Layla lowered her voice. “I heard the kid was really sick. Like, terminal. That’s why they moved away.”
Parker broke in, grabbing the photo from my hand. “You talking about Tommy? Grant’s little gay boyfriend?” Two of his enormous buddies appeared behind him. Suddenly the space felt stifling. “I heard his mom went full psycho, killed the dad and little Tom-Tom with a shotgun, then turned it on herself, and their heads were so messed up the coroner had to use their teeth to identify ’em.”
Chloe narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. Anna looked down at her feet.
“Park,” Grant said, joining the circle. Parker turned around. Grant’s hands were in his pockets, his jaw set in a hard line. “Don’t say shit like that, okay?”
Parker scowled and stood up straight, squaring his shoulders so he took up as much space as possible. His gaze drifted from Layla to Chloe, who were both staring straight ahead. Finally, he turned to look at me, a snide smile in his eyes.
“Yo, Grant,” he said. “The new girl know you’ve got a vagina?”
I flinched as if I’d been struck. I wondered why people still made comments like that. I wondered when I’d stop caring. I took a step back and away.
But neither of them was looking at me. Grant just shook his head. “Have another drink, bud.”
“Five bucks says she won’t compare to your ex-boyfriend,” Parker spat. He brushed his shoulder and headed for the keg, body-checking Grant on the way. His minions followed. Grant stayed put, not saying a word.
Someone turned the music back up, and soon the normal party sounds returned. Around me, people went back to talking and laughing and flirting and dancing. But I couldn’t be one of them anymore. I’d been crazy to think I ever could. When no one was looking, I slipped through the crowd and out the back door.
ELEVEN YEARS AGO
I wrote a good story at school. Mrs. Upton told me my parents needed to see this story and to take it home right now, tonight. The story was for an assignment where we were supposed to imagine what we would be like when we were grown up, which was something I had thought about a lot.
In the story I found a car in my room like the one from The Phantom Tollbooth except purple instead of red because purple was my favorite color and also it was a time machine instead of a machine to go to magical worlds. I got in the car and turned the key and drove and I arrived in the future! And in the future I was in a science lab and there was a very tall and pretty lady there with long hair who was busy working on her computer. She was wearing a lab coat but it was also a very pretty dress in a way that was hard to explain, so I drew a picture. The lady got up and hugged me and said that she was me, grown-up! She showed me how she drank a special medicine so that when she grew up she became a woman instead of a man. She told me that the way I felt like a girl inside of me was a true thing, and was not bad or wrong. Then I got in my time machine and came home.
I read the story again while I waited. The line for car pickups was very long, and normally I did not care because I was very patient, a real cool customer Dad said, but I wanted to show my story to my parents and that made waiting hard. I just knew Dad would be so happy when he found out he had a daughter and not a son, but maybe he would also feel silly that he and Mom made such a silly mistake? When he tried to do boy things with me he always frowned and stopped, so I did not think he wanted a son really, which was fine because I hated sports.
The pickup lady in the orange vest called my name and pointed to our brown station wagon three lanes back. I started to run, but the lady in the orange vest told me to slow down, which was a rule for my safety. I walked slowly between the other cars, but really I was wondering what kinds of clothes Mom and Dad would get me now. Hopefully some skirts since the weather was hot and jeans were so bad, the worst! I climbed into my booster seat and buckled myself in. Dad was driving the car, and Mom was not in the car, which was normal. They did not like riding in the car together because it made them full of stress and then they yelled, which I did not like.
“How was school?” Dad asked.
“Good!” I said. Dad nodded and turned on some music. I wanted to tell him about my story right away, but it was not safe to drive and read and if I read it to him he would not see the pictures. I hummed along to the song and bobbed my head but I did not kick my feet because that noise distracted Dad, which was not a safe thing to do. Finally we pulled into the driveway.
“Dad!” I said. “Dad, look what I did today! I wrote a whole story!” I ran around to his side of the car.