Birthday(26)

It’s more like everything feels empty, like the world’s a video game where you’ve put in a cheat code only to see that nothing’s there—that inside the walls and bodies it’s all hollow. The truth is, I spend most of my free time in bed staring at the wall. Even being around Eric is weird.

It was hard to look Eric in the eye for a while after the kiss, no matter how cool I tried to play it. Since then, Eric and a couple of other boys (but mostly Eric) have slipped into my fantasies when I least expect it, which pretty much settles whether I like boys or girls. But I’m not a boy in the fantasies, and when I try to make myself visualize that they fall flat. I know, more than ever, that I’m supposed to be a girl. Or that I’ll be happier if I’m a girl. Or that I am a girl. I guess I still don’t know the specifics.

Over the summer, when Eric had constant football practice and I was mostly alone, things kept getting worse in my head. I haven’t seen him much since school started. And I know that should make me sad, right? But weirdly, I just feel like I’m made of packing peanuts, outside to inside, with a dark little thunderstorm core where my heart should be.

I think I’ve done a pretty good job hiding all this emptiness from Dad and Eric, but there was a pretty huge fight last June, when Dad saw my report card and realized I’d pretty much stopped doing anything but the bare minimum—except in my one elective film and video editing class, which I don’t even get graded in.

Faking it around Jasmine’s been a little harder, but she does most of the talking when we hang out, so the trick is to nod and ask the right kinds of questions. She’s tried asking me about being gay a few more times since the party last year, but every time it comes up I feel emptier than usual and can’t stop thinking about her kissing me, and then Eric kissing me, and how sick and weird it all still makes me feel. And I know it’s ungrateful to feel like this, but the way she seems excited every time she brings it up, like I’m some kind of novelty … I don’t know. I’m not a project, or at least I’m not her project.

But even I know this can’t go on forever, which is why I’m at a stupid freaking Kmart. In the makeup aisle.

My plan is this: get makeup, put it on, look at myself in the mirror, and see how I feel—see if I feel anything at all. Then maybe I’ll know how to move forward. Maybe it’ll tell me something I need to know.

I can do this, I tell myself, but fear eats at my insides. What if someone sees me? What if this doesn’t make me feel better?

Despite what Mom said—that I should use her gift to buy something fun—I know I should spend this money on video editing software, books on directing, acting classes, something like that. And while I want to pursue even more of this movie stuff, I just sort of mindlessly headed this way once the money was in my hand. Partly I told myself it was a test—could I buy something that would make me feel something?

I force myself to focus on the cosmetics in front of me. I don’t even bother to look at brand names. Eyeliner, mascara, an eyeshadow palette, and a set of brushes—all of it seems pretty interchangeable, so I just grab at them randomly and throw them into my shopping bag. Blush seems a little harder, because I don’t want to look like a clown, but my eyes fall on a peach that looks natural enough. I pick a foundation with a warm base, though who knows if the tone will match. It’s not like I can hang out long enough to try them on my wrist like the YouTube tutorials suggested.

As I drop the foundation into my bag, I realize I don’t feel bad anymore. A little nervous, maybe, but my stomach is calm and I feel warm in my neck and at the base of my spine. Even a little brave. I’m running through my budget while I roll a tube of lip gloss in my palm when a pair of sneakers enters my field of vision and I freeze.

“You’re not shoplifting, are you?” a girl says. I squeeze the little plastic cylinder so hard it starts to crack. My mind screams that I should run, but my body stays locked in place. “Store’s on its last legs already and I need this job. Steal from Walgreens or something if you’re desperate, okay?”

“I’m not—” I say. I want to tell her I’m going to pay for all this, but my voice comes out hoarse and small and I still can’t look up. Her feet shift.

“Oh!” she says. “I thought you were a girl.”

My shoulders tense and I look up at her. My heart stutters when I realize she goes to my school, that I recognize her from film class. I’m pretty sure her name’s Kaleigh. Worse, when my eyes focus and move past her, I realize three of her friends are clustered at the other end of the aisle, watching us with barely contained amusement.

“Morgan?” she says. “From Mr. Picket’s class, right?”

“Uh,” I say. “Yeah.”

Her face shifts to an expression somewhere between pity and amusement and she tilts her head.

“So you aren’t stealing?” Kaleigh asks innocently.

I shake my head. Her friends audibly snicker and I struggle to keep my expression blank. It’s not the worst thing I’ve experienced this last year by a mile. When Eric isn’t eating lunch with me, it’s pretty much a constant barrage of french fries, tater tots, harsh whispers of things like “faggot” and “eat shit.” I’m lucky if I make it to my lunch table without being tripped, so now I either don’t eat or just bring a sandwich in my backpack.