Chapter 2
Two
Brunch
Putting my ID away, I scan the crowd for Adrienne.
Tucked away in a courtyard behind the bar, the buzzing patio is bright with late-morning sun.
The scar tissue in my bum knee aches, I’m hot, and I can’t quite catch my breath after walking so fast in a binder.
Or perhaps the anxiety sitting heavy in my chest, made worse by the sinking dread that I’m late to brunch, is what’s really restricting my breathing.
Both the pain and the panic are my own damn fault.
After opening the envelope, I spiraled, staring into the middle distance for far too long, then practically ran here after throwing on jeans and a plain black t-shirt (neither cool nor particularly gay).
Being late was inevitable; I shouldn’t have rushed.
Spotting Adrienne’s shiny scalp on the far side of the patio, I curse myself for opening the damn envelope. I’m technically early; the show always starts fifteen minutes late. But I’m late enough that there’s only one open seat left at the table.
Right across from Eris fucking Garcia.
It shouldn’t matter. It’s only a few minutes of painfully awkward small talk with the only weirdo I don’t click with.
We’re outside, and there are only six of us; I could sit quietly and listen to Dream, the resident extrovert, talk.
But Eris is like an accident on the freeway that I can’t keep from rubbernecking as I pass.
I linger at the edge of the patio, squinting in the sunlight, peeking under the umbrellas that never provide enough shade.
The temptation to say I didn’t see them is strong.
Then I could run home and finish my existential crisis in peace.
Or better yet, bury it in case studies. That’s worked well enough the last two years.
But Adrienne spots me first. “Blake!” She waves an unfairly buff arm, gold bangles gleaming against her deep ebony skin. “Over here!”
I wave back, forcing a smile as I make my way to the table. “Hey everyone!”
“Everyone” consists of one extrovert, Dream, and the five shut-ins she’s collected.
The first is Dream’s wife, Adrienne, my friend from law school who immediately clocked me as a fellow queer and sat by me in every class.
She claims to have social anxiety, but she’s more my security blanket than I am hers.
If I hadn’t been heartbroken when we met, and she hadn’t immediately dropped a “my wife” into the conversation, I probably would have fallen for her real quick.
She’s buff as hell, shaves her head to the scalp, wears a lot of pretty jewelry, and always has on these high-neck tank tops that make her shoulders look massive. She’s all-around gorgeous.
I would never have had a chance, because Dream is the most glamorous femme I’ve ever laid eyes on.
I don’t know what perfume she wears, but she always smells amazing.
Her thick brown hair is styled in a bob so sharp it could cut someone, and her social media is perfectly curated.
For work, she does cosmetic tattoos, somehow making the swollen bold eyebrows, reconstructed fake nipples, and bloody lips she just finished tattooing look perfect.
The other two shut-ins—Stella and Kelsey—I don’t know as well.
I’m not sure where Dream found them, but they’re cool, I guess.
Stella is quiet, but they say really profound shit on the rare occasion they do talk.
Kelsey’s blunt eagerness to devour drama and gossip reminds me of Allie’s bitchy twin sister, so I haven’t really gotten to know her; small talk fills our silences.
Unlike the other shut-in Dream has collected, Eris, who greets me with a “Sup” when I sit down across from zim. Ze seems incapable of polite conversation.
“Hey.” I eagerly grab the mimosa pitcher Adrienne passes me, filling my empty flute. The cheap champagne with a spritz of orange juice is a relief, washing down the anxiety building like bile in my throat.
Really, Eris is a perfectly… Well, not average, or normal, or any other polite descriptors.
Eris is Dream’s former coworker at the tattoo studio, until ze got a job at a dispensary instead.
I think what bothers me most about Eris is that I don’t like zim.
Because I work very hard at being nice to everyone, and I especially want to befriend the few non-binary and genderqueer people I know.
But Eris is a dick, and I can’t stand zim, because I always want to be a dick right back, and I can’t. Because then everyone will know I’m not actually that nice, and I’ll lose the only friends I have.
The second time we met, I asked, very politely and purely out of curiosity, why ze uses ze/zim/zis pronouns.
Eris must have taken it as a criticism, because ze told me to mind my own fucking business.
With all of these potential new friends looking at me, waiting for my reaction—just like everyone back in Solberg, desperate for something to gossip about—I swallowed all of my retorts and muttered a “sorry” instead.
Since then, I’ve minded my own fucking business when it comes to Eris, but our rapport has not improved in the least. Ze gets under my skin no matter how hard I try to be polite, and I hate it.
Eris must see through my nice facade because ze works relentlessly to bring out all the bitchy replies in my mind, like ze’s determined to break me.
The part of me that sees the best in people recognizes that Eris is probably attractive.
Ze is just as buff as Adrienne—if shorter, thicker, and hairier—with lots of piercings and tattoos.
Like many tattoo artists, who practice on each other and themselves, most of Eris’s are either poorly done or just strange.
Such as the rose in the crook of zis elbow, which is actually a poorly-disguised vulva.
In addition to big brown eyes with unfairly long lashes, ze has nice hair, long and thick and a lovely chestnut brown color.
On the rare occasions when zis undercut is fresh, the geometric patterns tattooed into zis scalp blend into the fade.
I’ll grant that Eris is interesting to look at, but ze is just unkempt enough that it bothers me.
Not that I’m particularly kempt, but I don’t want to like zim, so I focus on the faults.
Little imperfections draw my eye: two divots below zis lip where ze used to have snakebite piercings, a scar interrupting zis eyebrow when the barbell got yanked out, the wisps of mustache curling over zis lip in desperate need of a trim.
Zis clothes are pretty, but they never quite fit well.
A lot of florals, beads, and lace, paired with leather accessories. Like if a grandma was a biker.
“The fuck you lookin’ at?” Eris asks, because I’m glaring at zim as I chug my mimosa.
Cheeks burning, I pant as I empty the glass and immediately refill it. I mutter a, “Nothing, sorry,” instead of any of the snappy comebacks I’ll come up with when I replay this conversation again and again over the next few days.
“You okay there, Blake?” Dream asks, an amused smile on her face.
“Never better,” I smile, but based on everyone’s concerned looks, I’m grimacing.
Well, mostly concerned; Kelsey practically lights up. “What’s wrong?”
I wave her off. “Nothing! How’s everyone else?”
“Don’t do that, babe,” Dream reaches across the table to pat my hand. “You look like someone put chili powder in your panties. Let it out.”
“How about I keep it in?” I mutter into my mimosa, hoping it sounds like a joke. But only Eris laughs, which adds insult to injury.
I shouldn’t have opened that damn envelope.
It was supposed to be easy. Impersonal. They were supposed to be dotting their I’s and crossing their T’s, would be secretly relieved when I declined their invitation.
But no. Allie had to include a damn handwritten note in her annoyingly legible script.
A heartfelt, personalized missive about how she should have mailed the invitations herself, instead of letting Jessica, her bitchy (my word, not hers) twin sister and maid of honor, do it.
How it would mean the world for me to attend, so much so that they already booked a hotel room for me.
How both she and Matt have been overthinking if they should have talked to me after I didn’t respond to the invite.
That they really hope I come, and I should invite the person I’m seeing to come as a plus-one.
Even if it’s not serious, they want to get to know whoever is in my life, because I never talk about myself enough, and they want to know what my life is like now from an outside source.
Because they love me and miss me and want to stay involved in my life. And I’m always welcome in theirs.
So now I have to go to the damn wedding.
But Matt, Allie, all of their friends, and his parents, they all expect me to be someone I’m not.
Matt’s parents expect the worst of me, and I can’t let them win on principle, so I have to go out of spite.
They expected me to come crawling back to Solberg with my tail between my legs, that pursuing a JD was a waste of time.
Just like they thought Matt going to college was a waste, so he didn’t.
But even if Matt always bent to their pressure, I refuse to let the Jacobsons dictate my future. Partially why they never liked me.
Matt’s friends, all of whom are heteronormatively coupled up, expect me to move on, leave Matt and Allie alone, and have no feelings but distant happiness for them.
As if my life hasn’t been entwined with Matt’s for our whole lives, as if Allie and I didn’t live together for four years.
Because I am happy for Matt and Allie, though I’m also hurt and jealous.
I should be more over it than I am after almost two years, but I’m not.