24
Girlhood

“Well, well, if it isn’t Tyler and his boyfriend,” Jack said, laughing as he clapped his hands together. It was Friday, and we just arrived here after school to confront Jack. “What a surprise.”

“Shut up Jack, you know that isn’t who I am anymore,” I growled, annoyed to hear my dead name again.

“Sure, you say that but I know it’s still you deep down, Tyler,” Jack said, sticking a finger out at me. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

“You have no idea how much I’ve changed,” I said to him. It was true, I was barely recognizable from the person I used to be a few weeks ago.

“What, you and your boyfriend going to mess me up if I say otherwise?” he asked.

“Well, considering we’re actually dating, yes,” Matthew said, grabbing onto my hand.

“Oh really,” he said, chuckling mockingly at us. “I didn’t think you’d actually date the tranny, Matthew.”

“You call her that one more time and you’ll get what’s coming for you,” Matthew said, his hands curling up into a fist.

“Matthew, we’re just here to talk,” I said, trying to persuade him to stop. With his teeth clenched, he looked ready to just about kill Jack.

“You better dissuade him, because there’s no way I’m not winning a fight,” Jack said, throwing some punches into the air. “I’ve been training, jiu-jitsu, if you’ve ever heard of it.”

“Look, we’re just here to talk not to fight,” I said, putting myself in between the two. “Jack, we just have some questions to ask.”

“Hell, shoot,” he said, raising up his arms. “What questions do you have?”

“Why would you out me like that?” I asked, genuinely curious as to what he had to say for himself. “Like, how did it benefit you in any way?”

“Benefit me? I didn’t give a single shit about how it benefitted me,” he said, laughing so hard he had to hold onto his stomach “I cared about ruining your life, the fake one you built up.”

“My life isn’t fake,” I said, offended by the insinuation.

“It was all built upon lies, wasn’t it?” Jack asked, raising his eyebrows. “Lies that you were a girl. Lies that you were a good person.”

“Maybe it was a lie at first, but it slowly became the truth,” I said, stamping down my foot. “Now I am a girl, and I am a good person. I’ve changed while you haven’t. You’re still the same shit person you always were.”

“So I’m the bad person now,” Jack said, opening his mouth in disbelief. “You tell yourself that, but you were the one who was friends with me for ages and participated in the panty raid.”

“I don’t think you’re getting this through your thick skull,” Matthew spoke up, clearly annoyed with Jack. “Katie’s changed. Maybe she wasn’t the best person before, but she’s changed. Meanwhile, you’ve remained a miserable person.”

“Changing now doesn’t wipe everything you did before,” Jack said. “You were the same as me for a long, long time. If I’m a bad person, a miserable one, then you are too.”

“Hell, maybe I am,” I said, throwing my arms up in the air. “Maybe I am a miserable person. But at least I have the decency in me to change. To at least try to become a better person.”

“Well, you can change as much as you want, but I’m good,” Jack said. “I’ll stay who I am. Now did you have anything else to ask me or did you just call me here for no reason?”

“I just want to let you know that no matter what you do, you can’t ruin my life,” I said, fierce and determined. “I have a supportive family, people who care about me, my boyfriend, and so much more that you’ll never have. Stay the same person Jack, but I’ve changed.”

I turned to Matthew and pointed behind us. “Let’s go, there’s no point in talking to someone who can’t see reason.”

“Wait,” Jack said, trying to catch up to us. He grabbed onto my shoulder, trying to turn me around. “Tyler, you shit, you think I don’t have people who care about me?”

“Touch her again, and you’ll barely be able to walk,” Matthew said, swatting Jack’s hand off of me.

“Yeah, what are you going to do?” Jack said, grabbing onto me again. “I told you, I’ve been training in Jiu-Jitsu-”

Jack was immediately knocked to the floor by Matthew. He groaned as his head hit the pavement with a rather large thunk sound. “I’m a black belt in Tae-Kwon-Do, you dumbass,” Matthew said, his voice filled with hate. “Now, don’t bother Katie or me ever again. Ever. Do you hear me?”

All Jack could do was groan even more, as he rubbed the back of his head. “That fucking hurt,” he yelled out, trying to get up. He eventually managed to but was still swaying from side to side. “I’m going to mess you up!”

“You can try, but you have no more ammunition against us,” Matthew said, chuckling. “You already outed her, and yet she had so many caring people around her that it didn’t matter. What the hell are you going to do now?”

“I’ll find something, I’ll mess you both up for good,” he said in a rage. He didn’t approach us any further though, clearly scared of Matthew. He just stood there pathetically, not knowing what to do.

“Sure, you do that,” Matthew said, as we turned our backs on him.

“Goodbye, Jack,” I said, glad to finally be closing that chapter of my life.

***

“That went well, didn’t it?” Matthew asked, looking over at me. We were both sitting outside on a bench on the front porch of my home, watching cars idly pass by every now and then.

“I wouldn’t say it went well, but I’m glad it's over,” I said, taking a long sip of barley tea. “Not like Jack can really do anything anymore.”

“Well, what if he uses his amazing jiu-jitsu powers to beat us up?” Matthew asked, chuckling.

“Yeah, right,” I said, giggling. “He couldn’t even get a single hit on you.”

“It was a little disappointing, I wouldn’t have minded hurting him a bit more,” Matthew said, sinking into his seat.

“That’s terrible,” I said, acting shocked. “No, I’m just kidding, I wouldn’t have minded at all.”

“You’re terrible too then,” Matthew said, laughing hard.

“We can both be terrible,” I said, hugging him from the side.

“We can be,” I said. He wrapped an arm around me and I sunk into it, smiling contently. I closed my eyes and we sat there in silence for a few minutes, just enjoying the sun shining down on us.

“Ooh, Katthew moment,” I heard Lauren’s voice say. “How cute.”

“What?” I asked, pulling back. I spotted Lauren, Liz, and Sam in front of us. They each had a backpack on and seemed to just have exited a car that was on the road. “Where did you come from?”

“Well, we felt bad after everything that happened, so we decided what was better than a girl’s night for improving the mood?” Liz said, quickly glancing behind her to see the car drive off. “Seems like you already have your boyfriend though.”

“No, no, thanks for coming,” I said, getting up. I opened the front door and welcomed my friends inside. “Come in.”

“Thanks,” Sam said, as the three of them walked in. “Sorry if we disturbed you two, you seemed to be having a moment.”

“No, it’s fine,” I said, although I did feel a little sad to be out of Matthew’s arms.

“Where did your friends come from, Katie?” my mom asked, walking out of the kitchen and squinting her eyes. She was clearly confused to see the three girls at our house.

“They came to cheer me up after what happened,” I said.

“Hi Ms. Lee,” Lauren said, waving politely. “We came over to help Katie feel better. We hope you don’t mind.”

“No, no, you’re always welcome,” my mom said, smiling. “God knows you all are an improvement compared to some of the friends Katie used to bring over.”

“Did you used to bring Jack over?” Liz asked, shaking her head. “Katieee.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, disappointed with myself for sticking with him for as long as I did. “I thought he was my friend.”

“Well, you should be glad you have some real friends now,” Sam said, gently nudging my shoulder. “I hope we’re an upgrade from Jack.”

“You have no idea,” I said, giggling. “Okay, let’s go up to my room to do something, I’m bored.”

“Sure, let’s go,” Matthew said, heading to the stairs.

***

“Ooh, you redecorated,” Lauren said as we walked into my room. “It looks nicer now.”

I did redecorate. The walls were still a pretty boring grey since I couldn’t repaint that. Other than that though, I did my best to make my room as cute as possible. I added some string lights on the walls and changed my covers and blanket to satin pink ones. I also added a photo collage wall, with a lot of pictures that I’d collected throughout the past two months.

“That’s us!” Liz said, running up to the wall. “Us at the board game place, circus, Pinnacles, this is great!”

“Yeah, I made all the photos look like Polaroids, printed them out, and then taped them onto the wall,” I said, puffing out my chest in pride. It did look really cute in my opinion. “I’ll add more as we have more adventures.”

“Yeah, it is a little small right now,” Sam said, looking at the pictures. “Ooh, Matthew and you went to that laser tag place?”

“Yeah, that was our first date,” I said, smiling as I recalled that day. “I think I told you all about it, actually.”

“Oh yeah, I remember now,” Sam said.

“You’re becoming girlier by the day, Katie,” Matthew said, chuckling.

“Shut up,” I responded, burning bright red. I couldn’t deny it though, my room looked undeniably like a girl’s room now. I liked it that way though.

“It’s a compliment,” he said, laughing as I pounded my fists at his chest out of embarrassment. “Relax.”

“You two are really cute together,” Lauren said, giggling at me. “To think you denied liking him.”

“I didn’t think I was attracted to guys,” I said, trying to justify myself.

“Well, I think it’s pretty obvious you are,” Lauren said, rolling her eyes. “We knew all along, you should thank us. Katthew is real in part due to our efforts.”

“Yeah, thank you all,” I said, as we huddled together into a hug. “You all are the best friends I could’ve asked for.”

“Aww, that’s sweet,” Sam said, smiling.

“I feel excluded,” Matthew joked, a wide grin on his face.

“Shut up, you get plenty of hugs from me,” I said. “You don’t need any more.”

“Ooh,” Liz said, giggling with a hand over her mouth.

“Anyways, what do you all want to do?” I asked, looking around my room. “There’s nothing in particular I really have that we can do…”

“We should do this thing I saw online,” Liz said, checking her phone. “Basically, you blindfold someone and see if they can guess what snack we gave them.”

“That sounds fun,” I said, going to my cabinet to try and find a sleep mask I had somewhere. I dug through a drawer until I found it. “Let’s do it.”

***

Liz went first, and we gave her a pretzel. She was able to guess it right away. “This isn’t as difficult as I expected,” she said, sounding disappointed.

“I’ll go next,” I said, raising my arm. Liz handed me the sleep mask and I put it over my eyes. I waited for a few seconds, as the girls got a snack ready.

“Here, bite down,” Lauren said, as I felt something in front of me.

I went to nibble on the snack but felt flesh as I bit down. “Is this a finger?” I asked, confused.

“It’s Matthew’s finger,” Lauren’s voice said as all the girls giggled.

“You guys!” I yelled out, ripping off the sleep mask to see Matthew in front of me with his finger right where my mouth was.

“Don’t worry, I washed my hands,” Matthew said.

“It’s not that!” I said, blushing bright red. “It’s the fact that you guys gave me Matthew’s finger as the snack.”

“Matthew is a snack though, isn’t he,” Lauren said, wiggling her eyebrows.

“No!” I yelled out, burning even brighter. I put the sleep mask on over my eyes again. “Give me an actual snack this time. I’m going to bite down hard, so it better not be another finger or it’s going to hurt.”

“Fine,” Liz said. I heard some crinkling of wrappers and then someone presented something in front of my mouth. “Here.”

I bit down hard, and luckily it was food this time. The sweet taste of vanilla cream and chocolate filled my mouth. “This is Oreos, my favorite!”

“Knew she’d get that,” Matthew said. “It’s literally her favorite snack.”

“That was way too easy,” I said, raising up the sleep mask. I blinked a little bit, letting my eyes get adjusted to the light.

“Should we move on to another game?” Matthew asked. “I think this is a little too easy.”

“Sure,” I said, shrugging. “But you all better not pull another prank on me again.”

“Fine, fine,” Lauren said, shaking her head. “Come on, let’s go.”

***

We ended up playing a few more games before the girls had to go. By then, it was pretty late, as the sun had set and the moon was in the sky. We were all out on the porch, watching the girls go.

“Bye, Katie,” Lauren said, waving at me as she walked towards her mom’s car. “I hope we helped you feel better.”

“You did, today was lots of fun,” I said, waving back. “Bye!”

“See you, Katie,” Liz said, giving me a fist bump. “See you on Monday.”

“Bye!” Sam said, waving as well.

“So it’s just us now,” Matthew said, glancing at Lauren’s mom’s car driving off with the three girls in it.

“It is just us,” I said, taking a seat on the bench. “Do you want to return where we left off?”

“Sure,” Matthew said, motioning for me to schooch as he sat down next to me. “Here, lean on me.”

I followed his direction, leaning on him as I wrapped both arms around him in a tight hug. He wrapped his arm around me, leaving us in the same position we were in the afternoon.

“Did you have fun with your friends?” he asked. “Sorry about that prank with the finger, they put me up to it.”

“It’s okay, I actually kind of enjoyed nibbling on your finger,” I said giggling. I then suddenly stood up and nibbled on his ear. “How about that?”

“What?” he asked, blushing a little. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Ha, I made you blush,” I said, a satisfied smile on my face. “Did you like me nibbling on your ear?”

“Maybe?” he said, not knowing quite how to respond.

“I love you, Matthew,” I said, giggling as I snuggled into his chest. “You’re the best.”

“No, you’re the best,” he said, gripping onto me tightly. “I’m so glad you’re here with me now.”

“Good thing you came over to ask about me, huh?” I asked, pressing my ear against his chest to hear his heart beating. “None of this would’ve happened if you didn’t.”

“Well, I was concerned,” he said, shrugging. “You do a panty raid, get expelled, and won’t respond to any of my messages. What was I supposed to think?”

“I don’t know, but I’m very glad you came over that day,” I said. I wiggled up and booped his nose. “Now I have the best boyfriend I could’ve ever asked for.”

“Wow, you’re confident today,” he said, putting a hand over his mouth in embarrassment. “Who knew this would all happen just because of the stupid idea to do a panty raid?”

“Who knew?” I asked, giggling. I can’t say I expected this to happen two months ago, but I was so happy it did. I was always so miserable, feeling like some part of me was missing. Every day felt terrible, and I just passed the time playing games or talking with my fake friends. Now I had three great friends, an amazing boyfriend, and my bond with my mom only grew deeper every day. I felt whole. Complete. And I was so, so happy.