holds out her hand. I take it. Our palms meet. Her knuckles skim over mine as our fingers wrap together. “Let's walk,” she says.

We go slow enough that I can push with only one hand at a time and not go crooked. When we come to the ramp, I let go and grip the wheels as I use my left foot as a brake, skidding against the brick incline. At the bottom, I look at her and she looks at me.

Our hands snap back together. Hers is still warm.

“This is good,” she says.

I nod in agreement.

“Maybe this can be us for now,” she says.

“Okay.” I frown. If it were up to me, we'd be full-on embarrassing the bandstand because I really want to kiss her. A lot. I sneak a look at Jamie. Her gaze studies the four trees ahead set up like a square, like she's deciding which corner to stand on. It dawns on me, I will stand with her wherever she chooses. And maybe standing together for a little while is okay.

“I hope you don't mind if I tell you that I like you, Dylan,” she says carefully.

I could pop. “Of course not! Why would I? I like you too.”

“Yeah?” She sounds delighted. Almost surprised. I wish she weren't. I'm the one who needs to hang what she just said on a wall in a gilded frame with a commemorative plaque and everything. “I hope you don't think I'm a total dork if we go slow.”

If it means more of our nightly phone calls that've become a welcome habit before bed and more texts in between classes at school, then I'm all for it. I don't want her to be terrified, not by me or anyone else. I can wait. She is worth it all. “Dork is the absolute last thing that comes to mind. I'm too busy thinking how lucky I am.” I squeeze her hand and she squeezes back.

We stare at row after row of sleeping roses. They will bloom when they're ready.

I am flying high and with good reason. My doctor switched me out from a wheelchair to crutches, and while I'll miss being low enough to hear what everyone is saying, moving around is a heck of a lot easier. While that's awesome, the biggest news is the best news of all. I went in for a checkup after the operation, and Dr. Jensen took a look at my chart and said the most magic words I've ever heard in my life. “I'd like to refer you to an endocrinologist and get you tested for acromegaly.”

Acromegaly. Gigantism. Meaning there might actually be a reason why I'm so big, meaning there might actually be a way to stop it. True, my mom is already freaking out because there's a possibility for brain surgery to noodle with my pituitary gland in case there's a tumor on it or something, but I'm like, Sign me up. Here's a butter knife; go get that benign beauty. My dad was filled to the brim with tumors like the ultimate cancer piñata, so who knows if he had acromegaly too? Maybe that was the start, like a domino effect or something.

It's making me feel like I have a chance to nip it all in the bud. The only thing that's bumming me out is I have to wait a million years for my appointment. I had no idea endocrinologists got so backlogged.

Another day ends and another bell rings. School lets out, and JP and I leave at the same time, surrounded by the same guys who generally follow us around.

JP's girlfriend of the week stops by. Bailey is like all the others. She's nice, with long hair, and instantly all smiles once she meets up with him. Which for Bailey is weird. Every class I've ever had with her, and we share plenty, she's like her very own TED Talk. Lots of thoughts about what happens if you can't break through a cellular wall, and how hard it would be to trawl the giant plastic patch in the Pacific Ocean and recycle it. What if? What then? How come? Bailey can brainstorm forever. Under JP's arm, she smiles in proud silence. He's hers. For now.

“Oh man, I almost stepped on that dead banana slug,” he says. “Nasty.”

“Ew…,” Bailey moans.

On the sidewalk, a dried-up slug from last night's rain shower lies shriveled up from the surprise afternoon sunshine. Confused silvery trails twist all over the pavement until they come to a stop under the dead snail without a shell. JP nudges it with his toe, mushing its corpse. “Why do they even bother?”

“Rain forces them out,” I say. “Not his fault the sun got him.”

JP scrapes his foot on a low brick wall. “Now there's gunk stuck on the bottom of my shoe. He should've saved time and died at home.”

“That's nature. You can't expect something that wants to live to give up just because you think it's gross.”

“Slugs can be cool sometimes,” Bailey says. “They have retractable eyes! And—”

JP snorts. “Who cares? It's not a bug you can use and actually get something out of, like a bee or Venus flytrap or whatever. If that slug had accepted its fate and died like it was supposed to, then it wouldn't have ended up on my shoe.”

“All it wanted was to live a happy life. You can't blame someone for trying,” I say.

“Shoe,” JP reiterates.

“But you were the one who stepped on it,” I say.

“Whatever.” He stops and stares past my shoulder. “Oh my god, who is this?”

I pivot. “Jamie!”

“Hi!” she calls back. Jamie coasts down into our school's drop-off zone on a shiny pink bicycle, scarf billowing behind her, hair flying. Like she's descending from on high and gracing us with her presence. I feel warm all over.

She slows to a stop and dismounts, flinging the kickstand with her toe. “Hope you don't mind—I wanted to show off my new wheels.”

“They're great,” I say.

There are no games with us, and I hitch my way over to her. I make a motion that I'm headed for her cheek and she leans forward, meeting me with a smile. I bend down and give her a kiss right on the apple. “Congrats on the new crutches,” she says.

“I'm free!” I say before introducing her. “JP, this is Jamie. The girl I was telling you about.” Once I had proof, I showed him the text where she couldn't decide what jammies to wear to bed, the pink or the purple. It was cute and goddamn sexy.

JP's mouth is open. He eyes her up and down, lingering on her face, her legs, her hair. That's right, JP, Jamie's frigging beautiful and she's all mine. “Hey,” he finally says.

Jamie blinks once she notices him, and I move closer to her. You're here for me, I want to say. Not him. I've seen that melted-ice-cream face on girls once they meet JP. If I see it on Jamie's face, I might die. “Tell us about your bike,” I say.

She snaps back to me with her bright white smile. “My dad got it for me last night because he wants me to stop riding the bus. So cute, right?” Pretty cute, indeed. “It's got a basket and tassels on the handlebars and everything.”

“It's adorable,” Bailey agrees.

“Thanks.” Jamie grins at her. “Do you like it?” she asks JP, and I'm pissed. Why the heck does she care what he thinks?

“I don't know much about bikes,” he says.

“Oh.” Jamie shifts from one foot to the other.

“It's perfect,” I tell her, giving JP the cue to take off.

“This has been enlightening.” He guides Bailey with him and stares directly at me. “We'll catch up later. Like, a lot of catching up later.”

I wave. Thanks, man.

“Have a great time, you guys…shit. I mean, you two?” He stumbles backward, turning red. “I mean…Sorry, you know what I mean. Sorry. Bye.”

“Huh?” I squint.

“It's all good!” JP gives me the thumbs-up. “This is Portland. Keep it weird—live the dream. Let's all go play putt-putt sometime.” Bailey giggles and they flee the other way, leaving me and Jamie on the sidewalk.

I shift my crutches and look at her. “I have no idea what that was all about.”

Jamie tugs down her skirt. “He was calling me out.”

“I like calling you.” I brush my finger against her chin.

“Points.” She smiles.

We've never said, out loud or otherwise, that we're a for-real duo now. I've been waiting for the perfect time to casually drop it when I'm buying her a cup of coffee or something: And my girlfriend would like…

Being with her is like bringing my favorite brain jumping jacks to life. I never know what she's going to say or what we're going to talk about, but I love the challenge. I love the thrill. When we're official, I will tell her just that. I will be that dork who buys her flowers just because it's Tuesday. Although I might have to get a job first.

Jamie numbly fiddles with the tassels.

“You okay?” I ask her.

“Yeah,” she says, but I'm not convinced.

“What's wrong?” I take her hand in mine.

Jamie shakes her head. “Sometimes people say weird things when they see I'm trans.”

I drop her hand. “What?”

She looks pissed and leans in to say it again. “That I'm trans.”

“Transponding?”

“Uh, do I look like a radio?”

“Okay. Trans what, then?”

Jamie rolls her eyes. “Because I'm transgender? Hello?”

I'm not hearing this right.

“Dylan?”

“You're joking—this is a joke,” I say. She stares at me, eyes confused and wide. “Did JP put you up to this?”

“What? No! Why would you think…Dylan, you knew I was transgender. I said so your first day in group.”

The air inside my ears starts hissing.

“You said it was fine, remember? The day we met?”

I am pretty frigging sure I would remember that. I rack my memory, but nothing about trans anything comes up. We had five good things, I shared her five good things with the group and…I zoned out. Emily elbowed me and the girls were all glaring at me. I had to say something. Holy shit, I did say it was cool. I can't breathe. This whole time. Jamie's been transgender this whole time.

All my blood slides into my ankles. My pulse is about to explode through my cast. I need to sit down. So dizzy. My stomach fractures and slides like all the melting glaciers on earth into the ocean, raising my internal sea level and drowning me from the inside out.

Wobbling over to the wall, I ease onto it. She's still there. Jamie leaves her bike on the bike rack and stands in front of me. Everything I've ever known from all my mom's nightly detective shows flashes through my mind. Those trans ladies on TV are always prostitutes and drug addicts, and they always get murdered and end up in Dumpsters, and the killers always say they were duped and had no choice….

“Dylan?”

Her face. The angles. No, wait.

His face. I see it.

His knobby knees in a skirt. His big feet in a pair of girls' boots. His eyes welling up with tears.

Oh god, this is happening in front of my school. Everyone knows me here. All the teachers that I need to give me A's, straight A's and perfect report cards—they work here. They can't see this. I can't let anyone know. What if the Rhodes committee finds out about this? They'd never accept such a fucking idiot.

I get my crutches and go as fast as I can down the sidewalk for home, hanging my head so no one can see that yes, I do know that boy.

“Dylan, wait! You knew; I told you.” She jumps in front of me and takes my arm. We freeze on the spot, light cold rain sprinkling down the back of my shirt and soaking my neck. “You said it was cool. You looked me right in the eyes and smiled and said it was cool.”

If there were something to say, I would say it, but everything inside me feels like bone shards pushing through the surface. Unsorted, wrong. For the first time, looking at Jamie hurts.

She drops her hands and grips her fingers so tight they turn dead white. “Please tell me you were listening to me, please. I need to know you heard me that day.”

Slowly, so slowly, my crutches start to move again. I'm two sidewalk squares away from her, five squares, six….

“Then we're over, Dylan,” Jamie says from behind me.

Her voice is so cold, I turn around.

“Done,” she says, lips clenched. “I feel like everything we ever had was fake.”

And it's like a switch flicks and I'm all confused, because what the hell is happening?

“This was a huge mistake,” she says. “I thought I was giving you points for being decent, when I was really giving you idiot points the whole time.” She lays her fist to her head. “Or no, I didn't give them to you. I gave them to myself for thinking we were real. God, I feel so stupid. Whatever, we're done.”

“What?”

“Dylan, I'm dumping you!”

I'm back in front of her in no time. “You can't dump me. We were never going out.”

“Get away from me.” She edges away in fear.

Just like that, I'm the monster again.

“We were never going out,” I say again, louder. Stronger. She can't do this; she can't win.

The tears in her eyes spill over. “I got lost in you,” she whispers. “And you were never there.”

She flies to her bike and gets on it, riding away faster and faster. “Jamie!” I shout. Because how fucking dare that kid think he can dump me when we were never a thing, and oh my god, I kissed a boy.

I'm left on the sidewalk, rainwater collecting on the tips of my ears and my nose and dripping off onto my stupid school jacket that pretends to make it seem like I belong somewhere. I wipe my nose, my face, my eyes, and I curse her out, Jamie and her bike disappearing into the afternoon. She can't dump me. We were never a thing. We never made it official. Then, oh god, she was a boy this whole time. I squeeze my eyes shut as hard as I can.

When I open them, I see stars.

She was crying, which makes no sense. “Boys don't cry,” I mutter. The world grows dim and I shove off for home.