Page 8 of Witchlore
“Nothing,” I say. My words feel rotten in my mouth as I slump back in the creaky chair.
“Nothing?” Kira repeats.
“I have a job,” I say. “At Unicorn Grocery in Chorlton. I’m all set for a career.”
I can’t say more. I can barely breathe. It’s like I can still feel her, Elizabeth, pressing down on my sternum but now she’s a deadweight, literally.
“Okay, well…” Kira gives me a long look, as if she’s expecting me to speak. When I don’t, she sighs heavily. “Do you have any questions for me?”
“No.”
She closes her folder. She’s going to leave and I’m going to be left alone here, with the weight of my dead girlfriend pressing down on me. I need to do something, anything to distract myself, and my mind is racing, trying to find something concrete. Weirdly, the face of the guy from the first day of term suddenly pops into my head.
“Yes.”
“Really?” Kira perks right up. “Great! Go ahead!”
“Who’s the new transfer?” I ask.
“The new transfer?”
“Yeah, bloke, sapphire ring, I think he’s called Bastian?”
I watch her pull a different page out of her folder. The inside cover of the folder is coated in doodles, notes. With a pang, I see some of them have speech bubbles written in Elizabeth’s handwriting.
“Bastian Chevret.” Kira runs her finger down the page. “He’s transferred from a college in London. That’s all I know.”
“Bastian Chevret,” I repeat his name quietly. “Thanks.”
Kira nods and puts the file away, then hesitates.
“I have one last question for you.”
“Fine,” I sigh.
“Are you okay? Are you… feeling dysphoric and stuff?”
I stare at Kira. I can’t believe she has the balls to ask me this question, to even use this word in front of me.
“That’s on your peer mentoring questionnaire?”
“No.” She looks bashful for a moment then squares her shoulders and looks me in the eye. “She—Elizabeth—told me you sometimes felt that way. After shifts. That you told her you did.”
I stare at her. Those words are unaccountably painful. Before Elizabeth, there was no one I could talk to about my shifts. How, with every change, my parents pushed me to dress in the gender they felt was most appropriate to my form, how all of those past experiences had alienated me from myself, left me trapped under other people’s expectations, unable to breathe. Talking to her made it hurt less. Now it hurts more, knowing she told someone else. I stand up.
“You’ll have to get your counseling degree before I answer you, and also”—I glare down at her—“I will never fucking answer that question.”
I march to the toilet and splash some water on my face. I stare at myself in the mirror, trying to breathe normally and get that weighted feeling off my chest. Even after a few months, this face doesn’t look like mine yet. None of my body does and there is absolutely nothing I can do to change it. My face is heart-shaped and babyish, which definitely makes a male form seem more effeminate. My hair is a light strawberry gold and sort of wispy, the same with my eyebrows. My eyes are a kind of muddy green and my white skin is a little sallow. I don’t yet know if it’s because I’m unhealthy or this is just what this new skin is like. I touch Elizabeth’s earrings; the familiarity of them helps. I wipe away tears I didn’t realize had fallen. I sit on the loo and look at my phone. As always, I open the last messages between Elizabeth and me.
Come over today.
Is your mum working?
Yeah. I’ve got an idea.
Okay. Give me a hint?
Later.
