Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
DION
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO - JULY
Mirrors have never been my best friend. I used to think it was because I’m fat but I’ve had plenty of chances to try and lose weight, and honestly, I don’t want to.
I like my big body. I like the way my thighs fill my jeans and my arms look solid and strong.
I even like my stomach, despite what feels like the rest of the world telling me not to.
My bigger body has been my constant reminder to take up space, to stand tall, to not shrink myself, which has felt like a protest in and of itself, what with the way the rest of my assumed appearance — a Black, curvy, young woman — seems to provoke so much in others.
But I have never loved my body more than I do right now.
It feels too basic, too easy, that a simple suit can have such a profound effect on me, but I guess my neural pathways are very attached to a blazer and tailored trousers combo because that’s exactly what is giving me this euphoric boost right now. Because in my reflection, I see a man.
Sure, the short hair helps too, but I’ve had shorter hair for a few weeks already and people barely batted an eye.
Nobody started calling me he or him. Very few people even looked at me funny.
Well, only a few more than usual. I guess that’s one benefit of being the weird, queer, alternative kid.
Sporting a new cut with the short back and sides, along with my explosion of curls on top, isn’t going to turn heads.
But this suit. This suit is going to turn a few heads. I almost want it to turn a few heads.
I want it to turn Benji’s head.
The uninvited and totally unprompted thought stuns me out of what I think is my first moment of gender euphoria. Because, what the fuck?
I don’t want Benji to be impressed with me, or even notice me, and I definitely don’t want him to be attracted to me, as impossible as that is.
So why would I think that? Am I really that pathetic that him being nice to me for the last few months since our Paris trip means that I start fancying him?
I shudder, albeit it with some force, and I focus my attention back on the mirror.
I study how the cream linen suit hugs my frame neatly, but the shoulder pads help reduce any kind of hourglass-shape.
I wish I could have worn a real men’s suit, but my chest is too big and my hips are too wide and I don’t have the budget for a tailor-made option.
This woman’s suit — a few sizes too big — will have to do, and it does.
It makes me stand straighter with squared shoulders and a lifted chin.
The vintage Hawaiian shirt I have underneath is the pop of colour and style needed to avoid me looking like I’m going to a summer wedding, and my thick-soled Doc Marten brogues are shined to perfection.
I look like a boy. No, I look like a man.
And it makes me feel happier than I have felt in months.
After one quick glance at my reflection, I check the time on my watch. Shit, I’m running late. Raquelle will be waiting for me.
When I suggested to Raquelle that we go together, she hadn’t exactly jumped at the chance.
She’d been waiting, hoping for Miles to ask her, and I’d had to bite my tongue so I didn’t point out how he’d had half of the other girls in our year since he’d called things off with her.
Then she ended up crying on my shoulder one day after French class, explaining how she never imagined she’d go to our Leavers’ Ball single and how tragic that was.
I’d launched into a long spiel about how none of the people with dates will even remember who they went with in fifteen years’ time, and how embarrassing all their couples photos are going to be, but she wasn’t convinced.
I tried to tell her we have our whole life to date idiots, but we’d only ever have one Leavers’ Ball and we should try and celebrate ourselves at it, not some random bloke off the football team who was a massive bell-end anyway.
She’d only really calmed down when I’d said I’d take her as my date.
“Date, date?” she’d asked with a visible amount of scepticism.
“Well, not like romantic date,” I’d replied as we’d sat together in a corner of the library where we were supposed to be studying for our upcoming exams. “As gorgeous as I think you are, I’m not into you like that. Also, I know where you’ve been.”
“Oi!” She nudged me. “So what, we’d just be going as friends?”
“Yeah, but I’d take you as my date. So, I’ll pick you up. I’ll buy you a flower thing—”
“A corsage,” she provided.
“Whatever. And we’ll arrive together. I’ll get you drinks. I’ll make you laugh. I’ll stop you from looking at Miles Dickwad all evening. We’ll have our photo taken together, and it will be a photo you actually like looking back on when you’re older, because we’ll still be friends.”
“We will,” she said, a smile in her voice. “You really want to do that? Isn’t there somebody you’d rather go with?”
I’d thought about Benji asking me to go with him. How cruel a joke that had been. How hard I’d laughed at the time, but how upset it had made me that he would have fucked with me like that.
“I want to go with you,” I told her, finding her hand with mine.
And that’s exactly what I was going to do.
Racing down the stairs, I nearly collide with Mum who is walking in the front door carrying more shopping bags than a five-foot nothing, fifty-year-old woman should be able to carry. “Oh, D—, love, help me with these will you?”
“Sorry, Mum, I can’t. I’m late for the Leavers’ Ball.”
“Oh, yes! Just wait a minute. Lyla! Devon! Come here and grab the shopping will you! I need to take some photos of Dee looking all …” She pauses, and I hold my breath. “Handsome.”
My exhale is full of relief and joy.
I told my parents a week ago that I was having some confusing feelings about my gender.
It had been a long and difficult conversation.
My father had been more oblivious, and therefore shocked, than I had expected.
My mother had wanted answers I wasn’t ready to give.
Because while I acted confused and maintained that pretence, I have been feeling clearer and clearer about who I am. About the man I am.
And I’m starting to really like the man I am.
I’m just not ready to burst that bubble by being him in the real world yet. I want to, I so desperately want to, but I know it’s not going to be easy or simple or without pain.
I’d like to postpone the accompanying pain a little longer. Like after I’m done with school completely. Like when everyone else who is leaving this town has finally, finally gone.
But that conversation still brought about change that has made life so sweet recently.
Now, I’m Dee, which I had been before, but I’m Dee all the time now.
I officially have a deadname, in my house, at least. Dad doesn’t call me pretty or beautiful anymore, which he had a habit of doing, although he hasn’t quite landed on a more gender-neutral pet name for me yet.
He also hasn’t stopped looking at me with this curious expression that I can’t describe, or rather, prefer not to.
“You look great,” he says from his armchair.
“Thanks, Dad.” I lean down to kiss the top of his head, his closely shaved afro tickling my lips.
“You’re going to drive safe, yes? No drinking.”
“Of course,” I say as I reach for Mum’s car keys. Lyla and Devon thunder down the stairs and after a couple of grumbles start helping Mum with unpacking the shopping bags.
I hesitate, watching them.
“They’ve got this,” Dad says, like he can read my mind. “You need to go and have fun.”
“I don’t need to go and—”
“I want you to. You deserve to be happy,” he tells me, and it confuses me because his tone is nothing but sadness.
But I am going to be late if I don’t get a move on. So I call out a handful of goodbyes, squeeze Dad’s arm on my way out of the living room, and close the front door behind me.
Raquelle has her arm hooked in mine as we walk from the car park to the school’s gymnasium.
We’ve walked like this a hundred times before, but tonight it feels different.
Tonight, I feel like I look like the man I am.
Tonight, I’m a man holding her arm, not her best girlfriend. Tonight, I’m her date.
“You smell …” She sniffs the air as we approach the open double doors of the large sports hall. “Different.”
“I’m wearing cologne,” I tell her. It’s one of many little pieces of information I’ve taken to dropping in front of Raquelle.
Building bricks, I call them. I’m trying to lay the foundation for my big reveal, because while I trust Raquelle will still love me when I tell her, I don’t want it to be a shock.
It’s the shock that my dad had in his wide eyes that made me second guess myself and I’m so very tired of doing that.
She sniffs again. “Why?”
“I like it,” I say, feeling like I’m chickening out of something.
Raquelle opens her mouth to say something else but then a loud, “Oi,oi!” has us both turning back to look behind us.
“Nice suit, D—!” Miles Richards’ voice barks out.
He’s walking towards us and he’s not alone.
In his hand is a can of beer that he waves around, strongly suggesting this isn’t his first, and around him are several other members of the football team.
As they come closer to us, I find myself looking for Benji, but when I see him walking a few metres behind everyone else, I immediately look away.
Self-consciousness makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
“Borrowed it from your dad?” Miles asks me, and I know he’s making a joke about me wearing what looks like men’s clothing, and I know he doesn’t know that my dad is sick because I don’t let hardly anybody know about that, but the blood in my veins starts to simmer with rage at him even mentioning my father.
“Fuck off, Richards!” I shout back and then yank on Raquelle’s arm to turn us around before I pull her into the gymnasium.
It’s hardly an escape. The boys stay right behind us. They start talking and guffawing about something else, but I’m on high alert, listening out for any other possible dig at myself or at Raquelle. I can’t wait for these fuckers to be out of my life.
Not for the first time, I question why Benji still hangs out with them.
I know football is a big deal to him, but why still be friends with these boys.
He told me in Paris how much they annoy him and he’s already playing for a bigger and better football team.
Why would he still bother hanging out with them?
I brush the question aside. What do I care?
I focus on moving forward into the dimly lit sports hall where music blasts through broken speakers, disco lights flash off the floor and walls, and streamers criss-cross overhead.
My fellow students are scattered around the space in clusters, some sitting at tables and others just standing around, close to a long table that is covered with food and drinks, none of which look particularly appealing.
As I expect, Miles and his cronies have already lost interest in us and they push past us, knocking Raquelle and I apart.
She spots a group of our other friends and immediately rushes over to join them.
I’m about to follow but a deep voice stops me.
“Hey,” Benji says from close behind me.
I turn and see him better than I did outside.
He’s wearing jeans and a shirt, not a sports brand logo in sight.
He’s not shaved which has me wanting to tease him that he couldn’t even go to the trouble, but at the same time I’m glad he didn’t.
His chiselled jaw looks so much more masculine with that stubble and when the disco lights keep catching his bright blue eyes …
well, I do my best to avoid looking directly at them.
He seems so much older than his eighteen years and I have a fleeting thought that Benji is going to have it all once he leaves this town.
At university, the girls will lap him up, and many boys will wish they could too.
I just know he’ll be one of those who finishes university with their life in perfect order: a good job, a woman he’ll eventually marry, friends he’ll have forever, and three years of happy memories to look back on.
I’m happy for him. And also very, very jealous.
“Hi,” I say and wonder why he’s stopped me. If he’s going to apologise for Miles’ behaviour, we’re going to be here a long time.
“You look …” His eyes slide down my body and I’m aware of all the parts of me I like, and the parts I don’t. “So fucking cool.”
He’s smiling so much he’s almost laughing. Or maybe he’s simply laughing at me, I don’t know. I don’t want to know one way or another.
I pull on the lapels of my blazer to straighten it. “Well, some of us have to make an effort. You didn’t even shave.”
Now he’s definitely laughing at himself as he runs a hand over his chin.
My envy focuses in on his fingers and I ball my hands into fists at my side as if to stop them reaching out to copy the action.
I don’t know if it’s stubble on my chin or the stubble on his chin that I want to touch most. “Had football training. Ran out of time. My mum said it made me look sophisticated.”
I roll my eyes hoping it hides the flinch of jealousy I feel.
“Well, if your mum thinks you look good,” I tease him.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“So, no date?” I ask and then want to hit myself for doing so. What do I care?
A strange expression wipes his smile away for a beat but then it’s back, if a little tighter than before. “Nah, just with the boys.”
“Well, I’m here with Raquelle,” I say, feeling even more foolish and yet I don’t stop talking. “She’s my date. Not like, romantic dates, but platonic dates. I’m going to look after her the way a guy should.”
Benji nods at me knowingly, and I realise he’s connected the dots between Miles and Raquelle. “And what about you?”
“What about me?” I frown, confused.
“Who’s going to look after you like a date should?” He seems to grow taller as he asks this, wider too. Or maybe it’s just that everything else — the music, the chatter, the lights, the decorations — fade away.
I’m stunned — by his question or my reaction, I don’t know — but I quickly compose myself and step back ever so slightly as if the distance will help. It does, a little.
“I don’t need anyone. Not tonight, not ever,” I tell him, and then I turn and walk off to find Raquelle, wondering why I said that to him. Although it’s completely true, why did I feel it necessary to tell Benji Smith of all fucking people?