Cute Mutants Deluxe, page 4
I fish in my bag and throw a mostly empty can of Pringles at him.
“See?” I say. “Magic. That asshole of a teacher was pissing me off.”
He looks at me with those beautiful eyes and then gives what sounds like the world’s longest sigh. “Dylan, this is my fight.”
This is good in that he’s moved on from my impossible ability. It’s bad in that we’ve had this argument before. I get that it’s his life and his thing to deal with, but at the same time Lou is terrible at sticking up for himself. If he had his way his ‘fight’ would involve him shrinking and shrinking until there was nothing left of him but sad scraps. Someone has to defend him, and it’s going to be me because a) fuck other people and b) fuck transphobes especially.
“I know it’s your fight.” I’m aiming for calm but I’m aware it sounds like somebody trying to scream through gritted teeth. “But fights involve actually fighting. Not—” There are literally a thousand things I could say after this, but all of them are mean. Apologies would take too long.
“I have chosen the path of least resistance,” he says, like he is some fucking Zen ninja dude swaying with the breeze. At least they unleash the fury of a trillion fists when they’re pushed over the edge, and I can’t see Lou doing that.
It’s not his fault at all. It’s the fucking world and his parents and that awful teacher, but the chambers of my heart aren’t big enough to contain all the anger I have. I clench my teeth, sorting through my brain for words, and come up empty.
“Whatever.” I get to my feet, yanking my bag with me, nearly dropping my phone. Got to buy a screen protector, Dylan. “I’ll talk to you later.”
I leave him sitting on the bench and don’t look back.
When we meet at the end of school, neither of us is in the mood to talk. It’s the post-school traffic rush, and I skip across the road in front of the oncoming cars. There’s a whole bunch parked up waiting for people, and I walk past one with this total asshole inside. I recognise the licence plate. It’s BJF something which I always think stands for Bastard Jerk Fucker. He’s here like half the time, hooting and shouting at girls. I hate him so much I can’t even deal. The shit he says to Lou? I don’t want to repeat it, because it’s vile bullshit, but to give you a tiny example he says stuff like ‘show us your dick.’ Honestly, why has nobody killed him yet?
“Fuck off, you repulsive asshole,” I snap at him through the window. He laughs this high-pitched laugh, like it’s the funniest fucking thing ever. I wish I was brave enough to smash the wing mirror of his car.
Lou ignores him and cycles along the footpath beside me, slowly enough that he swerves everywhere. I stare down at my phone, sending gifs to Pear. The one of the kid walking along in the sand with his head down and his arms hanging. The ‘I’m Done’ one with the guy stepping out the window. The pretty girl with the ‘Over It’ gun. Pear and I can have a long conversation in gifs. They send me back one of Lorelai Gilmore hugging Rory, and I smile despite myself.
Halfway up the road we come to the shop where we often buy ice creams, except the footpath outside is all torn up. The front window is shattered, and someone’s put orange cones all in the path. The guy who runs the dairy is sweeping up glass. He looks pretty slumped and over it himself.
“Hi,” I say. I don’t know his name but we recognise each other.
“We’re closed today,” he says.
I pause in the gutter, scraping the toe of my boot through shards of glass. Lou gets off his bike a few meters ahead. I shade my eyes from the sun. Inside the shop, everything’s been thrown everywhere. There are piles of food and shattered bottles. It’s a mess.
It seems beyond weird that this ice-cream shop also got struck by the same earthquake as number fifty-two on my street, but I’m not whatever kind of scientist knows about earthquakes.
“This sucks,” I say, because I am sympathy girl.
“It’s the last straw.” He’s not rude, but his voice is sharp. “Earthquake. Robbery. You name it. I’m done.”
“Sorry.” I offer an incoherent shrug.
He gives me this grimace, like ‘thank you miss for your understatement’ and goes back to sweeping. I tiptoe my way through glass and catch up with Lou, who’s slouched on his bike like his spine can’t hold him up any longer.
When we get back to my house, it’s quiet except for Summers who pants and whines and shows his belly. Once the great god of neediness has been appeased, he curls up across my feet. We sit at the kitchen table and do homework and watch YouTube. To be fair, it’s mostly me watching Red Velvet’s video for Psycho and trying to learn the dance.
Lou is doodling wide-eyed anime boys and pretty anime girls on his pad. The girls all look like idealised versions of me, doe-eyed and floppy-fringed. Is that how he sees me or how he wishes I looked? I watch him work, the gentle strokes of his pencil, the way something beautiful emerges from the mess of lines.
He glances up halfway through sketching hair and sees me transfixed.
“I love that you want to defend me,” he says.
“I shouldn’t.” I look away, because his gaze is impossible to hold. “I know I shouldn’t.”
“You have my back.” He’s still drawing, sketching out a body for the Dylan-face, a body that is not mine and wearing clothes I’d never wear.
Is that his fantasy or generic anime fantasy? Or am I reading too much into it, like I do into everything?
“I like you having my back,” he says.
I don’t say anything, even though my instinct is to babble.
“When you stick up for me, I feel like—”
Another long pause, more lines on the girl’s body. What the fuck is she wearing or not-wearing?
“I feel like I’m failing.” The pencil falls still and his gaze is back on me. “Like I’m not doing my part. Sticking up for— for people like me.”
My cheeks feel hot and my eyes feel hot and I want to bury myself in the garden until this conversation is over. I press my lips tightly closed, because if I talk I’ll either shout or cry.
“I know that’s not fair.” His hand touches mine, his fingers nestled into my palm and his thumb stroking the back of my hand. “You defending me is beautiful. But I feel like I don’t deserve it. Like why should you put yourself in the firing line because of who I am?”
Finally, I have the words I need.
“Because it’s right.” My voice is steady and there are no tears. “Even if I wasn’t… smitten with you, I would stand up for you.” I pull the sleeve of my school blouse up to reveal the tattoo on my wrist—the only one Pear let me get. An X in a circle—the logo for the X-Men. “It’s about fighting for those who need protecting, who are hated or feared. And it’s about saying fuck people like the Purifiers, because they are the worst.”
“Purifiers?” He has this tiny smile that I want to kiss. Sometimes he likes it when I ramble.
“Like this religious organisation that believes mutants and people with differences are evil and must be destroyed.” I blush, because as much as Pear has raised me to love the X-Men, I occasionally recognise the need to shut the fuck up. “I gave you ‘God Loves, Man Kills’ to read, remember?”
“I don’t like the art,” he says, which makes me steal his pencil and throw it across the room. He laughs and gets up to retrieve it. I feel this surge of warmth in my heart that’s so strong I want to take him in my arms and kiss him until one or the other of us blacks out.
“Careful,” Tempus says from his position on the wall. “Watch your heart, Dylan, my dear. Emotions like that are dangerously powerful.”
I want to take the clock off the wall and frisbee him into the other room, but Lou is looking at me with delight in his eyes and I don’t want to ruin that, not for anything. I have to treat this carefully because if I break it, there isn’t any alternative. It’s not like people are lining up to hang out with me.
“Come here,” I tell him, and hold out my arms.
I get woken up again in the early hours of the morning, except this time it’s from anxiety brain. That friendly friend that lurks in my mind just to fuck with me. Summers is asleep on my legs, and it’s making me sweaty and gross. I thrash my way out of the blankets and stick my feet out into the cool air. This encourages Summers to drag himself up the bed. He ends up curled beside my face, and I grab my phone to put in a reminder to bathe him.
So, my brain says, you’re not the only one with mutant powers.
Fuck off brain, I say, I want to sleep.
My brain is not interested in sleep. Instead, it wants me to think about Alyse. I wish I could remember her last name. Seeing her today was like a Very Special Episode of a kids’ show where you learn that even the pretty girl still worries about how she looks. I feel a rush of gratitude for my talking-to-objects ability, because if I had Alyse’s I would permanently take the form of a hideous slug. Knowing I’m not the only one with a superpower makes it better and worse. Yay, I’m not alone vs how the hell are real people existing with real superpowers?
I don’t even understand my superpower.
“Do objects speak if there’s nobody around to listen?” I ask Pillow sleepily.
“We are in hibernation,” she says. “The first thing I truly remember is you talking to me.”
Everything else in the room chimes in too, and they all basically agree.
“It’s like we are dormant, waiting to be woken up,” the alarm clock says.
“For a signal to connect to us,” the Bluetooth speaker adds.
“Am I a light in the darkness, Candy?” I ask my candle, who mutters something incoherent.
I have this panicky feeling in my chest at the thought of it. Where were they before that? Where did this awareness come from? I’m involuntarily creating these entities who feel things and have opinions and even make puns for fuck’s sake. I don’t know how I’m doing it or if I can stop.
I ask each of my objects to do something for me. The alarm clock changes the time. The speaker plays music, except it’s still obsessed with nineties guitar shit that manages to sound both bored and pissed off, so I tell it to stop. None of the others do much of anything. I try to muster up some anger to see if I can juggle Pillow, but my eyes are droopy, Summers is snoring ever so faintly, and it’s hard to feel much of anything.
I wake again much later than my usual time, because I forgot to tell the alarm clock to set itself back correctly. I crack my eyes to see Pear standing over me, eating toast.
“Fuck off,” I groan, because I hate crumbs in the bed.
“You do realise you’re late, Dilly my sweet?” There’s a gleam in their eyes. It gives them some sick satisfaction when I’m not punctual, because I’m usually the responsible and sensible one. There’s a definite Gilmore Girls vibe that we have going on. What it means when I’m up late is that Pear gets to make obscure jokes about deer hitting me, while I ignore them and run around the house swearing. Except this time, they intercept me before I get out the door.
“Is everything still going okay at school?” Their face is intent and serious.
“It’s fine.” It’s not, but what is saying anything else going to do? There’s nothing that can be done to fix it. I’ve endured it this long, and I can probably last the rest of school. Then maybe things will get better? Fuck, I don’t know. Worry about that later.
“Are you sure?” They really want it to be better, which I get.
“Yes, I’m sure.” I trot down the steps and onto the path, tossing a backwards wave over my shoulder.
I’m halfway to school when I get a Snapchat message from Lou to tell me he’s sick and won’t be at school today. This is fairly common. He doesn’t always want to be out in the world. Add to this his parents are…problematic. They try intermittently, but it’s super clear they don’t really believe he’s who he is. It makes me so mad I could smother them with Pillow, but I’ve promised him not to get all up in their faces about it.
So rather than ranting, I text him back smooch emojis and tell him he’s wonderful. They go unread—he’s probably sleeping again, or playing some game on his PS4.
I get to school with a time to spare and have an urge to find Alyse. It’ll be super awkward, but I want to talk to her about mutants. I’ve got powers, and she’s got powers. This has to mean something. It takes me a few minutes to scrape up the courage. Back when Pear first got worried about my social anxiety or whatever the fuck the counsellor called it, they made me learn these fucking air-quote strategies for interacting with others but I can’t remember a thing.
I eventually find her sitting out by the field with a couple of blonde girls I vaguely recognise.
“Dylan Taylor,” Alyse says, in this kind of flirty way that throws me off. She’s looking extra pretty again today.
“Hi.” I’m suddenly aware of how weirdly I stand compared to normal people. My limbs hang off me like they’re badly fitting clothing. I try shifting my weight but that’s even weirder. Why do people have to communicate in reality? Gifs or gtfo.
“You’re the one who’s dating the girl-boy,” one of the blondes says, looking up at me through long lashes and stretching her legs out like she’s posing for something.
“He’s a fucking boy,” I snap.
Alyse reaches out and shoves her. “Katie, Jesus. That’s rude.” For a moment there’s this red tinge to her eyes, and her mouth looks blood red and fangy. It’s gone in a blink. She gets to her feet and links her arm through mine.
“Thanks for yesterday.” She’s standing very close and I feel awkward. I don’t know how to extricate myself, but I let her tow me off to a safe distance where we can’t be overheard. “I mean I know I shouted at you, but what you did for me? In the bathroom? That was very cool.”
The inside of my mind is smooth and blank and free of conversation options. “It’s, uh, it’s, uh, it’s fine.”
“It’s been freaking me out,” she says. “Like I’ve been waking up in the night panicking, so the fact that you were chill about it made me feel so much better. I still don’t have any idea what the hell is going on, but you were like a lifesaver, you know?”
“Mutant powers.” I say it with way too much intensity, but Alyse doesn’t let go of me and run away screaming so I carry on. “I can kind of… sort of, well… I’ve got my own thing.”
Her eyes are enormous orbs in her head and her jaw drops halfway down her chest. Her hair sticks out all around, like a close up anime shock face. It’s only there for a few moments and then it’s gone. I feel a mix of excitement and fear. Her powers aren’t just about her looks, they’re about her moods too.
“You mean? You can…?” She’s still blinking at me.
“Sort of,” I say. “Different and… different.” Oh very fucking eloquent Dylan, you insufferable blunder. Alyse doesn’t seem to notice how embarrassing I am, or is too polite to mention it.
She grabs my arm so tightly it hurts. “That means it’s not just me.” There’s another flash of shock face. “I’m not the only one.”
“No.” I don’t even try to take my arm away, even though my personal space is all crumpled up. “We’ve both got something going on.”
“We should meet up after school, away from all this.” She gestures at our surroundings with her free hand. “Talk about it. Trade tips or whatever? Figure out what to do.”
I frown at her. “Are you sure?”
“Why not?” She says it so easily, the words spilling out from between her lips as if these transactions are so simple they can be made on a whim.
“Okay,” I say, because it’s somehow easy.
“I’ll meet you after school, by the bus stop out the front.” Her eyes are big and brown and there are no worlds of judgement in them.
“Okay.”
“Can we go to your house? My brother’s friends will be at mine and they’re literally disgusting. I don’t want to deal with that.”
And then somehow I’m agreeing again, and Alyse squeezes my arm like we have a secret—which I guess we actually do—and turns to walk back to her friends. Her ponytail sways with each step. I tell myself I’m not watching, but I am.
After school I’m out near the bus stop for so long that I’m sure Alyse has forgotten. I’m constantly checking the time on my phone and telling myself if she’s not there in two more minutes I’m going to leave. I’m sure everyone who walks past knows what’s happening. Alyse told them all, and now they’re laughing at me as I stand here like a patient dog waiting for someone who’s never coming. My life is threatening to become that ‘hello darkness my old friend’ gif when I hear a voice.
“Omigod Dylan, I am so sorry. Ms Bartlett is like an actual dragon and I mean that in the literal sense, even though I know what literally means.”
It’s Alyse, who is literally sparkling, and I know what literally means. Her hair falls down her back in this glorious brown and golden waterfall. Glittering particles are springing from it, dancing on the breeze. I figure with her mood-ring powers, this means she’s happy about the situation, which makes me feel weirdly connected with her.
“It’s fine.” I’m slightly dazed from the enthusiasm. “I don’t have anything else to do.”
So we go back to my house and we talk the whole way. Like I think I have nothing to say, but then Alyse asks me a question and I find words waiting in my mouth. I find myself explaining Pear to her.
“They gave birth to me, but they’re not either male or female, or maybe they’re both. They call it choosing to reject the concept of gender. We have a joke about it, like we’ll text each other some random thing.” I get out my phone and scroll back through the long trail of messages between me and Pear, who is of course only in my phone as the pear emoji. “Okay, like today’s gender is a fox on waterskis. Today’s gender is Storm with a mohawk. Today’s gender is an ice sculpture in a forest. Today’s gender is the precise way Tessa Violet says yikes in ‘Bad Ideas.’”
“I like it,” Alyse says. “Today’s gender is a rock at the bottom of a stream that’s deeper than you think it is, so you miss picking it up.”
“See?” I say. “Magic. That asshole of a teacher was pissing me off.”
He looks at me with those beautiful eyes and then gives what sounds like the world’s longest sigh. “Dylan, this is my fight.”
This is good in that he’s moved on from my impossible ability. It’s bad in that we’ve had this argument before. I get that it’s his life and his thing to deal with, but at the same time Lou is terrible at sticking up for himself. If he had his way his ‘fight’ would involve him shrinking and shrinking until there was nothing left of him but sad scraps. Someone has to defend him, and it’s going to be me because a) fuck other people and b) fuck transphobes especially.
“I know it’s your fight.” I’m aiming for calm but I’m aware it sounds like somebody trying to scream through gritted teeth. “But fights involve actually fighting. Not—” There are literally a thousand things I could say after this, but all of them are mean. Apologies would take too long.
“I have chosen the path of least resistance,” he says, like he is some fucking Zen ninja dude swaying with the breeze. At least they unleash the fury of a trillion fists when they’re pushed over the edge, and I can’t see Lou doing that.
It’s not his fault at all. It’s the fucking world and his parents and that awful teacher, but the chambers of my heart aren’t big enough to contain all the anger I have. I clench my teeth, sorting through my brain for words, and come up empty.
“Whatever.” I get to my feet, yanking my bag with me, nearly dropping my phone. Got to buy a screen protector, Dylan. “I’ll talk to you later.”
I leave him sitting on the bench and don’t look back.
When we meet at the end of school, neither of us is in the mood to talk. It’s the post-school traffic rush, and I skip across the road in front of the oncoming cars. There’s a whole bunch parked up waiting for people, and I walk past one with this total asshole inside. I recognise the licence plate. It’s BJF something which I always think stands for Bastard Jerk Fucker. He’s here like half the time, hooting and shouting at girls. I hate him so much I can’t even deal. The shit he says to Lou? I don’t want to repeat it, because it’s vile bullshit, but to give you a tiny example he says stuff like ‘show us your dick.’ Honestly, why has nobody killed him yet?
“Fuck off, you repulsive asshole,” I snap at him through the window. He laughs this high-pitched laugh, like it’s the funniest fucking thing ever. I wish I was brave enough to smash the wing mirror of his car.
Lou ignores him and cycles along the footpath beside me, slowly enough that he swerves everywhere. I stare down at my phone, sending gifs to Pear. The one of the kid walking along in the sand with his head down and his arms hanging. The ‘I’m Done’ one with the guy stepping out the window. The pretty girl with the ‘Over It’ gun. Pear and I can have a long conversation in gifs. They send me back one of Lorelai Gilmore hugging Rory, and I smile despite myself.
Halfway up the road we come to the shop where we often buy ice creams, except the footpath outside is all torn up. The front window is shattered, and someone’s put orange cones all in the path. The guy who runs the dairy is sweeping up glass. He looks pretty slumped and over it himself.
“Hi,” I say. I don’t know his name but we recognise each other.
“We’re closed today,” he says.
I pause in the gutter, scraping the toe of my boot through shards of glass. Lou gets off his bike a few meters ahead. I shade my eyes from the sun. Inside the shop, everything’s been thrown everywhere. There are piles of food and shattered bottles. It’s a mess.
It seems beyond weird that this ice-cream shop also got struck by the same earthquake as number fifty-two on my street, but I’m not whatever kind of scientist knows about earthquakes.
“This sucks,” I say, because I am sympathy girl.
“It’s the last straw.” He’s not rude, but his voice is sharp. “Earthquake. Robbery. You name it. I’m done.”
“Sorry.” I offer an incoherent shrug.
He gives me this grimace, like ‘thank you miss for your understatement’ and goes back to sweeping. I tiptoe my way through glass and catch up with Lou, who’s slouched on his bike like his spine can’t hold him up any longer.
When we get back to my house, it’s quiet except for Summers who pants and whines and shows his belly. Once the great god of neediness has been appeased, he curls up across my feet. We sit at the kitchen table and do homework and watch YouTube. To be fair, it’s mostly me watching Red Velvet’s video for Psycho and trying to learn the dance.
Lou is doodling wide-eyed anime boys and pretty anime girls on his pad. The girls all look like idealised versions of me, doe-eyed and floppy-fringed. Is that how he sees me or how he wishes I looked? I watch him work, the gentle strokes of his pencil, the way something beautiful emerges from the mess of lines.
He glances up halfway through sketching hair and sees me transfixed.
“I love that you want to defend me,” he says.
“I shouldn’t.” I look away, because his gaze is impossible to hold. “I know I shouldn’t.”
“You have my back.” He’s still drawing, sketching out a body for the Dylan-face, a body that is not mine and wearing clothes I’d never wear.
Is that his fantasy or generic anime fantasy? Or am I reading too much into it, like I do into everything?
“I like you having my back,” he says.
I don’t say anything, even though my instinct is to babble.
“When you stick up for me, I feel like—”
Another long pause, more lines on the girl’s body. What the fuck is she wearing or not-wearing?
“I feel like I’m failing.” The pencil falls still and his gaze is back on me. “Like I’m not doing my part. Sticking up for— for people like me.”
My cheeks feel hot and my eyes feel hot and I want to bury myself in the garden until this conversation is over. I press my lips tightly closed, because if I talk I’ll either shout or cry.
“I know that’s not fair.” His hand touches mine, his fingers nestled into my palm and his thumb stroking the back of my hand. “You defending me is beautiful. But I feel like I don’t deserve it. Like why should you put yourself in the firing line because of who I am?”
Finally, I have the words I need.
“Because it’s right.” My voice is steady and there are no tears. “Even if I wasn’t… smitten with you, I would stand up for you.” I pull the sleeve of my school blouse up to reveal the tattoo on my wrist—the only one Pear let me get. An X in a circle—the logo for the X-Men. “It’s about fighting for those who need protecting, who are hated or feared. And it’s about saying fuck people like the Purifiers, because they are the worst.”
“Purifiers?” He has this tiny smile that I want to kiss. Sometimes he likes it when I ramble.
“Like this religious organisation that believes mutants and people with differences are evil and must be destroyed.” I blush, because as much as Pear has raised me to love the X-Men, I occasionally recognise the need to shut the fuck up. “I gave you ‘God Loves, Man Kills’ to read, remember?”
“I don’t like the art,” he says, which makes me steal his pencil and throw it across the room. He laughs and gets up to retrieve it. I feel this surge of warmth in my heart that’s so strong I want to take him in my arms and kiss him until one or the other of us blacks out.
“Careful,” Tempus says from his position on the wall. “Watch your heart, Dylan, my dear. Emotions like that are dangerously powerful.”
I want to take the clock off the wall and frisbee him into the other room, but Lou is looking at me with delight in his eyes and I don’t want to ruin that, not for anything. I have to treat this carefully because if I break it, there isn’t any alternative. It’s not like people are lining up to hang out with me.
“Come here,” I tell him, and hold out my arms.
I get woken up again in the early hours of the morning, except this time it’s from anxiety brain. That friendly friend that lurks in my mind just to fuck with me. Summers is asleep on my legs, and it’s making me sweaty and gross. I thrash my way out of the blankets and stick my feet out into the cool air. This encourages Summers to drag himself up the bed. He ends up curled beside my face, and I grab my phone to put in a reminder to bathe him.
So, my brain says, you’re not the only one with mutant powers.
Fuck off brain, I say, I want to sleep.
My brain is not interested in sleep. Instead, it wants me to think about Alyse. I wish I could remember her last name. Seeing her today was like a Very Special Episode of a kids’ show where you learn that even the pretty girl still worries about how she looks. I feel a rush of gratitude for my talking-to-objects ability, because if I had Alyse’s I would permanently take the form of a hideous slug. Knowing I’m not the only one with a superpower makes it better and worse. Yay, I’m not alone vs how the hell are real people existing with real superpowers?
I don’t even understand my superpower.
“Do objects speak if there’s nobody around to listen?” I ask Pillow sleepily.
“We are in hibernation,” she says. “The first thing I truly remember is you talking to me.”
Everything else in the room chimes in too, and they all basically agree.
“It’s like we are dormant, waiting to be woken up,” the alarm clock says.
“For a signal to connect to us,” the Bluetooth speaker adds.
“Am I a light in the darkness, Candy?” I ask my candle, who mutters something incoherent.
I have this panicky feeling in my chest at the thought of it. Where were they before that? Where did this awareness come from? I’m involuntarily creating these entities who feel things and have opinions and even make puns for fuck’s sake. I don’t know how I’m doing it or if I can stop.
I ask each of my objects to do something for me. The alarm clock changes the time. The speaker plays music, except it’s still obsessed with nineties guitar shit that manages to sound both bored and pissed off, so I tell it to stop. None of the others do much of anything. I try to muster up some anger to see if I can juggle Pillow, but my eyes are droopy, Summers is snoring ever so faintly, and it’s hard to feel much of anything.
I wake again much later than my usual time, because I forgot to tell the alarm clock to set itself back correctly. I crack my eyes to see Pear standing over me, eating toast.
“Fuck off,” I groan, because I hate crumbs in the bed.
“You do realise you’re late, Dilly my sweet?” There’s a gleam in their eyes. It gives them some sick satisfaction when I’m not punctual, because I’m usually the responsible and sensible one. There’s a definite Gilmore Girls vibe that we have going on. What it means when I’m up late is that Pear gets to make obscure jokes about deer hitting me, while I ignore them and run around the house swearing. Except this time, they intercept me before I get out the door.
“Is everything still going okay at school?” Their face is intent and serious.
“It’s fine.” It’s not, but what is saying anything else going to do? There’s nothing that can be done to fix it. I’ve endured it this long, and I can probably last the rest of school. Then maybe things will get better? Fuck, I don’t know. Worry about that later.
“Are you sure?” They really want it to be better, which I get.
“Yes, I’m sure.” I trot down the steps and onto the path, tossing a backwards wave over my shoulder.
I’m halfway to school when I get a Snapchat message from Lou to tell me he’s sick and won’t be at school today. This is fairly common. He doesn’t always want to be out in the world. Add to this his parents are…problematic. They try intermittently, but it’s super clear they don’t really believe he’s who he is. It makes me so mad I could smother them with Pillow, but I’ve promised him not to get all up in their faces about it.
So rather than ranting, I text him back smooch emojis and tell him he’s wonderful. They go unread—he’s probably sleeping again, or playing some game on his PS4.
I get to school with a time to spare and have an urge to find Alyse. It’ll be super awkward, but I want to talk to her about mutants. I’ve got powers, and she’s got powers. This has to mean something. It takes me a few minutes to scrape up the courage. Back when Pear first got worried about my social anxiety or whatever the fuck the counsellor called it, they made me learn these fucking air-quote strategies for interacting with others but I can’t remember a thing.
I eventually find her sitting out by the field with a couple of blonde girls I vaguely recognise.
“Dylan Taylor,” Alyse says, in this kind of flirty way that throws me off. She’s looking extra pretty again today.
“Hi.” I’m suddenly aware of how weirdly I stand compared to normal people. My limbs hang off me like they’re badly fitting clothing. I try shifting my weight but that’s even weirder. Why do people have to communicate in reality? Gifs or gtfo.
“You’re the one who’s dating the girl-boy,” one of the blondes says, looking up at me through long lashes and stretching her legs out like she’s posing for something.
“He’s a fucking boy,” I snap.
Alyse reaches out and shoves her. “Katie, Jesus. That’s rude.” For a moment there’s this red tinge to her eyes, and her mouth looks blood red and fangy. It’s gone in a blink. She gets to her feet and links her arm through mine.
“Thanks for yesterday.” She’s standing very close and I feel awkward. I don’t know how to extricate myself, but I let her tow me off to a safe distance where we can’t be overheard. “I mean I know I shouted at you, but what you did for me? In the bathroom? That was very cool.”
The inside of my mind is smooth and blank and free of conversation options. “It’s, uh, it’s, uh, it’s fine.”
“It’s been freaking me out,” she says. “Like I’ve been waking up in the night panicking, so the fact that you were chill about it made me feel so much better. I still don’t have any idea what the hell is going on, but you were like a lifesaver, you know?”
“Mutant powers.” I say it with way too much intensity, but Alyse doesn’t let go of me and run away screaming so I carry on. “I can kind of… sort of, well… I’ve got my own thing.”
Her eyes are enormous orbs in her head and her jaw drops halfway down her chest. Her hair sticks out all around, like a close up anime shock face. It’s only there for a few moments and then it’s gone. I feel a mix of excitement and fear. Her powers aren’t just about her looks, they’re about her moods too.
“You mean? You can…?” She’s still blinking at me.
“Sort of,” I say. “Different and… different.” Oh very fucking eloquent Dylan, you insufferable blunder. Alyse doesn’t seem to notice how embarrassing I am, or is too polite to mention it.
She grabs my arm so tightly it hurts. “That means it’s not just me.” There’s another flash of shock face. “I’m not the only one.”
“No.” I don’t even try to take my arm away, even though my personal space is all crumpled up. “We’ve both got something going on.”
“We should meet up after school, away from all this.” She gestures at our surroundings with her free hand. “Talk about it. Trade tips or whatever? Figure out what to do.”
I frown at her. “Are you sure?”
“Why not?” She says it so easily, the words spilling out from between her lips as if these transactions are so simple they can be made on a whim.
“Okay,” I say, because it’s somehow easy.
“I’ll meet you after school, by the bus stop out the front.” Her eyes are big and brown and there are no worlds of judgement in them.
“Okay.”
“Can we go to your house? My brother’s friends will be at mine and they’re literally disgusting. I don’t want to deal with that.”
And then somehow I’m agreeing again, and Alyse squeezes my arm like we have a secret—which I guess we actually do—and turns to walk back to her friends. Her ponytail sways with each step. I tell myself I’m not watching, but I am.
After school I’m out near the bus stop for so long that I’m sure Alyse has forgotten. I’m constantly checking the time on my phone and telling myself if she’s not there in two more minutes I’m going to leave. I’m sure everyone who walks past knows what’s happening. Alyse told them all, and now they’re laughing at me as I stand here like a patient dog waiting for someone who’s never coming. My life is threatening to become that ‘hello darkness my old friend’ gif when I hear a voice.
“Omigod Dylan, I am so sorry. Ms Bartlett is like an actual dragon and I mean that in the literal sense, even though I know what literally means.”
It’s Alyse, who is literally sparkling, and I know what literally means. Her hair falls down her back in this glorious brown and golden waterfall. Glittering particles are springing from it, dancing on the breeze. I figure with her mood-ring powers, this means she’s happy about the situation, which makes me feel weirdly connected with her.
“It’s fine.” I’m slightly dazed from the enthusiasm. “I don’t have anything else to do.”
So we go back to my house and we talk the whole way. Like I think I have nothing to say, but then Alyse asks me a question and I find words waiting in my mouth. I find myself explaining Pear to her.
“They gave birth to me, but they’re not either male or female, or maybe they’re both. They call it choosing to reject the concept of gender. We have a joke about it, like we’ll text each other some random thing.” I get out my phone and scroll back through the long trail of messages between me and Pear, who is of course only in my phone as the pear emoji. “Okay, like today’s gender is a fox on waterskis. Today’s gender is Storm with a mohawk. Today’s gender is an ice sculpture in a forest. Today’s gender is the precise way Tessa Violet says yikes in ‘Bad Ideas.’”
“I like it,” Alyse says. “Today’s gender is a rock at the bottom of a stream that’s deeper than you think it is, so you miss picking it up.”
