Page 18 of I Wish You All the Best

“Showing the new guy around.” He hugs her back. “Ben, this is Mrs. Liu.”

“Nice to meet you.” I hold out my hand.

She shakes it so quickly that I’m pretty sure my arm’s going to pop right out of the socket. “It is so good to meet you too! How are you liking North Wake so far?”

“It’s fine,” I say.

“Well, I look forward to having you. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough kids for an Art 4 class this year, so you’ll pretty much be by yourself.”

“By myself?” I ask.

“At your level, you’ll pretty much have free rein, after I get to know you a little better, of course.” She beams. “But I’ll be teaching a freshman class in here. And—” She motions for Nathan and me to follow her through this small hallway. On the other side there’s another classroom. I can’t tell if this one is bigger since there aren’t any desks, but it feels that way. “You’ll be working back here.”

“Oh.” I take it all in. The walls are covered with paintings, cabinets left wide open, showing off tubes of paint and racks upon racks of canvases and easels. It’s all sort of marvelous. We probably had about half of this back in Goldsboro. “Wow.”

“Impressed?” I hear Nathan ask me.

“Yeah.” I nod slowly, taking it all in. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.

First days are weird, especially when you’re the new kid. Walking into class isn’t this super awkward moment where everyone goes silent and just stares me down. But I do catch a few strange looks, and the people sitting beside me do try to talk to me. But I guess they give up when they realize I’m not as interesting as I seem.

Thankfully none of my teachers make me introduce myself to the class. They just pretend like I’ve always been here.

When the bell for lunch rings in Chemistry, I hang back in Thomas’s classroom, heading in the opposite direction of the cafeteria once the hallways are clear. There’s this really nice quad area that sort of resembles an amphitheater at the back of the school. A crowd of kids is already huddled at one end, but no one tells me to get lost when I take a seat at the other side, and for the first time in a long time, I can draw in peace and quiet.

Out here I can breathe.

Not that I don’t appreciate everything he’s done, but Nathan can be a little … suffocating. In a good way. If there really is a good way to suffocate. He just seems so eager to do everything. And Thomas decided to seat me next to him in Chemistry. So every day I’ll be getting at least an hour-and-a-half dose of Nathan Allan.

I flip open the brand-new sketchbook, a gift from Mrs. Liu after I said I lost my last one.

It’s weird to think this one is totally empty. My previous drawings and doodles and notes all gone. Probably forever. I stare at the first empty page and try to think of what I can draw.

“I can pay you back, when I get a job, I mean,” I whisper to Hannah when the guy at the store goes into the back to get my new phone.

Hannah just rolls her eyes. “Don’t worry about it, br—” She stops herself short. “Ben. Can I call you bro? That’s not okay, right? I should find something else.”

On the message boards, I found many enby people asked their brothers and sisters to call them sib, short for “sibling.” I liked the idea myself but had never really played with the notion that someone might actually get to use it for me.

“Sib is good,” I say. “Instead of bro or whatever.”

“Sib. Got it. Well, sib, you don’t have to worry about paying me back, it’s fine.”

It feels good to have a phone again, even if I can’t help but feel slightly guilty. “Hey. I know what you can do to pay me back.” Hannah sort of looks at me funny when we get in the car.

Uh-oh.

“Just go to one meeting with Bridgette.”

“Bridgette?” I ask. I don’t remember any Bridgettes.

“Dr. Taylor. The psychiatrist I told you about?”

“You can have your phone back.” I pull the box out of the bag and hand it back to her.

“Ben, please.” She pulls the car out onto the street. “Just one meeting.”

I slouch down in the seat. “Hannah—”