I blow out a long breath, pressing a hand to the center of my chest. My heart feels fluttery. Maybe I’m about to have a heart attack, my veins constricting, arm going numb. Is that what happens when you have a heart attack? I’m not sure.
“That’s not real. It’s not happening,” I say quietly. I don’t usually say my mantras out loud, but no one’s around. “That’s not real. It’s not happening. That’s not real. It’s not happening.”
I have to get out of this room, out of my head, away from my thoughts. I toss my phone on the bed and stride to the back door, slipping on my sneakers and heading outside. It’s raining out, the air chillier than it has been the last few weeks, and I cross the driveway to the garage with my head bowed, trying to keep the drops from speckling my glasses. When I step inside, the sharp smell of sawdust fills my nose. Shar is behind the table saw, picking something up.
“Hey,” I call out, and she straightens.
“Hey you,” she says with a warm smile. “Put your goggles on, OK?”
I turn to the row of hooks beside the door and grab my safety goggles. They’re big enough to fit over my glasses, and I slip them on. Shar is a stickler for protective equipment anytime we’re in the shop and there’s even the slightest chance a power tool might be running.
“What’re you doing?” I ask, putting in my earplugs next. They’re bright orange, connected by a blue plastic string.
She raises her voice so I can hear her through the plugs. “Building a bookcase.”
“Oh, for the ...?” I wave my hand at the house.
She nods. One of our cheap old bookcases fell apart a month ago, and Shar said she’d make a new one.
I sit on a stool a safe distance away from her power tool setup, and give her the thumbs-up. She gives one back and then focuses in on the saw as it roars to life.
The sound is a comforting buzz through my earplugs. Being in the garage is calming, especially when Shar is here. My friends think I’m weird for enjoying the sound of power tools, but I don’t know how to explain to them that the noise helps drown out whatever catastrophes my brain might come up with. Plus, Shar is the human equivalent of an ancient redwood tree. It’s grounding just being near her.
She guides the blade through the lumber she’s cutting down for the bookcase. It’s a natural blond hardwood, something she’ll probably stain afterward, maybe walnut to match our other bookcases. She squints behind her goggles, the crow’s-feet at her eyes crinkling back to her temples. She’s proud of them, says they’re a marker of all the good memories she’s made.
Mom met Shar at an Al-Anon meeting a few years after she and Dad divorced. For a while it seemed like they were just friends, until one day Mom sat me down and told me she had realized something: She was bisexual and had started dating Shar. It didn’t shock me, really; I’d come outas bi to her and Dad when I was twelve and neither of them batted an eye. It was the same when I came out as nonbinary last year.
Shar is gay, and has been since birth, the way she tells it. “Maddy in fourth grade,” she told me when I asked her about her first crush. It was the night I finally met her, months into their relationship. We were all in a booth at a diner on Capitol Hill, and the waitress had just dropped off our pancakes. Shar held Mom’s hand the whole time, right there on the table, and their smiles sparkled like the holiday lights on the trees outside.
I was thirteen, and I loved her right away. I felt guilty at first, like I was abandoning Dad, or betraying him. Sometimes I still feel that way. But mostly I try not to think about it. Just because I love Shar, doesn’t mean I don’t love Dad too.
Because I do.
And I’ll text him back. I will.
Just ...not right now.
A hand lands on my shoulder and I startle, turning from where my gaze has drifted to see Shar smiling down at me. Her goggles are pushed back onto her head, and I realize the table saw has gone quiet. Which, of course it has, because she’s standing here.
I pull out my earplugs.
“Penny for your thoughts?” she asks.
I shrug. “Just spacing out.”
“Wanna see what I’ve done so far?” She gestures at the lumber on the table and I stand up and follow her over,putting my goggles on top of my head like her. I always feel cool when I do that, kind of tough, like I could run a table saw too.
She lays out the pieces for the bookcase: the shelves, the back, and the sides, freshly cut and waiting to be put together. “I’ll sand them next Sunday. I was thinking you could help me with that, and with the stain when it’s time.”
“I get to use the sander?” My eyes widen. Shar has been slowly teaching me how to use each of her tools, and this one has been next on the list for ages.
“Very carefully, and with my supervision, but yes,” she says.
“Fuck yeah!” I pump my fist, and she laughs. Besides the noise, one of the things I love about working with tools is the consistency. All I need to do is follow a set of steps and I get the result I want. Each one has a protocol for operation and safety, and it never changes. In Shar’s workshop, I always know what to expect.
I just wish everything else was that certain.
I feel it the moment forrest walks into english class on Monday. The energy changes, the air gets thicker, and I’m aware of exactly where he is as he walks across the room, even though I’m on my phone, texting the group chat. He’s like a black hole, sucking up all the energy I could be putting into my own life, ruining the one good thing I wanted for myself this year. I don’t want to look at him, but it’s like a magnet is pulling at my face, forcing me to glance over.
