Page 6 of I Wish You All the Best

I don’t reply. I’m not though. Mom had made chicken for dinner, but since I’d been planning this for weeks now, months even, my stomach had been churning all day, so much that I knew I’d never keep down whatever I ate. Even now on an empty stomach, my appetite is nonexistent, and the thought of any sort of food makes me feel sick.

“Ben?” Hannah says my name again, except this time she feels a thousand miles away. Then I hear her mutter, “Taking you to the hospital.”

“No.” I grab her arm, as if that’ll stop her from making the U-turn. “I’m fine, I swear.”

“Benji.”

“Just, can we go back to your place? Please?”

She looks at me with the same brown eyes I have, the ones we both managed to get from Dad.

“Okay.” She finds another turn lane, her blinker clicking in the deadened silence of the car. “You don’t want to talk about it, do you?”

I shake my head. “Not right now.”

“Okay, try to get some rest or something. I’ll wake you up when we get there.”

We ride in silence, the only real noise the low volume of the radio playing Top 40 songs. I try to sleep, or to ease my mind, to relax, to not think about what I’ve done. But it’s impossible. Because I said those three little words.

“I am nonbinary.”

Mom and Dad both sat there speechless for a few seconds. Dad was the first to react, asking for an explanation. That was fair, and maybe a good sign. I wasn’t quite sure but was willing to take whatever was thrown my way at that point.

Dad used the T-word, and it came like a slap to the face. I’d never heard him use that word before. That was the moment my stomach sank. I tried to explain the differences, what being non-binary meant, but it was like every time I tried to speak, the more I wanted to cry. Then the yelling started, and everything was moving so fast. I couldn’t talk or make any sense of what they were saying.

“You need to leave.” Dad pointed right at me.

“Ben?”

I must’ve fallen asleep at some point because my eyes are heavy, my mouth groggy and gross, and my limbs tight.

“We’re here.” She puts the car in park but leaves the engine running, vents still spewing hot air.

I stare at the house. The brown bricks and the green siding. I’ve seen it before, never at night, but in Facebook photos and posts. The only way I’d been able to keep up with what was going on in Hannah’s life.

“You can sleep in the guest room, okay?”

I nod and follow her through the garage, my feet going frigid at being exposed to the cold of the pavement again. Hannah unlocks the door quickly and leads me up the steps, flipping on the light switch of the guest room. “Bathroom is across the hall, if you want to take a shower or anything.”

I stare at the bedroom: There’s a huge queen-sized bed, plenty of pillows. Definitely nicer than my room at home, but emptier too. There aren’t any pictures on the walls, or little toys on the dresser.

“Here.” Hannah folds back the mirrored doors of the closet and grabs a stack of blankets. “Get some sleep. We’ll figure things out in the morning, okay?”

I nod again and stare at the bed. Hannah looks like she wants to add something else, or hug me, or tell me it’s all going to be okay. But she doesn’t do any of those things.

Guess even she knows it won’t be.

She closes the door behind her, leaving the room even emptier.

I undress down to my boxers and pull back the sheets, crawling into the soft, unused bed. I toss and turn, but after a few minutes it’s obvious I’m not going to be sleeping tonight. Every time I close my eyes I see their faces. So vivid, right there in front of me, yelling. And when I open them, there’s nothing but the dark loneliness of the bedroom. I reach over to the remote on the nightstand and flip through a few of the channels on the TV, my eyes settling on a rerun of The Golden Girls.

Because I can’t be alone right now. Not tonight.

Thanks for being a friend, Betty White.

Yesterday actually happened.

It takes me more than a few minutes to realize it wasn’t some super vivid nightmare, or a fever dream or something. It was really real.