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