8
Lillian
Up until two weeks ago, senior year felt like a barrier between me and the rest of my life. I knew what was next. The band, Emelia, gap year/s. Now school is something familiar I’m clinging to before a giant uncertainty.
Admittedly, it’s familiar shit, but it offers a day-to-day distraction. Since mid-August, since the breakup, I’ve been rattling around inside myself. Even my summer job at the drop-in center ended last week, so no more paid distraction of hanging out wit.
“troubled youth”
(the program’s words). A summer of answering questions about being queer from kids pretending it’s pure theory for them, listening to whatever music keeps them alive and crushing them at foosball. I’m not going to lose on purpose just because they’re kids. I’m not a saint.
Before school started today, I made a list of things to do, mostly music related. That was in one of my upswings. It was an inspired and ambitious moment where I ignored the evidence and decided that without my relationship, I’d dedicate all my extra time to productivity and self-improvement instead of despair.
Reorganize guitar pedalboard
New setlist
Pick rehearsal nights / band meeting
Restring Butler
Daily run / strength train (pact with Cyprus)
Get merch logos from Quinn / band beanies?
Fix bike brakes
Call Christensen
Write two three songs (naive/breathe?)
As my brother and I ride up to the bike racks in front of school, I have to start slowing down before he does. Jasper makes a big show of rushing in, slamming on his working brakes and skidding to a stop. He’s riding a bulky old mountain bike. It’s things like this that make him perpetually my little brother even though he’s sixteen now.
“I’ll loosen your tires and watch you die!”
I call after him, squeezing my brakes harder like the force will make up for my lack of bike maintenance. I’ll pick up new brake pads on the way home. I’ll definitely do it tonight.
By the time I coast to a stop, Jasper’s already on his way inside. He’s greeting people and being effortless with his impossibly tall group of friends. I swear straight cis guys make friends just by being tall, or maybe that’s how they make teams, or maybe that’s just Jasper having an easy time living. I might be having a moment of envy about his whole breezy existence.
He’s forgotten to lock up his bike, so I snap my U-lock around his frame and the frame of my single-speed. Hopefully stealing two attached bikes is more effort than it’s worth.
Now where are my people? I have people too. One less than before, but there’s still Cyprus and Quinn and some others who are friendly faces even if they aren’t much beyond that. Though most of them are Emelia’s friends. We’ll see how they treat me. I don’t think Emelia will have talked shit about me since she’s generally kind and sweet. Sometimes to her own detriment.
But then, I did break up with her.
And we haven’t talked since.
Possibly I now have only two friends at school.
Beside me, there’s a loud clang as someone hits the rack with his bike frame. He’s really struggling to lock up his bike, making every part of it seem weirdly difficult. Eventually, he clips his U-lock through just the front tire.
He’s got excellently styled hair with a few pieces that have fallen out in the attractive way they’re supposed to. It looks deliberate, like someone on set did his hair. It’s very first-day-of-school intentional, which might cut down on the attractiveness. I haven’t decided yet. If my hair was like his, I’d do something like that. For now, I’m trapped with a partially grown-out undercut.
I have no business giving him advice, but I don’t see Cyprus or Quinn and I’m stalling on going inside alone. If I run into Emelia, I want one of my friends by my side.
“They’ll steal the rest of your bike and leave the front tire,” I say.
He looks up at me, all embarrassed and frazzled. It’s deeply cute.
“Really? Don’t they kind of need that?”
He’s White, wearing a plain gray shirt knotted in the front to show a sliver of his stomach, cutoff jean shorts that are shorter than any other guy here wears and the littlest bit of sky-blue eyeshadow. Not drastic, but it’s noticeable. This is not a school where guys do any of that. This is a school where they play hockey. When they go out, they wear a denim jacket, a hoodie underneath and a baseball hat. Possibly with the hood over the hat. Call it business casual, because this is endless horizon country.
And it’s occurring to me that I should definitely hold off on “guy”
and pronoun assumptions until we’ve introduced ourselves. Shit. I know I’m preoccupied if I lose track of something that’s usually so automatic for me.
They’re not quite meeting my eyes. I’ve been told I have a very intense, direct way of looking at people. I never lose staring contests.
“They’ll reuse the parts,”
I say.
“or they’ll put another tire on the front.”
I point at a different bike.
“You should put it through the frame and at least one of the tires.”
They unclip the lock, and I desperately want to step in and do it for them. It just all seems so awkward for them. They’ve gotten grease from the chain on their shin.
“I was picturing some thief riding around in an endless wheelie,”
they say.
“Thanks to you I can banish that image from my mind.”
“Lillian!”
I see Cyprus waving at me from the front steps.
I say.
“The pleasure was all mine,”
but in trying to make the phrase ironic I manage to make the whole thing come across as mean. This happens to me a lot.
I make a beeline for Cyprus before they can respond or seem confused. Cyprus has her camera pointed at me, collecting a million pictures and hours of video. Even during shows, she has it on her laptop or her keyboard. From being her friend for so long, I’ve learned I’m best off if I don’t respond or pose. It’s my only hope of being digitally intriguing when Cyprus works promotional magic for the band.
She hugs me when I reach her. It’s all elbows, and she smells like a whole store of bath bombs. She’s wearing sunglasses that are so big they must either be a joke or Cyprus’s new favorite accessory. By twelve, she responded to insults about her clothes by saying.
“Trends are just companies creating new ways to feel bad about yourself so they can sell you the solution.”
Statements like that made me worship her a bit back then.
“Who’s your new friend?”
she asks before she’s even let me go.
“They seem like your type.”
I brought this on myself. I may have bemoaned my lack of romance and physical touch in moments of making light of things. Maybe Cyprus plans to pair Emelia and I off with other people or hopes the two of us will make up. Maybe she just wants what we all do — our group back to normal.
“They’ve got a pretty face,”
I say.
“That’s everyone’s type.”
“Trust me, it is not.”
The person at the bike racks finally gets their lock through the frame and the front tire, and clicks it closed. As they walk toward the front steps, Cyprus whispers to me.
“I can get their name for you. Number, address, social security number, whatever you need.”
Her send-the-first-text, cross-the-room attitude kept me alive through years of childhood shyness.
“Don’t you dare.”
“I juuuust might dare.”
Cyprus probably raises her eyebrows at me. I can’t tell behind her glasses.
Softly, I say.
“Cyprus, I can’t.”
They walk by.
They’ve got this energy that’s nervous without shying away.
I wouldn’t call it confidence, but it’s standing tall.
It seemed like going through those doors was brave for them.
I suppose they’re new to the school, and they look like a senior.
Not the best time to join.
And our school (named after one of those colonizing demon-men) is this categorically unwelcoming square brick thing from back when they used essentially the same design for prisons and schools.
I used to think that was very edgy, representing how schools imprison young minds.
Wrote a song about it. Really, it just means the windows are small and all the hallways look the same.
“Sorry,”
says Cyprus. Then.
“I’m sorry, Lillian. I’m just not sure how to act right now.”
I tell her it was nothing, when actually I feel like throwing up.
Trying to work my brain around being attracted to someone else and wanting them and that being a real possibility … it washes over me.
My body gets overloaded.
I suddenly miss Emelia so much that I can’t get enough oxygen.
My heart can’t decide between activated and shut down.
What the hell is that? That’s not moving on.
I can do better than that.
Today started better than that.
I can still reel it back in.
As Cyprus and I go through the doors, I try to stand tall too.
Today, I’ll be friendly.
I’ll get moving, and moving on from Emelia.
I’ve already bested potential bike thieves.
Twice. I’ll fix my brakes and get started on all my music things. At lunch, we’ll make band plans.
I’ve got some lyrics bouncing around my head.
I can be brave and stand tall too.
Let’s go let’s go, I tell myself.
It’s possible to be
Better than heartbreak
Coughing out my lungs
From the tear gas grenades
Don’t mistake me for dead
I’m coughing up blood
But I’m not
Bleeding out yet