EPILOGUE
DION
EIGHT MONTHS LATER - JULY
“It feels like a dream. A bad dream,” I admit to Benji as we approach the gymnasium’s double doors.
“Oh, it’s not that bad,” he says, swinging our joined hands like he always does. “It certainly won’t be as awful as our Leavers’ Ball.”
“Well, I’m not planning on eavesdropping on conversations that aren’t actually about me, that’s for sure.”
“And I don’t plan on shitting myself in the disabled toilet.”
“No fear of that now you’ve got your magic bag.” I squeeze his hand.
“Exactly.” He taps his stomach. “Are you saying the nostalgia isn’t getting to you at all?”
I don’t have time to answer his question as we walk through the double doors and are immediately accosted by a small group of what I assume to be final year pupils. They rush up to Benji and attack him with a deluge of questions and complaints and requests.
“Mr Smith! The food hasn’t arrived yet!”
“Sir, the DJ needs another power cable. Do you know where we can find one?”
“Oh, you’re tall, Mr Smith, can you help us do the final few decorations?”
Benji keeps hold of my hand but also stills and takes in a deep breath. “Raj, the food is due to arrive in an hour. They will call my phone when they’re outside. Elliott, I’ll go and find a cable right away. And Olivia, I will then come and help you with the decorations.”
Satisfied with these responses, the teenagers’ eyes all seem to drop to our joined hands. “Who’s this, sir?” Elliott asks in way that is both coy and accusatory.
Benji smiles broadly as he answers, “This is Dion, my boyfriend.”
“Hi, everyone,” I say, while straightening my shoulders and taking up a bit more space.
It seems ridiculous that at the grand old age of thirty-four I have to remind myself not to be intimidated by teenagers.
But maybe I can, all too easily, recall just how judgemental and scathing they can be because that’s exactly the kind of teenager I was.
“He’s way too cool for you,” Raj says with no apparent shame.
“So are you gay or bi or queer or what, sir?” Elliott’s confidence knows no limit.
“You look cute together,” Olivia says and she catches my eye. I see it then. This indescribable look of recognition, like parts of our brains start speaking to each other, in languages nobody else can hear. Olivia is trans. I smile back at her.
“Right, enough of this.” Benji waves his free hand around, dismissing his pupils without passing further comment. “Raj, stand by. Elliott, I’ll go find you your power cable and Olivia, don’t go breaking your neck on the ladder.”
“Yes, sir,” the trio mumble and wander off.
When I see that they’re out of sight back in the sports hall, I pull on Benji’s hand to bring him standing directly opposite me. “They like you.”
“Whatever gave you that impression? They were borderline rude to us both just then.”
“That’s how I know they like you.”
Benji finds my other hand. “Oh, I see. Is that your way of telling me you actually really liked me in our last year? Because you were so rude to me?”
“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” I say with a sly smile before pushing up to brush a kiss against his lips. “Come on, Mr Smith. Let’s go make this Leavers’ Ball a lot better than ours was.”
“Deal,” he says before he lets me pull him towards the sports hall.
When I agreed to come to the Leavers’ Ball with Benji, I didn’t really know what to expect.
I had this idea of being required to intercept teens trying to spike punch bowls or stopping heavy petting in corners from getting too heavy, but in reality, I spend most of my time with Benji standing in the dark edges of the dancefloor which is striped with the markings of indoor tennis courts.
Holding plastic cups filled with flat cola, Benji tells me stories about the pupils we watch dance, talk and occasionally act up, but it never escalates beyond playful shoves and pushes.
He knows a lot about them. About their home lives, their interests, their ambitions, their dreams. I find myself wondering if any of my teachers had anything like the same insight into my life.
I wonder if any of them picked up on my transness.
I wonder if any of them could have helped me.
I think then about Mrs Kim and how she would always make herself available to me whenever I needed her. I think about her giving me access to the art room after hours. Maybe she did that so I had a place to explore my art, yes, but to find myself through those explorations.
“Benji,” I stretch up close to his ear, “can we go to the art room?”
He blinks at me slowly, and I wonder if he didn’t hear me over the blasting music that I don’t recognise. I guess that officially makes me old.
“The art room?” he repeats eventually.
“Yeah. I want to go and see what it looks like now. Is it still in the same place?”
“It is, actually.” He smiles, but it doesn’t feel like it’s for my benefit. “Come on then.”
Holding my hand, Benji leads me out of the sports hall once he’s told one of his colleagues we’re going for a short walk.
A couple of the pupils make teasing noises as we pass them, but it sounds more like they’re cheering us on than tearing us down.
Benji doesn’t bother to hide his broad grin as he dismisses them cheerfully.
We don’t talk as we cross the car park and then enter the school’s main building, which is older and darker than the gymnasium.
Motion sensors make the corridors light up as we walk down them, but when we finally reach the art room, Benji needs his key to open the door, and then he switches the overhead lights on as I enter.
After taking a few steps inside the space, I stop. I look around me, at countless canvases and boards displaying all manner of art. Inhaling, I catch whiffs of instantly familiar smells — acrylic, oil, clay, pencil shavings, pencil lead. They are the scents of my final two years of school.
“It feels smaller,” I say.
I hear Benji close the door behind me. “I know. The whole school felt that way when I first got here.”
“That’s strange, isn’t it?” I turn to ask him. “I’m the same size I was when I left here. We haven’t grown since then.”
“Oh, Dee.” He steps closer and takes my hand again. I’m not sure how long this will last, but he always wants to hold my hand. “We’ve grown,” he says with emphasis. “We’ve both grown a lot since then.”
I know what he means.
Honestly, I think I’ve grown just as much in the last eight months as in the last sixteen years.
I’m not completely comfortable with that fact, with the reality that being in a relationship changed me.
In many ways, it goes against everything I used to resist about having a partner.
I don’t think romantic partners should make you grow, or complete you, or force you to change.
But that’s the difference. There was no forcing. There was no completing. There was no need for me to grow.
Instead, Benji offered me something new, something different. And I accepted it. It didn’t complete me, but it still added something to my life. He didn’t force me to change, but he did make me see ways in which change could be good for me. For me first, and then in turn, for him.
“Do you remember when I found you in here one evening?” Benji has his phone in his hand and is tapping on the screen.
“When?”
“That year. Our final year. At the start of the year, I think.”
“I don’t remember,” I say, and it’s only partly a lie.
I do remember us being in this room together.
I remember him seeing the painting I was working on — the one that represented my struggle with gender at the time — but I can’t remember what we talked about.
I can’t remember anything other than feeling like he was looking at the painting and seeing all my thoughts, my feelings and my secrets.
It’s easy to forget conversations but it’s not easy to forget it when somebody makes you feel that way.
“You were in here after school one day. The same day I had football training. You were sitting at a table listening to cool French disco music and working on a painting,” he says and he sets his phone down on the nearest table just as a familiar song starts playing.
Daft Punk, Something About Us. “It was pink and blue, and they merged to make purple. Abstract, I guess you’d call it. It was beautiful.”
I snort. “If it’s the same one I’m thinking of, it wasn’t my best work.”
Benji rubs his forearm as he often does. “No, maybe it wasn’t your best work. But it was still beautiful.”
I watch as Benji approaches me and wraps his arms around my back. He looks down at me with one of his dreamy smiles.
“Did you spike your own drink? You look a bit drunk, Mr Smith,” I tell him as my hands find his hips.
“Drunk on love,” he says, and it’s one of a thousand cheesy things he’s said to me. Like I always do, I tut him and roll my eyes. But inside, inside I store it away like I did that Valentine’s card for fifteen years. “I was going to ask you to dance with me, tonight.”
“Oh, really? In front of the kids?”
“Yes, in front of the kids. Just like I should have done sixteen years ago.”
“Sixteen years ago, I probably would have said no.”
“You did say no, remember?”
“I didn’t know what I was saying no to!”
“Well, you know what I’m saying now. Will you dance with me, Dion Ravel?”
I look up into his sky-blue eyes. “Yes, Benji Smith.”
And I do. It’s just swaying, mostly, but every now and then, Benji dips me or twirls me and takes as many kisses as he can in between.
When the song ends, I expect our dancing and kissing to end, but it doesn’t.
In fact, Benji seems to take the sensual beat of Sébastien Tellier’s Look as an invitation to kiss me long and slow.
I feel him start to harden against me just as I’m aware of my own dick swelling in my underwear.
“Benji,” I pull back, biting my lip, “we should go back to the gymnasium.”