Cover

I tap my pencil against the desk and read the statement again.

I am attracted to women who are taller than me.

Nervously, I flip through the test looking for another blank question to focus on instead but there isn't one. The test is complete save for this one question. The one I've skipped over again and again.

I turn back to the first page and stare at the two empty bubbles. One says true one says false.

I read it again.

I am attracted to women who are taller than me.

I'm thirteen years old but I'm smart enough to know that this test is geared toward boys. I can tell by a few of the other questions, ones asking about erections and nocturnal emissions. I know this particular question isn't meant for me. And yet it is.

Because I want to answer true. Because I am attracted to women who are taller than me.

The pencil is tapping again. Faster and faster. An excitement flutters in my gut as I think over my little secret. I clench my jaw, a recent habit I've picked up and continue to do despite the headaches that sometimes follow. I look up and stare at the cinderblock wall directly in front of me. It's been painted thickly with white, again and again, the seams nearly gone, covered in layers of paint. The room I'm in is small, the desk worn and covered in years of graffiti. I have a bed and a desk and a small closet. The girl sharing the room with me has the same. Her name is Jessica and she wants me to be afraid of her. She cusses, has ugly scars on her wrists and throws things. She writes Sex Pistols on everything she owns.

I've been here ten days but it feels like ten years. I have been put in this place for running away from home. I am thirteen years old and I am alone. The question on the test mocks me just like everything in this place does. I know if I answer the question the way I want they will keep me here longer. I have taken test after test. They are looking for things that are wrong with me.

I know answering the question the way I want is wrong. My being attracted to women is wrong. Everyone says so. The preacher, my mother, kids at school.

Everything about me is wrong.

I stare at the question. I realize I can't be me, because being me means I'm attracted to women. What am I going to do?

I clench my jaw again and get angry. It's my father's fault I'm like this. If he would just call me every once and awhile. Talk to me, tell me he loves me. I am 3,000 miles away and he doesn't call. My brothers have him all to themselves and I hate them for that. My mother yells at me saying that I look just like him, that I am just like him, no good, a liar and a cheat.

How can I be like him when I don't even know him?

I grip the pencil hard and scribble in the true bubble. Now everyone will know. To hell with them all.

Someone in the main room screams and I hear the staff yelling and giving chase. It's Lance. Lance falls in love with a different girl every day and when they don't return his love he hurts himself. This morning he was smitten over Jessica. She cussed at him.

I look out my door which is propped open. Lance is squealing on the floor, a plastic butter knife in his hand, three staff members on top of him. A fourth staff comes running up with a syringe. I turn away and hastily erase the true bubble.

I don't belong here. I don't belong here.

I scribble in the false bubble. I sit back in my chair and close my eyes waiting for Lance to stop screaming.

Please god make him stop. Please god make me okay.

My mind goes back to my middle school. Someone else is screaming. Her name is Tiffany and she's in all of my honors classes. She's nice but the girls beating her up in the locker bay aren't. There are three of them and they are all punching her calling her a dyke. No one knows what to do. These girls are in a gang; they have tattoos and high bangs and wear lots of eye makeup. Tiffany is crying and I yell at them to stop. The bell rings and the other girls watching wander slowly back to class. The gang girls ignore me and bash Tiffany's head into her combination lock once then twice. She collapses to the floor.

The biggest gang member stalks up to me. She stabs a darkly painted fingernail into my chest. She's dressed in men's khaki pants and a dark blue t-shirt, they're baggy like boys. Why is she calling Tiffany a dyke when she's the one dressed like a boy?

"Don't you fucking tell or we'll fucking kill you." She looks me up and down with disapproval. "Dyke."

They leave. Tiffany is bleeding and moaning. Her eye glasses are destroyed. I bend to hold her hand and a teacher runs up and drops to her knees. She starts yelling at me but I can't hear her. My ears are clouded with static.

I get up and walk away.

I don't want to go back to school but I don't want to stay here either. I want to run. Far and fast. Far and away.

I close my eyes.

Tiffany is now blind in one eye.

I look like a boy.

I hate the kids at school and they hate me.

I am attracted to women.

I relate to no one.

I am scared.

I want to run and this time I won't get caught.

"Are you finished?" She gently knocks on the door and smiles. Tina. My counselor. I hand over the test. I am in love with her and I know it is wrong but nothing has ever felt so right. At night all alone in this place I dream that she comes to take me away. That we go to a place where I can just be me and she loves me regardless.

They are all I have. My dreams.

She scans through the test and I blush hoping she won't notice the erasure marks. She lowers the paper and closes the door. When she touches my face my skin bursts into flames.

She kneels in front of me. "They're letting you go home tomorrow."

Panic floods my veins. Suddenly I don't want to leave. I am used to this place, I have a routine, I have her.

She sees the fear in my eyes. "Listen. You have to find a way. You have to find a way to get through. You have to go to school."

I shake my head. "I can't." Tiffany is blind and I did nothing and the gang girls want to kill me and I want to kill them. The boys make fun of me and I hate them back. My mother doesn't understand, she only overreacts. My step father rules with an iron fist and my mother bows to his every command.

I hate home.

I can't.

"You must." She touches my face again. "Go to school and stay out of trouble. I know you don't understand but you have to do this for your own sake." She holds my hand. "You are special. Different. Beautiful."

A tear slips down my cheek. "I'm strange."

She laughs softly. "No. You're you. And you are perfect."

I look into her eyes, wanting to get lost inside her. "I love you."

She smiles. "I know. I love you too."

"You do?"

"Of course. If I could take you home and raise you myself I would." She squeezes my hand. "Which is why I'm begging you to listen. If you keep running away you will end up back here or worse. Your life will be taken from you, figuratively and maybe even literally."

"But I can't do it. I can't be who they want."

"Just get through. Do what they want for now. Go to school. Be you on the inside. Go to the places in your mind. Make your drawings. And then one day you'll be free. And you can be who you want. Do what you want. Don't let anyone take that day from you by running away."

More tears come. I nod. I know I have to leave. I know I have to face my life, there is no escape.

"Okay," I say. She wipes my tears away.

"Okay." She stands and pulls me up for a hug. She kisses my hair.

"It's going to be okay now," she whispers.

"Promise?"

I look into her eyes. She's taller than me.

"Promise."