Page 105 of Worthy

I should saynothingand go, but I can’t make my body move. The sound of my birth name on his tongue rips open whatever self-control I had left and I break down crying even harder, burying my face in my soaked sleeves. When something squeezes my bare leg, I look up to find him crouching in front of me. His quiet, brooding eyes are squinted slightly against the rain dripping from his hair. He keeps his hand on my knee, letting it rest there like a secure weight, the only thing grounding me.

Everything goes quiet except my ragged, snotty breathing, but he just waits—the first person who has given me enough space for the words I’ve been practicing for years. Before I can get myself under control, they come spilling out in a rush. “I think I’m transgender—I mean, no, IknowI’m trans. I want to be— I am a man. I’m not a girl. But if I tell people, they’ll all hate me. My parents won’t speak to me, Mallory will want a different roommate, and I’ll never get a teaching job. I can’t do it… I’m not strong enough. But if I stay like this, I think I’m going to die.”

When my brain catches up with my tongue, I break off and gape at him, stunned and terrified. He could laugh, he could tell everyone, he could hurt me. I’m so fucking stupid. “I’m sorry,” I choke out. “Never mind, I’m sorry.” When I dare to meet his eyes, I can’t interpret his expression at all. As miserable as I am, I can’t help but notice that he looks like a movie star in a sexy rain scene, where being drenched just makes them ten times hotter. I look like a drowning ginger muskrat trapped in anextra-large hoodie.

Without taking his gaze off me, he lowers his knees to the decking so he can bring his face up level with mine. I stare, mesmerized, as he reaches out and carefully brushes my dripping hair back off my forehead. His fingertips touch my ear, then cup the side of my neck, a firm, comforting anchor to keep me from spiraling away into nothingness. He clears his throat, raising his voice a little over the rain. “I have a question, but people often tell me my questions are rude.” I brace myself for the worst as his eyebrows furrow in thought. “Can you tell me your name?”

For a moment, I don’t even understand what he’s asking. He said my name just a minute ago. When it hits me, my eyes widen as I search his face. He wants myname, the one I spent hours thinking about, the one I’ve held in my chest like a promise and never told anyone. “Um…” My voice quivers despite my efforts to hold myself together. “Kota. My name’s Kota.”

He nods very seriously, then swipes rain out of his eyes with his free hand. “Thank you. It’s nice to meet you, Kota.”

Fuck me. If I thought I was crying hard before, its nothing compared to the violent sobs that start wracking my body. I don’t know if I reach out to him first or he pulls me in, but I stay for god knows how long with my body wrapped around him and my face buried in the shoulder of his probably-ruined sweater. I cry in relief and fear and sadness and then relief again in a cycle I can’t seem to stop, because the last doors in my chest have been ripped open and I’ll never be able to close them again. He just rests one hand on the back of my neck and rocks me slightly, ignoring the weather and the uncomfortable position until I finally calm down and let go.

“I—” My body starts shivering uncontrollably as the cold catches up to me. “Thank you?”

He stands up with a grimace of pain and offers me a hand. “This is very unhealthy. Come inside.”

I assume his abruptness is a joke to break the mood, so I laugh weakly as I let him pull me to my feet, soaked clothes dragging against my numb skin. But he doesn’t smile at all, just watches me with a slightly puzzled expression. When I balk at the door, not wanting to ruin his carpet, he tightens his grip on my hand and drags me insistently into the living room so he can shut the door behind us.

“I’m gonna go change and get into bed,” I whisper through chattering teeth. I guess there’s no need to be secretive, but I can’t imagine Mallory finding her best friend and her dad soaked to the bone and holding hands. Pulling my fingers away, I wrap my arms around myself. He glances down at his own palm like he didn’t realize we were still touching.

“Dry off thoroughly. Your hair, too.” The guy’s bossy, and he doesn’t waste a single word. I wonder if that’s why people think he’s rude. As I take a step toward the stairs, he clears his throat to get my attention. “I don’t know my daughter as well as I should, but I am confident that she’s a good person, and fiercely loyal. If you trust her with the truth, I think she’ll fight for you like a savage five-foot-two-inch-tall lion.”

This time when I snort a laugh, his mouth tips up slightly at the corner. “I think I will. Thank you—” I realize I don’t know his first name, andMr. Wattssounds ridiculous, so I stop and back away toward the stairs. “Goodnight.”

He lifts his hand in that same half-wave. “Goodnight, Kota.”

Mal sleeps like a log, so I’m able to towel off and slip into bed before she ever notices I was gone. We don’t see her dad the next morning before we leave—Mallory fries some of the eggs and bacon she finds in the fridge, then calls “Bye, Dad” up the stairs as we carry our backpacks out the front door. I look back, hoping for one more glimpse of the man who might have changed my life, but he doesn’t appear. The last thing I hear from Mr. Watts is his voice way up at the top of the house. “Take care, both of you.”

Chapter two

Four Years Later

Kota

I just had the most beautiful dream.

In it, I fell asleep with two blobs of fat on my chest that hurt and shamed me every single day. When I woke up, they were gone. I could stand up straight and buy tank tops and white tees instead of hoodies. Strangers didn’t switch fromsirtoma’amwhen they got a look at my body. I was free.

As sleep fades away, taking my dream with it, my heart starts to ache. It hurts so much I can hardly breathe.

No, that’s not right. My whole chest is burning with a tight, horrible pain that gets worse when I try to move. I feel like absolute dog shit, even though I’m one of those morning people who bounces out of bed singing pop ballads and makes smoothies every day for breakfast.

“Is the father here?” asks a calm female voice that I don’t recognize. How did she get into my bedroom? What the fuck does she mean bythe father? My dad lives a thousand miles away and hasn’t spoken to me in two years.

“Yes,” someone else answers. “He signed the release and received the care instructions and medications. This young man is ready to go.”

I don’t feel ready to be alive, let alone go anywhere. Their loud voices make my head throb, and harsh yellow light forces its way between my eyelids. “Go away,” I croak into the mattress. My throat feels like I gargled a cactus.

“Hey there, Kota.” The woman’s voice soothes my headache in the same way my mom’s chicken soup used to make me feel comforted when I was sick as a kid. Someone touches my shoulder, but I can’t do more than shiver and whine. The pain keeps getting worse, crushing my lungs. “How are you feeling? Can we get you anything?”

“Please make it stop hurting,” I whisper.

“Do you think you can sit up for me? If we get you home, you can take your pain meds and go back to sleep.”

My eyelashes flutter open. Instead of my studio apartment, I see a vinyl mattress, safety bars on the side of the bed, and a cramped room with beige walls.

Oh shit. My last memory finally comes back to me: following a nurse into a surgical suite, removing my paper gown and lying on a table while people in masks bustle around me. Then nothing.

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