Summer Evenings

Written in April of 2024, the first of what I hope to become a published collection.

CW: transphobia, slurs

Summer means late evenings by the beach with Alice. We'd meet outside the fish 'n' chip shop, and I'd buy us a scoop. She'd lean on the outside of the building with her hood up while I ordered inside. Alice said she did that to scare anyone off from stealing my bike, but I remember the one time she came in with me. We were barely given half a scoop, and I heard the cook mutter a slur under his breath.

Alice gets called many slurs, some behind her back, but plenty enough to her face. Snickered by a passer by, hollered from a truck, plastered on the newspaper front page, they came from everywhere. She said they didn't bother her, but I know she lied. They bothered me, especially since I heard the comments she never did. I heard detailed descriptions from parents of what they'd do to her if she went near their child, and wild speculations from their kids on what crimes she's committed since dropping out of school. With how sick I feel after each school day hearing this, I don't blame her for leaving.

Once I got the chips, we'd walk my bike to our hidden spot so we could ditch it and walk along the street next to the sand. Alice would walk on top of the retaining wall with her arms out, and I'd follow her on the pavement, my hands warmed by the chips in my front pocket. Alice would tell me about the "stupid shit" Alex and Pincushion had done that day, and I'd complain about my parents. She always enjoyed when I did that, and would egg me on to "settle the score" and disobey them with all sorts of creative suggestions.

Sneaking out to be with Alice was already enough score-settling for me. I knew if I was caught, I'd end up on the same street as Alice. And while it would be nice to spend more time with Alice, one of us has to pay for the chips. When I sneaked out, every creak of a floorboard raised my heart rate, terrified my parents would walk in on me half-way out the window.

At some point on our walk, Alice would plop down and sit on the wall, legs hanging over the beach. I'd join her and put the scoop of chips between us. We'd continue chatting as we ate our chips and watched the waves. The rhythmic swish of the tide seemed to calm Alice, because our conversation would always drift towards how my classes were going and her dreams of the future.

Many of Alice's dreams of the future involve her getting rich off her debut novel. She wants to become famous and be in the front page of magazines. She's already been on the front page of the newspaper before, but we don't count that one. It was a terrifying morning to sit down at breakfast and look up at what my father was reading: Crossdressing Gang Scattered by Police. I could barely stomach my food as I pretended to be listening to his small talk. I snatched up the newspaper as soon as he left the room. The piece didn't mention any names, or that anyone was arrested, but I didn't see Alice again for a month. She didn't tell me anything about it.

I would always eat our chips slowly on purpose so Alice could have more. One time I offered her all the chips, since I eat dinner with my family every night anyway. She got furious and stormed off without a word. Back then, Alice also had a bike, but I couldn't take hers home with me or my parents would know. So, I left it in our hiding spot. It was gone the next night when we searched for it.

After we finished our chips and the sky began turning orange, Alice would pull out her pencil and spiral-bound notebook. It was warped and tattered, with both covers covered in stickers and doodles at least three layers thick. There was no mistaking it for anyone else's notebook. Alice always wore two jackets, and both had patches, spikes, tears, and stains, each with a story Alice could tell you. Before Alice was called Alice, she was the top of our English class, and got an award every year for her creative writing.

It is one of those summer evenings when Alice is amassing a mound of crumpled paper between us. She spends a few minutes furiously writing, rips the page out with a grunt, and then glares at the sea, brow furrowed and chin on her hand. I'm not watching the lulling waves; I'm watching the way her lip pouts when she presses up on her chin, how her curls float in the breeze, how her rough nails tap the spine of her book. I don't bring anything to do at the beach, I just do this. Watch and wonder.

She looks at me from the corner of her eye in the way that makes my heart skip every time. "What are you lookin' at?" she grumbles.

I look away as my cheeks grow hot. "Nothing. Just..." My eyes land on the paper between us. "Writing not going well?"

She releases a dramatic sigh and leans back as far as her balance will allow, before swinging back into a slouch. "No shit. This fucking sucks, I hate it."

I stay silent because I know she'll explain regardless.

"This stupid idea is so fucking hard to write for. Like, I can't get the start to feel right and it all feels so forced and whatever I write doesn't make sense and also," she pauses her escalating monologue to grab a balled up page and chuck as hard as she can at the sea. The breeze catches it and gently drops it halfway down the beach. "I don't know, I just don't feel like it."

She sticks her pencil in her mouth like a cigarette and glares at the sea again. The setting sun casts a fiery glow around her, like she herself is the cigarette. At first, I think of this old-timey movie with dramatic lighting and this lady-of-the-night detective — Alice would remember which one I'm thinking of — but then my heart tightens. I remember the words boys at my school would call her, the threats they would joke about. They were friends with me and Alice until her parents told our teachers her 'delusions'. Word spread and the whole school knew, and I was the only one who stuck by her side.

Alice begins writing again. Last spring, I was moping in the back of English class since it was the beginning of our creative writing course. A stranger I didn't care about filled the seat next to me. What made it worse was the "anonymous" example piece the teacher provided. Everyone knew it was Alice's work, of course; no one has written as good as her. The boys in front of me snickered at the words they'd describe her with, like they do every time. It was bad timing that week, I was already mourning, so I kicked the back of his chair. After class, the boys showed me why my parents told me not to associate with Alice. I told them I had fallen off my bike when I got home. On the first summer evening after that, I pretended my bruises didn't exist when Alice asked what they were from.

Alice huffs and stops writing again, pencil hanging from her lips. That word echoes in my head again, but I can't help but find beauty in her flame. Light radiates off her, and I am filled with heat in her presence. Isn't it beautiful that she could spur me to put myself at risk, that she lit a fire inside me. I got a B+ for my romantic short story last spring.

I speak as if our conversation never stopped. "Why do you write, then?"

She looks at me without moving her head, then back out to sea. "Because it's cheaper than therapy." I let the silence grow as she scribbles some more.

Before Alice told her parents the truth, she had asked them if she could see a therapist. When we met at school the next morning, she was yelling through tears about how "they don't fucking get it! They think that just because they don't see anything wrong, I must be fine!" She told me they said only freaks and perverts need a shrink. I didn't know why back then, but I cried that night. I didn't know the hurt I felt was for her, and I didn't know at the same time she was crying over the lipstick she had stolen from her mother.

Finally, I ask, "What are you writing about?"

She looks at me again, this time holding eye-contact. "A boy so enamoured with a tranny that his heart is washed out to sea."

"You make his love sound like a bad thing."

"Is it not?" This is a tone I rarely hear from her; soft, wounded, defeated.

All I can reply with is a breathy "I hope not."

She looks at the horizon. Her curls bounce in the breeze, and the first stars of night shine not in the sky, but in her eyes. Alice doesn't cry. She's tough. Nothing can beat her down. So she isn't crying now. Instead, she is tearing a page out of her notebook and letting the wind carry it out to the water. We both watch it swirl and sink in the air, resting on the gentle tide, and dissolving to nothing.

Alice replies, "I hope not either."