That’s the kind of guy I should like, if I was ever going to let myself do that again. I should have some sense of leagues, and who else was in mine. Even though Zach’s a little on the chubby side, he was still really good-looking. I never had a chance. But this guy clearly didn’t care about appearances. He wouldn’t expect a girl to be all made up perfectly.

  My brain shifted while I watched them round the corner into the kitchen. I came to my senses.

  The guy hadn’t looked at me, so he couldn’t have known what I’d been thinking, thank God. It was idiotic. He’d never be interested. No one would.

  I finally moved out of the foyer so I was standing barely inside the dining room. There were people standing around the table in there, but it wasn’t as crowded as the living room and they seemed to be happy to ignore me.

  I had drunk a few more sips when I noticed three kids—a boy and two girls—in the corner of the room looking at me. I looked away, but now I was tuned into their conversation.

  “Isn’t that the girl who let her friends do a makeover and then didn’t learn from it?”

  God, Facebook again. My unpainted face heated.

  “Yeah. Nic.” They were all still looking at me.

  The guy snorted. “Of course she goes by a guy’s name.”

  “Well, her real name is Nicole.”

  Did they think I couldn’t hear, or did they not care?

  I was frozen in place at that point. Because if I walked away, they’d know they’d gotten to me. But I was starting to feel panicky, because I wanted to get out of there.

  Instead I took a shaky sip, paying more attention to the cold of the beer than the foul taste, and looked at the window. All I could see was the white wooden blinds.

  What was the big deal, anyway? Why was it such a crime to be female and not made up? My hands started shaking. Why were girls expected to perform all this body modification just to be considered minimally acceptable?

  My aversion to wearing makeup was so strong. But other girls and women didn’t seem to have such issues. Even if they complained about it sometimes, they didn’t seem to truly mind. Could it be that I really was a boy in the wrong body?

  It didn’t feel quite right, though. When I looked at boys, I didn’t feel any kinship. I felt either dislike—most boys were total shits—or some kind of attraction. So what was it? I simply wished it was possible simply to have no gender, because that sounded like a relief.

  The trio cleared out, and I was left more or less in peace.

  People came and went through the dining room while I nursed my beer. After I’d had about two-thirds of it, my heart was no longer beating so fast. I hadn’t been wondering who else was talking about me. Instead, I’d just been peacefully drinking my beer, not fretting. I even felt like I was floating a little.

  I decided to go in search of Sam. Where had she got to? I missed her, especially when I thought about her leaving.

  I went out the back of the dining room, ending up in the den. Maybe the other one was the living room. If those were different things. I’d never been sure. It was kind of dark in there, with only one floor lamp to light the whole room. Kids seemed to be dancing to the music, which I saw must be coming from the fancy entertainment center built into the wall. I started a circuit around the room, looking for Sam.

  I had to squeeze past people, but I made myself go on, eventually making it around. She wasn’t in here.

  I moved into the living room, straining my eyes with the transition to bright light. I did a circle around this room, too. I nearly ran into Evan, who sneered, “Watch where you’re going.” I didn’t even care. I kept going, but still no Sam.

  So I headed back into the kitchen. There were a few kids in there, and I decided to dump what remained of my warm beer into the sink.

  “What’d you do that for?” this junior boy exclaimed.

  “It was warm,” I said.

  “Coulda gave it to me.”

  I moved out of there and back into the living room because I’d seen an open sliding door. Maybe there were more people out there. I wormed my way through the crowd and out the door.

  I was on a big redwood deck. There was lighting all around, though it wasn’t particularly bright. Occupied lounge chairs ringed the deck.

  It was kind of a nice night. It was the time of year it could still be hot during the day, but cooled off at night. I stood for a moment, experiencing it. It smelled crisp, and I knew fall was coming. My birthday, too.

  Then I looked over to the right at one of the chairs and spotted Sam’s butt. It took me a moment to make sense of the scene. She was basically lying on top of Zach, and they were making out.

  I stumbled back from the shock. How had I forgotten about Zach? About Sam and Zach.

  The burning started behind my eyes, and I ran in the other direction, finding some steps down into the yard. But as I ran off them, I slammed into someone in a purple shirt.

  I had to grab the handrail to keep from losing it, and I looked up at Carlos’s friend. “Whoa there,” he said.

  I just sort of sobbed and continued past him. I made it around the side of the house, to where the trash bins were. Nobody else was there because it stank. So I was able to regroup a little.

  I wiped my eyes. God, it was humiliating when people saw me cry. It used to happen so much, though I’d gotten better at controlling it. All through elementary school, I was a crier, and I despised it. All the teachers acted like I chose to do it, when I would have done anything to avoid it.

  Sort of like now.

  How was I going to get through this night? How was I going to get through this life—alone?

  Chapter 37

  In art class Monday, Ms. Tolliver gave us a new assignment, a self-portrait, in colored pencil or pastels. “I have mirrors if any of you don’t want to or can’t work off a smartphone photo.”

  “Which media are you doing?” Mia asked.

  “Pencil,” I said. “I still haven’t gotten used to pastels.”

  “Me neither, but I’m going to give them a shot. I like how they look.”

  “I bet you can do it. They can definitely look more dramatic than pencil, but I’m not shooting for a masterpiece here.”

  Mia smiled and I went over to get the pencils out of my cubby.

  I took a picture with my phone, and sketched a light outline of my face with a pale peach color I’d be using as the base for my skin.

  I tried to look at it as an arbitrary object, because this was torture. Having to look at myself. I couldn’t stop the refrain in my head: ugly, ugly, ugly …

  It was infuriating. Why couldn’t I think about bunnies or something?

  That whole “Look in the mirror and tell yourself you’re great!” thing was so foreign to me. I could never do it. It was a lie, and I knew it.

  But still, it was annoying to have to work on a project that involved constantly thinking about my appearance. No chance I’d be entering this in the contest. My face hanging on a wall? No way.

  I looked at the photo. Was this a girl’s face? How could you tell if someone was male or female without makeup or signs of facial hair as a clue?

  Whatever.

  I inspected the photo with my artist’s eye. The light wasn’t very good in it so I would have to improvise a bit.

  My ears looked funny. In this particular case, I don’t mean ugly, just that ears in general look funny when you study them. They were going to be tricky to draw. I outlined them anyway to get the general shape, which seemed okay.

  Just as I started outlining my nose, a couple boys brushed past me. One of them said, “It’s too bad there’s going to be a permanent record of her ugly face now.”

  The other one laughed and of course I blushed.

  Mia looked over at them and said, “Shut up, Brian. Don’t be such a jerk.”

  “What, I only speak the truth.” They went back to the other side of the room after getting stuff out of the supply area.

  Mia looked at me and rolled her eyes. “Just ignore them.”

  I shrugged but the knot in my throat loosened. Brian was one of the assholes who’d grabbed my boobs in middle school. But as he’d said, that was the cold, hard reality. I mean, it would be nice if people didn’t feel the need to be so fucking honest all the time, but I couldn’t exactly refute it.

  I worked on sketching my neck, which was bigger than it should have been. At least I’d looked up when I took the picture so I didn’t have any discernible double chin. Still, ugly.

  Chapter 38

  I got home after school Monday and started working on the dragon drawing, which felt good and got my mind off Sam and Zach.

  I’d hardly made any progress when the door to the garage opened, and I heard Izzy’s voice.

  “I told you, it looks great, honey,” Mom said.

  When I saw Izzy, I couldn’t hide the surprise on my face. She’d gotten a major haircut.

  “See! Even Nic hates it!” she said.

  “Nic doesn’t hate it,” Mom said, looking pointedly at me.

  “No, it’s cute, Izzy.” It was really short. I was thinking they called that style a bob.

  “Isabella,” she said with a giant frown on her face.

  “What inspired this?” I asked.

  Izzy crossed her arms and Mom said, “A boy cut her hair at school.”

  “What?” That made no sense at all.

  She mouthed, Jake, which made me narrow my eyes. That jerk.

  “What actually happened?”

  Mom shook her head and said, “Someone put gum in her hair and then he offered to help get it out, and instead just cut her hair.”

  “Mom, I want to tell Nic something.”

  “Okay, that’s my cue,” Mom said. She dropped her purse on the kitchen counter and started rummaging through the pantry.

  “You don’t have to work tonight?” I asked.

  “Nope. I’m going to make a real dinner.”

  “Cool.”

  “Nic!” Izzy said, apparently impatient for me to listen to her.

  I turned to look at her. Her eyes were wide, but they looked a little red and puffy, like she’d been crying earlier.

  “Your hair looks cute, you know.”

  “I hate it. But guess what!”

  “What?”

  “I told Jake he could stuff it.”

  I laughed. “Stuff it?”

  “Yeah, I told him to get lost, that we were done. And I said it in front of his friends, and he was so embarrassed.”

  “That’s awesome. What a jerk. Why did he put gum in your hair?”

  “Why do boys do anything?” she asked.

  “Very astute, Iz. I’m proud of you. Did you tell Mom?”

  “No, just you. There’s no point now, it’s so over.”

  “I’m glad. He was no good for you.”

  “I know. If only I’d listened to you earlier.” She sighed. “Whatever happened to the boy who called you?”

  Oh God, gut punch. After a long moment, I managed to say, “He was no good for me, either.”

  Or more the other way around. I was no good for anyone.

  Chapter 39

  In math class, Carlos and Kyle were goofing around with each other like the day I’d thought Carlos had been flirting with me.

  God, what an idiot I was. Over and over.

  But then it pissed me off. Who were they to judge? Especially Kyle, who was fatter than me and had terrible acne. If I was ugly, he was ugly, too.

  Why were people so obsessed with how girls looked? Hardly anybody really knew me at all because it was all about appearances. Appearances, appearances. Everything was so fake.

  Out of nowhere, I had the coolest idea for the self-portrait. A hand pulling my face off … to reveal something else. What could it be?

  The idea made me feel better, as it would be really original. It might be worth entering it in the contest because it would stand out.

  After class, I had started toward the art building to pick the drawing up when I saw Sam and Zach. Sam stopped me.

  “I’ve got to get to the art building and make it back to the bus,” I said, trying to take off again.

  “I can give you a ride home,” Zach said. “We’re going that direction.”

  I didn’t want that, but how could I say no? “Okay. I just need to get something over there first. I’ll find you in the parking lot.”

  When I got to the art classroom, Ms. Tolliver caught me and we had to chat for a minute before I could leave with my drawing and pencils. Eventually I got away and strolled along the gravel driveway toward the main building. I didn’t feel like hurrying—I didn’t want to see them again, especially together.

  I cut through the building to get to the student parking lot on the other side and emerged back into the sun. I couldn’t see much but I meandered over to where Zach usually parked. My eyes adjusted, and I glanced down the last row and saw Sam leaning against the side of his car, Zach straddling her. They were, of course, kissing.

  I desperately wanted to leave, but the buses were gone by now. If I disappeared, I’d have to wait until my dad could get me, and Sam would wonder what my problem was.

  I was just going to have to figure out how to deal with this.

  The likelihood of that decreased as I walked toward the happy couple. They didn’t notice me even after I stood in front of the car for a moment, looking back toward the school. I glanced back and his hand was in her hair. I cleared my throat.

  Nothing.

  God, I wanted to die.

  What was the protocol here?

  I leaned on the front of the car.

  Apparently they felt the car move, because I heard Sam say, “Hey.”

  She came around the front, still smiling, and we all got in.

  I rode all the way home with my arms crossed, trying to make myself smaller and more invisible. I was invisible to Zach, who didn’t see who I really was at all. He was only aware of the ugly facade. He was nice to me because of Sam. He’d probably always liked her.

  I planned out my self-portrait modification in greater detail and finally had a solid idea of what would go behind my real face.

  As soon as I was at my desk, I made room for the drawing and laid it out.

  I sketched out a hand and fingers gripping the left side of the chin and then added another face behind and to the upper right of the original face. This way it was like the hand was pulling a mask away from the real face, the one in the back. I needed to finish the normal face first, so I worked on detailing that.

  When Izzy came to get me for dinner, I didn’t even go down because I couldn’t stop drawing. She had to come in to see what I was doing before going down herself. After a couple hours, I had the face done, so I worked on the hand.

  Now to the fun part. For the real face, I first gave it red eyes and then used black and purple to make the skin odd looking. I added in very dark purple stripes. It looked like a weird tiger face.

  Actually, what it looked like was a demon’s face.

  I wasn’t sure how that had happened. It’s not like I was saying I was a demon inside, but the point was, nobody knew, did they? Nobody knew shit about me.

  They just knew what I looked like, which meant nothing. It says nothing about what’s inside me.

  Chapter 40

  Wednesday before Key Club, we decided—or Sam and Zach decided—we’d stop by a sandwich shop for dinner first. Sam and Zach were ahead of me and as soon the sandwich maker had their orders moving down the line, he turned to me and said, “What can I get you, sir?”

  Again with the heat in my cheeks.

  And Evan snorted behind me, making no effort to control the laugh that came afterward.

  Sam and Zach must have heard, but nobody said anything, so I ordered my six-inch Italian like always. Toasted on flatbread.

  I don’t know if the sandwich guy still thought I was a boy by the time he put it in the oven, and it wasn’t like he was dripping with testosterone or anything, himself. The girl who put all the toppings on and rang us all up didn’t call me sir, so that was something.

  Sam picked a table, and I followed her, getting stuck with Evan because Zach, of course, had to sit next to her. I thought Evan would fall off the end of the bench, he scooted so far over. We unwrapped our sandwiches.

  “Are either of you doing the food drive?” Zach asked before taking a bite of his sandwich.

  Evan looked at me.

  I nodded. “I was planning on it.”

  “Nope,” Evan said.

  It was awkward enough that I think even Sam and Zach noticed, so we ate in silence after that.

  But once we were done, Sam said, “Nic’s working on this really cool drawing of a couple dragons.”

  “Yeah?” Zach asked, his arm thrown across her shoulders. “What’s it like?”

  “It’s a fight scene. They’re fighting at the top of a mountain.”

  “Oh, that sounds cool. Do you have a picture?”

  I shook my head. “It’s not far enough along yet. I just started it.”

  “We should probably go,” Evan interjected.

  Just like before, all the way over there, Evan was pushed up against his door like I had the plague.

  This was how it would be from here on out.

  At least until Sam left.

  Would Zach even continue driving me after that point? I might not need him to, since I would have access to my dad’s minivan. I could probably borrow it Wednesday nights. But then, would I even want to continue with Key Club with Sam gone? It wasn’t like I’d made a bunch of friends there. Nobody would miss me if I quit.

  Then an evil thought occurred to me: would things change after Sam left? Could Zach change his mind about me?

  I couldn’t help but get a little flutter of hope in my belly.

  But that was idiotic. He would never like me. He obviously never had. I had to get that insane set of grossly misinterpreted memories out of my head.

 

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