C
My strides are long as I make my way along the street to Jason’s house. It’s already so late, and I had plans for tonight. I wanted to come out of my shell tonight, create plausible grounds to make friends beyond N.
But then Jas asked me to take him to the movies, and I couldn’t make myself say no. Spending time with him… it feels special. The way he’ll come to me with his homework now, asking me to help him, the way Mum watches us with a beaming smile when we play together, makes my heart warm.
So obviously, I took him, and now it’s past nine, and I’m only just arriving now. I still haven’t settled on whether I want to get drunk tonight, to seem more approachable. Should I just cling to N and try to make friends with her friends? Her friends who are really my friends anyway—
I’m walking up to the front door when I hear the chants.
“CHLOE! CHLOE! CHLOE!”
Not just a few voices. That must be most everybody who’s there tonight, calling her name, celebrating her.
My heartbeat quickens. What could she be doing? Winning some drinking game? It must be something I never used to do, because they never chanted like that for me.
There’s an unpleasant twisting in my chest as I make my way around the side of the house, walking to the back without making my presence known.
In between the chants, there’s a single voice that shouts, “Woooooh!”
N’s voice, I realise all too quickly.
Before I know, I’m around the house, and stop in my tracks upon witnessing the scene before me.
Everybody is there. They’re laughing, raising drinks, shouting, and all of them are looking at N.
And N? She’s high above them, cheeks rosy, wearing nothing but a T-shirt in spite of the cold. Jason’s holding her there, balancing her the same way he balances Lucy, only with much more care.
Am I imagining that?
She looks so happy. She looks so natural. Like she belongs there. Like I never did.
The realisation hits me like a bucket of icy water to the face. My stomach revolts, the feeling of nausea climbing up my throat like the promise of bile. My heart hammers against my ribs and I’m hot and cold at the same time.
Shouldn’t I be happy for her? Shouldn’t I be glad to have helped her become this, her true state of being?
As I watch on, N raises her left leg until it’s angled up all the way, and the chants get impossibly even louder.
I want to turn and run, but my feet won’t budge. My eyes are stuck on her, wide and unmoving, forcing me to witness what she has become in my place.
It’s not just that I know what it could mean that she’s let Jason throw her like this. It’s the fact that she probably never stopped to think about that. It’s this look of wild excitement in her eyes, this look of freedom that I never saw in the mirror. She has stopped calculating her every action. She just is now.
It’s the fact that I’m never going to be even half the person she is so effortlessly. And I shouldn’t be upset about that, I know! I’m just too different, no matter how much effort I put in. I’m not a natural social butterfly, I had to learn how to act; how to be liked.
But I worked for it. I worked so bloody hard! I shut my mouth and stopped proudly displaying my achievements. I learned to be ashamed of them, even. I studied how popular girls laugh, how they touch each other, how they talk, hell, even how they move their hands as they speak. And I did it without complaining, because you don’t do that. I did it to belong. I did it to finally be enough.
After all that, what’s painful is not just the realisation that I gave that away, but also that—what if I wasn’t ever enough? What if I was never going to be? Seeing N shows me how lacklustre my performance was, so how could I have been enough? For her, for my classmates? I definitely wasn’t ever enough for my parents, that much is for certain. And even Jason—how could I have been enough for him had he ever taken the time to look past the mask?
My throat constricts painfully around the thought, and when I reach up, I find my cheeks wet with tears.
Out in the backyard, Jason drops N, catching her firmly by the waist and setting her down, holding on to her for just a moment too long before stepping back, grinning.
And I can’t bear it any longer. Finally, my body unfreezes, and I turn, sneaking back to the front of the house before I start running.
My feet hit the pavement hard as I drive them into the ground, accelerating. The wind roars in my ears and I heave icy air in deep gulps.
Who am I, now that I am no longer Chloe?
It feels like the tears crystallise around my eyes, but I don’t slow down.
What am I, now that I no longer fight to be loved by everybody?
My throat and chest are growing numb with cold, but I don’t slow down. My shoulders ache and my thighs are heavy, but I don’t slow down.
What am I, if the only person I’m still fighting for, the person I’m willing to sacrifice everything for, doesn’t love me back?
My vision fuzzes, and I stumble, only barely catching myself against a wall. The night is no longer cold, but my chest hurts. The world around me tilts like a threat and an invitation both at once.
You’re falling apart. Let it happen.
I’m a spiteful creature. I’m supposed to be happy for her, but here I am, jealous of what I willingly gave her! Yet even if I took it back, I could never live in that body the same way. I could never be the Chloe I dreamt to become one day, because I could never beher!
What was I ever beyond my aspirations? I wanted my parents to be proud, so I became a compulsive try-hard at school. I wanted my peers to like me, so I stopped giving them any reasons not to. I wanted N to love me, so I gave up my own body in hopes that it would help her love herself, so she might one day find it within her to love me as well.
If you strip all of that away—my parents who don’t notice that I’m gone, my peers, who don’t recognise me as the same person, and N, who is better at being me than I am… what stays behind? A name without any meaning, a restless soul without purpose.
The back of my neck is growing slick with sweat, but I don’t take off my jacket to cool myself down. I know I’ll get sick if I do. Instead, I straighten myself and begin the way back to the bus station, where I’ll still have to wait some time for a bus to pick me up.
I’m not a good person, I realise, as a silent breeze picks up to ruffle my hair. I do all these things, but there’s no heart in it. I’m not nice because I mean it. Helping people is a habit to me more than anything else. I hang out with my friends while I’m constantly scared that they’re just going to end up hating me for some reason.
I’m a liar—a false flower drawing in my victim to fill the void inside of me. Because I can simply not bear the thought of being alone. I’ve tasted what it’s like to have her, and the time since we split apart I’ve only survived because I was fighting to get that back. I don’t know what will happen when N abandons me for good, but right now it feels almost inevitable. It is in her nature to rise beyond the dust and rubble of us others, and I have willingly made myself her steppingstone.
By the time I make it back home, I feel completely hollow on the inside. Like I could take a knife to my skin and would find nothing but black void underneath. Like there is no blood running in my veins.
I stopped crying some time ago, and now my eyes feel puffy and sore. I’m tired.
I open the door as silently as I can, pushing it gently until there’s enough space for me to step through before easing it shut behind me. The warmth of N’s home surrounds me like warm water, but it can’t make me feel any better.
For the first time in weeks, I sit down to take off my shoes, only to realise that it’s not even that late yet. Neither of my parents are asleep yet, probably, and there’s noise coming from the kitchen. It’s not even eleven pm.
But I try my best not to make a sound anyway. I really don’t need anybody fussing over me right now. The thought of having to act like the world is whole tonight is a weight pressing down on my shoulders. Tomorrow, I’ll be well again. Tomorrow, I will smile again.
Just not tonight. Tonight, all I want is to go to bed and forget.
The stairs don’t make a sound as I make my way up to my room. Nobody calls for me when I open the door and close it behind me. I won’t leave it again, not today. I’ll just not brush my teeth if that increases the chance of not having to talk to anybody.
For a long while, I sit on the edge of my bed, staring at the covers, breathing. N’s smell is no longer distinct to my nose. Only when I press my face into the pillow and inhale through my nose—but even then it feels different. There’s not the same comfort in it.
I’m about to get up to change out of my clothes when there’s a knock at the door.
I freeze. My heart stalls, and for a moment, I think I’m going to be sick. Not even this I could have tonight. I may be alone, but not lonely enough to wallow in self-pity in peace.
Before I can bring myself to say anything, the door opens and Amélie leans in.
“Back already? There’s still dinner left over if you’d like—” She says it with her usual warmth, this radiant gentleness that never failed to make me feel at home, even in a foreign place.
Tonight it makes my chest clench.
Her expression changes when she takes me in. Her lips tense, and she wets them before coming in, closing the door behind her.
“Is everything alright?” she asks, watching me, her expression showing me that she knows perfectly well that I’m not.
I shrug, meeting her eyes only briefly before looking away. “Been a long day,” I say, without any effort to sell the lie. “Tired.”
Something shifts in her eyes, as if a door opens up to show the depth that was hidden behind it. A well of worry. She’s obviously not buying it. I remember she used to look at me with that expression, back when I had freshly swapped bodies with N, but she hasn’t done so in weeks.
I never gave her a reason.
She comes over slowly. Her eyes never leave mine, constantly checking, asking permission for every centimetre she comes closer. Finally, she sits down next to me, closer than we’ve ever sat together before. Her hand starts in my direction, but she stills it.
“You know you can talk to me, right?” she says then, leaning forward to meet my eyes. “I know, I know it’s not—something you want to do as a teenager, but I just want you to know. If there’s ever something you need to talk about, I’ll be here. I will listen, and I may not always understand, but I will be there, and I will not judge you. I love you, Noel, and there’s nothing that could ever make me stop.”
It’s that one word. Love. That’s all it takes to break down my last defences. Before I can even think to suppress it, a single, violent sob tears from my throat. After that, there’s no stopping it. Tears spill from my eyes, and my shoulders shiver and my chest spasms on.
I don’t know what it is that makes me react this way. Whether it’s the fact that I can’t recall my own parents ever having said anything of the sort to me. Whether it’s the spiral I’ve been caught in for hours now, how I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that nobody could ever really love me – that nobody could ever really need me – only to find Amélie, the mother of a friend, not even my own, contradicting me. And I believe her, too!
This person, this beacon of warmth and love… she loves me. And not just me, but me, the real me hidden in this body, as well. I saw how she talked about ‘Chloe’.
A hand on my back moves gently up and down. I know she probably wants to hug me, but is scared she’ll only make it worse by belittling me.
And shouldn’t I let her? Just tonight?
I’m so tired of pretending like I can do this. Like I know what I’m doing and expect all the consequences. Like I’m fine with it.
It takes only a slight turn of my head and she’s there, putting her arms around me, pulling me into her until my tears stain the shoulder of her sweater.
She holds me, and it doesn’t matter who I am. I am a little girl, alone in the parking lot, fighting to swallow the tears, certain that she won’t ever find friends in this new place. I am a teenager, keeping her grade sheet closed as she receives it for fear somebody might see. Laughing to fit in. Dressing to fit in. Helping to fit in. To fit in. To fit in. To fit in.
I’m a boy without friends and ambitions and—
A boy who’s really supposed to be a girl but is a boy anyway, so his friend, the most beautiful soul he has ever witnessed, may continue living freely.
I’m a soul spent, with nothing left to give, finally able to take, even if just a little, clinging to her like a drowning man to a piece of drift wood.
“I’m sorry,” I hiccup, my voice muffled by her shoulder. “I’m sorry I—m doing this to you. You—deserve so much better.” I’m not even sure why I say it. I never made the conscious decision, but I suppose the words have been waiting underneath the surface for years now, to be said to anybody who would listen.
But Mum doesn’t listen. “No!” she chokes, her voice strained with pain. “Don’t say that, you hear me? Don’t ever apologise for not being well.” And then she hugs me even more tightly, and I don’t try to apologise again.
I don’t know how long we stay like that. She holds me until my breathing is even again, then she makes me get up and follow her downstairs to feed me the leftovers from dinner, because “You should never sleep on an empty stomach, especially if you’ve had a shitty day.” And while we eat, she puts some comedy on the TV, and I watch with the warming awareness that I’m not alone. Not tonight and maybe never again, even without N.
When I’m done eating, I go and brush my teeth, and Mum tucks me into bed. I’m asleep the second she turns off the light and closes the door behind her.
It feels like I’ve barely slept at all when I wake to the sound of the doorbell. I try to turn and sleep on, hoping that it’s just the postman, but of course it is not. It’s Sunday, and only seconds later, Amélie sticks her head through my door, whispering, “It’s a girl from school, asking to talk to you. She says her name is Vivi.”
***