“I mean, I’ve seen how you act at school. Like nothing bothers you, not taking any shit from anyone. You kneed Riley Garner in the nuts when he was harassing you.”

That was a good day, totally worth the weekend I spent in detention.

“You just don’t get it,” I say, hoping that we can leave the conversation there.

“Then explain it.”

“This is my family—it’s different. I can’t just knee my grandpa in the nuts whenever he’s transphobic toward me.”

“But there are other ways to shut them down.”

“You don’t …” I shake my head. “You don’t get it.”

“Then explain it.”

“I can’t,” I say a little too loudly. “Because you don’t understand—you wouldn’t understand, okay? So just drop it before I send you on the next flight back to Charlotte.” I walk into the bathroom, and unfortunately it’s a pocket door that slides into place thanks to the track on top of the doorframe, so there’s no satisfactory slam to punctuate my exit.

He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Just because Wyatt is queer, that doesn’t mean he knows the shit that I go through on a daily basis, the transphobia, hearing every day that trans people have been killed, that entire countries have made people like me illegal, the gender dysphoria that I dealt with for years, that was supposed to go away when I got my surgery, when I finally felt like myself.

Except the surgery wasn’t a magic fix. I knew that going in. My doctors told me that; the trans vloggers and bloggers I’d listened to said that. I learned that afterward, during the months of depression that I felt after my top surgery because of the dysmorphia I still felt, the fear of taking off my shirt anywhere outside my room because now there’d be no mistaking my transness in public spaces.

Wyatt just doesn’t get it, and he probably never will.

I shouldn’t let Wyatt get to me.

I need to calm down, and a shower is just the trick for that. I throw my sweaty clothes in the corner and jump right in. It’s roomy in here, spacious, and I doubt the hot water will run out after five minutes. There’s even a detached tub that goes deep and has jets in the sides, so maybe I’ll take a nice bath on this mini vacation as well.

At some point I will have to get out and dry off, get dressed, do my hair, go downstairs to the restaurant, and see family members that I’ve been lucky enough to not have to see for a few years now.

But for right now, I’m content to just stand here.

Underneath the stream of hot water.

While I do my best to forget how awful the next seven days are going to be.

*  *  *

“Okay, so what are you comfortable with me doing?” Wyatt asks.

“What do you mean?”

“You said that I’m supposed to do ‘boyfriend’ stuff around you, but I don’t know what that means.”