“Jumper!” somebody yells through the bustling cafeteria, and I turn, finding Jacy pushing through the crowd towards me. He’s got a mad grin on his face, beckoning me towards the outside tables. The usual crowd is waiting there for me. Drew’s there, too, waving at me when our eyes cross.
Carefully keeping my tray level, I follow Jacy, who carefully clears a path through the crowd.
“Drew said you might wanna study,” he half-yells over his shoulder. “Y’know, with the calculus exam coming up and all that. I told him fuck that, you’re sitting with us! Everybody needs breaks.”
We arrive at the table, and Theo scoots over to make space for me between Sinéad and him. She doesn’t even seem to register my presence, seemingly lost in a passionate conversation with her friend Anita.
“Hiya,” Theo says as I sit. “Heard you were at the party last weekend?”
With the fork, I stir the fried rice on my plate. “Yup.”
“Heard you jumped?”
“Yup.”
He gives a low laugh. “Ah man, now I hate that I couldn’t be there. Always so much fun at the barn, isn’t it?”
I give him a strange look. “Sure.”
“Oh, he’s just being humble,” Sinéad says, leaning around me, gesturing in my direction. “He jumped four times!”
My face goes uncomfortably hot. What, is she trying to put me on the spot?
“It was so much fun to have you there, you should come more often.” As if we were good friends, she puts her hand on my shoulder and tilts her head as she grins at me.
I want to shrug her off. I know she’s just making fun of me. She can’t mean it. And if she does, she wants me there so she can laugh at me. Looking back, I know how much of a clown I made of myself, laughing with people I don’t belong with. Talking to them. Drinking with them. And if she doesn’t want to laugh at me, she’s probably only saying it to impress Drew. He’s the only person who really wanted me there.
“Totally,” Jacy agrees with Sinéad. “We were missing out, without you there.”
I can only barely keep myself from glaring at him.This is exactly what I used to hate about having to interact with him. This constant knowledge that a person is really just making fun of you. And there I’d been, giving him my history notes, being nice. I suppose some things just don’t change.
“Right?” Sinéad waves her fork through the air. “I feel like it’s just a different vibe when everybody is there, and we’re all together. It makes the thing just more… whole. I don’t know, it’s hard to describe.”
Sinéad lets off of me by turning back to her food.
“Okay, so, what was the last one you were thinking of?” Anita asks.
“What about childhood heroes?” Drew says from across the table.
Sinéad shakes her head. “I think that’s a little short notice? Like, people who take it seriously won’t have the time to prepare properly.”
“Anything but a schoolbag?” Theo suggests. “My cousin did it at her school, she took her little brothers’ Lego box.”
“That’s great!” Sinéad exclaims excitedly. “A little less effort, maybe to start it off?”
It’s only starting to dawn on me now that they’re probably planning motto week, traditionally the final week before exam season kicks off, which is going to be next week. That’ll be fun, being the only one not participating. Because, let’s be real, there’s no way I’m making myself even more of a target by trying and failing to fit in.
“So what are the ones you’re going with?” Drew asks.
Sinéad starts counting off on her fingers. “So, we have: pajama party, anything-but-a-school-bag, dress-like-your-parents, inappropriately fancy, and gender swap!” At the last one, her eyes practically gleam with mischievous glee. “I am so looking forward to seeing all the boys in dresses.”
My stomach flips. As if this wouldn’t be bad enough already.
“Isn’t that sexist?” Jacy asks smugly. “You know, saying that somebody is only a woman if they’re wearing a dress?”
Sinéad sticks her tongue out at him. “If you can otherwise dress in a way that makes clear you’re trying to present fem, I’m all for it.”
Drew gives a dry laugh. “I’ll just steal one of my sister’s dresses and be done with it.”
“Oh come on, you can put more effort in than that,” Sinéad complains with a pout before threatening, “If you don’t, I’ll bring my makeup kit and do a look on you during homeroom!”
“That’s a deal, even less work for me and a better result.”
“Can you do my makeup as well?” Theo giggles, but Sinéad coolly raises an eyebrow at him.
“This isn’t crossdressing welfare, I have stuff to do! I’m sure you’ll figure something out!” Then, as if drawn by a magnet, her eyes get stuck on me. “Has anybody ever told you that you’d look absolutely amazing as a girl?”
I would very much prefer to be anywhere right now than at this table, being looked at by not just Sinéad but everybody. They’re all thinking what I’ve been trying my best to avoid anybody finding out for the past years.
“Um, no?” I say, a little unsteadily.
“Well, you would,” she says seriously. “You are going to participate, right?”
“You don’t have to, obviously,” Drew intervenes, clearly reading the discomfort on my face. “We’re not forcing anybody.”
Sinéad gives him a look like she was very much planning on doing that, but then just turns back to me without further prompting, waiting for a reply.
“I mean… I don’t even have any clothes I could wear?” I say meekly. I know Drew’s sister’s stuff won’t fit me. Amy is easily half a foot taller than me and also significantly more… well-equipped in all the desirable places.
“I could lend you stuff?” Sinéad offers immediately. “Literally, I would pay to see this.”
From the corner of my eyes, I think I see Drew shaking his head minutely, but when I look, he stills instantly, watching me carefully.
“Or even better,” Anita says, apparently just as excited by the idea, “we could take you shopping? We could band together to pay for the clothes, and you’d just have to make the final verdict about which of the outfits we pick out you want to wear.”
I’ve got to study, I want to say, but really, I don’t. I’m already perfectly prepared, and even if this takes a whole day, which I’m sure it won’t, it won’t meaningfully impact my grades.
“Please?” Sinéad pleads at my hesitation to say no. “It’ll be so much fun, I promise. And anyway, when do you ever get the chance to see yourself all prettied up as a girl?”
There’s a pulling sensation at the bottom of my stomach. In two months, I’ll be gone. I’ll be able to do exactly this every day. I’ll be free. And yet… wouldn’t it be nice? To try on some pretty clothes, even if it’s just as a ‘joke’? That they’re probably gonna laugh at me doesn’t mean that I can’t enjoy it still.
So, after another moment, I shrug. “Okay?”
Both Anita and Sinéad break into shrill giggles and victory shouts at that. “You are not going to regret that!” Sinéad promises, her face glowing. But I feel like I’m already regretting it.
As I sit down in advanced English, I pull my notebook from my school bag. Having checked that nobody’s around to read along, I open a new page.
The moon calls to me
Tells me that it’s safe to come outside
To dance in the cold light
Underneath the trees by the creek
But I wonder
How long the night will last.
***
“They’re making fun of me!” I complain to Drew, later that day. Once again, we’re sitting on the porch roof as the sun is going down. The sun is still hot against my skin, and the smell of grilled meat wafts up the street towards us and makes my mouth water.
“I know they’re doing it to make fun of me!” The possibility has been eating away at me, and by now I am certain. They’re not trying to be nice. It’s the exact same game Jacy and Theo used to play with me four years ago; they’ve just gotten better at hiding it. They might never even reveal that it’s just a game to them, but they will laugh behind my back. And if they do end up revealing it, making some grand show of exposing me — I don’t even want to think of it.
“They’re not,” Drew insists calmly, drawing with quick, short movements in a large sketchbook. “Sinéad and I talked, and she said she was so excited to take you shopping. She wouldn’t lie to me about that.”
Of course, he’s not just the most popular guy probably at our entire school, super extroverted, athletic, and attractive, he’s also an artistic genius. He’s been drawing since forever, though I can’t recall him ever having been serious. It’s just another thing he does. Whenever he has a pencil and paper on hand, he scribbles on it, and voila, you find a photo-realistic drawing of our maths teacher in his notes.
Whenever we’re not studying up here, he usually draws.
I give him an unconvinced look. It does indeed sound like she was being serious, but the feeling won’t leave me.
“You know, you can still just say no, right?” he says, pausing to watch me through squinted eyes, shielding them from the sun with his left hand.
“Can I?”
“Of course you can!” He frowns. “I can tell her no for you, if you’re uncomfortable with it. She’s probably already half-expecting you to pull out anyway.”
“Don’t you dare!”
A hint of frustration crosses his face as he leans back against the hot roofing tiles. “I’m sorry,” he says, holding my gaze.
I freeze. “What? Why?” I know him well enough to know he’s not apologizing for suggesting to keep an eye out for me. Which is why this catches me so off-guard. I can’t even recall the last time he seriously apologized to me for something. He’s simply not the kind of person who does things he’d have to apologize for.
“For not paying better attention,” he says. “I should have known that what Jacy, Theo and the others were doing was getting to you. But I… didn’t want to know. I could’ve stopped them. I should’ve. But I didn’t, and that makes me a pretty terrible friend. For which I am sorry.”
I realize suddenly that this doesn’t just come out of the moment. He must’ve been thinking about this for days, probably triggered by me pointing out that Theo and Jacy used to bully me. He hadn’t had a significant reaction then, but it must’ve gotten him thinking. And now he knows that that’s why I’ve grown so withdrawn. Which is only half the truth, but just as well, since I really do not want him to know the other half.
“Having a life of your own doesn’t make you a bad friend,” I say, staring at my outstretched hand in my lap.
“There’s a difference to—”
“You’re a good friend, Drew,” I interrupt him. My friend is sunshine. “I think you’re forgetting that it was your idea for me to become more sociable. I don’t need more friends — you’re perfectly sufficient. So why should I care if the others are assholes?”
When I glance up, he’s watching me, still frowning, his skin glowing in the light of the setting sun. His eyes are storm clouds, heavy, steely, racing along the sky.
“Well, I’m glad you enjoy my company so much. But I think at least the others would really like to be friends with you.”
I give a low scoff, at which he immediately adds, “No, seriously. You heard what Sinéad said, she thought it was great that you were there. And Jacy wouldn’t shut up about you jumping all break!” His eyes bore into mine as if to emphasise his words. “Everybody loves you!”