Stop, stop, stop.
Stop. Stop. Stop.
Stop. Stop. Stop.
My heart is racing, my palms sweaty.
Again.
Stop, stop, stop.
Stop. Stop. Stop.
Stop. Stop. Stop.
I feel lightheaded, nauseous.
Again.
Stop, stop, stop.
Stop. Stop. Stop.
Stop. Stop. St—
I jump up. I can’t stand this anymore. Everyone looks at me as I rush to the door, and behind me, I hear Mr. Gutierrez calling out, but I don’t stop. I charge into the hall, down the long corridor out toward the wing where I know Jayden and Makayla are in class with Forrest. The security guard shouts after me as I blaze past him, but I keep going, the halls blurring until I’m at the door and pushing it open into the middle of a class in full swing. The teacher looks up and so does every face in the class. Forrest stands.
“You can’t be president,” I tell him.
He rolls his eyes. “Fuck you,” he says. “I got elected fair and square. You’re just an uptight bitch.”
I launch myself at him, everyone around me erupting in screams. I shake my head, and suddenly I’m sitting in math class, blinking as Mr. Gutierrez drones on at the board. My heart is racing. Did I really just storm to Forrest’s class and tackle him?
No. There’s a desk in front of me, the brown grain of the fake wood gently swirling across its top, interrupted by the purple cover of a spiral notebook, a pen resting beside it. I grip the desk with my hands and look around the classroom. The walls are white, the linoleum floor is blue, the lighting is horrible. All around me students are taking notes.
That’s not real. It’s not happening.
That’s not real. It’s not happening.
That’s not real. It’s not happening.
But the election did. I have to work with Forrest for the entire term.
How am I supposed to do that?
The moment I step inside my house that afternoon, English Breakfast runs toward the door with his signature raspy meow. I take off my backpack and kneel as he flops down on the hardwood floor to expose his belly. I know better than to touch it, though. Some cats allow belly rubs, but Brekky isn’t one of those cats. I keep my fingers up around his head and neck, scritching his smoky gray fur just the way he likes it.
Petting him calms me, and for a moment, his sweet face is the only thing I see, his green eyes half closed in happy relaxation.
“You’re probably hungry, huh?” I murmur, and he chirps, jumping up and pushing his head against my knee.
He follows me into the kitchen and circles my feet, meowing loudly as I put some wet food into his bowl. A high-pitched squeak pulls my gaze to the floor, where our other cat, Earl Grey, has joined him. She’s a dainty gray tabby, much smaller than Brekky, and where he’s laid-back, she’s skittish. They belong to Shar, my stepmom; she got them as kittens years ago, before she met my mom.
The cats are both equally enthusiastic about the food, though, and run to it as soon as I set it down. We feed them three times a day: Shar takes the morning, since she’s up the earliest before heading to her job site, I do the afternoons when I get home, and Mom feeds them after dinner. By the way they act around food, though, you’d think we were starving them.
I grab a glass of orange juice and some chips and set up at the table with all my schoolwork. Our house is pretty small, so I don’t have far to go. The main floor is where we live: the two bedrooms and the bathroom at the back, the kitchen in the middle, with its side door, and the open-plan living room and dining room at the front of the house. There’s a back door in the basement, but it’s unfinished down there, all concrete, cold and damp with spiders lurking in the corners. The only reason I go down there is to do laundry. Out the side door, there’s a small garage where Shar does all her woodworking projects.
Gay art adorns the walls around me, thanks to Mom and Shar’s love for queer artists: abstract color blocks, portraits of gay couples, a giant knitted tapestry in a rainbow ombre. The furnishings are thrifted but cozy. We don’t have a ton of money, but this home is ours, and it’s better than Dad’s place. Or at least, the place he lived the last time I saw him, but that was almost a year ago.
