OSCAR

I get home, and am at once ambushed by my older sister, Zoe.

“I know that look. What’s his name?” she asks.

“Shut up. What look?” I immediately school my features out of whatever apparently recognizable position they might have been in. 

She smirks. “The one you had when you walked through the door. Where you’re smiling and staring off into the distance like no one else exists,” she says matter-of-factly.

“Well, I wish you didn’t exist.”

“Nah, you love me.” I roll my eyes and smile. She’s got me there, of course, but I’m not going to admit that out loud, am I?

“His name is Liam, but I just met him and I’m not even sure I like him. And also he’s so obviously straight, you don’t even know.” 

“I know the feeling,” she says with a chuckle. Zoe is pan, but she’s not out to our moms yet. Neither am I, technically, I guess. But they know. I mean, after I came out as trans, they had to assume I still liked guys, right?

I walk up the stairs to my room, and Zoe follows. As I cross the threshold into my territory, I turn to tell her to go away, but she’s already walked off to her own room. Weird, that keeps happening to me. 

Whatever, I’m not going to dwell on that when this short time before dinner is my only time to really relax before I have to face the hurricane of questions about my day that waits for me just down the stairs.