12. Who the Heck is Jason?

The followup. Part 2 begins.

From the first time I met you, I never had any idea what to expect. I never knew what was going on behind those uninterested eyes, or what the sentiment was beneath that passive monotone. I was never quite sure how exactly you viewed me or what role I was expected to play in your life. I mean, I thought I knew at a point, but that’s when it all seemed to fall apart. I didn’t know what was going on from your side of things, all I knew was that every little moment felt right. But there I was, staring at my ceiling on a Monday morning, watching the morning light slowly fill the room as I wondered what had happened.

Two days earlier, the night when you ran out of the planetarium, I was completely struck by surprise and had no earthly idea what to do, so I thought I’d play it cool; surely you would shoot me a text or something that night or the next day, whenever you were ready to talk about it. I waited, but that didn’t happen. I finally broke down and texted you, to no response. All of my calls were sent to voicemail. When I left a voicemail, apologizing as sincerely as I could without having any idea what for, you blocked my number.  

Was it all wrong then? All that time we spent together, all those hidden parts of ourselves we shared with each other, all those moments that felt so perfect? I didn’t know what happened, all I knew was that being left in the cold like that was one of the worst feelings I’d ever gone through. Getting up to go to school wasn’t a burning compulsion, but I sighed and forced myself out of the bed anyway. In a few short moments I was grabbing my keys from atop my dresser and heading out.

“You good, bro?” Theo’s voice snapped me back to reality. I quickly glanced around the lunch table, noticing Travis and Steve McLeary looking at me with mild concern.

“Yeah,” I answered, shaking my head free of lingering thoughts and trying to rejoin the conversation. “What were you saying?”

“You’re really out of it, man,” Theo replied. “Something’s wrong, ain’t it?”

“No, it’s just-”

“Something happened on your date with Carrie I bet.”

I sighed, resting my head down on my arms.

“Was it that bad?” Travis chimed in. He couldn’t have been that invested, though, as he pulled out his phone to start texting someone.

“He’ll tell us when he’s ready,” Theo assured, sounding like an understanding parent. “But speaking of dates, Trav, you ask CJ to prom yet?”

“Nah,” Travis replied, eyes still glued to his phone. “She’s still ducking me for whatever reason.”

“Think maybe you should be a little worried?”

“I’m not gonna sweat it, she’s probably just on her period or something.”

I suddenly felt the impulse to make some kind of a joke, but I couldn’t think of anything funny, and instead all that came out was,

“I gotta go use the bathroom.”

Not sure why I said that, but I did get up and leave. No way those guys can give any advice on my situation. The busy chatter of the full cafeteria seemed to be sealed away as I closed the double doors behind me and made my way down the hall, aimlessly walking.

“Yo, Harris!” Grant Peters called as I was only four steps in. What now!? I turned to see everyone’s favorite blond-haired idiot, staring me down with as much attempt toward intimidation as he was capable of, walking over to me slowly.

“Look, man,” I sighed. “Today’s really not the-”

I trailed off as he got unreasonably close, his face seemingly inches from mine, and his hand grabbing the color of my shirt. My body tensed, and I clenched my fists, ready for anything.

“Listen, Richie,” he growled. “You and me need to talk.”

The breeze made a weird whistling sound as it passed through empty spaces of the metal bleachers beneath us.

“I just don’t know what to do anymore,” Grant sighed, hanging his head and staring down at the empty field before us. “It’s like no matter what I do, how many times I apologize, CJ just won’t have any of it.”

“Well,” I began, leaning back into the bleacher behind me. “The sincerity of those apologies might get lost when they’re accompanied by invasions of personal space and threats of violence toward her friends, just saying.”

He was silent. I looked away and tried to form new words; maybe that was less helpful and more cynical than I intended. Time to bust out a metaphor.

“CJ’s not like a dog you can adopt,” I explained. “Like, you can’t just give her a name, play fetch with her and instantly have this magical connection and have her be loyal to you forever. She’s more like a stray cat you feed every now and again. She may come to your yard every so often, but she won’t live in your house, and you both know that. You never know what her intentions are, if she really loves you personally, or just the leftover tuna you give her.”

“Wait,” Grant replied. “So I’m the dog?”

“No,” I shot back, trying not to sound annoyed. “You’re the owner.”

“You can’t own a stray cat, though.”

“Yeah, genius, that’s the point.”

My eyes drifted up to the slow moving clouds above us. Something about them looked equal parts peaceful and distressed.

“CJ’s her own girl,” I sighed. “She doesn’t really make connections with other people that well, she’s off doing her own thing. You shoulda known when you were signing up that it wouldn’t last forever.”

“You understand her a lot.” Grant thought aloud, sounding almost surprised.

“I mean, we were really close once upon a time. I was head over heels worse than you and Trav.”

“Then what happened?”

“She broke my heart then started dating you. I thought that was fairly established.”

“No, not that part. I mean, what happened? How’d you get over her?”

I nearly shuddered, placing myself back in the headspace of Junior Year me. I realized just then how much my perspective on things had changed in only a year.

“I didn’t necessarily ‘get over’ her,” I answered, memories of times spent under these very bleachers playing through my head. “It was more like I stopped needing her. At first, I was devastated, for a longer time than I’d like to admit. I felt so played and broken, like I didn’t have a sense of self anymore. That sense of self is something I’ve been searching for ever since, to be honest, but when you look for it you find it in different ways than you expected. And then you see that, in a way… Hold up, time out. Are you crying?”

I looked over to him, taken back by the sight of his head hung low, water dropping down at an increasing rate, and the sounds of his sniffling intensifying. Jesus Christ!

“She’s all I had…” He managed, between gasps and sobs. I tried my hardest to imagine him as I’d always seen him before, knocking books out of nerdy kids’ hands or holding them by the legs as he dunked their heads into a toilet or something, but all those images came crashing down immediately. Grant Peters, the jock, the bully, the popular guy whose name everyone knew, was now crying his eyes out in front of me, atop the empty bleachers, a mile or so away from anyone else.
“Word?” I called out, trying to snap him back to reality. “Is it that forreal?”

He seemed to become self-aware, trying to collect himself.

“Look, man,” I sighed, preparing to give an encouragement speech I never thought I would before. “CJ gets in your head and screws up your emotions, I know. But life goes on. Yeah, it’s not easy, but you can’t just stay obsessed with this one girl forever. And letting your feelings get the best of you only makes it worse; getting drunk and lashing out at parties then constantly harassing me and my homies isn’t gonna fix anything. You just gotta move on.”

He looked back up at me, his tear-filled eyes as wide and innocent as King Ghidorah’s.

“Bruh,” I shot, looking away awkwardly. “We can’t walk back into school with you like that. Pull it together.”

“You’re right, Richie,” he finally declared, standing up as if suddenly struck with inspiration. “It’s time to move on. Thanks for that.”

Grant Peters just cried in front of me then thanked me for my advice. What is this world coming to?

“Don’t sweat it,” I said, getting up and preparing to leave. “By the way, tell KG I said hi.”

As I rejoined society in the school, I immediately imagined telling you what had just happened. I pictured us at the cafe, you choking on the mystery flavor of the week as you tried to contain your laughter. The scenario was comforting for the few seconds it lasted, before I looked down at my phone, at the last text message I sent you, which you had left on ‘seen’.

As the bell ending my final class rang, I couldn’t fight the impulse anymore. You had seemingly avoided me all day, not meeting me at any of our usual spots to walk with each other to our classes, not even using the hallways you knew I would be in. You knew my class schedule in and out by now, so it probably wasn’t hard. But seeing the face of everyone in that school but you made it all the more uneasy. I knew I probably shouldn’t have, but before I knew it I was halfway there, approaching your locker.

You weren’t there, of course. I knew you wouldn’t be, but I had to try anyway. I looked down at my phone and opened that last text again, wondering if that would be the last thing either of us would ever say to each other, if it would just be left off right there. That stream of thought was immediately interrupted, however, when a group of four or five kids came walking up to me.

Some boys, some girls, one I couldn’t quite place, and they were all wearing matching black t-shirts with rainbow flags on them. They all had matching smiles, as if they were incredibly happy to see me even though I had no idea who any of them were. Their wide eyes all trained in on me. The one in the front, a chubby hispanic boy, spoke.

“You’re Richie Harris, right?” he said, his voice very soft and effeminate.

“Uh… Yeah?” I mustered, raising a brow.

“Sorry if we’re weirding you out,” one of them laughed. “We just wanted you to pass on our congratulations.”

“Your what?” I struggled.

“We should introduce ourselves,” the pudgy one said. “We’re members of the school’s LGBT support group. We’re Jason’s friends, he talks about you a lot, which is why we knew who you were.”

“Jason?” I repeated, combing through my mental database of every acquaintance I had in Midtown High, feeling guilty for drawing a blank. The kid continued,

“We wanted to let him know how proud of him we all are, but we couldn’t find him all day. So next time you see him, let him knew everyone in the group has his back!”

“I’d love to,” I said with a shrug. “Just one question first: Who the heck is Jason?”

They all suddenly looked confused, their smiles quickly vanishing as they exchanged eyes with each other, seemingly wondering if they found the right Richie Harris.

“Jason,” the chubby kid, apparently their leader, reaffirmed. “Your… You know… Significant other.”

“Woah, woah, woah,” I shot back immediately, raising my hands in front me. “You got the wrong guy.”

“I told you, Rico,” the ambiguous-gendered blond kid in the back called out. “They’re not dating yet.”

“I just thought, you know,” the fat one, Rico, defended.  “They do go on dates, doesn’t that mean they are?”

“Listen,” I exclaimed. “I haven’t gone on any date with any Jason. I don’t exactly roll that way, sorry to disappoint. I’m already getting sick of this day so if y’all don’t mind…”

I turned around and began making my way out of the building.

“Good luck finding whoever it is you’re looking for.” I called back before I turned the corner.

By the time I got in my car, I somehow found myself staring at my phone again, rereading that text as if it would be different this time. I had waited almost three days now to hear back from you, all for nothing. I had spent all the time thus far feeling sorry, thinking I had done something wrong and had somehow inadvertently convinced you to never speak to me again. You couldn’t imagine what a terrible feeling that was. But at that moment, I was done feeling guilty for something I had no idea of. I felt like that night at the planetarium were to be the end of this unexplainable thing we had going, I at least deserved an explanation. And at that moment, it was another case of me knowing I shouldn’t be doing something but not being able to stop myself from doing it anyway.

I didn’t know what I was even gonna say to you. I didn’t know what I would do upon seeing you, how I would explain myself, or anything like that. It seemed to late to think about all that, though, as I was halfway there to your house. Am I just gonna knock on the door? What if she’s not there? What if her mom answers and is pissed off at me? What if she calls the cops or something?

I don’t even remember making all the turns and whatnot, but there I was, pulling up to your street. I parked my car on the side of your house, and took a deep breath as I got out. With every step toward your door, another image of you with tears streaming down your face flashed through my head. By the time I got to your door my heart was pounding. I raised my hand to ring your doorbell, but suddenly froze. The vision of your mom getting the police became too real. I suddenly wondered what I was even doing there. I sighed, lowering my hand and opting to accept my fate, preparing to walk back to my car, but that’s when the door swung open.

“Richie…” I heard before I looked up. Your voice rang through my ears, as if they’d been dying to hear it. But my eyes weren’t so pleased, because when I looked up at you, nothing about you was familiar. You weren’t in one of your plaid skirts, you were in jeans, and a polo shirt. Most strikingly, your newly red hair was cut short, the only part of it that hung down was now across the side of your face. Your usually passive eyes were wide, almost scared, or at least filled with an awkward tension that matched the rest of your uneasy expression. You looked entirely different to me, because in a way I was seeing you for the first time.

That Monday was an ordinary day for everyone else in the city, but to you and I, it was anything but. For Midtown High’s LGBT support group, that day was momentous and proud, and it probably was for you too, but at that moment as we stood there, looking each other in the eyes without a thing to say, we knew that was the day everything would change. That ordinary Monday was the day you left the name 'Carrie Thompson' behind, and came out to the world as transgendered.