2
I don’t see who it belongs to at first. I take a step back and trace my eyes down the low, cobblestone fence curving around the edge of the driveway. Eventually my gaze falls on the gaunt face of a boy staring back at me, a long cigarette perched between his teeth. He has dark hair and eyes, and something about the way he looks at me … it’s like he can see right through me.
I don’t like it.
Almost as much as I don’t like the next thing that drops from his lips, and it isn’t the cigarette.
“You’re a girl.”
Chapter Two
I gawk at the boy in front of me for a moment, my mouth working like a stupid fish gasping for air.
“I … what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The boy nods once, pulls the cigarette from between his lips with two fingers, and lets out a stream of smoke. “Nice cover. You’re really going to last here.”
My shoulders slump forward protectively before I immediately force them back. Then forward again. Maybe it’s better if I look small and weak, lean into the girlish thing. I don’t know. I probably just look like I’m having some kind of seizure.
Whatever it is I’m doing, it doesn’t seem to convince him. He pushes himself up and away from the wall, folding his arms in front of his chest as he gives me another slow, raking once-over.
“Now, unless you couldn’t tell … since the rest of you seems completely out of touch with reality … that was sarcasm.”
“I … I … fuck.” This time, I let my shoulders slump forward and stay there with the rest of me. “I knew this was a mistake. All of it. Just one big fucking mistake.”
“Well, I’m not going to argue with you there,” the boys says, his eyes finally coming to rest on the mess of hair falling over my forehead. I self-consciously try to flatten it down a bit, but he suddenly waves his arms for me to stop.
“No, no, you’re doing it all wrong. Have you never seen a human boy before?”
He tuts loudly and shoving the cigarette back into the corner of his mouth, hurries over to start fluffing up the bits of hair around my face.
“Oh, my. You did this yourself, didn’t you? Don’t even answer that. Was there … did you have a mirror? Don’t answer that either, because I’m not sure which prospect terrifies me more.”
I stand frozen to the spot while this strange boy tousles and rummages through my floppy, wind-blown mop like it’s a delicate flower arrangement. Normally I’d never let someone this close to me, but right now … I just stand as still as possible and hope that, maybe like a T-rex, if I don’t move long enough he’ll just forget I’m here altogether.
After what feels like an impossibly long time, the boy finally takes a step back to admire his handiwork. While he doesn’t look exactly satisfied, he does look, at the very least, appeased.
“That’ll have to do for now,” he says, once again taking out the now long-extinguished cigarette and flourishing it like a prop in front of him. “Though the rest of you … ” He grimaces a little, wrinkling up his nose as he takes me in again. “That’s going to take a little work.”
For what feels like the first time in ages, I suck in a breath. “So, you aren’t going to turn me in?”
The boy raises an eyebrow at me. “And why would I do that?”
“I … I don’t know,” I stammer. “It’s a school for boys. And I’m, well, not a boy.”
“And I’m gay,” he says, nonchalantly. “Who’s to say you can’t be a boy if that’s what you want to be. Though, correct me if I’m wrong … that’s not really the whole point of this, is it? Because if I’m being totally honest, it sort of seems like you’re not actually trying to be a guy. Just, you know, a kind of caricature of one. The hoodie. Bad haircut. The excessive swearing.”
I let out a half-strangled laugh. “Actually … the swearing part might be the only real part of what stands before you.” I shrug. “I grew up with four older brothers. It sort of … it’s like breathing after a while.”
“So,” he says, nodding again. “If you’re not here to actually become a boy … what gives? Why Bleakwood and not, you know, Grandview? The girl’s school next door.”
“Oh god, please, I was wondering about that,” I say, my words tumbling over themselves as I finally start to register the fact that although my disguise has been found out literally within minutes of arriving, this boy doesn’t seem determined to turn me in. Not right away, at least. “Is it like this place?”
“You mean the most pretentious excuse for a boarding school ever? Except for girls instead of dicks … I mean boys … then yeah. It is.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and suck my lips between my teeth to bite them shut for a second. “I’m such an idiot.”
“Everyone here is, at least you’re smart enough to admit it,” the boys says, sticking out his hand. “I’m Rafael. Guess you really lucked out running into me first, huh?”
“I only wish you’d been there when I first submitted my application to this place,” I say, begrudgingly sticking out my own hand to accept his. “I’m Alex.”
He doesn’t shake my hand like I expect. Instead, his hand grips mine tight and turns it over, leaning his face close for inspection.
“Can’t leave your nails like that, you need to bite them off.”
He glances up over my shoulder as he lets my hand drop back down to my side.
“Wait, right now?”
“I’m not going to do it for you,” he says. “But no boy has nails like that. Not even me.”
The last thing I’m going to do is argue, so I set upon my nails like a rabid creature while Rafael peers over the wall at the now-vacant courtyard leading up to the main doors.
“If I just had one afternoon with you … just one … ” he shakes his head as he steps back and away from the wall and makes a face at me with half my fingers in my mouth at the same time.
“What? I didn’t think we had a lot of time.”
“No, unfortunately, we don’t.”
Somewhere across the valley, a tower bell tolls. It sounds distant at first, growing and multiplying as it rolls across the bare faces of the mountains. The sound makes Rafael suck in his cheeks. As soon as the sound fades, he tosses his unfinished cigarette over to me and holds out a lighter.
“For the voice,” he says when I hesitate to lig
ht it.
I hold it out in front of me like a used diaper. “I’ve never smoked before.”
Rafael lets out a loud sigh. “At least pretend to have a little pride, Alex. That’s rule one about being a boy. Throw out everything the media tells you about toxic masculinity bullshit being over. Just throw it out. That might fly out there, in the real world. But you’re at a boy’s boarding school now. This is as toxic as it gets.”
I chuckle, a sound that dies when Rafael just keeps staring me down from beneath his thick, Mediterranean eyebrows. “You say that like we’re in purgatory or something.”
“No, not purgatory,” he says, lifting the lighter up and miming the correct way to inhale, “this is hell.”
With the sear of smoke and tobacco in my lungs, I have to agree. My stomach turns, my body wanting me to double over and cough until I’m forced to vomit. But I think of what Rafael said, and I suck it up and swallow down the pain until it slowly numbs. From the jabbing pain in my throat, I’ll be croaking like a frog in no time.
“This’ll have to do for now,” Rafael says. ”We’ve gotta get inside before we’re missed. Any later, and people are going to think you were out here giving me a blowjob.”
“Actually, is that such a bad idea?” I feel my pulse quicken a little. “What if … what if it was you giving me the blowjob? Then no one would doubt I’m a boy. You know, since you’ve seen my dick and all.”
The look Rafael gives me could send a grown man running for cover.
“Absolutely the fuck not. There’s a place where I draw the line. And really sorry, little Alex … you probably weren’t that bad looking as a girl, you know … before the whole hair thing … but as a boy … ” He shakes his head. “That would send all the wrong messages. I’ve got standards, you know.”
He takes two steps then pauses, sticking one finger up in the air as if he just had another thought. “Oh, and that boy you were staring at. You know, before you realized I was watching you?”
I feel my cheeks redden as I think of the boy from the car.
“Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. Stay away from him. I know him. Him and his friends … they’re bad news.”
With that, he heads off towards the front of the school, and I feel my heart lurch inside me.
“Wait!” I call, jogging after him. Rafael cringes outwardly as my suitcase clatters noisily behind me. “So, what do I do next. How do I keep anyone else from figuring the whole girl thing out?”
Rafael purses his lips. “Look, I’m not one to half-ass a thing once I’ve started it. That’s what got me here in the first place.” After a second, a long, obviously pained second, he sighs again. “So, help me god, Alex … ” he gives me another one of those scathing looks. “Don’t make me regret this.”
“Regret what?”
“I’m going to help you, dimwit. Now come along quick, before I change my mind.”