The bell rings at ten in the morning, even though it’s Saturday. Coincidentally, it’s also my birthday.
I’m currently in the bathroom, blow-drying my hair. I expected to be ambushed by Drew knocking against my window again, and this time, I wanted to be already dressed if he invited me over for breakfast or something. But Drew would have taken the tree over. So can this even be for me?
I finish drying my hair, then leave the bathroom.
“Max!” Mum yells, just as I open the door to my room. “You have guests!”
I freeze, then turn and head downstairs. I’m already dressed in boy shorts and a T-shirt — absolutely not the outfit I want to wear today, with weather like this, but what can you do? The outfit Sinéad picked out for me is hidden in my closet, and every time I get my clothes for the day, it calls out to me. I haven’t put it on a single time since the crossdressing day; it’s like I’m scared of it. Scared of the things I will feel if I allow myself to take off another mask, even if just for minutes at a time.
Mum awaits me at the bottom of the stairs. She smiles and gives me a warm hug. “Happy birthday, my child.”
“I’m not really a child anymore, am I?” I ask, my voice squashed.
“You will always be my child,” she beams, then ushers me into the living room. Sinéad and Drew are grinning at me from the sofa. Before them, next to the couch table, stands a basket filled with tupperware and bottles of what looks like self-made lemonade.
“Happy birthday Mia!” Sinéad yells, jumping to her feet and embracing me so tightly that I feel my ribs give in a little.
“What are you doing here?” I manage to wheeze.
“We thought we’d take you on a surprise picnic!”
Behind her, Drew has a startled look in his eyes, but agrees after a moment. “Happy birthday, mate!” he says, hugging me as well. “We also got you a little something.”
“Besides this feast, you mean?” I ask, eyeing the basket once more. Through the lid of one of the boxes, I see something that looks suspiciously like sugar-glazed pastries.
“Oh yes!” Drew says excitedly, reaching behind him and producing a small, rectangle wrapped in dark blue paper with white flowers all over it. “Open it.”
“Relax,” I laugh, but accept the present. I know immediately that it’s a book, but I don’t betray the knowledge, opening the paper carefully. I hate tearing wrapping paper. I try to guess what it is. A guide to university life? A study book for medicine basics? But all the required books are an entirely different format. But surely it would be something highly specific, right? From Drew and Sinéad, the two people who know me the most?
It turns out to be none of the above. As I unfold the wrapping paper, the faux leather cover of a notebook emerges. It is dark green with a tree etched into the center of the front.
“I saw that you’re always journaling,” Sinéad says. “So I thought it might be nice if your next journal was a reminder of home, for once you move away.” What she means to say is that this is going to be the next book I will write my poems into.
Warmth blossoms in my chest. “It’s beautiful.” So much better than the plain black one I got at the dollar store.
“Look inside,” Drew urges me.
I raise an eyebrow. He seems uncharacteristically excited about this. When I open the lid of the notebook, I immediately find out why. He drew on the inside. The pencil drawing shows Drew and me in the grass, grinning up at the camera. My hair is loose, already dried after what I assume was an extended day of swimming and baking in the sun. Some parts are drawn with less detail, like the grass around us, and then there are my eyes, filled with the reflection of the leaves of the tree above us, and the sunlight that falls through them. The sight fills me with the feeling I always get when it’s just Drew and me, lying by the lake, with nothing else to do and to worry about. It’s a deep sense of contentment mixed with the thought that everything will be alright.
Lying in the grass,
I feel the sun against my face.
I watch the world turn
And I feel at peace.
Maybe everything
Will turn out well after all.
“Thank you,” I say, my voice choked. “It’s beautiful.” I only have to open my arms a little, and both Sinéad and Drew are there, pulling me into their arms.
Am I really going to leave these people behind, I can’t help but wonder as Sinéad rubs my back. In my mind, I imagine a different future where we meet again, after I have become myself. I hear a more grown-up Sinéad call Mia! with the same excitement, and see Drew walk towards me with the relaxed confidence of somebody in their mid-twenties who knows they have no reason to be ashamed of themselves; somebody who made it. We could meet again in a few years. We could still be friends.
If they want to. Follow the newest chapters on novelping.com.
I push the thought aside as they let go of me.
“So you like it?” Drew asks, grinning from ear to ear.
“I love it.” I turn briefly, to wipe my eyes. Mum is watching from the doorway and right then her eyes seem to go misty as well.
“So, what do you say we get out and have some breakfast?” Drew asks. I won’t be getting anything to unpack from Mum. I told her she could pay for some of my books because, of course, not everything is included in the scholarship. And anyway, the more money I can save until the moment I have to come clean, the better.
“Yes!” Sinéad claps her hands with glee, then she picks up the basket and follows us to the front door.
“Have fun, kids!” Mum calls after us in a slightly brittle tone.
I save the remark about none of us being kids. It was a joke and she knows she won’t get to say it much more. It is only weeks before I’m moving out.
“So, Mia!” Sinéad asks not much later as we enter the forest. “How does it feel to be all grown up now?”
“Could you stop that?” Drew asks, frowning. “That’s not his name. Just because he was okay with it for crossdressing day doesn’t mean—”
“Oh, but I have permission,” Sinéad gloats. “Right, Mia?”
My face is burning, but I force myself to nod. “It’s just a name,” I mumble.
Drew looks entirely unconvinced. “Still. I also used a different name for the day and you’re not using that on me, are you?” he says to Sinéad.
She cocks her head. “I mean, if you’ll give me permission?”
“What? That’s so not the point—”
“Drew!” I say tensely, finally annoyed enough to raise my voice. “Just drop it. I don’t mind, let’s just have a nice day, okay?”
Wouldn’t that be amazing if they had their first fight over Sinéad using my correct name? Memories for the ages.
That finally does the trick. Drew closes his mouth and gives a tight nod. “Of course. Sorry.”
By the time we get to the water fall, the mood is back up again. Sinéad and I unpack the picnic onto the blanket Drew brought, and arrange it beautifully.
“Holy hell, this looks amazing,” I breathe.
“Should we go swimming first?” Sinéad jokes. “You know, never swim right after having eaten.”
“And not on an empty stomach, either,” Drew reminds her.
So we sit down to eat. Sinéad brought a little digital camera and she keeps taking pictures of us, of the food, of flowers growing at the shore.
“I need as many pictures of this time as possible,” she says when Drew asks if she’s not going to eat. “I’ve only been friends with Mia for weeks and she’s already going to move away soon, and I don’t know how often we’ll get to meet after that.”
“We’re moving away, too,” he says.
I perk. “You’re moving in together?”
Sinéad shakes her head. “Drew didn’t send an application to the college I got into. And he refuses to say what his plan is, because he doesn’t want to say until he’s certain.”
We take our time eating. We sprawl out in the grass because there is barely any space left on the picnic blanket. We don’t eat until we’re bursting — just enough to not be hungry anymore. Then we climb the tree. Getting up is accompanied by a great deal of laughter, as Drew has to pull up both of us. We climb up and up until we’re above the treeline and watch the sea of leaves shift gently in the breeze.
We spend a long time up there, sitting in the branches, talking. Sinéad takes more pictures. Once Drew is satisfied with the time we have waited after eating, we strip off our clothes. I already changed on the ground and Drew and Sinéad came already wearing their bathing clothes, so we just have to wrestle off our top layer, and Sinéad has to drop her camera into the pile.
This time, I don’t hesitate when Drew offers to swing me again. I take his hand, glide off the branch, and swing my legs to aid the movement. When he lets go, I give a howl of joy, once as I fall, and once as I break through the surface, wiping the water from my face.
Later, as I watch them splash each other, sitting on the blanket, already dried off, I think to myself that it is easy, today, to be happy for them. If this is how I remember it, how happy being with them made me, then there will be no ill feelings about this. This is all I worked for, all I hoped for. My final present to Drew.
This makes it easier, in a bittersweet way. It will be a positive memory.
On a whim, I take out the notebook they gave me earlier, steal one of Drew’s pencils and start writing on the first page.
Please do not come looking for me,
Please put it to rest;
Please do not think ill of me,
I wish you all the best.
***
“You really like her, don’t you?” I ask, turning my face into the sun.
Drew is sitting next to me on the porch roof, drawing in his sketchbook. Sinéad has already left, because she still has to study for an exam on Tuesday.
“M-hm,” Drew hums. Underneath the tip of his pencil, an image has formed. Sinead, laughing, hair flowing in the wind. She looked like that when we were sitting in the tree. He’s not even using one of the photographs for reference.
She really does look gorgeous.
“It’s like…” he starts but then breaks off. It takes him several seconds to start over. “It’s like all my life, I’ve been missing this piece of me, and she’s just… she fits perfectly. Is that weird?”
“I think it’s beautiful.” To my own surprise, I really do.
“I’m glad you two get along so well,” he says, and I feel his eyes on me. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if you didn’t like her. That’s why I was so tense earlier, when she kept calling you Mia.”
A soft smile tugs at my lips. “Really, it’s fine.”
“I know.” Then, after a pause, “I have another surprise, by the way.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, I…” His fingers fiddle restlessly with the pencil. “It felt weird to say it in front of Sinéad?”
Immediately, the memory of those seven minutes in the closet flashes. His lips against mine, his fingers in my hair—
No, that is most definitely not what he’s getting at! And even if it were, you don’t want it anyway!
“Well, what is it?”
“I also got into Statehaven. We’re going to the same college.”