Ethan and Chelle

Content warning: Teen romance, ewwww

"Hi, I'm Ethan," he says. I smile up at him, automatically replying, "Hi, I'm a lesbian." He looks confused for a moment, then seems to recover. "Oh, um, ok, cool? I was just saying hello." He has a weird little quirk to his lips, but he doesn't seem put off by my announcement, so I relax a little.

"Sorry," I say. "I get hit on a lot. Like, a lot. Force of habit."

"I get it," he says. "Not hitting on you. I just figured we're going to be sitting next to each other for a year, and I should say hi." He waves vaguely at the classroom, our beloved Mr. Tweede organizing papers on his desk before the bell rings to announce the beginning of class. Then the bell rings, and we start learning about the mathematical hell we're in for this year.

I'm one of those people who was hailed as a genius of sorts, as I plowed through several years worth of math textbooks over the course of my 8th grade year. Cool and all, but then they didn't know what to do with me, so apparently the school just shrugged their collective shoulders and said, "Well, she's already finished this, just give her an extra elective." So I did that for 2 years, and now here we are in 11th grade with amazing watercolor skills, but I am mathematically boned. I remember basically nothing of math. Some genius.

Mr. Tweede launches in, and I try to keep up, but really can't. The pattern repeats, day after day, for two months, before I finally give up. Ethan has proven in that time not just to be a friendly and kind person, but also pretty skilled at trigonometry, which is what we were studying. He didn't hit on me once, which was kind of weird (seriously, I get hit on by boys so much).

"Ethan," I say, one day as we're departing another baffling class. He looks at me. "Chelle. What's up?" My full name is Michelle, but everyone calls me Chelle. "Could you help me with homework tonight?" I try to keep it neutral.

See, there's a problem. I'm a lebian, as I may have mentioned at least once or twice, or like every day. But there's something about Ethan that draws me, and I can't figure it out. So yeah, I'm asking him for homework help because he's good at trig and I could use the help, but also because I find myself wanting to spend time with him, to figure out what's going on with that. The counsellor said I shouldn't expect I'm 100% anything, but I kind of didn't trust that advice at the time. Now, though, I'm thinking maybe there's something to it. Not sure. Need to find out.

He pulls out his phone and flicks through a few screens. "Uh, yeah, I can. No band today, and soccer is tomorrow night." I smile at him, and there must be something extra in it, because he stops walking and looks at me hard, like he's trying to figure out a puzzle. "What?" I say. "Nothing," he says, shaking his head. "Just had a weird thought."

"Tell me," I say.

"Nah, it's just my brain being a weirdo."

"Ok. So, uh, your house or mine?"

His face actually goes a bit red, then he says, "Could we do your house? Mine's a bit of a mess right now."

"Ok. I usually walk, want to walk back with me after school?"

"Sure," he says. "I've got my bike, but we can just walk. Is there anywhere to lock it up there?" He gives me a look I can't interpret.

"Yeah," I say. I give him a little look back, and a bit of a smile, my confidence coming back in a rush. "It's just homework, Ethan. I just need help with trig."

He smiles, and puts his hand on the back of his neck, looking down at my feet like he's some kind of anime boyfriend type. "Yeah, makes sense. I saw your last test." It's my turn to go a bit red. That test came back with a 14/100 on it. "I'll see you at the flagpole after school."

"Cool." I stay rooted to the spot, the confidence that came in a flood rushing out just as quickly. He looks a bit uncertain, then abruptly spins and walks off to the next class as the bell rings.

I should say that up until this point, we hadn't really talked outside of class. He had his crowd at lunch, and I had mine, and we didn't have any other classes together. But it was clear he was a nice kid. He was kind of odd, but it wasn't a bad kind of odd to me. Other kids were mean to him, but it's fucking highschool, there's always someone being mean to someone else.

We meet up, and walk toward my house. School is about a half hour walk, and I usually use the time to get my head clear. My parents are fine, I guess, but my brother Sean can be really annoying. He's five years younger, and is always bugging me about one thing or another. Fortunately, I think we can set up in the media room and close the door unless my parents get weird about that. They know I'm a lesbian (I've had to be just as clear with them as I have at school), so shouldn't see much threat in hanging out with a boy doing homework.

"Heya, honey!" calls my dad from his office as I walk in the front door. "Hey, I've got a friend with me, we're gonna work on homework, ok?" I call back. I hear his chair push back, and he pads into the front room. "Oh, hello," he says to Ethan. "I'm Jacob, Chelle's dad."

Ethan extends his hand like a total gentleman, and says, "I'm Ethan, nice to meet you, sir." My dad looks at him for a few seconds, then looks at me. "Living room."

I make a colossal effort, and manage not to utter the "But daaaaaaadd!" that's right on the tip of my tongue. "Fine," I say, sounding more adult than I feel. "But if Sean starts bugging us, can we move to the media room?"

"I guess so. Let me know if you do, ok? I gotta get back to it, Jira tickets wait for no man."

"Sure, thanks dad." He gives me a weird look, then turns with a glance at Ethan and pads back to his office, where he does mysterious things with a computer.

I lead Ethan to the living room. Our house is decent, but nothing like as fancy as some of the kids at school (seriously, I went to Mackenzie L's party last year, and thought I was on a movie set for The Richest Girl In Town or something; it was like a mansion, with a swimming pool and everything).

"Ok, so," he says, as I log into the laptop to get the day's homework. "What's causing you problems?"

I look at him helplessly for a moment, before saying, "Kind of all of it?" I give him a rundown of my math-genius past, emphasizing how I don't remember a damn thing about any of it now, and how Mr. Tweede has been talking past me since the first day of class. "So now, it's almost Thanksgiving, and I'm getting an F in the class. I'm a solid B student in everything else. This is really getting to me."

He sits back and looks thoughtful. "Hmm. This is serious." He smiles.

The next two hours pass in a flurry of review and math and triangles and angles and cosines and I don't even know what. But at the end of it, some of the foundations of trig actually seem to make sense, thanks to Ethan's careful explanations.

"Hey, thanks man!" I say as we're cleaning up a lot of paper he was using to scribble onto when we couldn't get a drawing program to work on the underpowered Chromebook they give us to do homework on. There's a fleeting look across his face that's almost like pain or discomfort, but it's gone as quickly as it was there. What he says is, "Sure, this was fun."

"Would you," I start, feeling suddenly very tentative. "Um, would you be willing to do it again?" Why am I feeling like a nervous schoolgirl all of a sudden? He's a nice guy, but I'm not attracted to him or anything. I'm a lesbian, after all. Just because I get a little flutter around him doesn't mean anything.

"Sure," he says, apparently not noticing my shift in mood. "I can't tomorrow, but I could on Friday, I think?" He pulls out his phone again. "Yeah, Friday is good. Nothing until after dinner, when I've got a tae kwon do class."

"You're really busy, huh."

He looks a bit embarrassed, then says, "Yeah, I guess so. It's just all stuff I like, and I think my mom feels guilty so she lets me sign up for whatever."

"Why does she feel bad?"

Before he can answer, my dad appears out of nowhere and says, "Hey kiddo, is your friend staying for dinner?"

"Oh," I say, looking the question back at Ethan, raising my eyebrows.

"Oh, uh, I can't. I have to get home. But thank you!" He gathers his books and laptop, packing up his backpack. He looks back at me. "See you Friday, then?"

"Yeah, Friday." He exits quicker than I think he would have if my dad wasn't standing there looking at him. Dad looks back to me. "Hope I didn't get in your way, kiddo." I struggle to contain the eye-roll.

Friday comes. We meet up and talk homework again. Then Tuesday. Then Thursday. Before I know it, it's Winter Holiday, and Ethan and I are friends.

It happened gradually. He was such a good guy, and as we met up to talk about trig, I slowly got my math brain back, and we didn't need to talk about math as much. But we kept talking. About friends. About dumb jocks. About his hopes and desires. About mine. About whether the world would even still exist by the time we were adults. You know, stuff you talk about with a friend.

Thing is, in this time, I also gradually came to realize I was falling in love with him. Now, this was both incredibly annoying (because, hello, lesbian!), and overwhelming. I'd never fallen in love with anyone before. I mean, I'd had crushes. I kissed Shannon Halverson in 7th grade, and didn't stop thinking about her for a solid week. But I hadn't fallen in love like this.

I couldn't tell, in this time, what was going through Ethan's head. I'd kid him about hanging out with a certified lesbian so much. He just shook his head and said, "It's not like we're dating, who cares?" with a little laugh. He seemed pretty at ease about the whole thing.

Finally, a few days into the break, I can't take it any more. I have to tell him what's going on, and see if we can figure out what to do about it. I trust him not to get weird on me, he's so unlike all the other boys I've known so far. I grab my phone and send him a message: got time 2 talk? Three dots show almost immediately, and his reply comes back: 'sup?

I think for a minute, then send: orange julius? We've met at the mall a few times. Neither of us could afford to do much actual shopping, but he seemed to enjoy browsing clothes as much as I did, which was for about 20 minutes before wanting to sit down with something tasty. He sends back, when?. I reply, 2, im buying. His reply is immediate: must b serious 🤔 I hesitate again, then send, yea/na, just wanna hang 😌.

I'm there early, feeling nervous. Like, I know he's going to be ok. Right? He'll be fine. We'll figure it out. I try not to think too hard about it, but that makes me think even harder about it. He finally walks up a few minutes past two. "Hey," he says. "What's going on?"

I must have a look on my face, because after a moment of looking at me, he says, "What's wrong?"

I heave a big sigh, and look back at him. He must have seen something in my expression, and says, "Wow, this is serious." "Yeah," I say.

"Ok," I go on. "You remember how, on the first day of class, you introduced yourself with your name, and like a total freak, I said I was a lesbian?"

He nods, but doesn't say anything. I can tell he's waiting for the serious part.

"Ok, so. Um. Fuck, this is hard." He puts a hand on my shoulder unexpectedly, and says, "It's ok, Chelle, whatever it is." I take a steadying sip of my orange crushed ice drink, and plunge on. "So, like, I said I was a lesbian, right? Well, I think..." I pause, unsure how to say, "I have a crush on you and you're not a girl and how can I be a lesbian and have a crush on you and still be a lesbian and AUGH!" What comes out is a faint "uggghhhh" sound, and before I know it, he's got his arms wrapped around me. It's not a crying situation, but I realize my eyes are leaking a little bit. Shit.

He lets go and sits back on his chair, but my hand is in his. I notice it kind of abstractly, like it's something happening to someone else. He sort of nods encouragingly.

I take a huge breath and blow it out. "Ok, so. Fuck. I'm sorry, this is so awkward." "I'm here for you," is all he says. My eyes are leaking again.

"So," I pause again. Say the words, idiot. "I'm confused, because I think I have, uh, feelings? For you?" His face goes a little blank, then his cheeks go just a bit red, and suddenly his eyes are leaking too. "But you're a lesbian?" he says.

"I know, right? Like, what the fuck? I was so sure about it." My hand is suddenly squeezing his tightly. I didn't tell it to do that. My body is abandoning me. His face clears, and he says, "Maybe it's all working out just like it should." This cryptic series of words confuses me, and I say so. "What are you talking about? This is super confusing."

He says, "Let's walk around. My legs are jiggling like crazy." It's true, he's been sort of gently vibrating since I said the word "feelings." We pick up our respective paper cups and commence a round of the mall, walking faster than almost everyone else, dodging between slower-moving groups of people.

I realize my hand is still in his. He seems to realize it at the same time, glances down, and says, "Is this ok?" "Yeah," I say. "It's nice." His hand squeezes mine as we breeze past a shop selling nothing but overpriced sunglasses.

Looking at his face, it looks like he's working through something too. We've been walking in silence for minutes, which isn't unusual for us, but feels a little weird now. "What's on your brain?" I say. He glances over at me, and confirmed, he's doing some serious thinking. "Uh, you've known for a while, right? I mean, about feeling feelings about me?" I nod.

"Ok, so," he says, then pauses. I feel like we're mirroring each other, spaced five minutes apart. "Out with it, dude!"

"You're, uh," he says. "You're not the only one who's been feeling things." I am honestly uncertain what to feel right now -- it might be good if he feels the same way, but what the fuck do I call myself, if that's real? "What do you mean, feeling things?"

"Well, uh. Fuck. This is hard, isn't it." My uncertainty has been replaced by annoyance. "Spit it out, what's hard?" He looks at me with a sort of strained grin.

"Ok, promise you won't ditch me, though?" My response is instantaneous: "No way, unless you're like a serial killer or something." That seems to be good enough for him. "I'm uh... I think I'm, maybe, uh, not a boy?"

I stop walking. He takes another step before my hand pulls him to a stop. Well, "him" I guess? "What do you mean, you're not a boy?" He's looking back at me now, and I see tears are welling in his eyes. He comes close so he's practically whispering in my ear. "I think I might be a girl. I think... I'm trans."

I pull her? over to a bench in the shadow of the fountain in front of the Nordstrom entrance. We sit, pressed close together, hand in hand. She's openly weeping now. Now that the words are out in the world, it makes sense. I can see it. I say, "Oh shit." She nods, and smiles weakly, and wipes her nose on her sleeve.

I have no control over the smile that's spreading across my face. "Dude, that's great!" And I pull her into a hug. "I mean," I say, mumbling into her shoulder, because she's still taller than me, "Dudette, or whatever." She sobs once, and pulls me tight. "So, I don't know what's in your head right now, but I can see it. It makes so much sense. I don't know why I didn't see it before."

"Really?" she asks, her voice wavering. "Yeah! Totally. Look at you. You've been a girl for so long!" No one's ever come out as trans to me before, but I feel a kinship -- when I came out as lesbian, I got some shitty responses, and I'm determined to do this right. I disengage, and gently pull back to look at her face. It's blotchy and red from crying, but in my mind it snaps right into focus: a girl's face, with maybe an extra-butch choice of haircut for a girl. "I'm not sure what to say, but it makes so much sense." I pause as a new thought hits me. "Wait, what do I call you? Ethan is clearly wrong."

Her face goes curious, and she says, "I'm not sure. I haven't thought about names yet. Um, what do you think? It's all been so much just figuring it out..." I think for a moment, then say, "How about Jeanette?" She seems to think about it. "Maybe," she finally says. "Or Emma? Or Madison? Or..."

"I've got it," I say. "Chloe." She gets this big smile on her face, and says, "Chloe" to herself a couple times. "I like it." "Yeah," I say, "it kinda fits you? Like, I can totally see you as a Chloe. Sit on it. Maybe something else will show up. For now, can I call you Chloe?"

She smiles, and says, "Yeah. Let's use Chloe for now." Her face goes all serious, and she says, "But I'm not ready to tell anyone else yet. You're the only person I've told. I... I'm not ready to face all that." I pull her into another hug, and say, "Of course not. Congrats on coming out, it's big and hard and stupid and so worth it." She sniffs mightily, and says, "Yeah, I hope so."

"Hey," I say, pulling back again, with a big grin on my face. "This means I'm still a lesbian!" She punches me gently on the shoulder but with a smile on her face, and says, "Always so self-centered. Hah!" And then the tears are rolling down her face again, and I pull her into another hug.

We stay like that for a few minutes, alternately crying and sniffling and holding hands. We stand up again, and I say, "You're gonna have to burn that hoodie, girl, that sleeve is foul now." She grins a big grin, and says, "Yeah, I think maybe this hoodie has to go."

I grab her other hand, and we square up to each other. "So," I say, my serious face on. "Chloe. I'm super proud of you. And I think I have a crush on you, but I think that can wait. You tell me when you want to tell anyone else, and I'll be there for you. You tell me what I can do for you." I stop, because her face has gone soft, and she pulls me close. Her lips brush mine gently, and I press back harder. It only lasts a moment, but it's enough. It's enough for now. My heart is pounding in my chest, and my breath is coming in short bursts.

"Chelle," she says, breathing rather a lot herself. "I think I have a crush on you too, and I don't know if I want it to wait." And we're kissing again, for real this time. Standing there in the middle of the mall, crowds swirling around us. Our arms circle each other, and nothing else matters.

And I know it's going to be ok.