Knots

Chapter 6

DYLAN

"Okay okay, enough about me. How are you holdin' up?" I'm in the middle of a call with Brandon, and I've been locked up in my room for hours just catching up on all the things that have been happening in Rhode Island. His thick accent makes me smile, and hearing his voice just makes me feel happier

"Oh God, B, I miss everything about Situate. Your band, my house, even Ray."

"Even Ray!" He exclaimed, "You couldn't pay me a thousand dollars to even pretend to miss him." In fifth through tenth grade, I was the subject of Ray's torture, but being new here feels so much worse.

"On second thought, maybe I don't miss him." We laugh, and I can hear his scratchy voice echo around the room. The phone gives me an incomplete version of Brandon; I can't see him smile, and I can't see him laugh. I can only hear, and even that is distorted with distance.

"How are they treating you there?" He makes 'there' sound like 'they-ah.' 

When I don't respond immediately, his voice starts to shake. "Are they good to you?" I twist loose hairs out of my face.

"The truth is, I think they might be worse."

"Well Imma come and visit you soon, Dylan. It's sad without our number-one-fan-slash- logo-designer."

"It's sad without you too, B, I miss you."

"I miss-" Somebody interrupts him with a shout. He yells something back and makes a sound like sighing. "Oh, sorry Dylan. I gotta go!"

"Love you, B." I say, voice dipping to a monotone.

"I love you too, Dylan." Then he hangs up. I turn around and lay down on my bed and let the blue-green color envelop me. It feels like I'm at my old house if I don't look at the walls or the boxes everywhere. This room is a lot bigger than my old one, but it still feels cramped with all the cardboard in random places. I finally unpacked the picture of Sprinkles and hung it on the wall above my bed. The cat brings color to the black abyss that is my bedroom. Who paints a wall black? Seriously, you will never, ever, be able to re-paint it. It's too dark. I need to set up my studio here. I lean down and unpack my neon paint from the boxes. Then I take the slides of glass that I use as paint palettes. My splatter paint brush pokes out of a box in the corner and I rush over to grab it, and in a moment of pure impulsiveness, I drip paint onto the glass. Green, yellow, pink, and purple paint cover the canvas, and I dip my brush into it. I cover the bed in newspaper and try to protect the carpet as best as possible. Paint splashes onto the wall, and before I even think, I'm painting the night sky in neon. I paint stars and nebulas and watch them take shape as a lion cut from the night sky. I work for an hour until the walls are done. A black background full of inspiring words and stars. Then I realize what I've done. I pull my phone from a pocket in my sweatshirt and text my dad.

You: Come up here please?

Dad: Are you alright?

I hear footsteps in the hallway as he enters my room.

"You okay, kiddo? Do you-" He freezes. "Wow" He pushes his auburn hair back from his face. He's wearing faded blue jeans with holes in the pockets and a baggy Patriots sweater. He's a huge fan, still caught up in their winning streak. North Carolina won't make him sway from New England sports teams.

"Yeah. I just kind of did it..." I say, trailing off. He smiles and gestures for me to come over and give him a hug. I bury myself in the folds of his sweater and take in his scent. Apples and cinnamon.

"Mom's gonna kill me. She's gonna be so mad." Dad ruffles my hair.

"It seems like you took inspiration from 'The Lion King?'" I laugh, and then there's this silence that fills the room. "Yeah, she won't be happy, but she'll get over it." He says.

"Will she get over me?" I ask. He hesitates.

"Yeah, kiddo. She'll get it." He responds, then he runs his fingers through my hair again.

"I love you dad." His eyes crinkle as I lean back from his grasp.

"I love you too, Dylan." He whispers into my ear. He picks me up and sits me down on my bed and slips out the door. My room feels colder and darker than it was before.

* * *

I must have fallen asleep, because I'm woken by yelling downstairs. I try not to listen, but it's pretty difficult with mom screaming at the top of her lungs.

"Stop defending her!" She yells. "Our daughter ruined the wall!" Dad mumbles something unintelligible and mom responds with another scream. Every time she calls me her daughter, every time she calls me 'she,' I shrink further down into my bed. She doesn't get it, and I don't know if she ever will. I want to run away, to get up and leave the house where my mom doesn't understand me. Sees me as wrong. Maybe I am wrong. I dig out a few bottles of nail polish from my boxes. Pink and blue. I paint the base of my nails blue and splatter pink paint on the rest. Then I wait for them to dry. I put on a matte top coat and look at them, finished. They look good with my perfect nail beds. They look good. I take a photo and send them to mom.

You: sent an image

Everything goes silent downstairs, and I wait for a whisper, anything that can tell me they're done fighting over me.

Mom: I love them! 🥰🥰🥰

I sigh, letting out the breath I didn't even know I was holding in. Nobody comes up to check on me. It's really not a big deal because all I did was paint my nails. But it is to me. In fact, it's a huge deal because all I want to do is peel them off.

* * *

I wear a dress to school today. I don't wrap gauze around my body to fix myself, and I don't wear sneakers. I put on makeup and sandals instead, just so mom will compliment me on the way to school. Sure enough, when I pad lightly down the stairs, she smiles approvingly at me and tells me I look pretty. When I get on the bus, I pinch my knees and scratch my legs, I am going to be purple when I get home from school. It doesn't matter, I feel dirty, even worse when mom yells at me to pick a gender, to be normal for once. When I get to my classroom, nobody throws pencils at me or calls me names. And it seems that nobody has noticed me at all. Michael called me 'hot' at lunch, he thought I couldn't hear, but I think it made me feel worse about myself. Everybody seems to have forgotten about yesterday, and how much of a disaster it was. I saw Ollie in math class, he didn't even recognize me. When I said it was me, he called me Dylan. I corrected him and told him to call me Kat. Saying those words made my skin crawl. But I got over it, and mom seemed a lot happier the whole day.