Class has ended—I'm going to my locker to put away a couple of things. I did not anticipate not having any English homework today. Another paper falls out—not an envelope this time, though, just a folded up piece of notebook paper.

I pause. ...This is weird.

I kneel down and pick it up off the floor and for a minute, I stand in the quickly emptying hallway, looking at the note with my locker door wide open and my backpack on the floor. I unfold it.

Rozhan Martin,

Holy shit, now writing your name is kind of just...liberating in this way, that like...I'm admitting it. That I have a crush on you. I am like, head over heels in like with you. ...Love would be weird, so we're going with like. Oh, wow I'm making this weird.

I wasn't originally gonna put this in your locker, but one of my friends—who's in your English class—told me about Mister Brian's stroke and...I don't know, I found it really jarring. Not necessarily saddening, I was never fond of him but I don't know about you and I just...wanted to provide some comfort, I guess? I'm so sorry, I'm so awkward this is ridiculous.

So I wrote you another note! ...I guess, just for the purpose of saying again I have a crush on you. I just think you're really cool. A part of me wishes I could work up the courage to talk to you, because I just want to have a conversation with you, you know? Just a good one, but all I can manage is this. One day I'll talk to you. It's weird, you know, because like—and I mean this with no offense—you aren't that popular or anything. I've been told you aren't even that pretty, but I walk past you in the hall and I have this...weird urge to get closer. And I can't stop looking at you.

So, yeah! You're super cool! And...I'm gonna end this note here so I don't start looking like a bigger idiot than I already am.

I hope I get a chance to write you another time.

¿

I feel slightly dizzy, but I can't stop smiling when I pocket it.

My mom's smoking on the porch when I go home. My hair makes me look a lot like her—brown and curly, but her's is longer. Every other part of me looks more like my father, though—my monolid eyes, my height, my broad shoulders. Though, maybe that's just because I look a bit like a guy still.

She smiles when I approach, the smoke curls around her face, grey like the dreary, overcast skies but more toxic. She's wrapped in a blanket that has multiple holes from burns from cigarettes. She flicks a piece of ash onto the porch, leaned against the wall, the blanket slipping from her shoulders. "Hey, honey," she says, softly. The boards of the porch creak beneath my feet. She doesn't look like the type to smoke a pack a day—but she sounds like it. She's got the voice. "How was school?"

I shrug. "It was just school," I respond.

Her smile brightens. "It's not just school," she says. "You got a complete scholarship to one of the most prestigious schools in the country!" She exclaims. "We didn't have to pay a dime for the tuition—because my daughter is just so brilliant."

I smile—but I think prestigious might just mean "expensive" and while they didn't pay for tuition, my mother used every last cent she could on my uniform. Deming only did slightly better than me. "Mom," I say.

She moves the cigarette away from me and kisses my temple. "So proud," she says. "And then after high school, maybe you can get a scholarship for college, yeah? It'd be a big help."

I nod. "Right, mom."

She smiles and flicks some ash off her cigarette. "Have any homework?"

"Yeah," I admit. I straighten out my skirt. My shoes feel a little tight, but I think my feet are just slightly swollen. I have been on them all day. "I should probably get started on it."

She nods. "Alright, sweetheart. Shout if you need anything."

"'Kay, mom." It starts to drizzle when I step inside. I'm saving up my money to buy a desk for my room, so I'll be able to do my homework in there, but for now, I do it at the kitchen table. I don't turn on the dining room light and instead just take my math book out of my backpack and a notebook—I grab the wrong one and have to go rummaging through it again to try and find the right one, the one I use in math.

I'm still elbow deep in my backpack when my mom comes back in. She flips on the light in the dining room. "Do you want some popcorn?" She asks.

I don't even think about. "I'd love some popcorn," I respond.

My fingers finally wrap around the spine and pull it out. I flip it open and try to remember what page the assignment was in the math book. Usually, I write it on my hand, but I guess I was distracted today.

There's a knock on the door. I get up to get it—sure enough, it's Deming. "Right on cue, what was the page number for the assignment?" I ask.

"Wow, girl, thanks for inviting me in, you're so hospitable, I'm so glad I have such a nice friend who lets me in her house when it's raining outside and I came all the way to see them."

Deming literally lives three houses down the block. If he jogs, we're only one minute apart.

"Rozhan, don't be rude," my mother chides over the sound of the microwave in the popcorn. "Let him in."

"Yeah, you tā mā de mén!" I know 'fuck' is in there, and I know it's an insult, but Deming's wicked grin keeps me from being offended.

"Shut up, bitch." It's a murmur so my mom doesn't hear but Deming throws his head back in a laugh.

"It was page two hundred thirty something," Deming says. "I already finished it."

"Did you finish English?" I ask.

Deming is quiet—that means no. He has a different teacher, so he likely has homework. I flip to page two hundred thirty and scan over the pages while I slowly leaf through them. Of course, it's the last one I check, two hundred thirty nine. We don't actually use the math book a whole lot, because our math teacher takes pity on her students and doesn't expect us to carry three textbooks around at a time.

My mom places a bowl of popcorn in front of me—I usually eat it out of the bag, but my mom hates eating popcorn out of the bag for some reason. I've asked about it, but she doesn't know why she hates it so much, so she just pours it into a bowl when she makes it. "Thanks, mom."

"Deming, did you spend the night last night?" She asks. "I don't remember you coming over."

"Oh, no," he says. "You see—I broke in, intending to rob you but changed my mind for no other reason than I was too tired to carry the couch home with me."

My mom laughs as she walks away—I do my homework while Deming talks.

"Oh," I say when I'm on the last of the twenty five math problems, like I've forgotten, but I've actually been eagerly waiting to tell him once I could give my absolute full attention to Deming and our conversation. "I forgot to tell you—I found another note in my locker."

Deming's eyes light up—he's very excited to hear about my love life, apparently. "No way! I knew it! I knew it wasn't a prank!"

I still haven't ruled out it being a prank—but I mean, the more notes I get, the less likely it is a prank, right? I know people are cruel, but also, school is really competitive and I don't think people would really set aside the time it takes to write these notes out to me. I mean, maybe, but like—I just want to believe they're real, I guess. I really hope that doesn't make me stupid.

I pull it out of my binder and hand it to him, he reads it eagerly—like how my grandmother's dog ate my ice cream cone when I was six; eagerly and desperate, going as fast as possible before you can even think to take it away. But unlike my dog, Deming is human and also, will not die.

"Ooh! Someone's got a crush on you, Roz!" He exclaims. "This is so cool! Now you're gonna get like, a romance novel plot!" When Deming first got together with Kohl, his relationship had been like the plot of a romance novel—then again, romance novels do have some varying plots. A Sci-Fi novel about fighting aliens could be a romance novel, on top of like, science fiction, I guess. I don't know.

"Yep," I say, cramming a fistful of popcorn into my mouth. "Romance novel plot happening right now."

He laughs. "The main heroine of a romance novel." He gestures to me. "Right here. Who wouldn't want you?"

I roll my eyes. "You're a jerk."

"So are you—the other day, you said, 'Only idiots wear fanny packs, dicknips.'"

"But it was true."

"It was gorgeous!"

"You just like anything with rainbows on it," I told him.

"It's a gay thing," he said. "Which, of course, you—a bisexual...or maybe pansexual, whatever you get what I mean, transgirl—knows nothing about."

"I know nothing of the LGBTQ+ community." He steals a piece of popcorn. "Did anything happen for you today?"

"Some girl told me I was going to hell," Deming says. "And I thought, 'I'll see you there,' but instead I just choked out, 'bitch!' And I felt dumb for awhile." I nodded. "But other than that, no."

I sigh and stand up, stretching. "What about art class? You still going strong in it?"

He doesn't meet my eyes. "Yeah, totally," he says, like a liar. "It's great."

I want to say something. I want to point out that he doesn't sound truthful at all, say that he can tell me anything. Instead...

"That's cool," I say, like a coward.