Before I can stop it from escaping, a hiss of disapproval wriggles from the deepest recesses of my heart and out of my mouth, and I wrench my wrist from his grasp and all but flee the room.
I knew he wouldn’t let me go that easily; he’s always been headstrong, and when he gets something in his head, he makes sure to follow through, and for whatever reason, that something right now is talking to me. After four and a half years, the voice that once made my heart race with excitement is making it want to shrivel up and die instead.
“I wasn’t sure if I was even going to tell you I was here and just kind of hoped we never ran into each other, but when I saw you were in my class, there’s no way you’d not notice that I’m here. In hindsight, it’s probably better this way anyway because now I can tell you that just because I’m here doesn’t mean anything has changed. That way you didn’t see me from afar and make the mistake of assuming otherwise and talking about things that shouldn’t be talked about,” he rambles on as he follows me at a brisk pace.
I stop in my tracks and take a deep breath to calm myself.Don’t let him see.Square your shoulders and look him in the eye. Show him he has no power over you.
Easier said than done when I’m barely keeping the panic and bile at bay just from knowing he’s here. Once I feel like I’ve got control over my emotions, I pivot and meet his gaze, making sure mine is steely and impossible to read.
His sky-blue eyes are on mine, and his face is the same, if not a bit more mature, than the last time I saw him. He’s still handsome, but it’s marred by the pride and cruelty that I know exists in him now.
“What are you doing here, Kingston?”
“I transferred,” he deadpans, and it pisses me off that he went out of his way to approach me just to tell me to keep my mouth shut. Like I’d ever want anyone to know I was involved with this prick.
He can’t fathom the concept that I’d want as little to do with his memory as possible because, inhismind, it should bemyhonor to have ever been seen by him.
Inmymind, it’s my biggest failure; if I could ever undo one moment in my life, it would be whatever I did that caught his attention in the first place.
“Of all the schools to transfer to…” I roll my eyes, cursing every deity in the universe for throwing this fucker into my path again.
At least this time, I know him for what he is and know better than to fall back in his trap.
His eyes take me in slowly from my head to my toes, probably forming a million opinions of the way I’ve changed. I’m not just significantly less sweet in my tone and delivery than I once was, but the full face of makeup, along with the tank top covered with a floral lace-knit shawl and the leggings tucked into knee-high boots I’m wearing, are also significant changes from how I used to be.
I never came out to him as being nonbinary. Even when we were dating, I never said. With Qi and my parents, I was my full, authentic self, but I lived publicly as my assigned-at-birth gender back then. That’s the version of me Kingston knows, because even when we were dating, I never said anything about my gender. I meant to; I thought of a million ways to tell him, but something always held me back.
I didn’t even tell him about my obsession with makeup, because it’s simply something most people think is for girls, not boys.
Obviously, I know better now. I’ve worked through all of that and unlearned the many toxic binary standards society grounds into people from birth, and I’ve met more people over the years who get that makeup is genderless.
But going to the high school I went to, and being surrounded by the types of people I was back then, boys wearing makeup was girly, and that was a bad, bad thing, so I was too scared to tell him and have him judge me harshly for it.
That really should have been a clue that things weren’t as cozy as they seemed. I couldn’t even trust him with such a vital part of myself, yet I was somehow under the impression that there were happy-ever-afters for us in the future. It’s sad to look back and see how obvious the clues were back then, knowing how badly I’d missed them all.
“Have you seen the football stats here? Oh, wait, never mind, of course you wouldn’t understand that,” he says scathingly, bringing me out of my ruminations.
At least he’s focusing more on the conversation than whatever fucked up opinions he’s making in his head of me. Not that I care, and I really mean that.
I’ve spent years learning to embrace myself, and no amount of judgment from this asshole is going to have me backtracking or second-guessing.
I raise my head high and look him dead in the eye. “I am actually fully aware of how famous the football team is here. I’m also pretty sure that since you missed both the tryouts and the first game, you’ll have to wait until next year.”
Kingston shrugs. “Not necessarily, as long as I’m on the team, anything can happen between now and the end of the season,” he says in a way that has my stomach clenching uncomfortably.
“It amazes me the shit a bit of talent and money gets away with when it comes to sports. Well, money in your case, since your talent has always been mediocre at best,” I say scathingly, using the years of him not knowing me as a barrier to protect myself from the million emotions that are glitching inside of me while pretending I’m wholly unaffected by his completely unwelcome presence.
“Oh, baby,” he tsks condescendingly. “We both know you don’t know shit about football. You just look stupid trying to pretend otherwise.”
I just roll my eyes because he’s partly right. I really don’t know that much about football, but living with two football jocks means I’ve picked up enough to be a hell of a lot more fluent in it than I was over four years ago. But why waste the effort of defending myself when I don’t give a shit what this asshole thinks of me, anyway?
So I huff out an insult of my own instead. “At least I have to make an effort to look stupid,” I deliver the low blow, hoping it’ll send him away.
To be honest, I don’t even know if it’s actually a low blow, because his whole crybaby ‘everyone thinks I’m stupid’ act could very well have been an act, just like everything else was. But even if it wasn’t an act, everything he’s done since then has long since stripped me of caring about his feelings anymore.
“Ouch,” he says drolly, clutching his chest dramatically like I’ve pained him. “How un-Qiang-like of you.”
I roll my eyes at him again, wanting to get away from this conversation. My knees are shaking beneath me, letting me know that the mask I’ve thrown in place can only hold for so much longer. I need to get away from him before the cracks start to show.
