inside the pen shaft.
I think about the splitting sound last night and worry. I think about future pleasure. I think about scarring. I think about how every one of us is different, how every intersex person is different from the other, about what the doctors said, about different problems. I think about contraception, and condoms and pills. I think about Hunter coming inside me.
Why didn’t you fight more? says my brain.
It really hurt, I say.
Yeah. Why didn’t you fight more?
I don’t know. This is going to sound crazy but . . . I felt like it was his right.
You’re right, that does sound crazy.
I know. I can’t explain it. I mean, it’s Hunter. I’ve always done everything he wanted. But it was more that I was shocked, because of what he said. So few people know. No one’s ever said anything like that to me before. But also . . . I don’t know. All the way through, I just felt like apologising.
Apologising?
For being disgusting, having messed-up junk, moving in the wrong way and not knowing what to do.
What is wrong with you?
I don’t KNOW.
‘Max?’
‘Mm?’ I look up. Carl is above me.
‘Bell’s gone.’
‘Oh.’
Ten-fifteen is not my lucky break. The corridors drag us forward. I try to think of something to say to Carl, some excuse for why I want to go off alone, but my brain is mush. Too tired, in a daze, I end up in Biology. I figure, what’s one more lesson?
I sit drumming my shoe against the desk leg. I sit blankly, staring at the board, the words unreadable, the shapes of the letters unrecognisable.
At first break there are two teachers standing by the gates. I run out of time finding another exit. And then Geography happens. And then Chemistry.
It is lunch by the time I get out. I climb over this tall wooden gate out on the school field, which leads to an alleyway. I take my bag. I’m guessing I won’t be feeling like going back after the doctors.
My school is in Hemingway, which is a town next to Oxford that’s referred to as a suburb of Oxford a lot. The centre is one large crossroad and a market square, but it is a pretty busy place with lots of its own suburbs. When you’re in the centre, though, it feels quite small. It’s basically a chocolate-box type of town that American tourists freak out over. It’s very Harry Potter . There are some old buildings and there is an Oxford college that has its campus here. The building is huge and beautiful and five hundred years old. The place is full of ducks. We’re often late to school because you have to drive really slowly behind them sometimes when they’re with their ducklings on the road. Or sometimes there’ll be like this one stupid duck, like a mallard or sometimes a Canada goose, that will just waddle very slowly down the centre of the main road, and there will be a traffic jam for literally a mile until someone gets out of the car, lifts the duck up and puts it on the pavement. The buildings in the centre of town are around the square and along one road called The Promenade. The doctor’s surgery is set back from the shops, and slightly tucked behind the church.
It’s definitely autumn now. Summer wasn’t that hot, but it seemed to stay warm for a long time. Today there’s a breeze that spikes your skin with cold. The leaves are turning beautiful colours and the first have already fallen. I prefer summer to the other seasons, for the heat. You can be out all day playing football and not even have to worry about bringing a T-shirt. But autumn is loveable. It’s summer’s dying cousin. It’s somehow vulnerable, for the world to die so publicly. You feel tender about autumn.
I wrote that in an essay for my teacher, Ms Marquesa. I wasn’t there when she fed back on the essays but Carl said she (and I’m quoting him verbatim) ‘basically creamed’.
I’m trying to hurry along The Promenade, partly because of the cold and partly because I don’t want anyone to see me, the Walker kid, Stephen Walker’s kid,
I think about the splitting sound last night and worry. I think about future pleasure. I think about scarring. I think about how every one of us is different, how every intersex person is different from the other, about what the doctors said, about different problems. I think about contraception, and condoms and pills. I think about Hunter coming inside me.
Why didn’t you fight more? says my brain.
It really hurt, I say.
Yeah. Why didn’t you fight more?
I don’t know. This is going to sound crazy but . . . I felt like it was his right.
You’re right, that does sound crazy.
I know. I can’t explain it. I mean, it’s Hunter. I’ve always done everything he wanted. But it was more that I was shocked, because of what he said. So few people know. No one’s ever said anything like that to me before. But also . . . I don’t know. All the way through, I just felt like apologising.
Apologising?
For being disgusting, having messed-up junk, moving in the wrong way and not knowing what to do.
What is wrong with you?
I don’t KNOW.
‘Max?’
‘Mm?’ I look up. Carl is above me.
‘Bell’s gone.’
‘Oh.’
Ten-fifteen is not my lucky break. The corridors drag us forward. I try to think of something to say to Carl, some excuse for why I want to go off alone, but my brain is mush. Too tired, in a daze, I end up in Biology. I figure, what’s one more lesson?
I sit drumming my shoe against the desk leg. I sit blankly, staring at the board, the words unreadable, the shapes of the letters unrecognisable.
At first break there are two teachers standing by the gates. I run out of time finding another exit. And then Geography happens. And then Chemistry.
It is lunch by the time I get out. I climb over this tall wooden gate out on the school field, which leads to an alleyway. I take my bag. I’m guessing I won’t be feeling like going back after the doctors.
My school is in Hemingway, which is a town next to Oxford that’s referred to as a suburb of Oxford a lot. The centre is one large crossroad and a market square, but it is a pretty busy place with lots of its own suburbs. When you’re in the centre, though, it feels quite small. It’s basically a chocolate-box type of town that American tourists freak out over. It’s very Harry Potter . There are some old buildings and there is an Oxford college that has its campus here. The building is huge and beautiful and five hundred years old. The place is full of ducks. We’re often late to school because you have to drive really slowly behind them sometimes when they’re with their ducklings on the road. Or sometimes there’ll be like this one stupid duck, like a mallard or sometimes a Canada goose, that will just waddle very slowly down the centre of the main road, and there will be a traffic jam for literally a mile until someone gets out of the car, lifts the duck up and puts it on the pavement. The buildings in the centre of town are around the square and along one road called The Promenade. The doctor’s surgery is set back from the shops, and slightly tucked behind the church.
It’s definitely autumn now. Summer wasn’t that hot, but it seemed to stay warm for a long time. Today there’s a breeze that spikes your skin with cold. The leaves are turning beautiful colours and the first have already fallen. I prefer summer to the other seasons, for the heat. You can be out all day playing football and not even have to worry about bringing a T-shirt. But autumn is loveable. It’s summer’s dying cousin. It’s somehow vulnerable, for the world to die so publicly. You feel tender about autumn.
I wrote that in an essay for my teacher, Ms Marquesa. I wasn’t there when she fed back on the essays but Carl said she (and I’m quoting him verbatim) ‘basically creamed’.
I’m trying to hurry along The Promenade, partly because of the cold and partly because I don’t want anyone to see me, the Walker kid, Stephen Walker’s kid,
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