18
Goodbye, Grace

“Grace, I can’t believe you’re going!” I said, running up to her as soon as she exited the bus.

“Don’t miss me too much,” she said, laughing. “You know, I did have to go eventually.”

“I know, but I didn’t think three weeks would go by this fast,” I said, looking down at the floor. “I’ll miss you.”

“I know you will,” she said. “But it’ll be fine, really, we can still text and I’ll be coming over during the summer.”

“Still, I wanted you to stay longer,” I said, disappointed. “Is there any way for you to stay? You should come to Rosewood.”

“Ha, sadly my school in New York needs me back, and I have friends there too,” she said.

“Fine,” I said, disappointedly.

“Hey, here’s Matthew,” she said as another bus pulled up to the stop. “Matthew, come out.”

“Hey,” he said, walking out of the bus and giving a wave. “How are you two doing?”

“I’m sad,” I complained. “I can’t believe Grace is leaving.”

“Yeah, she’s devastated,” Grace said, giggling. “Cheer her up when I leave.”

“I’ll try, I’ll try,” Matthew said.

“Okay, let’s get going then,” Grace said, pointing in the general direction of my home. “To Katie’s house, we go!”

“We go!” I repeated. We walked over to my house, which took a few minutes. I opened up the front door and went inside, awkwardly staring at the house. “What are we going to do again?”

“I mean, isn’t it obvious?” Grace asked. “Let’s go up to the attic.”

“The attic?” I asked, tilting my head. “What’s in the attic?”

“You seriously don’t remember?” Matthew asked, furrowing his eyebrows. ”We used to play in the attic all the time.”

“We did?” I asked. “Why do I not remember this?”

“Let’s go up, maybe it’ll jog your memory,” Grace said, walking up the stairs. We made our way to the attic, and it was just dark and musty, nothing special about it.

“Okay, I still don’t remember,” I said, crossing my arms.

“God, everything has been packed away,” Matthew said, looking through some boxes. “I swear there were some recordings here.”

“Let me try and find it,” Grace said, opening up another box and looking inside. “Oh my God, Katie, remember this?”

“What?” I asked, looking over at her to see her holding a small skirt in her hands. “Why would I remember a skirt? Who is that even for?”

“For you?” Grace asked, scratching her head. “You seriously don’t remember anything?”

I shook my head, still confused about what was going on.

“I found it!” Matthew said, taking out an old video camera. “Let’s charge this thing up.”

***

“Sean!” I saw a younger me giggle as I spun around in a skirt. “This is fun.”

“It is,” Grace said as she held up the camera. “Matthew, why don’t you try it on?”

“I’m good,” I saw Matthew say as the camera panned to him. “I’m not a girl.”

“I’m not a girl either!” I heard me complain. “It’s just fun.”

“I wish I could do this all the time,” Grace said. “I kind of wish I was a girl sometimes.”

“Me too, this is fun!” I said, playing with the hem of the skirt.

“Oops, this thing is all out of battery,” Grace said. “I’ll turn it off.”

“Okay!” I responded happily.

***

“What the hell?” I asked, putting down the camera. “How do I not remember this?”

“Suppression, probably,” Grace said, shrugging. “I’m surprised you don’t remember it, it’s a pretty major sign you were trans all along.”

“I don’t know,” I said, restarting the video, still confused as to what happened. “I didn’t think I showed that many signs before having to do all this for school.”

“Trust me, the signs are there, you just haven’t noticed them yet,” Grace said.

“I guess,” I responded, watching the video. “I still can’t believe this happened.”

“Believe it, the evidence is right there,” Grace responded.

“I think that’s when I kind of started having a crush on you,” Matthew said, awkwardly laughing. “Seeing you all dressed up like a girl with your personality really made me embarrassed.”

“And now that fire has been reignited!” Grace said excitedly. “Can’t believe I have to go before you two get together though.”

“We’re not going to get together,” I said, blushing bright red. “Are we?”

“I don’t know, are we?” Matthew responded, shrugging.

“Oh my God, just kiss already,” Grace said, rolling her eyes. “This reminds me of me and my ex-girlfriend.”

“How?” I asked, looking at her.

“We were both stupid and didn’t get together besides both of us clearly liking each other.”

“Oh,” I said, understanding that this was the exact situation Matthew and I were in right now. “I mean, umm, I don’t know.”

“Of course you don’t know,” she said, sighing in disappointment.

“I can’t believe I fit in this,” I said, holding up the tiny skirt. “How young were we then?”

“Like twelve, I think,” Matthew said. “Puberty definitely hit us so we got bigger. Well, puberty hit Grace and I, I don’t know if it hit you, Katie.”

“Hey,” I said, not knowing whether to be offended or happy.

“Anyways, think deeply,” Grace said, staring into my eyes. “Any other signs that you were transgender coming to mind?”

“I don’t know,” I said, playing with my hair as I thought. “I did always think makeup and stuff was super cool, and I remember watching some crossdressing videos as a kid.”

“Sure, no signs,” Grace responded, rolling her eyes.

***

“Oh, Matthew,” I said, picking up the flowers that my mom and I had made into a bouquet yesterday. We had made our way down from the attic, and I just remembered that I forgot to give it to him. “I made this for you from my camping trip.”

“This is so pretty,” he said, spinning around the bouquet in his hand so he could see it better. “Now I feel bad for not getting you anything.”

“Katthew?” Grace asked, grinning.

“Just a friendly gesture,” I responded, although even I doubted that.

“Sure,” she said, snorting. “Okay, anyways, what are we going to do now?”

“Umm,” Matthew and I said, both having no clue what to do.

“Nothing?” she asked, sighing.

“Let’s play Valorant, Katie,” Matthew asked, chuckling slightly.

“I’m good,” I said. “I’m done with that game and the people I used to play it with.”

“Probably for the best, yeah,” Matthew said. “It was just a joke, by the way.”

“It better have been,” I responded, glaring at him.

“Katie this is your house, what is there to do?” Grace asked. “Surely there must be something in this place.”

“Umm, I usually study, text my friends, and play games, so I don’t know,” I responded honestly.

“Ugh, fine, I’m coming up with something myself,” Grace said.

“You should check out an article called 100 Cute Date Ideas to Really Up the Romance,” Matthew said, chuckling.

“No, definitely not,” I said.

“Already on it,” Grace responded, typing on her phone. “Hmm, there are some good ideas here but a lot of them require you to be out and about. Cooking, maybe?”

“Definitely not,” Matthew said, laughing. “Not unless you want the whole kitchen to get burnt up.”

“I’m not that bad at cooking!” I said, embarrassed that I was in fact that bad at cooking.

“You are,” he said, laughing even harder as he saw how offended I looked.

“How about science experiments,” Grace asked, looking up at us from her phone.

“Science experiments?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

“Yeah, look over here,” she said, showing me her phone. “Like putting mentos in soda to make a volcano and stuff.”

“Sure, why not,” I said, shrugging.

***

“Okay, so we just put the mentos in the Coca-Cola, right?” Matthew asked, holding some pieces of mentos over a glass of cola.

“Yeah, just toss it in,” Grace said.

“Okay,” Matthew dropped the mentos into the glass. The cola immediately skyrocketed up into the air, spraying all over the ceiling.

“Oh my God,” I said, backing away as quickly as I could so it wouldn’t get on my cute dress. “I didn’t think it would go up this much.”

“Same,” Grace said, running away from the glass. “I thought it would just bubble up a little bit.”

“I got it all over me,” Matthew said, covered in soda. “This was a terrible idea.”

“What do we do now?” Grace said, watching as the cola finally stopped fizzling.

“Umm,” I said, staring at the amount of cola that was all over the ceiling and floor. “I guess we should clean this up and do something other than science experiments.

“Yeah, this was a bad idea,” I said, sighing. I picked up some napkins. “Let’s clean this all up.”

We dutifully cleaned up all the soda that covered the floor and stood on a chair to clean up the soda covering the ceiling. It took a while, and I was pretty annoyed the whole time. We should’ve done it outside or something, I don’t know why we decided to do it in the kitchen.

***

“Okay, now this is something sure to not cause chaos,” I said, sitting down in front of the good old Xbox in the living room. “Just some nice video games to cap off the day.”

“What are we going to play?” Matthew asked, sitting on the couch.

“I haven’t played a video game in so long,” Grace said, picking up the controller like she was reuniting with an old friend. “Let’s play.”

“Umm, I’ll boot up Halo,” I said, putting the Halo disk into the disk tray.

“What the hell is this controller?” Matthew asked, inspecting the controller I gave him. It was the cheapest one I had, and its quality was dubious, to say the least.

“Sorry,” I said, giggling. “Just consider it a debuff, let’s start!”

“Wait, are we doing PvP or co-op?” Grace asked.

“It’s co-op, I think,” I said. The game loaded up to a cinematic of Master Chief fighting some aliens.

“The graphics are really good,” Grace commented. “Especially compared to what we used to play.”

“I mean we were on a 360 back then,” I said, looking at the brand-new Xbox I had bought. “This is the newest one, so it’s a lot better.”

“Yeah, I can see, Master Chief looks so cool, he looks almost real.”

“He is real, he’ll pop out of the television and beat us up,” Matthew teased.

“No, he would like me,” Grace said, smiling. “I am charming after all.”

“Sure, sure,” I said. After a few minutes, we finally got into the gameplay part.

“Woah, what’s this?” Matthew asked as Master Chief flew around the screen. “They added a grapple hook?”

“Look, every game should have a grapple hook, they’re cool as hell,” I said.

We played for a few hours before we got bored. Grace yawned, quickly stretching her arms from side to side. “What should we do now? I only have an hour until I have to go.”

“Only an hour?” I said, my face falling. “I can’t believe you’re going that soon.”

“Yeah, we have to make it to the airport in time,” she said, leaning back in her seat. “So an hour is all I have.”

“Darn,” I said, thinking of stuff to do. “Maybe let’s just chat for the last hour, so that we can make the most of it.”

“Sure, I’m up for that,” Matthew said. “So what do we have to talk about?”‘

We all awkwardly stared at one another for a few seconds before I spoke up. “It is hard to talk when we’re not doing anything. Hmm, Grace, talk about your life.”

“My life?” Grace asked, tilting her head as she thought. “Umm, I just chill. I’m not looking forward to going back to school though.”

“I can imagine,” I said, giggling. Although school wasn’t too bad for me, it wasn’t exactly something I looked forward to either. “How are the people at your school?”

“Kind of mean, to be honest,” she said. “But I still have my friend group. I’ve been thinking of signing up for cheer next year.”

“Cheer? You’re going to be a cheerleader?” Matthew asked, furrowing his brows. “Didn’t expect that of you.”

“Why not?” she asked, genuinely seeming confused. “I’m confident, I like cheering on the team, what’s the problem?”

“I don’t know, maybe I’m thinking of old you,” Matthew said. “You’ve changed a lot.”

“Wow, yeah, no shit,” Grace said, laughing. “But yeah, I’ve changed a lot.”

“I think you’d be a good fit for a cheerleader,” I said, looking at Grace’s rather cute face. “Maybe some football player will sweep you off your feet.”

“God, no,” she said, grimacing. “The football players are nice, but not exactly the type I would want to date.”

“Ooh, what is the type you would like to date?” I asked, leaning closer to her and smirking. “Please, do tell.”

“I mean…” she said, rubbing her chin as she thought. “For guys, they’d basically have to be perfect for me to date them. I’m mostly into girls.”

“Oh,” I said, my interest disappearing as soon as girls were mentioned. “That’s lame.”

“Yeah, okay, sorry Ms. Heterosexual,” Grace said, rolling her eyes. “We all have preferences.”

“I don’t know,” I said, scratching my head. “Girls are just so meh and guys are so like yay, you know?”

“I don’t know,” Grace said, shaking her head. “Sounds to me you have a serious case of the boy-crazy.”

“I don’t,” I said, embarrassed. My eyes shot over to Matthew real quick before I looked away again.

“You say that,” Grace said, her voice filled with doubt.

“How have things been going back at Grandview?” I asked, curious as to what was going on at my old high school. I wondered what some people would think if they saw me now.

“Jack hasn’t mentioned anything about you, so he’s clearly embarrassed after what happened,” Matthew said, chuckling. “That was funny. Besides that, it’s the same as it’s always been. Some people have wondered where you and Jack went though.”

“What happened with Jack and Katie?” Grace asked, raising her eyebrows in confusion.

“It was a terrible decision on Katie’s part,” Matthew said, sighing. “She decided it would be a good idea to tell Jack who she was now. Jack tried flirting with her until she revealed who she was, and then he got all pissed and I had to knock him down.”

“Are you serious?” Grace asked, staring at me as she shook her head. “You need to pick and choose who you come out to. Some people are just worth cutting off.”

“Well, I didn’t know that,” I whined. “I thought I owed it to him since we were friends for so long.”

“Friends, yeah,” Matthew said, snorting. “Not sure if I’d call it that, but sure.”

“I think we already all know our Katie has terrible decision-making,” Grace said. “We shouldn’t rag on her too much.”

“Exactly, I was doing my best,” I said, nodding.

“You know, we should’ve paid a visit to Grandview,” Matthew said. “I think it would’ve been funny for Katie to show off her new look to everybody.”

“I mean, that would be pretty funny,” I said, rubbing my chin. “But I think my mom would get mad, she’s already worried about how many people know my secret identity.”

“Secret identity,” Grace said, giggling. “Yeah, okay Batman.”

“Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best wording, but you know what I mean,” I replied.

“Yeah I do,” she said, giving a quick nod. “I totally should’ve shown up though, I’m sure some people from middle school would be there.”

“Little too late for that,” Matthew said. “We really need to do more once you come back, Grace. Three weeks was far too short.”

“Hey, I’ll be back,” she said, pointing two finger guns at us. “Next summer, I’ll be here for a while.”

We kept on talking, with Grace occasionally checking the time on her phone until she announced something. “Time’s up, everyone,” she said, sighing. “I have to go now, my parents should be outside.”

“Already?” I asked sadly, my lip quivering. “We should get outside then.”

“Yeah, we should,” she said, getting up from her seat on the couch. “Let’s go.”

We stepped outside to see there was a white car on the street, ready to take our Grace.

“Bye, Grace!” I said, waving at her.

“Don’t miss me too much, you two,” she said, getting in the car. She rolled down the window and stuck her head out. “Katie, you be good, and Matthew, treat her well.”

“Got it,” Matthew said, giving a salute.

“I’ll do my best!” I yelled out.

The window rolled back up as the car left, Matthew and I watched as it rolled off into the distance and out of sight. “I’ll miss her a lot,” I said.

“Me too,” he said, shaking his head. A few seconds passed in silence as we stared off into the distance. Matthew broke the silence, turning to me. “I know this is awkward to ask after Grace just left, but do you want to go on a date maybe?”

“It’s not called-” I stopped myself from correcting Matthew’s loose definition of date. Or maybe this was his way of actually asking me out on an actual date? I didn’t know. I just decided to say the first words that came to mind. “You know what, I’d love to.”