Felix Ever After

by Kacen Callender

something about being forced into the role of girl has always upset the hell out of me.

But me—I want to fall in love and be broken up with and get pissed and grieve and fall in love all over again. I’ve never felt any of that. I’ve just

been doing the same shit. Nothing new. Nothing exciting.”

It’s like I’m constantly trying to prove that I deserve love—but how can I, when even my own mom doesn’t love me?

What if I’m missing out on what I’m supposed to be doing?”

“That’s never who I was. That’s who you assumed I was.”

“The shows aren’t making people gay,” Austin says. “They’re just making people realize it’s even . . . I don’t know, a possibility. It’s like we’re all brainwashed from the time we’re babies to think that we have to be straight.”

We drink enough cans of Pabst until we’re a fair amount of drunk. The sprinklers on the kids’ side of the park are on, and we go running through them, shouting and chasing each other until we’re soaked through. We dry off on the swings, going back and forth, the metal chains creaking.

MY HEART

I know that, as a trans person of color, my life expectancy is in my early thirties, just because of the sort of violence people like me face every day.

I look at the moon, and I can’t help but think of everyone else on the planet who’s looking up at it, too, and how alone I am, even though we’re all here on the same Earth. I think about the fact that we should all be connected, but we’re not. We’re too preoccupied trying to hurt each other.

“You can’t blame people for defining their identity by traditional gender roles,” Zelda says. “I can if those traditional gender roles are harmful,” Sarah says. “I guess we have to decide what’s most important,” Wally tells us. “Validation through traditional gender roles, or the destruction of those roles.”

Do you ever feel like you’re only ever watching? I ask Declan. Never really participating. Never really doing. Just always watching.

What’re you afraid of? Everything. I’m scared I’m not living my life to my full potential. I’m scared I’m wasting my life when I’m meant to be doing something else, something more . . .

“It kind of feels like they were all made for each other,” she says.

Declan—but he glances up now as Austin kisses him, and he doesn’t look away.

I LOVE MESSY SHIT

I hate them. I hate how unpredictable they are, how much it feels like fate is being left up to the whim of a few molecules.

What’s it like, to be in love and have that other person love you, too? Is it another level of friendship? Another level of trust, vulnerability, always telling that person your thoughts and feelings, sharing every little thing with them

so that you’re so in sync that it’s like you’re one person?

There’s a song that Declan tells me played in that Amy Adams alien movie that has me burying my face into my pillow so he won’t hear me cry,

s/o arrival

If I fall in love again, it’ll be with a woman who loves me also—not someone who I have to convince to love me.

It’s easier, I think, to love someone you know won’t love you—to chase them, knowing they won’t feel the same way—than to love someone who might love you back. To risk loving each other and losing it all.”

OUHP

The feeling that my identity—nonbinary—explains so much of who I am, who I’ve always been, in a way that other labels never did.”

I know that things aren’t perfect,” he says, nodding, “and there are still hardships, but don’t forget to enjoy

these years. Live. Live them for the people who didn’t get to enjoy being a teenager. For the people who never lived past being a teenager.”

I smile a little. I smile, and then outright laugh, and I might even begin to cry a little, because I know what Bex was talking about now. The confidence that spreads through me. I know that this is right. It’s kind of amazing, that there’s a word that explains exactly how I feel, that takes away all of my confusion and questioning and hesitation—a word that lets me know there are others out there who feel exactly the same way that I do.

“I think I might love you, too,” I tell him.

THE DRAMA!!!!

But it took me a little longer to figure out that just because I love her, doesn’t mean it’s a good kind of love. It can be easier, sometimes, to choose to love someone you know won’t return your feelings. At least you know how that will end. It’s easier to accept hurt and pain, sometimes, than love and acceptance. It’s the real, loving relationships that can be the scariest.”

“Is it everything you ever wanted?”

this is wild cause i’m still rooting for ezra

I love Ezra. I love him so much, it scares me.

:(

I start to feel a little sorry for Austin.

NOPE FUCK AUSTIN

I realize that he’ll never get to experience the world in the way that I can. How can I stay angry at someone like that?

damn idk man i would not forgive him

It’s almost like I was looking for the pain and the hurt, because it was easier to live with the idea that, even though I want love, I’m not the kind of person who deserves to be loved.

He squints at me. “Say that again? Just one more time.” “I love you.”

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD <3

He takes my hand, intertwining our fingers and rubbing his thumb over my knuckles.

:c

I stare at his face as though I’m trying to commit every angle, the darkness of his eyes, the twitch of his smile to memory.

MY HEART

I’m lucky that you let me in. That you let me see that.”

CRYING

“And it was more helpful than I expected. More . . . empowering, to put up these paintings I created, of who I know I am, instead of what someone else sees me as. I am Felix. No one else gets to define who I am. Only me.

There isn’t anything wrong with love. There isn’t anything embarrassing about love.

Ezra smirks at me, then kisses the corner of my mouth. “That’s so fucking corny.”

SCREAMING AND CRYNG

thought I was trapped in the body of a girl for the rest of my life—thought that, because of my body, I had no choice but to be a girl, too.

that a reader picks up Felix Ever After and learns more about themselves and their identity, and that becoming who they truly are is a possibility.