The trains are running pretty smoothly for once, and I’m back up to my dad’s apartment in less than two hours. He’s in the kitchen, cooking stir fry from the smell of it. Smoke fills the tiny apartment and instantly burns my eyes. The TV is on, playing The Real Housewives of New York. My dad’s love of reality TV is immeasurable.
I cross over into the living room and make myself comfortable on the plush chair. Captain sits in front of the screen on the TV stand, staring right at me, purring deeply. “The prodigal son returns,” my dad says, only slightly passive-aggressively.
I stop myself from rolling my eyes. I don’t know why he’s suddenly annoyed that I’m staying at Ezra’s. I get that I’m the kid in this situation, but this is still supposed to be a chance for me to break free and get used to the idea that in a year, I’ll be living on my own as an almost-adult. We agreed that I’d split my time between home and Ezra’s, so it’s pretty frustrating that he’s acting like this.
I tell him that I need to grab clean clothes. I bring my backpack into my bedroom to pull out my dirty laundry, tossing them into my basket. I’m a little bit of a neat freak, and there isn’t much space to be messy anyway, so the floor is spotless, bed made, Akira on my nightstand. I pull open my drawer and grab a few tanks and T-shirts, jean cutoffs, and boxers, before I stuff them into my backpack and head into the living room again, switching off the light. My dad puts plates on the dining table that’s pushed up against the wall.
“Hey, kid,” my dad says as I sit down with my food, “maybe you should give Ezra’s apartment a break.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it’d be nice if you stayed home a little longer than one night every few days.”
I frown as I pick out the green beans, pushing them to the side. “I thought you said it was okay to stay with Ezra.”
“Yeah,” he says, “every once in a while. I was thinking every few weeks.”
“The program is over in two months. It wouldn’t make any sense for me to just stay down there once every few weeks.”
“So it makes sense for you to not live here, at home, with your father?”
“It’s not a big deal,” I say. “It’s not like I’ve never stayed over at Ezra’s before.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about you spending all that time with a boy.”
I freeze. It’s the sort of thing my dad would say before he knew I was a guy. The sort of father must protect daughter stereotype that pissed me off before, and sure as hell pisses me off even more now. “Is that what it is?” I ask. “You don’t like me staying over at Ezra’s because he’s a guy?”
My dad hesitates. “His parents aren’t with him—”
“I’m a guy too, though,” I say, and I’m met with silence. “If I’d been born with a penis, would it be as much of a problem?”
“You’re putting words in my mouth,” my dad tells me. “The issue would be the same. You two are in that apartment without any adult supervision.”
“We’re seventeen,” I say. “We’re going off to college next year. We’re not little kids.”
My dad’s shaking his head. “Never said you were.”
Neither of us says anything for a while. There’s a scraping of knives against plates, clatter of glasses against the table.
“Besides,” my dad says, “just because you’re both boys, doesn’t mean you can’t be . . . inappropriate with each other.”
“Ezra and I are friends. Best friends. Nothing else going on there.” My dad won’t meet my eye, and I know I should stop, but there’s so much about this conversation that pisses me off. “I like staying down by Ezra’s, because at least with him, I never have to feel like he doesn’t respect me.”
My dad frowns at me. “And what does that mean?”
“I mean he knows that I’m a guy,” I say, ignoring the flinch of shame deep inside me—these days, I don’t even know if I’m a guy myself. “I don’t ever feel like I have to convince him of that. I mean that he calls me by my name: Felix.”
“Listen,” he says, “it isn’t easy to just suddenly switch my idea of who you are in my head. For twelve years, you were my baby g—”
I cut him off before he can say it. “That’s never who I was. That’s who you assumed I was.”
He’s quiet. A woman on the TV screen is crying, tears leaving streaks on her fake orange tan. My dad breaks the silence. “I’m trying,” he says. “I’ve shown you that. I’ve proven that. I don’t always get it right, but I’m trying to understand.”
Sometimes, I don’t know if that’s enough. I feel like a shitty son, getting angry at my dad when he’s the one who paid for my hormones, my doctors’ visits, my surgery, everything—but every time I’m around him, I feel like I have to work hard to prove that I am who I say I am. It pisses me off that he doesn’t just accept it. That there’s something he has to understand in the first place.
“I need you to be a little more patient,” my dad tells me. “I’ve had a certain idea of who you are in my head for twelve years. That’s a long time.” He hesitates, and I can tell he almost called me by my old name.
My dad won’t look at me. I don’t know if he even knows how to look at me. He can’t see me for who I really am—only who he wants me to be. Maybe this is fucked-up, I don’t know . . . but somehow, it’s his approval I need most, even more than anyone else’s. I need his validation. His understanding, not just acceptance, that he has a son.
I’m not sure that’s something he’ll ever give me.
I stand up, scratching my chair against the floor, grab my backpack, and head for the door.
“Where’re you going?” my dad calls, but I ignore him as I slam it shut behind me.
Six
EZRA’S EITHER ASLEEP OR NOT HOME WHEN I BUZZ HIS apartment number, and when he doesn’t answer his phone, I sit down on the concrete stoop steps, knees curled up to my chest, cheek resting on top of them. It might’ve been a little overdramatic, storming out of my dad’s apartment like that, and guilt is building in my chest. It’s going to be awkward as fuck the next time I try to go home.
I must fall asleep like that, leaning against the rusting railing, because when I open my eyes, there’s a hand on my shoulder. I blink away the bleariness to see Ezra leaning over me, illuminated by the orange streetlight.
“Hey,” he says, voice low. “What’re you doing here?”
“Fight with my dad,” I murmur, still half-asleep.
He sits down beside me and lets me lean against him instead of the railing. “You okay?”
I shrug. “Where were you? Special friend’s place?”
He nudges into me. “No. Couldn’t sleep, so I took a walk.”
“Insomnia again?”
“Guess I got used to staying up all night with you.”
Ezra helps me to my feet, and we stomp up the steps and to his apartment. He unlocks the door, and I let myself in first. The time on Ezra’s stove blinks 11:03. I head straight for the mattress, ready to crash. The two of us can stay up until three in the morning on a good night sometimes, but right now—after that fight with my dad—I’m exhausted.