Across the room, Kai sighs as he steps in from the deck. He runs a hand through his hair, his brow wrinkled like he’s aged a dozen years since we got here barely an hour ago. Our relaxing weekend getaway is already proving to be more chaotic than I anticipated, and we’ve only just arrived. I haven’t been to many—well, any—parties. Or sleepovers either. Mami would send me to the moon before a stranger’s house for an overnight stay. But from the slumber parties I’d seen on TV, our night is only just getting started.
“You brought a bathing suit, right?” Kai asks me after he’s closed the sliding door behind him.
I nod, cheeks flushing at the thought of the two-piece I’d shoved to the bottom of my bag, hoping it wouldn’t see the light of day.
This time, Kai senses my hesitance, taking a step toward me but remaining a careful distance away. “And you’re still okay with this?” he asks in a measured whisper, looking over his shoulder to gesture to the Solo cups sitting on the counter and the vague scent of weed lingering in the air. “I know all of this isn’t really your scene.”
I nod again, surer this time. Feeling more at ease just from the knowledge that he’s not pushing me any farther than I’mwilling to go. “I’m sure,” I say, biting my lip as I look up at his soft, sincere eyes.
“All right…” Kai backs away slowly, looking unconvinced until I give him a smile. The tension melts off him, his own smile bubbling up as he makes it to the staircase. “I’ll meet you at your room and we can head down together?”
Together.Such a simple word—a simple concept—and yet my heart swells at the thought of it. Us. Together. It overwhelms me to the point that I’m frozen in place until Kai heads up the stairs and disappears from view, and I finally let out the breath that hitched when he walked away.
11
The person standing in front of the mirror doesn’t look anything like me. The last time our family drove out to the sleepy lakeside town where half of Millcreek spends their summers was at least three years ago. Before my body had sprouted seemingly overnight. Back then, I was all flat planes and straight lines. Freckled skin and pigtail braids.
As I turn to examine myself from the side, I can’t help but linger on the swell of my hips, and the way the skintight fabric clings to my body. It’s easy to forget I have any sort of shape when all I wear are Mami’s hand-me-downs. I never minded the baggy T-shirts and sweaters. Maybe if I let my clothes swallow me whole, nobody would notice me. But there’s something thrilling about seeing myself—the me I’d forgotten existed—in my reflection. Practically a stranger. With a smile so wide I’d never think it was me if she didn’t match my movements.
I pulled my hair out of its braid to fall loose and free along my shoulder, my curls trailing down to just above my belly button. My skin isn’t dewy and flawlessly radiant like Carla’s, but I’m not as pale as the fluorescent lighting at school and Sunny Hills makes me seem. Like with the dress I stole for my birthday, I run my fingertips along the neckline of the swimsuit and marvel at the person I could be. The body Ihave but never let myself show. I feel strong. I feel captivating. I feelbeautiful.
And I feel like an imposter.
Even if the tags for this swimsuit weren’t digging into my skin, I’d still feel like I was living a lie. This isn’t me—who I’m allowed to be. The girl with the thick, luscious hair that you long to run your fingers through. The girl with curves like winding roads and a smile that stops traffic. I’m the girl who had to swipe this outfit from the mall last week because there wasn’t anything left in my own dresser that would actually fit my post-puberty body.
It was easier this time—swiping the swimsuit off its hanger and shoving it into my bag. By the time I slipped out of the store no one had even noticed that I’d left the dressing room. Finally, my talent for keeping my head down and staying under the radar actually came in handy.
After looking myself over one last time, I dab on a light layer of lip gloss and grab one of the towels sitting on the top of the dresser. As promised, Kai is waiting for me outside my room when I open the door, leaning up against the wall, arms crossed against his bare chest, wearing a loose, unbuttoned linen shirt. I stall in the doorway, hand limp around the knob as I try to take all of him in without making it obvious just how hopeless I am.
His arms are lean, but firm. Not bulging with muscles like Timothy’s or the other jocks from the football team but undeniably strong. A slim silver cross sits at the base of his collarbone, twinkling even in the dim overhead lighting. His smile when he sees me could light up the entire sky, and makes me feel lighter than air.
“You look great,” he says as he kicks off the wall.
“You do too,” I reply so quickly my cheeks flush.
Kai ducks his head sheepishly as he looks down at his own ensemble. “Wasn’t sure whether to go with or without the shirt.” He tugs on the collar of his baby blue linen shirt before gesturing down to his chest. “Since, y’know. Scars,” he mumbles sheepishly.
I hadn’t noticed the scars, laced along the left and right sides of his chest, until he pointed them out. They’re healed enough that the surgery couldn’t have been super recent, but haven’t begun to fade just yet. There’s a strangely beautiful symmetry to the way the scars are woven on top of one another, wound together like ribbons.
He runs a hand down the back of his neck and suddenly averts his gaze from mine. This is a new type of shyness from him, a raw vulnerability. I was already longing to run my fingers along the smooth plane of his chest, but I ache for it with a new hunger now. To show him he has nothing to hide—not from me or the rest of the world.
I can understand his hesitancy, though. When he and Kiki first transferred to Millcreek, they were the center of gossip for weeks. Rumors about who they were and why they’d transferred flew through the halls at the speed of light, morphing and evolving into everything from them being in the witness protection program to them being undercover FBI agents sent to investigate an illegal drug ring. But pieces of the truth slipped through the cracks.
When word spread that Kai was trans, I found myself on edge whenever I saw him in the halls. Not because that changed how I felt about him, but I’d seen the way my classmates responded to queerness. How cruel people could be about something as simple as who you are. I’d seen how dark things could become—how far our classmates were willing to go tohurt someone. The thought of them hurting Kai made me sick to my stomach. Watching the same people who tortured Joel wipe away the confidence and laughter and joy in this boy who managed to brighten my day with a single smile was not something I wanted to witness. But I knew I couldn’t actually do anything. Having the girl with the murderer for a dad stand up for him would only put a bigger target on his back.
But no one lashed out at him. No one taunted him or called him names or cornered him after school. Within a few weeks he and Kiki had taken their places at the top of the social hierarchy. Two weeks later, Kai was homecoming king, something that would’ve seemed impossible just a year earlier. Things had shifted—either out of fear of what happened the last time students had targeted someone, or because Kai was the type of person that was impossible to dislike. Last time, they had an easy target. Someone who was quiet and shy and afraid of the world because that’s what he was raised to believe. A blank slate for them to project all their hatred onto.
For better or for worse, my classmates had learned their lesson. They wouldn’t make the same mistakes again.
Not after Joel.
I realize I’ve let the silence sit for too long when Kai reaches for the top button of his shirt. Shaking off the memory of my brother, I quickly take a step toward Kai.
“I think they’re beautiful.”
The compliment makes him bloom like a flower in spring. He lets go of the collar of his shirt and I don’t even realize his fingers have slid through mine until his thumb grazes along my knuckles. Kai’s lips part slightly, but whatever he’s about to say is cut off.
“Damn, Soto,” Timothy exclaims as he steps out of hisroom across the hall. “That’s what you’ve been hiding under all those hoodies?” He leans up against the wall beside us and shamelessly takes me in from head to toe.
