by TJ Klune
But we kept a certain distance. While we skirted the boundaries, we never crossed them. Jeremy knew how important Phoenix House was to me, not just because of what it would mean in terms of my education.
And he understood what it meant when, on certain mornings, I came out wearing heels and makeup. He would smile at me, and it would be softer, somehow. Less wild. We didn’t play our games those days because it wasn’t something I wanted. Oh, there was still the thrill of the unknown, of what the future might bring for both of us, but it was… different, somehow. I was still having a hard time believing that I could be whoever I needed to be and it didn’t matter to him. I had learned to live with it a long time ago, but it was still nerve-racking at times.
He didn’t go out of his way to reassure me about anything. We didn’t talk about us that way. But I didn’t think we needed to, and I didn’t need to hear from him that it didn’t matter if I was Corey or Kori. I was working through it on my own, and he was giving me the space to do so. We had time, though as the summer stretched on, whatever we were going to be was getting closer, come what may.
Classes started at the university the last week of August, and we were both gearing up for the school year. The kids were doing the same.
I had already made plans to return to Phoenix House as much as I was able, but it was clear I wouldn’t be here as much as I was now. A lot of the kids told me how bummed they were about it, and I was touched. I hadn’t expected to have them mean as much to me as they did.
Which meant, of course, things went awry.
Spectacularly so.
Twice, in fact.
One was my fault.
The other was his.
IN THE second week of August, we got an unplanned visitor. I was with Marina in the front with some of the others, making plans for the Tucson Pride Parade next month. Marina had already entered Phoenix House to walk the route, and she had ideas for a float she wanted to share with the rest of us.
I’d gone last year, and it had been great, though I hadn’t actually been in the parade. Helena had, of course, sat in the back of a fancy convertible, regally waving at her subjects while twinks from Jack It danced behind her, wearing only the tiniest of briefs. Mike had offered to let me be on the float too (“Add a bit of variety”), but I’d told him plainly that he could go fuck himself. And while Pride had always been loud and boisterous, this year felt different. There was an edge to a lot of us, worry about our futures.
But that’s the funny thing about fear: the more you try to scare us, the more we’re going to kick your fucking ass.
And kicking someone’s ass was the first thought I had when the front door to Phoenix House opened and a man I recognized stepped in.
He smiled cheerfully, waving as he walked toward us. He was wearing what could only be described as a power suit, and it was cut perfectly to his heavy frame.
“Hey,” Griffin said. “Sorry to bother all of you. I’m actually looking for Jeremy. Is he in?” He held up a sack I hadn’t noticed he was carrying. “I was downtown for a meeting and figured I’d stop in and surprise him with some lunch if he wasn’t too busy.”
“Griffin,” I said as politely as possible. Marina glanced at me, so she must have heard the cracks in my tone. “It’s nice to see you again.”
He looked confused, his smile faltering. “I’m sorry. Have we met?” He blinked. “You do look familiar, but I—”
“At the leather bar,” I said, and immediately the kids started whispering around us. I rolled my eyes. Of course they’d pick up on that. “I was with Jeremy outside.”
His eyes widened. “Oh. Oh.” And I couldn’t fault him for the way he looked me up and down. Today I was wearing a Michael Kors knockoff dress, checkered black and gray with a floral pattern at the hem. I wore suede sandals, and my toenails were painted blue. Sandy had done them for me the night before, even though I told him I could do it myself. He’d knocked my hands away and babbled on about how Darren was stupid about this or that, and could I just believe it?
I could.
Griffin recovered admirably. I had to give him credit, even as I wanted to show him the door. His smile returned. “Right. I remember you. You were wearing something… different. Didn’t recognize you. How are you?”
“Good,” I said. “Jeremy doesn’t know you’re coming? Shame. We’re awfully busy right now. I know he’s reviewing applicants to take over as director, so he probably won’t have time to—”
“Griffin?”
Griffin looked away from me, and his smile grew. “Hey, Jeremy. Hope you don’t mind I stopped by. Kind of wanted to see where you were spending your summer.” He jostled the bag again. “Brought food too.”
I looked over to see Jeremy standing near the hallway, brow furrowed. He wore navy blue slacks and a purple dress shirt. He looked handsome standing there with his hands in his pockets.
Griffin must have thought so too, because he pretty much forgot the rest of us were there as he walked toward Jeremy. “This place is great! Man, I wish I’d had something like this when I was younger. Probably would have saved me a lot of grief.”
I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten about him. After the whole let’s-jack-off-near-each-other fantastic funfest, it’d slipped my mind that Griffin had been after Jeremy. Now I was kicking myself for it.
It certainly didn’t help that I was learning that I could be an irritatingly jealous person. I’d never been that way before, and the fact that it was rearing its ugly head at this very moment was an eye-opening experience I wished I didn’t have.
“Yeah,” Jeremy said slowly. “It’s pretty great. Why don’t you come back to my office? Let everyone up here continue working.” He looked over at us. “Pizza’s on its way, guys. And yes, there’s one that’s half anchovies. Taylor, you’re gross, and you better eat all of it.”
Taylor, a baby dyke with gauged ears, grinned at him as she flipped him off. “Yeah, yeah. Go with your hottie lunch date. Condoms are in the bin if you need them.”
The rest of the kids laughed.
I didn’t think it was particularly funny and almost told Taylor she should reconsider her apparent career choice as a comedian, but who was I to crush dreams of the young?
Griffin bumped his shoulder against Jeremy’s. “Seems like they’ve got your number.”
Jeremy rolled his eyes. “They like to give me grief.” He glared at the kids. “But I’ve got my eye on every single one of them. And I’ll remember faces if I ever have any of them in my classes.”
Taylor gasped dramatically as the others started whispering again.
Jeremy glanced at me, smiling tightly.
Seeing as how it was none of my business, I waved him off. He hesitated as if he were going to say something else but shook his head instead. “Come back to my office, Griff. I’ve got a little bit of time.”
Griff. Ugh.
The kids hooted and hollered as they disappeared around the corner. All but Kai, of course. Kai was staring at me with a weird expression on their face.
“What?” I asked them.
They shook their head. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
A LITTLE bit of time, apparently, wasn’t the five or ten minutes I had envisioned. They were still behind a closed door forty minutes later, and even though I trusted Jeremy, I had to stop myself multiple times from going into my own office to listen through the vent.
I sighed as I paid the pizza delivery guy, hot boxes being shoved into my arms as he saluted me and went back outside.
The kids swarmed me when I turned around. One did not fuck with ravenous teenagers, and I was lucky I escaped with all my fingers still attached. Marina had plates and napkins set out on an old folding table, and I grimaced as the horde descended on the food. Teenagers in a feeding frenzy weren’t pretty.
I was sitting on a chair away from the others, staring down at my phone, chiding myself for being an idiot, wondering if a CODE ORANGE BANANA was necessary. But then I remembered t
hat Sandy and the others had no idea about any of this, and I couldn’t think of a way to be vague enough about it without giving anything away.
I looked up when Kai dragged a chair toward me and sat down next to me with a plate of pizza in their lap. Kai didn’t seek me out for anything. They were cool and aloof; the only real smiles I’d seen from them were because of or for Diego and Jeremy.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hi,” Kai said. “Can I get some advice?”
Oh man, breakthrough. I put my phone away so I could give them my undivided attention while trying not to seem too eager. “Of course you can. Anything, Kai.”
They nodded while picking off pieces of pepperoni from the pizza and popping them into their mouth. “So, there’s this girl. Like, real pretty. She’s got long hair and she’s funny and she laughs really big. You know, with her whole body.”
I didn’t know where this was going. “Okay,” I said slowly. “She sounds great.”
Kai nodded. “Oh, she is. She’s smart and nice and everyone likes her.”
“That’s awesome—”
“And I hate her guts.”
I blinked. “What?”
Kai shrugged. “Weird, right? Like, I get the appeal. I mean, she volunteers at an animal shelter, for fuck’s sakes.”
“Do you not like animals, or—”
They ignored me. “And she’s going to probably go to a fancy college and get a fancy degree and cure cancer or go to Mars or write a self-help book about finding your true self that everyone will read.”
I stayed quiet.
Kai wiped off their fingers with a napkin. “And I want to like her, you know? For all intents and purposes, I should like her. She’s nice to me, and she’s in the LGBTQ alliance at school and even asked if she could come down here at some point this summer to see if she could help, even though she’s straight. An ally. Like you talked about before.”
I thought back over the last weeks to see if I remembered someone like her. “I don’t think I’ve seen her?”
Kai shook their head. “Nope. Because she hasn’t come down here. I told her to stay the fuck away.”
I frowned. “That’s not cool, Kai.”
“I know. But I did it anyway.”
I chose my words carefully. “I know you’re proud of who you are and being queer is important to you, but we can’t dismiss anyone who wants to help.”
They snorted. “It’s not about that.”
“Then what is it?”
“She likes Diego. Like, really likes Diego.”
“Ah. I see.”
Kai sighed. “Yeah, and it’s a pain in my ass. I mean, I get the appeal. Diego’s awesome.”
“So awesome,” I agreed.
“And hot.”
“So—” I coughed. “I’m glad you think so.”
“And he could do better than someone like me.”
I was alarmed. “Whoa. Wait a minute. Kai, you need—”
They held up their hand. “Just… give me a minute, okay?”
I crossed my legs, smoothing out my dress before settling my hands in my lap. “Okay. Go for it.”
Kai frowned down at their plate. “I’m not… like her. I mean, I’m smart, and I get good grades most of the time. I hate school, but I know why I have to be there, especially if I’m ever going to get out of this shit town. But I’m not the pretty girl who everyone loves. I’m not the hot guy who everyone admires. I’m just… me. And sometimes it feels like it’s not enough.”
“How do you get beyond that?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Kai admitted. “Sometimes I think I am, that I don’t care about stuff like that. It’s stupid, right? Who gives a crap what happens now? A year from now, two years from now, none of this will matter. We won’t be the same people, and even though that scares me, I try and remember that. This is just a beginning. Which brings me back to this girl.” They made a face. “Her name is Becca. Because of course it is. Even her name is perfect.”
“I don’t know. I’m kind of partial to Kai, myself.”
Kai rolled their eyes. “I don’t need you to feed my ego.”
“I’m not. Have you ever known me to do that?”
They watched me for a moment. “Fair. No, I haven’t. You’re kind of a jerk that way.”
I was startled into a laugh. “Thanks. I think.”
“She texts Diego all the time,” Kai continued. “And they had the same lunch period last year, and she always sat with him. And it pissed me off.”
“What does Diego think about all of it?”
They looked over at Diego, expression softening. He was laughing about something, mouth open wide, cheese stuck between his teeth. “Diego thinks she’s great.”
“But….”
“But he told me that I have nothing to worry about. That he’s not interested in her because he already has me. And I wanted to believe him, and most of me did. But there was still this little part that thought what if? I’ve had that part for a long time, you know? That stupid little voice in my head that whispers crap that I don’t like to think about. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
I thought of Ty and his earthquakes. “Yeah. I do.”
“And I acted like such an asshole about it. I was… well. Not mean, but not nice either. I didn’t like her, and I wanted to make sure she knew that. That everyone knew that.”
I winced. “Didn’t go over well.”
“Understatement,” they said. “I thought Diego was going to break up with me. And he would have been right to do so. It took me a while to understand that it wasn’t that I didn’t trust him, but that I didn’t trust myself to be good enough.” Their eyes were bright as they looked back at me. “Dumb, right?”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t think it is. We… have a lot on our shoulders. And while everyone goes through stuff, it’s different for people like us. We’re wrestling with things many people can’t understand.”
“Right,” they said. “And I thought how much easier it would be for Diego.” Kai’s brow furrowed. “He gets shit about me from others. He doesn’t think I know, but I do. They all think being bisexual is sooo cooool, but me? Most of them don’t know what to do about me.”
“Why should they have to do anything?”
“They don’t,” Kai said. “But if someone isn’t like everyone else, they make an easier target. Or if we’re lucky, to be just dismissed entirely. Diego is popular. Everyone loves him. I’m not… that. I don’t care about it.”
“Maybe a little?”
Kai scowled. “I don’t.”
“Okay. Noted.”
“So what do I do?”
“Um. About what?”
“Wow,” they said. “You’re really good at this.”
I glared at them. “You just hit me with, like, ten different things, Kai. Tell me where you want to start.”
“The whole Becca thing,” they exclaimed, as if I was stupid. “That’s what we’re talking about.”
Okay. I had this. I was going to give the best advice they would ever receive. “Does Diego care about you?”
They nodded.
“And you care about him?”
“Yeah. He’s… special.” They flushed slightly. “To me. And he’s got a huge—”
“Whoa,” I said, holding up my hands. “Let’s just stop there.”
“I was going to say heart,” Kai said. They squinted at me. “What else would I be talking about?”
“Oh no,” I said. “I’m not going to fall for that. You knew exactly what you were doing.”
“You’ll never be able to prove it.”
Fucking teenagers. I really needed to rethink my career choices. “If you care about each other, then that should come with a measure of trust. And trust means talking to each other. He deserves to know what you’re feeling. Maybe it’ll help. Maybe he’ll make a change. Or maybe he won’t, because he might not need to. Becca can be his friend, and she might even have feelings for hi
m, but if he’s with you and you can trust him with that, then you have nothing to worry about. It starts with talking to each other. This kind of stuff has a way of building if you don’t deal with it as soon as you can. And it can grow into something terrible. You don’t want to let that happen.”
“Right,” Kai said slowly. “So all we need to do is talk to each other.”
I nodded. “Yeah. It’s best to be up-front and honest. You’ll feel better about it.”
Kai stood up. “Thanks.”
I looked up at them. “Um. You’re… welcome? That’s it?”
They shrugged. “That’s it. I actually already did all this. Diego and I talked about it a few months ago. Becca’s one of my best friends now. She’s got a boyfriend named Zach. He’s a jock, but I guess nobody’s perfect.”
“Then what the hell was this all—”
Kai grinned down at me. “I just thought maybe you needed to hear some things yourself, you know? Sometimes it helps to hear it spoken out loud so you can realize how hypocritical you’re being. Jealousy is pointless. Bye.”
I gaped after them as they walked back toward the others. Diego grinned up at them, patting the floor beside him. Kai sat down, laying their head on his shoulder. Diego wrapped an arm around their waist.
It took me a moment to realize I’d just gotten schooled by a seventeen-year-old.
Motherfucker.
GRIFFIN APPEARED shortly after, Jeremy trailing after him. They were smiling, though Griffin’s perhaps wasn’t as bright as it had been. They hugged at the entrance to Phoenix House before Griffin waved at us and left.
Jeremy exclaimed over the pizza, chiding Taylor for not eating all the anchovy slices. The kids all groaned when he picked up a piece and bit into it. That proved to be a mistake, because he immediately spat it back out and started gagging dramatically.
Later, on the ride home, he said, “You’ve been quiet this afternoon.”
I smiled weakly at him. “Yeah. Sorry about that. Just… thinking.”
