I Wish You All the Best

by Mason Deaver

I feel uncomfortable, no matter how I sit, it’s like I have to escape my body somehow.

I wonder if they’ve ever seen through that disguise, if they’ve ever entertained the idea that I was anything other than their perfect son.

Everything was going to be fine and I was finally going to get this huge thing off my chest and it was going to be great and they’d respect what I was telling them. And it was all going to be fine.

I came out to my parents, and they kicked me out of the house.

The universe doesn’t have to exist outside this bedroom, and that’s perfectly okay.

“I thought they’d understand.” I really, really did. I mean, I’m their child. I thought that might account for something.

“Hey, don’t apologize, okay? This isn’t your fault.” I know that. Deep down, I do. But right now it’s hard to swallow. To accept it.

Like, what do you do when your parents kick you out of your house? When your entire life is upheaved, all because you wanted to come out, to be respected and seen, to be called the right pronouns?

Maybe I do need counseling. I just feel so … drained.

“Breathe,” I tell myself out loud, and for a second I don’t recognize my own voice.

Bodies are fucking weird, especially when it feels like you don’t belong in your own.

I don’t know what I really want, but it isn’t this body. It’s almost like it knows, with the way it taunts me.

If you’re queer, your life has the potential to become one long coming-out moment. If I ever want to be called the right pronouns, I’ll have to correct people and put myself out there first and who knows what could happen.

“I’m nonbinary. I’m nonbinary. I’m nonbinary.” It’s silly, standing in the middle of a lobby, repeating back the same words over and over again. But it does feel easier with each time I say it, despite the heavy feeling in my stomach. “I’m nonbinary. I’m nonbinary.”

I just picked blue because I like blue. Isn’t sky supposed to be bluish anyway?

“Okay, well, it helps to talk to someone your own age who you aren’t paying to dissect everything you say.”

“So we’ll sit here in silence?” Nathan pushes himself forward a bit, leaning his head back. “I’m cool with that. The world’s too loud sometimes.”

I want to know what’s wrong with me. But at the same time, I don’t.

Don’t deprive me of that face of yours. It’s my one joy in that miserable place.

This is the outline, the skeleton. Details come later.

“Why? I’m your friend. I have a right to be worried, don’t you think?” “No one said you had to be.” Nathan scoffs, and he doesn’t sound very happy. “That’s a thing friends tend to do.”

I wish the answer was easy, but it isn’t. How can you not love your parents? Even after everything they did, I have a problem saying it out loud. Maybe I don’t love them; maybe they don’t deserve that love anymore.

I want to shove him, but that would require the hand that his is currently occupying, and there’s no chance I’m giving this up. Not right now.

Boys aren’t supposed to wear dresses. Even if I’m not a boy, even if clothing shouldn’t be gendered. Whenever anyone looks at me, that’s all they’ll see.

Like who you’re attracted to and who you are as a person are two totally different things.

“For simplicity, I just say that I’m queer, that I have a type.” And definitely a lot easier than explaining that I identify as bisexual. And less gatekeeping involved too.

You aren’t a burden or anything. I want you to know that. Okay?”

“Cross your heart and hope he’s bi?”

I could never imagine Nathan being that kind of person. But once I say those words, there is no taking them back.

Because pink is “girly,” because for some reason even colors have been assigned gender. Because I’m supposed to be a boy, and boys aren’t supposed to like pink.

“Sometimes a little noise isn’t such a bad thing.”

Is there a secret you have, that shouldn’t be a big deal? That you should be able to tell people, but you just can’t? Like, it isn’t even a bad thing, but it feels like people will think it is.”

In fact, Star Wars is entirely unfair when it comes to attractive leads. Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford? Totally and completely uncalled for.

“Easy people are boring.”

I don’t want a world where Nathan Allan hates me, even if the chances of that happening are so very, very slim. I just can’t.

“Whatever happens”—his grip tightens a little—“I wish you all the best, Benjamin De Backer.” He says it with a smile. “You deserve it.”

I never pictured my parents as queerphobic assholes. But maybe that’s my fault for assuming the best of them.

“You kick me out of the house, and it’s been hard on the both of you?”

I’m just a weirdly shaped, awkward body. Always have been, probably always will be.

“It’s hard to be proud of something you messed up, even if everything around it is perfect.”

He deserves something simpler. Me: And I’m not that

The universe has crashed down around me and all I can do is lie in the aftermath. Maybe I’m being dramatic. And maybe I’m not. I don’t know.

“You deserve a happy life, Ben.”

Now I know for certain. They don’t deserve my love. And I sure as hell don’t need theirs.

When I’m with him, it already feels like I’m out, that he knows. Because he makes me feel more like myself than anyone I’ve ever known.

but when you owe someone your life, can you really call them anything but your best friend?

“You can do this. He isn’t going to hate you, or try to hurt you. That’s not who he is.”

delves deep into the need for more queer safe spaces. Specifically ones geared toward queer minors, places that don’t focus on dancing or drinking, like most clubs do.

Like we’re one big happy queer family. I guess that’s sort of the point of the whole group really.

This boy is such a work of