Her face twists, flushed with anger. “You were supposed to grow up, Nate. Not get stuck in this pathetic town playing babysitter and falling for thatfreak.”
“I’d do it all over again, every bit of it, because they’re worth it. The only regret I have in life is wasting so much time on you.” Shock flickers across her face before it hardens.
“We’ll see how long that lasts,” she spits out. “When this town sees what she really is, whatyouare, don’t come crawling back to me.”
“I wouldn’t wait around,” I say, looking back at my computer screen and clicking on an article called How to be a good partner to someone who is transgender.
I’d better read that. Gotta make sure I don’t mess up again. If Iris will even take me back. ‘Cause if there’s one thing this conversation has made clear, I need to fix things with her.We had something special until I ruined it like adumbass.
Savannah huffs and marches out of my office without another word, the door slamming so hard the pictures on the wall rattle.
Once she’s gone, my body relaxes, a weight I didn’t even know I’d been carrying finally lifted off. I should have stood up to her a long time ago.
But right now, it feels like I did right by AlexandIris.
Iris
Before
I’m sixteen, the first time anyone discovers my secret.
I found the lipstick left on a desk in geometry. It’s used, the plastic cracked near the base and flattened down inside. A pale pink, the kind of color that’s supposed to look delicate and pretty. With a quick sweep around the room to make sure no one was watching, I tucked it into my pocket.
After dinner, I excuse myself, claiming I have tons of homework.
In my room, I stand in front of the mirror and hate the reflection staring back at me, seeing the same thing I always see.
Wrong.
My hands shake as I take the tube out of my pocket and pull the cap off.
Just once, I tell myself. Just to see.
The color goes on patchy, catching on the cracks in my lips. Saying it looks bad would be an understatement. I frown, disappointment crashing over me. I don’t know what I thought would happen. I guess maybe that I would feel right?
I’m so caught up, judging my reflection, that I don’t hear the knock.
“Kavi, could you help me with my homework—” Anika’s voice comes from my open door, trailing off when she takes in my appearance. She stares in shock, her textbook clutched tightly in her arms.
“Ani—” I exclaim, my hand flying up to wipe off the lipstick, even though it’s too late. She’s already seen it. She’s going to tell mama and papa, and oh god, what are they going to say?
My mind is going a mile a minute, thinking of all of the horrible things that are going to happen to me, when she speaks up with the last thing I expect her to say. “That color isn’t good for our skin tone. Makes us look kinda washed out.”
She drops her textbook on my bed and goes across the hall to her room, returning with a different lipstick, a deep red color. Probably something she stole from Mama’s makeup. “Here,” she says. “Hold still.” And Anika, my thirteen-year-old sister, reaches up and applies it carefully, her face scrunched up in concentration, while I’m frozen in fear.
“There,” she murmurs, leaning back to check her work. “Much better, see? Pretty.”
Pretty.
I look at my reflection, and she’s right. The red does look better. I kind of look like Mama. I can only smile for a moment, though, because that thought washes over me like a bucket of ice water.
I turn back to my sister, “Anika,” I whisper. “Please don’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t,” she promises. “I swear.”
Now
I almost don’t stop at the store.
