Page 54 of Forgotten
I grunt at his impersonation of me and never in a million years will I admit that it’s spot on. The way he imitates my voice, bending his perfect British accent to match my imperfect one. The mocking angle of his head, the way he shows his teeth at the end in an irritating smirk. How many times have I said those same words to him?
I watch as he takes a sip of his beer in sympathy and then another one for good measure. Is it his third beer? Or the fourth? He’s been drinking a lot. He licks the foam of the beer off his upper lip,and the motion sends a shiver down my spine.
“You are, like, literally so annoying.” I push him, just to see what he will say next.
He frowns, probably searching his brain for some Ash-approved comments. “You started it. When we were about nine.”
Fair, I concede. I give in and drink.
Ford takes a piece of bread, and I offer the grilled sausage to him.
He shakes his head. “I’m quitting meat, man. Shit’s fucked up.”
More bread, more beer. How he’s keeping his shape, I will never know. With a sigh, I glance across the garden. “So why don’t you wanna ask her out?”
Ford scoffs. “Dude.”
The person in question is a girl, currently DJ-ing in a corner of the backyard. Her music provides a beating soundtrack to the gathering. Ford said he knows her but has never really spoken to her before. Her long dark braids are swinging at her waist. With shimmering skin, white teeth and lips frozen in a blissful smile, she’s breath-taking, effortless. She’s precisely Ford’s type, and as soon as I realise it, I want to disappear. This girl is a reminder of everything that I’m not: confident, nonchalant, gorgeous. A girl. And she’s a reminder that I will never kiss Ford again, because Ford is straight, painfully so.
Still, I want him and the thought makes our entire conversation a lot worse. I keep looking at him, and eventually, to please me, he shrugs. “Maybe I will.”
“You would be the perfect couple.”
“Maybe I don’t want to be the perfect couple withher.”
“Why not, is she one of Vicky’s friends? I thought you two were old history.”
“No, Ash, I don’t give a shit that she’s Vicky’s friend.” He raises his voice and the veins in his arms look ready to pop, making me flinch. He’s gotten so big in the last few months, I’m surprised his pants aren’t ripping with the muscles he’s been growing. A part of me wants to ask him about it but that would be admitting to myself that I am into it and worse of all, that I’m unhappy with the way I currently look. Same old lanky Ash.
“Okay, gosh, calm down. It’s so annoying when you get like that.”
“Like what?”
I mumble some words, not liking where this is going. But Ford keeps looking at me, waiting for me to spellitout.
“You get a little intense sometimes. When you’ve been drinking.” I shove the words ‘aggressive’ and ‘violent’ down my throat because Ford is nothing like that. He’s nothing like Daddy, or like Martin when Edwin stole his black sneakers. The more muscular Ford gets, the kinder his eyes become. The sharper his jawline, the softer the curve of his dimples.
“Sorry. I just…” And there it is again, the soft look of my best friend. My straight best friend. I have to remind myself often, these days.
???
They warned me, Morgan and Preston. “We don’t fall for straight men.”
At first, it was an empty warning. We’d go out, a straight man would hit on Morgan and she’d shoo him away. When I’d ask her about it, she’d blessed me with a pearl of Morgan’s wisdom.
“That straight boy can’t handle who I really am. Only a few can.”
I don’t exactly know what she meant. From the day I’d met her, I knew: Morgan was a girl. It didn’t matter to me what gender she was born, it didn’t matter that her mother thought her transition would send her to hell. Morgan was the girliest woman in my life. She loved being a woman and dreamed of rights, of equality.
But as naive as that sounds, I also knew her life wasn’t a walk in the park.
Preston and I fight every day to be who we are but Morgan fights even harder. And so, as her friends, Preston and I protect her. We play her bodyguards at the club, drive her home after midnight, and we shield her from the straight boys that can’t handle her.
And speaking of straight boys… It was Preston who first asked me if I had a crush on Ford. I’d just come back from a trip to Sheffield to see him and according to Preston, I could not shut my fucking gay mouth.
What a crazy question that was. Of course I did not have a crush on my childhood best friend.
“You just look at him like he’s hung the moon, every star and every planet in the galaxy.”
