9
Sasha
So about the mythology of high school the Channel perpetuates. That shiny version of adolescence Isabelle acts in.
Yeah, it’s a scam.
That sounds bitter, but I didn’t expect it to be true. I think I would have been disappointed if it had felt like a Channel show. As much as day one was very disorienting, it was also profoundly nothing much. Mostly, people were fully preoccupied with their own lives. I had classes, none of them hard. I’ve been educated by tutors for most of my life, though technically I haven’t graduated yet. If I make it through this year, I’ll graduate from this school. Here, in this nowhere city. This is based on the doubtful proposition that I manage to stay here for an entire year.
Without the Channel tracking me down.
Without accidentally revealing my identity.
Without the fans finding me.
Without missing my old life too much.
Without wanting to be famous again.
Without Heather Erin kicking down my door.
Even getting registered without being exposed involved some maneuvering. I don’t have a parent or guardian around to sign anything. Since our dad passed away last year, Augustus has been my legal guardian, but he’s otherwise occupied. And he’s not exactly nurturing or involved. Or aware of where I am. Ultimately, it took a large anonymous donation from my “family,”
aka me, to get in. I chose to be called Sasha Weaver, not Alexander Ash. I picked new names that felt like I could wear them around me while I made something beautiful out of my life.
Yet more ways I could blow my cover.
The theory of my escape is this: since Augustus is on trial and Admirer is on hiatus, the Channel won’t really miss me. It’s not like we’d be touring or releasing music. And the Channel can’t afford more scandal, so they can’t reveal that I’ve gone missing. They’ll want to handle everything quietly. I’m counting on it.
Then again, the Channel could have already unveiled my real face and be combing the nation for me.
One way or another, I’ll be back. I’m too famous for it to be any other way. And then it’s fifty-fifty whether they claim it was all a promotional stunt OR they take the breach of contract very personally and ruin the rest of my life (I’ve seen them do it before). They’re looking for me, either to destroy me or to make a lot of money, and they’re not choosy about how those two things overlap.
I try not to think about it. I’ve been ignoring the trial, the news, everything since I left the beach house in Isabelle’s trunk. The shift feels like when a storm knocks the power out and suddenly the hum around you is gone. At first it’s anxious, then peaceful, in a way.
I’ve escaped the buzz of every person I meet wanting something from me.
I had a lab partner today named Quinn. The teacher said to find a friend to work with. I didn’t know anyone. This situation is objectively a more frightening moment than stepping out onto the biggest stages in the world.
Then Quinn pointed at me from across the room. I thought he was pointing to someone behind me until he walked straight for me. Brown skin, curly dark hair, wearing this beautiful baggy hoodie with sound waves that turned into whitecaps on the front. It was subtle, but the fabric paint formed the color pattern of the trans pride flag.
He doesn’t even know who I am. He chose me just because, not to try to climb a ladder to fame.
“Quinn,”
he said. He clasped my hand in that way that feels like it’s right between some light arm wrestling and a hug. I made a mess out of it. I’ve always been hopeless at stuff like that, possibly because Isabelle is my only friend.
“Amateur chemist, expert judge of people, he/him,”
Quinn said.
At which point I had a small-to-medium-sized panic, because I realized I could say my pronouns too. I could introduce myself however I want. But for all the school forms, there were just two boxes, and I knew which one I was supposed to check. The box that confirms how most people initially code me. I was going to say he/him like I had on the forms or on the plane when I was making my backstory. But I immediately felt safe with Quinn, even though he had started flicking the burner on and off. Emotionally safe.
“Sasha. They/them. I think?”
Out loud, it felt strange. Though I already knew it belonged. I’ve flipped the language around and around in my head for a couple years. I’ve followed all sorts of queer people on my private accounts and watched a lot of videos of them explaining things and found the words that feel like they fit me right now.
Queer. Nonbinary. Pan. They/them. Sasha.
I’m not sure I understand all of them, not sure it’s possible to, but they’ve helped me put the pieces together into a picture of me. I no longer need to come out to myself. I only put a question mark after my pronouns in a moment of insecurity.
Because those words almost always stayed in my head at the Channel. The one time I spoke them to Augustus, they weren’t really heard. I could have tried with Isabelle too. I trust her, but it felt like there was no point. I would have gotten her to treat me the same way so our romantic act remained undisrupted. At the Channel, I knew who I was supposed to be.
“Nice,”
said Quinn.
“Called it.”
I suppose trying to guess pronouns isn’t ideal, but I definitely try to figure people out in my head too. And to have someone guess right? It simultaneously made me feel unsettled and like I was glowing.
“Was it the eyeshadow?”
“There’s no linguistic requirements to wearing anything.”
Quinn pushed up his sleeves.
“And yeah, the eyeshadow helped. But also like, eight other things.”
I very much wanted to know what the eight other things were. I could only think of maybe four.
The teacher had finished giving instructions (indiscernible scrawls on the blackboard and a textbook page shown with an overhead projector). He made a comment about how life wasn’t going to hold your hand, turned on some seventies pop, and started working on his laptop.
“What a class act,”
I said.
“What an educator.”
Quinn nodded agreement.
“True true. I’ve taught myself science for years. But at least …”
He gestured vaguely to the speakers on the teacher’s desk.
Then we chatted about the music for the rest of the class and taught ourselves science. A new song would come on, and Quinn would say.
“They could replace that drummer with an actual metronome and no one would know the difference. In a bad way.”
Or I would say.
“If they start with this much excess, where do they think they’re going to go?”
Quinn.
“Key change. Two if we’re lucky.”
Me.
“Two key changes is lucky?”
When the big choruses hit, I wanted to sing along, full voice, but of course no one else was. It’s not a musical.
After class, Quinn said.
“I’d love to give you a tour-of-the-high-school-and-its-social-dynamics montage sequence, but I’ve got a band meeting. Top tip: sit outside while the weather’s good.”
I’d gotten too relaxed with Quinn. Two weeks after making a break for it, and I spoke without thinking.
“I used to sing in a band.”
Quinn’s face immediately showed a concerning level of interest, and he generally had an eager face. He stopped packing up his bag, no longer rushing to get to his meeting. He wanted to know what band.
When you’re a performer, you lie all the time. I told every second city how it was one of my favorite cities. Sometimes I had to write the first letters of the city on my hand in tiny letters to make sure I got the name right. I’d say it was great to be there even on nights when I felt too exhausted to stand. You look straight out at the crowd, and you lie.
“Just a local thing where I used to live.”
In my conversation on the plane, I’d chosen an extremely mundane west coast city. People recognize the name, but no one visits it. And it’s from a climate I don’t have to fake being from.
“We kept changing names. Sasha’s Crew, Sasha and the Rest.”
What was I talking about? Those were terrible names.
And I felt like twice the liar, because the real band that played with Admirer was never really ours — just industry veterans on risers at the back of the stage lifelessly playing music that bored them and cashing checks while me and Augustus soaked in the attention.
I slung my backpack over one shoulder and started for the door, still talking.
“But what’s your band meeting about?”
Give a little, redirect.
“Well, our bass player and our guitarist broke up.”
He glances down at his phone, where I can see new messages coming in.
“Aaaaand the bass player has just sent a message with paragraph breaks. This will go great.”