☆ Evan ☆

I set a dime on the train tracks, leaping back onto the gravel. In the distance, coiling through the beak of the trees, a train chugs along. Its shrill whistle blows, and the wheels squeal against the rails.

The train approaches, and I skitter a fair distance away as it paws its way in front of me. The sounds of birds chirping and wind blowing disappears. In the rush of momentum, the train moves like a fish through the ocean. It shoots straight for its target, rumbling and rumbling.

I stand there until the graffiti-coated carriages reach the end, and the road reappears in front of me. Time passes in a blur, like waves hitting the sand and washing away the footprints left behind by passing faces. Passing strangers.

I lean down to scoop up the flattened dime. The outline of a sailboat on the ten-cent coin is faint and has been smoothed so that I can hardly see it anymore.

Whirling around, I jog my way over to the waterline. In the early morning sunshine, the cerulean is disturbed only by the wobbly ripples caused by the breeze.

It's so calm.

On the other hand, I am not calm.

Yesterday, Elaine visited again. She seemed to be settling into her new school, and her new life without me.

I'd asked her if she missed me, but what I actually meant was that I missed her. Not the time we spent locked in Carolyn's predetermined fate, but the seconds in between. In the intermissions, before the curtains opened, and we had to resume our roles, I grew secret memories with Elaine.

I'd asked her if she missed me, but what I actually meant was this: Do you ever miss something you've never had?

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I remove it. A few messages from the group chat cluster my notifications. At the top is a text from my mother.

I don't read it.

I was not given the chance to decide. I didn't have phases in my preteen years where I cut my hair too short or wore too many patterns in the same outfit.

None of it. I've had none of it.

My hand grips my phone. The waves beckon me.

I chuck my phone into the water. It breaks through the surface, bubbling as it sinks. Circular ripples explode in every direction around it.

I see the screen flicker like a firework before it peters out. Which is when the panic rises in my throat, and I rush towards the bay.

"Fuck! Please don't die on me!" My hands go fishing for the phone, and when I recover it from its place among the pebbles, it won't turn on.

My heart hammers in my chest. I can't believe I just threw it into the water as if I'm disposing of a burner phone with evidence left on it.

Droplets of water cool down my hands. I mop the screen with the cloth of my shirt, but it's too late.

Giving up, I trudge back to the hotel. I saw Peter as I left, but I barely said a word to him.

Things have been awkward between us lately. That is probably my fault. He renders me useless, and it's only getting worse every day. I find myself flirting with him, without really noticing that I'm doing it. I'm pretty sure he's flirting back, but I don't know for sure. I don't want to lose the teasing—it's always been part of our friendship—and I would hate it if he stopped.

Mostly because it makes me want to kiss him. And not all gentle and chaste. I want to kiss Peter—I just want to grab him and press him against a wall, against me, and I want to know what it would taste like. I wonder how it would feel to have his mouth against mine like that. I wonder what it would feel like to have his arms wrapped around my body, to have his lips curve into a smile as he stops to stare at me like I do for him.

A blush colours my cheeks. I feel the heat of it travelling through my body.

I enter the hotel's lobby and collapse against the desk. Peter glances at me, pushing at his glasses with the tip of a finger.

"Pick a colour," I say, setting my elbows against the desk.

He lifts an eyebrow, eyes scanning me. "What happened to you? Please don't tell me you tripped and fell into the water."

"I did not fall. I was in the water of my own personal decision. It was a dumb decision, but I'm sticking to it. I've never had a rebellious phase. Now, pick a colour."

"Black," he replies jokingly and shoots me a look. His smile dazzles me; he grins and flashes his teeth, almost devilishly.

"That's a shade," I say, pretending like it doesn't faze me. I can't tell if he notices me faltering, so I add, "Idiot."

"I know. Black is a colour, though. It's a combination of pigments. Technically, pure black should absorb all light. It doesn't—we can still see it. Therefore, it counts as a colour," he points out.

I laugh slightly. "Facts at midnight?"

"You got it. I was curious, so I investigated it. Who knew the art world had so much controversy? And I know—it depends on if we're talking about visual art or light. Physics and art have their own definitions." He pauses, and the silence hangs in the air. "Why do you want me to pick a colour?"

I lift a strand of my hair and twist it in lazy circles. "I might dye my hair."

"You'd look good with black hair," he mutters, and my heart twists.

Is he openly flirting with me? I can't tell anymore.

"I know," I say, my voice thick with sarcasm. I want to wink, but I figure it would be too much. I settle for telling him I'm heading to the store, and I leave him with my phone in case it decides it wants to revive from the depths.

☆ ☽ ☆

I apply the dye to my hair on Wednesday, about an hour before Peter is driving me to the clinic. I've determined my natural brown is light enough that I don't have to bleach it first—at least, I hope so.

The dye paints my fingers and the back of my neck. When I shower to rinse it out, the shade of pure black drains in circles, and the water is coloured like the trenches of the ocean, or maybe the star-strewn galaxies in space.

I squeeze a towel against my hair as I wait for it to dry. I've had to get a new phone, and while I regret it a bit (mostly since I missed a text from Elaine) I've decided that one positive thing came from it.

I have my choice back. I don't have to give Carolyn my new number, so I won't. She can keep calling and sending angry, threatening messages until the day where she finally realizes it doesn't belong to me anymore, and maybe—just maybe—for the first time, she will recognize that she's lost her control over me.

Checking the time, I rush out of my room and into the parking lot, joining Peter in his car.

Shades of black are embedded under my nail beds. I lower the sun visor and flip the mirror inside of it open, peering at my reflection. The dye has set in, and it startles me to see how pale it makes me feel. But I smile when I see it.

Peter's hand hovers over the stereo volume. He mutters my name but says nothing more.

I turn my face in his direction. "You don't have to say it. It's okay. I know I look like I'm going through a mid-life crisis. The colour should fade by the end of the summer; it's only semi-permanent. Maybe next time I'll dye it, like, blue. Do you think I'd look good in blue?"

And there I go—I'm not being subtle in the least.

"It's only been like that for a few seconds, and you're already thinking of changing it?" he asks, turning onto the road that leads to the clinic.

I wonder what Carolyn would think about me visiting a therapist. I've forgotten why I care.

"No, no, I'm just distracting myself from this whole clinic thing. What's your therapist's name again? Dr. Brooklyn?"

"Yes, but you can just call her Suzanna," he reminds me. "My appointment isn't for an hour, so you can go first. I'll hang around in the waiting room."

Being that I'm in a rebellious mood and that he hasn't clarified about Suzanna, I say, "You don't have to tell me, but what do you actually... what do you actually say to a therapist? I don't know, I've never really—"

"You'll do fine," he promises. "If she can deal with me, she can definitely handle you."

The clinic is a small, imposing building swathed by pine trees. Roiling clouds guard the surroundings, held together by the damp air. Peter approaches the turnoff and chooses a spot next to the parking ticket dispenser.

We head through the automatic doors and into the elevator. A pit forms at the base of my chest.

Reaching the waiting room, Peter grabs himself a paper cup and places it underneath the coffee machine. The liquid pours into the styrofoam in relative silence until a woman enters. She's stout, a few inches shorter than me, juggling a black notebook and a travel mug in her hands. Her raven hair flows out from under her headband.

"Nice to see you, Peter," she says and extends her hand to me. "You must be Evan? I'm Suzanna."

"That's me." I shake her hand. Her grip is sturdy.

Suzanna nods and directs me to follow her into her office. She shuts the door behind us, motioning for me to take a seat on the couch across from her.

"I understand you wanted to set up this session," Suzanna says, opening her notebook as she sits. "I also understand that you are currently unable to afford therapy. I believe that access should be granted to everyone, so we have time between my previous patient and the next to discuss anything."

"Next patient? You mean Peter."

Suzanna doesn't budge.

I say, "Oh, right. Confidentiality. I'm not a patient, am I?"

"Not presently, no. Do you have a pen?"

I stare at her, puzzled. "You already have a... oh." I reach into my pocket and remove the flattened dime, extending it to Suzanna. She takes it with a reserved smile.

"There we go. Now, you are my patient, and anything you say does not leave the confines of this room."

I stick my hand back into my pocket. Suzanna offers me a stick of gum.

"It can be hard to know where to start," she continues. "You don't have to say anything. This office is safe, okay? You can use the time however you see fit."

I nod weakly.

She asks, "Has your hair been that colour for a while, or is that new?"

"It's new. I'm going through... I'm having a weird phase of doing stupid shit when I probably shouldn't. I dyed my hair... I tossed my phone into the bay..."

"Any other big life changes?"

If I don't manage to get this out, I think I might explode. I have to say it out loud. I have to admit that there is something there. It's something more than words, something beyond a definition. "I've been looking at the letters, lately," I say, quietly. "LGBTQ. I didn't even know what they stood for before. And that second letter—the 'G' doesn't really fit with me. I had an ex-girlfriend. I loved her, but it wasn't... I wasn't in love with her when we started dating. I grew into it, slowly, and I guess it blossomed."

"You had a girlfriend in the past?" Suzanna repeats.

"Yeah. Claire. It was a total high school sweetheart situation. She wanted that, and it wasn't like I couldn't see it. It wasn't like I couldn't fathom marrying her."

Suzanna places her notes against her leg and explains, "Usually, attraction is explained in multiple ways. There is aesthetic attraction; liking someone based on looks, and romantic and sexual attraction. It sounds like you had a romantic attraction to your girlfriend. You wanted to marry her, and not an idealized version of a woman?"

"No, the real person," I answer tentatively. "But we were together for three years, and I never wanted to... I didn't think about being intimate. She wanted it, though, even though I didn't get why." I tell Suzanna the story of swimming with Claire; how she reacted when I pulled away from her, then I say, "But I wasn't... I'd never been ready for that. We were close, but not—not close enough. We never talked about anything that mattered. I didn't let her in. We kept each other at a distance. It was mostly my boundaries that prevented us from getting there."

"You are allowed to have boundaries, Evan. There is nothing wrong with that, and there isn't anything wrong with not desiring sex, either. When you were looking into definitions, did you read about asexuality?"

"Yeah, yeah, I did. That's why I brought it up. I have a crush on someone." I exhale a heavy sigh as I say it. A crush. Something tangible. Something terrifying. "He's probably the sweetest person I've ever known. He doesn't push me. I should hate everything about the concept of opening up." I dig my feet into the cushions of the couch. "It's Peter."

"I assumed as much," Suzanna admits. "Are these feelings purely romantic, or something else entirely?"

"It's romantic. It's the same type of feelings I had with Claire, but it's more intense when I know he understands. I guess I'm asexual or, like... bisexual? I don't really know."

"Do these feelings have anything to do with this phase you're going through?"

I shake my head. "No. I just realized I wanted to say it out loud." I pause, looking at the therapist. Her elbow rests against her notes. "I wouldn't allow myself to explore those feelings before. My mother wouldn't have allowed it. I had to be perfect—I had to be what she wanted me to be."

"Is that really a phase?" Suzanna wonders as I unwrap the bubblegum she gave to me. It tastes cold like peppermint. "If you had to act a certain way before, and now you have some freedom... isn't that the opposite of a phase? It's more like you're discovering who you are. Sure, maybe dyeing your hair is a temporary fix, but you seem pleased with it."

I want to get out of this cycle—that is what the countdown is about. One hundred and five days. That's how much time I have left to keep living this caged existence. "I don't know what I'm going to do with so much freedom."

"You've acknowledged your feelings. I think that counts. You didn't share these thoughts with your ex-girlfriend, but you can share them with Peter. Are you worried that he won't be able to handle it, for example?"

Maybe it would be better if I kept holding on until the end. Until I can leave, and I won't have anything to pull me back to this town. Maybe, maybe. "Not that he can't handle it, just that I've said too much."

"He might be your emotional anchor. Someone who you can confide in, who makes you feel supported, no matter what. But the importance of having someone like that in your life is that you don't become dependent on them to fix those problems. It's about compassion, not repairing."

"I know. I just... I haven't told him that I think I'm asexual. I know he'd be really nice about it, because—I swear—he takes it so well. But maybe he's scared to be with a guy? Not just me, but anyone. After what happened with Sam, I can't even blame him. He's out. Everyone knows now. I don't want to start all that drama again. I care too much for that."

"Issues like this can't be fixed within one meeting. You are welcome to come back whenever you need it." Suzanna can't tell me what to do, and I don't expect her to. She'd probably tell me to confess; at least I'd know for sure, then. But time is dwindling. Freedom lies on the horizon.

And yet, I can't stop thinking about it. Would it really be such a risk? I'm going through a rebellious phase, after all.

If he doesn't like me back, I can just tell him to forget about it, and then we can go back to normal.