Chapter 1
Sometimes I imagine my thoughts as if there was a little person in my head, feeding the reels of my biopic through my brain, narrating the movie of my life. Pulling the strings on Hayley Soon. The person makes me think about little things, like how my hair feels. How food tastes. Or how the crack in my bedroom wall is slowly getting bigger because I keep thumping my head off it. And that I hope someday, I’ll thump my head so hard I’ll end up in another universe, where I might be happy.
At least the city is beautiful. I love the tall buildings and the fast cars and the everyone in suits. I love the roadworks and the litter and the graffiti. Like a supermodel after surgery, this place is a manmade beauty. Not a single flower or rolling hillside to spoil the urban paradise. Light glints off the glass sharply. Fumes from the cars and all of us breathing the same air, pressed close together like desperate bodies on a dancefloor. There’s a faded poster for a movie that’s already closed, starlet’s face slowly melting away from the billboard.
Music tastes different in the summer. It pours out the lungs hot. Taylor Swift Shake It Off. Haters, fakers... This song could be my soundtrack.
The sun shines as I get to a red light and throw my arms out like Titanic, Rose at the front of the boat. Only my Jack is this old VW camper. Used to be my dad’s. He left it to me after he died. Back in Korea, he saw a sky blue VW camper in a photo of Woodstock. First thing he did when he moved over here was buy one. Second thing he did was knock up my mom with me.
I hate how people talk about there being room for Jack on the door at the end. He tries to get on, but it starts to sink. He gets off to save her, and lets himself freeze to death. But people don’t realise that, or they don’t care, or they forget. And people always mock what they don’t understand.
The light turns green but I don’t drive, not yet. It’s just coming back around to the chorus. Just after this bit. Almost. Then the car behind honks and I get so stressed that I slam the pedal, go straight on and miss my turn. By the time I calm down the chorus is over and I don’t feel like singing anymore.
University starts again soon. Second year. I’m not even sure I want to go back. I took a business course to help me sell my art online, but I didn’t learn anything last year. I don’t have the figure to pose half naked in my profile pic to attract customers, but my smile is pretty okay I guess. And going off the comments sections, like a third of all guys in the world seem to have an Asian fetish. I would’ve taken an art course, but my dad convinced me business gave me more options. If he was alive I never would’ve listened, but it’s kind of hard to argue with a ghost.
Grey clouds gather in front of the sun. The world turns cool. It starts to rain that sweet summer shower and little rivers flow along the gutters. Pigeons gather and bathe. A whole troupe of them, bristling their feathers so tiny gemstones of water scatter. Slowly, I pull up to the side of the road, easing the brakes gently, not disturbing them. I grab one of Cleo’s snack bags from the glove compartment and jump out.
I creep up to the birds with a packet of… kale chips? Well, I guess pigeons are vegetarians. Wait no. They eat worms. Anyway. I lower my hand into the crinkling foil bag and take out a disc of dried green. Snapping it between my fingertips, I crouch down and offer fractured chips out. The birds shuffle together, edging backwards. I stretch my hand out further, the mossy mulch stuck to the pads of my fingers, crumbs falling into the groove of my nail. One of the pigeons leaps forward. Soon a friend hops with him. The pair of them stare up at me with vacuous eyes, necks bent sideways. Cooing curiously, they start to peck and nibble at my palm while I reach inside the pack for another chip. More scurry forward now, the cooing rising in a democratic cacophony. I toss one of the green rings for them to attack, and they all dive upon it. Those who can’t force their way through return to me, wet beaks pecking friendlily at my knees. That little voice in my head turns to its imaginary camera. So this is what it’s like to be popular.
Heavy footsteps echo on the concrete and the birds disperse. Their soggy wings slap against my skin as they flee upwards into the colourless sky. There’s a boy and a girl standing in front of me. The boy is Eli Henderson. He’s in my class. Short black hair, square jaw, muscles that pull his shirt sleeves so tight they ride up and flash the freckle on his right arm. He’s cute. Harmless. The girl is Angela Day. Also in my class. Constantly sneering, make up that looks like butterscotch paste and total bitch. Definitely not harmless.
“Hi Hayley,” Eli says.
“Hello, David,” Angela says.
Angela Day seems to care more about the fact I am trans than she cares about any other thing in existence. She insists on using my deadname. She requires several punches to the face.
“Has the black girl ditched you, so now your only friends are pigeons?” Angela says.
Several. Punches.
“Her name is Cleo,” I say.
Angela never liked me, but over Christmas break she started dating a guy from my hometown and for whatever reason, that’s caused her to double down on the whole wishing I was dead thing. She wears a crucifix around her neck, nestled between her breasts. I take this as proof that God does not exist; if he did, it would have seared into her flesh by now.
“I know what her name is, David. We’re just not all quite as obsessed with labels as you are.”
The bag of chips crunches in my fist. My brain whirs, cogs grinding as it searches for a reply. Her shirt is tight around the stomach, like she’s put on a few pounds. Gotcha.
“Clearly you don’t read the serving suggestion labels. Or are you just eating for two these days?”
Her stomach is hardly even there, honestly. But I needed something to say. She stares down at her tiny bulge, then focuses her eyes on me, eyebrows furrowed in fury.
“Fuck you, faggot!”
She stomps away, murky water spurting upward from her forceful footsteps.
“See you in class, Hayley,” Eli mutters, following her.
I just wave at him, crumbling kale chips still stuck to my fingertips. Eli’s not so bad. He just wants to be liked by everyone. But he wants to be liked by popular, pretty people most, so he hangs around with Angela.
The sun emerges with a starburst flash from behind a swirl of thick grey, but that beautiful summer shine is dimming. Pretty soon the streets will be clogged with dead leaves even though there’s no trees. Last autumn the roads were full of dirty piles of yellow and orange and red. Every path like lava flowing. I get back in the camper and drive, turning Taylor up over the engine whining.