First Time for Everything (26 page)

“He’s not worth it,” Cam said, tugging at her arm. “Come on.”

Jen let him half pull her a few steps, then shook his hand off. She hated it when he did that stuff, like she was one of the girls who always wanted the guys to protect her. She could handle Todd, even if all she did was walk away.

“You okay?” he asked.

Jen could still feel Todd watching them, and it made her skin crawl, but she nodded anyway. She could handle Todd. She could handle the guy who’d called her John earlier, and the girls who offered to give her tips on doing her hair and makeup, and her Spanish teacher who’d gone through Jen’s assignment about her future and changed all the female pronouns to male ones and then failed her when she handed it back in with them corrected back to female.

Less than a year and she’d be graduating and going to college, and no one would know or care that she used to be different. She could handle anything until then.

M
ONDAY
MORNING
was always the worst, like people spent the weekend coming up with better things to shout at her when she walked into school, and Cam had French Club first thing, so he wasn’t even there to walk with her.

“At least all they do is shout,” her dad always said, which was kind of true but didn’t make her feel any better. On the other hand, her dad had refused to let her come out at school without Mr. Sheppard’s permission, so that was probably the best she could hope for from him. She tried not to think about it too much, the same way she tried not to think about the huge fight they’d had over her telling the rest of her family that she was Jen, not John.

Ms. Carter was always in the art room really early on Monday mornings, and there wasn’t usually anyone else there, so Jen jumped about three feet when she opened the door and saw another student sitting at the front bench, talking to Ms. Carter.

“Good morning, Jen,” Ms. Carter said, looking up. “How was your weekend?”

“Um, okay.” The other student—another girl, but not one Jen recognized from behind—hadn’t turned round. “Should I go?”

Ms. Carter shook her head. “No, come in. I’m going to leave you two girls alone for a few minutes while I run down to the prep room for some more clay.”

Jen couldn’t help her smile at Ms. Carter calling her a girl, even though Ms. Carter always did. She still hadn’t heard it often enough to be used to it.

She set her stuff down on the end of the front bench—because it was her bench, even if there was a stranger there—and ignored the other girl while Ms. Carter found her keys and reminded them she’d be back in a few minutes.

As the door closed behind their teacher, Jen watched from the corner of her eye as the other girl pushed her long hair back from her face and turned toward her. “Are you Jen?” she asked quietly.

Jen adjusted her pen so it was lying perfectly parallel to the spine of her math book. “Yes. Why?”

“I’m Katie,” the other girl said. She wrapped a strand of dark hair around her finger, not quite looking at Jen. “I just transferred here a few weeks ago.”

Jen tried not to sigh. Mr. Sheppard had gotten a couple of people from the local LGBT association to come into school and answer the other kids’ questions after Jen came out, but lots of people still had things they wanted to ask her. Ms. Carter always said it was just because they were curious and didn’t know anyone else they could ask, and that Jen couldn’t tell them to just google it. Which Jen thought was really unfair, since that was what the teachers always said when people had extra questions in class.

“Hi.” Jen looked back down at her books, hoping Katie wouldn’t say anything else.

“You’re friends with Cam, right? Who’s on the hockey team?”

“Yes?” Jen ducked her head, knowing it wouldn’t really hide her grin, since her hair wasn’t long enough. Before, loads of girls had wanted to get close to her so they could get close to Cam. She’d always hated it, even though Cam never seemed interested in them, but no one had tried it in ages. Not since she’d come out.

“Do you play?”

Jen shook her head. “No girls’ team here,” she said. Not that they couldn’t play with the boys, of course, but no one had in the whole time Jen had been at the school, probably because the soccer team had effectively defaulted to being a girls’ team a couple of years ago, and the division had stuck.

Katie made a disgusted face, but before Jen could say anything, she said, “I know!” sounding really upset about it, actually looking right at Jen for the first time. “It’s only, like, a decade and a half into the twenty-first century. How come only the boys get to play? That’s not fair.”

“You used to play?” Jen guessed, not feeling like it was exactly a wild and out there kind of guess.

“Yeah. You know, if this was England, it wouldn’t even be weird for there to only be a girls’ team. It’d be weird for there to only be a boys’ team.”

“Shame we’re not in England, then.”

“Yeah.” Katie took a deep breath and pushed her hair back behind her ears. “So, I was hoping I’d see you here this morning because I wanted to ask you something.

Jen braced herself again for whatever intrusive thing Katie was probably going to ask and wished Ms. Carter would come back before she got the chance.

“If there was, like, a mixed team or something, would you join? Ms. Carter said she thought you used to play for fun, like with Cam and stuff.”

Jen had been so busy expecting a stupid question that it took her a couple of seconds to realize what Katie had actually asked. “You know no one else would join if I did, right?” She didn’t mean to sound too bitter, but sometimes she couldn’t help it. Sometimes she just got tired. Especially knowing this was probably the moment that Katie would shrug and say never mind.

“That’s not true,” Katie said firmly, frowning. She shuffled her chair a bit closer to Jen’s. “Look, I don’t know exactly what you’re going through, but I took my girlfriend to junior prom with me last year, and it was like they’d never seen two girls even holding hands before. It sucked majorly, but then a couple of people came up to talk to us, and one of the other girls said she wished she’d asked her girlfriend, and it was like….” She trailed off, her face falling, and Jen thought that made sense. She’d be sad if she’d left something like that behind to come here, especially if she’d had to leave her girlfriend (well, or boyfriend, in her case) as well.

“And you think a hockey club’s going to do the same?” she asked, not quite able to keep the doubt out of her voice.

Katie grinned, bright and happy. “At least if it doesn’t, we’ll have sticks to hit people in the shins when they say stupid stuff.”

That, Jen thought she could get behind.

T
HEY
GOT
permission from Mr. Ford, the hockey coach, to use the pitch on Wednesdays after school, when the boys’ team didn’t have it, and put up posters all over school advertising that they were meeting in the cafeteria before the first practice.

When Jen arrived, Katie was the only person there.

“Great turnout,” Jen said dryly, sitting on the edge of the table and resting her feet on the chair next to Katie.

“It’s only five of,” Katie said, not bothered. “People can still turn up.”

“Maybe there’s a reason we’ve never had a mixed hockey team here.”

“Yeah, no one ever tried to start one till I got here.”

Katie’s total confidence kind of made Jen want to laugh, especially since she’d been so shy when they’d first met. It was good to know someone felt confident, since Jen was pretty much only there because Katie had reached out to her, and no one really did that anymore, even if most people were generally fairly accepting.

“You know what this is like?” she asked. Katie shook her head. “It’s like the start of one of those movies where the popular kids learn to respect the geeky kids, and just when we’re starting to feel like no one’s going to turn up and we’re such failures, a whole bunch of people will walk through the door.”

They both turned to look at the cafeteria doors, which didn’t even open.

“Good thought,” Katie said, grinning.

“That would’ve been weird, though.”

Katie nodded, and they stared at the door for a while. “So, I saw a poster for a Halloween dance,” Katie said when the door didn’t open.

“Every year. Cam and I went as fairies last year.” She’d looked at herself in the mirror and wanted to cry, because, head to toe in glitter and silver, she’d looked like a girl. Three months later, she’d told her dad and Cam who she really was.

“Fairies?” Katie asked, eyebrows going up.

“Real fairies.” Jen dug her phone out of her pocket and scrolled through her pictures. “Like, wings and everything.” She turned her phone to show Katie—her and Cam in matching outfits, arms round each other, both of them grinning.

“You look pretty,” Katie said softly. She looked down at the photo again, mouth opening like she was going to ask something.

Of course, that was when the door opened. It wasn’t a crowd of people, just one, but that one was more of a surprise than a whole crowd would have been: Liz was on the track team and a cheerleader, popular and smart and funny. She was pretty much the last person Jen would have expected to see.

“Hey,” Liz called, hurrying across to them. “You’re still here, great. I thought I might’ve missed you.”

When neither Jen nor Katie said anything, she frowned uncertainly. “Mixed hockey team, right? Oh God, did I get the wrong day? Have I just cut in on your conversation? I’m sorry—”

“No,” Katie said quickly. “I mean, no, you haven’t got the wrong day, yes, hockey team. I’m Katie.”

“Hi.” Liz grinned again, flipping her blonde ponytail over her shoulder. “You send everyone else out already?”

“We’re it, so far,” Jen said.

Liz looked over, and her smile didn’t change at all. “Small but perfectly formed,” she said cheerfully.

“I guess,” Katie said uncertainly. “I’m not sure how much we can really do with three people, though. Even numbers would be better.”

“You did call it the Oddballs Hockey Club,” Liz pointed out. “You should’ve expected odd numbers.”

Jen laughed, even though it was a terrible pun, and Liz grinned at her again.

“All right,” Katie said decisively. “We’ll get started. Maybe some other people will turn up later on.”

Jen couldn’t help dropping back from them slightly as they walked down to the locker rooms, not wanting anyone to make a big deal out of how she wouldn’t follow them in there.

“Come on, already.” Liz circled back, tugging at Jen’s arm. “Let’s go.” She didn’t let go as they passed the unisex disabled toilet that Jen usually changed in, because it was easier, and because Mr. Sheppard was great, better than loads of other people’s teachers, but he wasn’t ever going to be perfect, and there were some fights he hadn’t wanted to have.

“I don’t—” Jen started feeling herself flush stupidly.

Katie held the door, looking right at her. “Yeah, you do,” she said, and it was easier just to follow her and Liz. Easier to let them pull her along, instead of trying to argue through a throat that had tightened up with a weird kind of relief and sadness at the way they just made her seem normal.

She still kept her back to them as she changed, shrugging out of baggy jeans and hoodie and into equally baggy sweatpants and a Birchwood High T-shirt left over from before.

She wasn’t sure the weather was really warm enough for just a T-shirt, but Katie, who’d apparently forgotten to mention that she was a total slave driver, made them run laps round the field to warm up.

Jen was halfway round her second lap, wondering when she’d gotten so unfit that she couldn’t keep up with the other two, when she caught sight of someone running across the field, heading straight for them. It was a guy, waving and shouting something she couldn’t hear, just the harsh tone of his voice carrying on the cool air.

She stopped, catching her breath and trying to swallow against the familiar surge of fear, just the three of them out in the field and no one to say or do anything. “Hey,” she called out to Katie and Liz, still running. “Hey, wait.”

Katie slowed, turning slightly. “You okay?”

Jen started jogging toward them, watching the figure get closer. “Yeah, just—wait for me, yeah?”

Katie looked in the same direction Jen was, then started moving back toward her. “Liz, come here a sec.”

Jen stepped closer to them both, feeling an odd wave of protectiveness she couldn’t shake.

“It’s probably nothing,” Liz said quietly.

“Latecomer,” Katie agreed.

Jen wondered if they were expecting her to protect them. A year ago, even less, and she would have stepped in front of them out of habit, because her father had always taught her that young men never let a woman get into a fight, and she hadn’t ever, she’d never….

“Jen!” For a second, she was sure she’d heard, “John,” her heartbeat kicking up with fear that was closer to panic. “Jen, hold up. What, you couldn’t wait five minutes?”

And then she knew the voice, of course; she knew the person it was attached to, and the relief made her knees a little weak. “What, you don’t own a watch?” she yelled back.

Cam wasn’t quite close enough for Jen to see if he smiled or not, but he slowed to a jog.

“It’s okay,” Jen said more quietly, as much to herself as to Katie and Liz, who’d already started to move away from the slightly defensive formation they’d fallen into. “It’s just Cam.”

“Great,” Liz said dryly. “Now I’m going to feel like even more of an amateur.”

“H
OW
DO
you do that three times a week?” Jen asked an hour and a half later, walking back toward school next to Cam, who had his hockey stick over his shoulder like a movie gangster with a rifle. “My legs feel like I’ve just run up a mountain.”

“You get used to it,” Cam said cheerfully. He wasn’t even winded, just a bit windswept, and it made him look really good. Jen would bet she’d gone red and splotchy, and her hair, which still wasn’t really long enough to do anything with, looked like she’d been in a wind tunnel or something. It really wasn’t fair that her best friend was so hot.