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  MONTH 1 (July)Elijah

  A month into post-graduate life, and I still had no job. It was getting ridiculous -- I spent all day applying, just for something I could do during the days while I took my trade school csses at night. I even got a few interviews.

  And nothing ever went further than that.

  I id under my starchy bck bed sheets and sighed as I did the same thing I inevitably did every morning -- pull out my phone and check my emails in the vain hope that I’d gotten an interview for even a freaking cashier job at a fast food pce.

  Nothing.

  So, I did what I always did next: scroll social media so I could see how my cssmates from high school were all prepping to go away to college in a few months, or how they were so busy with work they didn’t have time to think about how homesick they’d be in a few months, or how they were all having their st flings with their high school partners.

  It was hard not to get jealous looking at that st one especially.

  I went back and forth on the veracity of that statement with considerable regurity.

  I looked around my room. Everything was neat and organized: the comics on my shelves were grouped by publisher and then alphabetized within their subcategories; my clothes were all clean and pressed and folded inside the blue dresser I’d had since I was a kid, or hanging in my closet; I’d vacuumed the floor just yesterday, so the green carpeting was completely clean. I’d even washed the sheets the other day, something I did pretty regurly. On the surface, everything looked fine. But it was hollow. And it wasn’t going to change any time soon, by the look of it.

  Mom and Dad were both already at work, and they’d left me a handy little sheet of chores I could occupy myself with throughout the day. I cooked myself a simple breakfast of cheesy scrambled eggs and bck coffee and scanned the list, concluding it would take me about four hours to get everything done. It was just like them -- Mom was a nurse and Dad was an electrician, and they both loved their jobs. They both LIVED for their jobs -- when I was seven, I’d asked Mom why I didn’t have any brothers or sisters, and she’d replied without hesitation that one kid was already keeping her busy enough when she should have been working. I think part of the reason they were so convinced I needed to spend every second of my day working on something was their assumption that I was the same way.

  They weren’t entirely off-base, but still…

  No, don’t compin, I thought. Already feel worthless enough without turning into a whiny bitch.

  The chores, as expected, took me until noon, after which point I went into our attic and pumped iron at the barbell for thirty minutes, then hosed myself off in the shower. Then came job applications and follow up emails, and when that was done…

  It was barely past 1 PM.

  “Goddammit,” I muttered to nobody at all as I sat on my living room couch with nothing to do.

  Normally, I’d read something, but I was out of new comics. Well, I guess that only meant one thing, and it HAD been a month since my st trip to Kendrick’s. So, without any further ado, I called myself an Uber and trekked to my favorite pce in Culver City.

  I didn’t expect it to be crowded -- it was early afternoon on a weekday -- but still, it was summer, and given the target demographic of comics generally skewed towards under twenty-one, I expected someone to be in the shop.

  Expectations were not met, however.

  I did notice two things as I approached the shop in the hot, hot midday sun: a fg on the outside wall, pink and blue and white, all pastels. Didn’t know what it meant -- was that for a country?

  The other thing I noticed was a girl inside the shop, standing behind the counter. She was curvy (or thicc, if you preferred the common parnce) with wide shoulders and hips; she had midnight bck hair chopped into a bob with bangs, and she wore a dark bck v-neck top and a long bck skirt over her milk-pale skin. A silver choker encircled her neck. And those hazel eyes, they were big and beautiful, and… familiar.

  I opened the shop, and she smiled at me.

  I looked at her for a moment, tilting my head to the side, wracking my brain for the source of the sense of recognition. Loading, loading, loading --

  Oh. OH. OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

  “Sam?” I said, standing in the open doorway.

  He… she… nodded, and threw in a gentle smile. She wasn’t wearing makeup -- or if she was, I couldn’t tell -- but the new hairstyle and thinner eyebrows made her face look a lot different. She looked… cute.

  A reflexive part of me wanted to shove that thought away violently once again, but… Did I need to? I didn’t have anything against gay people, I just wasn’t one myself. But if Sam was a girl… Wait, was Sam a girl?

  “You, uh, gonna say something?” Sam said, eyes darting back and forth nervously.

  “You look really cute,” I said, blinking with shock as I heard my own words. Guess I really meant it, with it slipping out like that.

  Sam smiled again, fshing her pearly-whites this time and showing off her dimples. It was… She was… Well, you get the idea.

  “Thank you,” she said, twirling her hair in her fingers.

  “A-ar-are you a girl now?” I said, tilting my head to the side and folding my arms behind my back.

  “Uh… Well, yeah,” Sam said. “I mean… I’ve kinda always been one, but now I’m… Now I’m living as one. I’m trans.”

  “What’s that?” I said.

  “...What?” she said.

  “I just haven’t really ever been clear on what that means,” I said, feeling strangely like I’d wandered into an abandoned Soviet minefield. “Like, I’ve heard the term before, but only really in passing from friends who would…”

  “Who would what?”

  A score of memories of friends who’d already long since left me behind in favor of the next stages in their respective lives sounded inside my mind, and the thought occurred that a lot of what they’d said was… “Not worth repeating,” I settled on.

  She folded her arms together across her chest. “I see. And how do YOU feel about people like me?”

  “...I have no idea,” I admitted. “Um… So is that what it is? You change gender?”

  “That is a very simplified version,” Sam said, looking down. “You really just never heard anything else? Not even like, on the news or anything?”

  “My parents don’t really watch the news,” I said. “They always said why bother concerning yourself with stuff you can’t control when you could be focusing on what you can control instead.”

  “...Probably good advice honestly,” she said. “Uh… Look, do you believe in souls?”

  “I guess,” I shrugged. My parents had never really been the church-going type. The extended family- both sides of it- lorded over them that they’ve never bothered to get me Confirmed. Honestly, it was probably only due to peer pressure that they bothered to get me Baptized.

  “I have a girl’s soul. But it got put in a boy’s body,” Sam said. “I don’t know why it happened that way, but it happened, and the only way for me to be happy is to make my body match my soul.”

  “Wow,” I said. “That’s really hardcore.”

  She chuckled. “Not the word I’d have used, but thanks.”

  “No, seriously -- that’s really cool.”

  She smiled again -- still cute. So, if she was a girl, then I could think she was cute all I wanted. Sure, she had a boyfriend, but so long as I kept it to myself and didn’t do anything creepy, there was no harm. “I’m, uh, going by Samantha now. But you can still call me Sam if you want -- I don’t mind.”

  “Okay,” I nodded. Okay, Eli, you’re in uncharted waters here. One of those things you don’t know anything about. Which is a lot of things. Just be nice, take what she tells you at face-value, and don’t make too big a deal out of it. “Samantha. It suits you.”

  “Thanks,” she said again. “And, hey, it’s all thanks to you. That advice you gave me, about being honest about what I wanted? Guess you could say I took it to heart.”

  Huh. I’d actually helped someone. First time for everything.

  “So enough about me and my life, what brings you here today?” Samantha asked. “You looking for something specific?”

  “Second volume of that book you gave me,” I said immediately. “And, uh, anything else you wanna recommend. You’ve got pretty good taste.”

  Her lips formed an ‘O’ and she gestured to herself in a pyful manner. “You ftter me, kind sir. I shall try to endeavor to live up to your lofty expectations of my taste.”

  “And I, fair maiden, shall endeavor to patronize your fine establishment to the best of my financial abilities,” I said, putting my palms together and bowing.

  We both stared at each other a moment before cracking up and bursting out ughing, probably because of the realization of what utter fucking dorks we both were.

  She stepped out from behind the counter and led the way over to the indie shelves.

  “So, business picking up for the summer?” I asked.

  I couldn’t see her face, but I could see her flinch. “Uh… Not so much.”

  “What?” I said, running over and facing her. “Why not?”

  “Well…”

  “Well what? I know the industry doesn’t make a ton of money --”

  “It’s like, actively hemorrhaging money, dude,” she said. “More and more each year.”

  “-- But you guys are in a good location and it’s convention season and school is out!” I said, my bafflement dripping off of each sylble.

  She stopped in front of a shelf and leaned down, parsing through books to avoid making eye contact. “It’s uh, well, it’s probably my fault?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean I’m… Well, I’m like… me.”

  “So?”

  “Do you… Do you really just not keep up with current events at all?” Samantha said.

  “Again, not really. Should I?”

  “But you have noticed that people aren’t always super nice to people like me, right?”

  “I…Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

  “So, when they come in now, and they see me, and they recognize what I am… Well, they tend to walk away,” she said.

  I leaned back against the wall and shook my head. “But why should that matter?”

  “Dunno, but to some people it does.”

  “God, people are stupid,” I said, still shaking my head with disgust.

  “You’re damn right they are,” Paul said as he walked in from the stockroom in the back.

  “Hey there,” I said with a warm smile.

  “How you doing, kiddo?”

  “Oh, about the same as st month,” I chuckled nervously. “I just… I really can’t believe that this pce isn’t doing better. This is the best comic shop in the city, ya know?”

  “I’m inclined to agree,” Paul said. “But pces like ours… We’re a dying breed. Probably the only reason we’re still in business is that we live in a huge city, but that just means we have more competition.”

  “Just wish there was more I could do,” I said, shuffling my feet.

  “You can start by purchasing these,” Samantha said as she handed me three trade paperbacks. “And maybe some other stuff too.”

  “I dunno about that -- I kinda need to start saving up for a car,” I admitted.

  “Fair enough.”

  “But I will definitely take these,” I said, flipping through the volumes.

  She rang me up, and I swiped my card and then shoved a five dolr bill into the tip jar. “Thanks,” she said. And there was that smile again -- oh wow, she had some pearly whites. And her whole face was… just lit up. It was like I’d never seen someone so happy. And I couldn’t help but wonder… How could anyone have a problem with people like this? Like her? She looked so damn happy it was infectious.

  It made me wish I could see it more.

  “Hey, uh, wanna hang out tonight?” I asked Samantha.

  She gulped, a hint of red creeping onto her pallid cheeks.

  “Not a date,” I crified, holding up a hand. “I know you have a boyfriend --”

  “Sure!” she said, smiling ever-wider. “I get off at 8 PM. Maybe I can come pick you up and we can grab dinner or something?”

  “Awesome,” I said.

  “Here,” she said, handing me her phone. “Put your number in and then I’ll text you mine.”

  I input my number, and was greeted a second ter by a smiling skull emoji and a heart in my incoming messages.

  “That would be me,” she said.

  “I figured,” I said. “Lemme text you my address, and uh, I’ll see you in a few hours.”

  “Awesome,” she said, echoing my exact tone.

  After that, I left the shop, comics in one hand, phone in the other as I buzzed with excitement over tonight.

  It’s not a date, she has a boyfriend. It’s not a date, she has a boyfriend, I drummed inside my head.

  Samantha

  I rested my chin on my hand and watched Eli drive away in an uber. I breathed out through my nose, then jerked my head to the side as I noticed Uncle Paul snapping his fingers at me. “What?” I asked, still leaning forward.

  “Young dy, while I may not be the biggest fan of Wes --”

  “Oh my God, it is so not like that!” I said instantly.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I just wanna be friends with him,” I said. “I don’t really have a ton of those, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  “I have noticed. And I agree about the more friends thing. But remember --”

  “Nothing is going to happen. I’m still with Wes,” I said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  I stood up straight and pnted my hands on my hips. “Uncle Paul.”

  “Yes, yes, just be careful.”

  “Why? Are you afraid Eli is gonna try something?”

  “No, I don’t,” Uncle Paul said. “But I do always worry about hearts getting broken. You’re still so young, and a lot of things are happening to you for the very first time.”

  I smiled gently. “I know.”

  “You’ll be careful.”

  “I promise I will be careful,” I said, hugging my uncle across the gss countertop. “Hey, um, do you mind if I head home a little early tonight? Maybe around seven? I wanna take a shower before I get dinner with Eli, shave my legs and all that good stuff.”

  He looked around at the empty shop. “I don’t think that’ll be too much of an issue, kiddo.”

  I heaved a heavy, bitter sigh. “Yeah. And hey, if I’m not here, business might actually pick up!”

  His eyes narrowed and he tilted a brow.

  “Sorry,” I said, looking at the ground.

  “Apologize to yourself, not me,” he said.

  I sighed again. “I’m sorry, me.”

  “Better,” he said, cpping my shoulder.

  He turned around and began taking inventory, and I tried to ignore his wheezing as he walked. His eating habits hadn’t gotten any better in the past month, even while mine had gotten better. I’d already managed to drop five pounds, and he…

  I was worried about him. Always wheezing and coughing, compining about his back and his joints. He was barely into his fifties, but he had the health of a septuagenarian.

  He’d never been married, never had an exceptionally close retionship with any of his family. There was just… me. Starting when I was nine and every day since then, I was all he had, and for the most part, he was all I had.

  “Are you sure you’ll be okay?” I asked.

  “I’m all good, don’t you worry,” he said.

  I really wish that were an option, I thought.

  The remainder of my shift crawled by. We got a whopping ten customers, and I’d managed to close exactly five sales. This was bad -- we weren’t in the red zone yet, but if we didn’t start turning a profit soon, we’d be in deep.

  Regardless, at seven I clocked out and headed for the car, Uncle Paul promising he’d be fine taking the bus home tonight. I showered and I shaved and I put on a fresh yer of makeup and deodorant, tweezed my eyebrows and brushed out my hair. Needed to go to an actual salon soon, get this wild raven mane shaped a bit. I bored over what to wear for a while, each outfit I tried on conjuring a worry in me that it might send the wrong message, that it might lead to uncomfortable allegations of leading him on. Didn’t wanna do that. This was just two new friends getting to know each other better over a bite to eat.

  Eventually, I settled on a long bck sleeveless sundress and a pair of bck hiking boots. A single heart-pendant neckce went around my throat alongside my choker, and I spat out my spearmint gum into the trash before I stepped outside.

  Where my boyfriend was waiting for me.

  Wes was… Well, he was very, very handsome, which he definitely knew. He had a perfectly symmetrical face and clear skin and short, neatly-parted blond hair. He was tall and buff and wore a leather jacket and blue jeans and a bck t-shirt and expensive leather boots, and he carried himself with the confidence of a man bound for a successful career in w or politics (in his words, he was still trying to choose between the two).

  “Uh… Hey, there,” I said.

  “Hi,” Wes replied. “You look nice.”

  “Thanks.”

  “What’s the occasion? You don’t usually look this good.”

  His words were a blunt blow to my ample belly. “Um…”

  “Seriously, where you going?”

  “Meeting up with a friend.”

  “Since when do you have those?” he scoffed.

  I winced. “I made one recently.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Uh… His name is Elijah, actually.”

  “So you’re having dinner with a guy?” Wes said. “One who isn’t me?”

  “...Am I not allowed to do that?”

  “I mean, I would hope you would tell your boyfriend about something like that before you do it,” he said, taking a step forward.

  I backed up and pressed against the door to my uncle’s bungalow. “You, uh, didn’t mind if I did something like that before.”

  “It was different before,” Wes said, scowling. “This guy, Elijah… Is he straight?”

  “I have no idea,” I said. “Genuinely, it hasn’t come up. Mostly we just talk about comics.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Sure you do.”

  “It’s the truth. And he’s just a friend.”

  “A friend who you did your makeup for,” Wes said. He sniffed the air around me. “And… Is that perfume?”

  “Deodorant. It’s just deodorant.”

  “Smells awfully nice.”

  “I’m trying a new scent,” I said, breaking off eye contact, my hands trembling in time with my swollen heartbeat. “It’s… prettier. I like it. It’s not for him, it’s for me.”

  “And what about what I want?” Wes said, smming his palm into the door. “Would you ever do something like that for me?”

  “Of course I would,” I said.

  “Dunno if that’s true, you’ve done lots of things I’m not crazy about. I mean… All this,” he said, gesturing to my everything, “wasn’t for me. Definitely wasn’t what I wanted when I started dating you.”

  I gulped. I clenched my jaw. I pnted my feet. And I thought about Eli, and what he would say about all this. And I decided to be honest. “Maybe not, but it’s what you got. It’s who I am. And if you’ve got a problem with it, then I can’t help you. I can’t pretend to be something I’m not.”

  He gave a lopsided grin and squinted. “What are you talking about? You pretend to be something you’re not every damn day at this point.”

  My eyes shot wide as the bitter taste of dysphoria and shame filled my mouth. He was… I was… He couldn’t possibly mean --

  Why should that make a difference? Eli’s words echoed in my mind once again. I breathed out through my nose, and I navigated a path under his massive bicep.

  “Hey, where the hell do you think you’re going?” Wes said.

  “To get dinner with my friend,” I said, not looking back at him as I walked towards my car.

  “I’m not done talking to you!”

  “Well, I’m done listening,” I said, opening the car door.

  Wes grabbed my arm, squeezed so hard it hurt. “You know, you’ve really changed since you started all this. I liked you better the way you were before. You weren’t nearly as much of a bitch.”

  “Let go of me,” I said.

  “Not until you call off this little date of yours --”

  “It’s not a date!”

  “Bullshit, it’s not!”

  “LET GO OF ME!” I screamed.

  He looked ready to throw a punch. But I didn’t back down. Didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch.

  He let go.

  “Stay away from me,” I said as I climbed into the car.

  “Sam --”

  “We’re done,” I snapped. “Stay. Away. From. Me.”

  I smmed the door shut and drove away, hoping I could contain my tears long enough to avoid ruining the makeup I’d worked so hard on.

  I drove to the address I’d been given by Eli, and was grateful to find him waiting outside for me. I more or less trusted Eli after today, but given how little he seemed to know about people like me, I didn’t want to roll the dice with his parents. It wasn’t like I was passing yet -- I had to be careful. Selective.

  Especially when my judgment was apparently only recently unclouded.

  Eli climbed into the car. He’d put on a red fnnel button down and a fresh pair of blue jeans, and I could smell a fresh, musky deodorant on him. He smelled… Well, he smelled really good. He looked really good. He’d shaved, and his skin had gotten clearer compared to where it was a month erstwhile. “Hey,” he said, smiling at me with a big, dorky smile.

  I didn’t notice myself batting my eyeshes and enjoying the view until I’d already been doing it for a few seconds. I chastised myself internally and then said, “Hey. How’s it going?”

  “Oh, about the same as when we st left off,” he said. “You?”

  I shifted the car into drive and pulled us onto the road. “Oh, been better.”

  “Oh?”

  “I think I just broke up with my boyfriend,” I said, the full extent of my ‘conversation’ with Wes finally sinking in.

  “Oh!” Eli said. “That’s… uh… Is that good or bad?”

  “Probably for the best,” I ughed bitterly. “He was… He was scaring me. A lot.”

  “Definitely for the best then,” Eli said as we pulled onto Centine. “How are you holding up?”

  “I’m fine. Seriously. This was… It was a long time coming,” I said.

  “But… You’re crying.”

  “No I’m not,” I said, trying to ugh it off. Then I put a hand to my under-eye and noticed a wetness, as well as a bit of cakey bck mascara residue. “Huh. Why so I am.”

  “Samantha…”

  “So is sushi good? Do you like sushi?”

  “I do,” he said evenly. “But if you’re not feeling up to it tonight --”

  “No, trust me, I need this. He might still be waiting for me outside my house.”

  “He what?!”

  “Oh yeah, he just kinda showed up uninvited and started hounding me about where I was going. Got really mad when I told him I was getting dinner with a guy friend --”

  “Oh, Christ! I am so sorry I --”

  “Hey, no, don’t do that,” I said, sharper than I’d intended. “It really isn’t about you, okay? Wes… He’s always been weird and controlling and… I didn’t totally see it before because I barely saw myself. And now I do see myself, so I saw him a lot more clearly. He… didn’t really take it super well when I came out. He… He’s not crazy about women, honestly.”

  “...What a prick.”

  “Heh. Yeah.”

  “Hey, uh, I know you suggested sushi, but I think maybe you could use something else right now,” Eli said.

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “One of my Tios would float me a handle of whiskey if I told him a friend of mine is going through a breakup.”

  “That… sounds amazing, I’ll be real.”

  “Only problem is I don’t know where we would drink it,” Eli said, scratching at the razor-burn on his chin. “My folks are pretty strict about not wanting me drinking till I’m twenty-one. Like that freaking stops anyone, you know?”

  An idea came to me, a proverbial lightbulb igniting above my head. “I have an idea.”

  Once the whiskey was secured, I rerouted us back to the shop and parked in the back.

  “Are you sure your uncle wants booze on the premises?” Eli asked, hands in his pockets.

  I had the whiskey sequestered safely inside my purse, and I stuck my keys into the back entrance of the shop. “Oh, we won’t be in the shop. Haven’t you ever noticed how this pce has two floors?”

  I opened the door and gestured up a flight of stairs, then led Eli to the second floor.

  It was a dusty affair, wooden floors and walls, undecorated, unfurnished, with sheets covering the windows. A fridge and a stove and a microwave and even a dishwasher were shoved into the far end, while the empty living room tapered off into a hallway on the left that led to two bedrooms and a bathroom.

  “There’s an apartment up here?” Eli balked.

  “Yup.”

  “And you and Paul don’t just live here?”

  “It would cost too much,” I shrugged. “Nothing here works, and our lease with the building’s owner doesn’t cover the repairs. We would have to re-negotiate the whole thing, and Uncle Paul just doesn’t have the time or patience for that. Besides, his house is mostly paid for already.”

  “Fair enough.”

  I pulled the whiskey handle out of my bag. “So. Shall we?”

  “Ladies first,” he smiled. And that in no way, shape, or form sent a little flutter of euphoria through me, no, definitely not.

  I unscrewed the bottle and downed a swig, coughing as the sweet-burning whiskey went through me. The beginnings of a buzz hit me like a tidal wave as Eli took the bottle from my hands and replicated my actions.

  “Man, breakups suck,” I said as I sat on the dusty floor criss-cross style.

  He stopped coughing long enough to say, “I’ll take your word on it.”

  I took another swig, smaller this time, but the delicious burn hit me nonetheless. “How do you mean?”

  He took the bottle back and swished the liquid around inside its container. “Never been through one. On account of having never been in a retionship.”

  “Never ever?”

  “Never ever ever,” he said, sitting down across from me. He took another swig. “Shouldn’t be surprising. I don’t have a ton to offer.”

  “Oh come on, you’re great.”

  “You don’t know me that well.”

  “I know that you’re a good person,” I said. “I know you’re open-minded and spontaneous and that you have a big heart. And I know you’re a huge freaking nerd, which, to some girls, is a selling point.”

  He chuckled. “Fair enough.”

  I took the bottle from him. “Seriously, never?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Not for ck of trying. Just every girl I ever asked out shot me down with varying degrees of gentleness.”

  “Unbelievable,” I said.

  “Heh. And yet.”

  “What kinda girls do you like?”

  “Honestly? I’m not super picky.”

  “So you just don’t have a type?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Eli said. “I guess I’ll say that I really like nerdy, awkward girls.”

  I blushed. Get your head on straight, he doesn’t mean you. You’re reeling because you just got out of a retionship, so stop projecting. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah,” he said, taking the bottle of whiskey in hand and swishing the liquid contents around. “I just… It’s really cool when someone is passionate about something. Especially if it’s the same stuff, or simir to the stuff that I’m passionate about. And yeah, the awkwardness factor makes them extra cute.”

  “Nice,” I said. This guy was certainly earnest. After everything with Wes… It was refreshing. “What about you? What kinda guys are you into?”

  “Besides Wes?”

  “I mean, what kinda guy is Wes? Besides a douchebag, I mean --”

  “Hey --”

  He side-eyed me, eyebrow raised. “All I know about the guy is that he spent the majority of your retionship negging you.”

  “... That… is… basically accurate, yeah,” I said, flicking a dust-bunny off the hem of my dress. “He… I…”

  “You don’t have to talk about it if you’re not ready. I can’t even imagine what you’re going through right now.”

  “No, I want to, I… I think I need to. Do you mind?” I asked.

  He handed me the bottle. “Go right ahead.”

  I took another swig, letting the liquid courage cloud my cowardly mind. “I met him senior year of high school. I’d seen him around school before, always having guys hanging off of him, and we wound up in art css together. He was… Well, he was terrible, honestly, so I tried to help him with his sketches. He didn’t improve much, but he did start flirting with me a lot. One thing led to another… But it also led to him showing his teeth. I think he… He saw me as an ego booster. Someone to keep around, control, be able to say whatever the hell he wanted to without consequences. He was my first boyfriend. So far he’s been my only one. And it… God, I just feel so stupid, having fallen for his act in the first pce.”

  “How did he take it when you came out?”

  “Not great. He’s bisexual, so I thought it would be fine, but… He has all these weird hangups about women. Something to do with his mom being a huge bitch, I think? He prefers men, and my not being one kinda messed with his sense of self.”

  I paused as a memory collided with me: ‘Are you freaking kidding me? I have to deal with this now? You’re already lucky to have me and now you’re even luckier! And you’re already not exactly a looker, don’t you understand that you’ll be even uglier as a woman?’

  Wes’ words were like stabs to the chest at the time, and they still were even with the distance of a solid month and a fresh breakup.

  “Here,” Eli said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a bag of tissues.

  “I’m not… not crying again, am I?” I asked, my voice dropping low and my consciousness miles away.

  He nodded gently, and then dabbed under my eyes with the tissue.

  “Thanks,” I said, sure I was flushing red from the physical contact. “You’re very sweet, you know that?”

  “I’ve heard it before,” he shrugged.

  “My makeup must be running.”

  He said nothing, his face utterly bnk.

  “That bad, huh?”

  “I didn’t say --”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, rex. I’ll be fine.” I held up the bottle and said, “To new beginnings. New friendships.”

  I downed one more swing, and then Eli took the bottle from me and raised it high himself. “Cheers.” He downed one more swig, then his eyes went wide. “Holy fuck, we’ve already gone through half of this bottle.”

  “Oh, shit,” I said.

  “We should probably get something to eat, try to stave off the alcohol poisoning.”

  “I think there’s a sushi pce a block from here,” I said, attempting to stand up. The room instantly spun, and I fell forward.

  But Eli jumped up to catch me once again.

  “My hero,” I murmured.

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing!” I squeaked. Why did I say that why did I say that why did I say that?! “Let’s go eat some fish!”

  “Cool,” Eli said. “C’mon, lean on me.”

  “W-what?!”

  “For the stairs. We’re both pretty drunk, but there’s strength in numbers.”

  “R-right,” I said. Stop projecting stop projecting stop projecting.

  With great care and considerable effort, the two of us drunkenly traversed the path down the stairs and up the street to the sushi pce, wherein we enjoyed a hearty meal and meaty conversation. Eli was such a good guy, and the more I talked to him, the less I was thinking about Wes. For a few hours there, with him at my side, everything felt… good.

  I felt good.