The song ended abruptly and I realized I was dizzy and a little nauseated. I squeezed Grant’s arm, smiled, and jerked my head toward the corner, trying to indicate that I needed a moment to breathe. He nodded, ran his strong fingers through his wild hair, and grinned.
Crushed by the crowd, I navigated to a back wall, leaning against it. As I took long, even breaths, trying to slow my racing heart, my eyes were drawn to a photo on the mantel, of a dozen young boys roughhousing on a log. One of them must have been our host, but the one on the far right was clearly Grant, and his arms were wrapped around a smaller, light-haired boy I found myself staring at. They both had sunburned cheeks and dripping-wet hair, their faces wide with huge, earnest smiles. I wondered who the other boy was. Did Grant have a brother I didn’t know about yet?
“Here she is!” Layla cried as she appeared before me, whirling through the crowd with ease. Chloe followed, hands in pockets and elbows out, the crowd parting for her.
“Thought we’d lost you,” Anna said, her hair messy from being jostled.
“I figured one of her admirers whisked her away,” Layla replied, raising her eyebrows suggestively.
I noticed Parker and Grant across the room, deep in conversation, and wondered what they were talking about. I realized I didn’t want to think about it, so I held up the photo instead. “Who is this?”
“Some kid Grant knew back in the day,” Layla replied. “They were pretty inseparable, I remember.”
“I recognize him—they went to my church,” Anna said. Her eyes looked pained. “Him and his dad came every Sunday. The mom stayed home. He always seemed really sad, but my parents wouldn’t let me talk to him. Bad influence.”
Layla lowered her voice. “I heard the kid was really sick. Like, terminal. That’s why they moved away.”
Parker broke in, grabbing the photo from my hand. “You talking about Tommy? Grant’s little gay boyfriend?” Two of his enormous buddies appeared behind him. Suddenly the space felt stifling. “I heard his mom went full psycho, killed the dad and little Tom-Tom with a shotgun, then turned it on herself, and their heads were so messed up the coroner had to use their teeth to identify ’em.”
Chloe narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. Anna looked down at her feet.
“Park,” Grant said, joining the circle. Parker turned around. Grant’s hands were in his pockets, his jaw set in a hard line. “Don’t say shit like that, okay?”
Parker scowled and stood up straight, squaring his shoulders so he took up as much space as possible. His gaze drifted from Layla to Chloe, who were both staring straight ahead. Finally, he turned to look at me, a snide smile in his eyes.
“Yo, Grant,” he said. “The new girl know you’ve got a vagina?”
I flinched as if I’d been struck. I wondered why people still made comments like that. I wondered when I’d stop caring. I took a step back and away.
But neither of them was looking at me. Grant just shook his head. “Have another drink, bud.”
“Five bucks says she won’t compare to your ex-boyfriend,” Parker spat. He brushed his shoulder and headed for the keg, body-checking Grant on the way. His minions followed. Grant stayed put, not saying a word.
Someone turned the music back up, and soon the normal party sounds returned. Around me, people went back to talking and laughing and flirting and dancing. But I couldn’t be one of them anymore. I’d been crazy to think I ever could. When no one was looking, I slipped through the crowd and out the back door.
ELEVEN YEARS AGO
I wrote a good story at school. Mrs. Upton told me my parents needed to see this story and to take it home right now, tonight. The story was for an assignment where we were supposed to imagine what we would be like when we were grown up, which was something I had thought about a lot.
In the story I found a car in my room like the one from The Phantom Tollbooth except purple instead of red because purple was my favorite color and also it was a time machine instead of a machine to go to magical worlds. I got in the car and turned the key and drove and I arrived in the future! And in the future I was in a science lab and there was a very tall and pretty lady there with long hair who was busy working on her computer. She was wearing a lab coat but it was also a very pretty dress in a way that was hard to explain, so I drew a picture. The lady got up and hugged me and said that she was me, grown-up! She showed me how she drank a special medicine so that when she grew up she became a woman instead of a man. She told me that the way I felt like a girl inside of me was a true thing, and was not bad or wrong. Then I got in my time machine and came home.
I read the story again while I waited. The line for car pickups was very long, and normally I did not care because I was very patient, a real cool customer Dad said, but I wanted to show my story to my parents and that made waiting hard. I just knew Dad would be so happy when he found out he had a daughter and not a son, but maybe he would also feel silly that he and Mom made such a silly mistake? When he tried to do boy things with me he always frowned and stopped, so I did not think he wanted a son really, which was fine because I hated sports.
The pickup lady in the orange vest called my name and pointed to our brown station wagon three lanes back. I started to run, but the lady in the orange vest told me to slow down, which was a rule for my safety. I walked slowly between the other cars, but really I was wondering what kinds of clothes Mom and Dad would get me now. Hopefully some skirts since the weather was hot and jeans were so bad, the worst! I climbed into my booster seat and buckled myself in. Dad was driving the car, and Mom was not in the car, which was normal. They did not like riding in the car together because it made them full of stress and then they yelled, which I did not like.