what could have been.

It seems like I’m pushing people away. Actually not, I’m pulling myself back. I could have had something beautiful. I could have everything I ever wanted. Maybe it wouldn’t be perfect, but I would have tried. And trying, rather than giving up, would have made it worthwhile. It would have given me peace of mind knowing I had given it even the slightest chance.

So I’m going to tell my story, sort of.

Eight months ago, I went to college. I went to get away from home. Even as I type this, I should be in high school, but I’m not. I left because I was in a dark place. I had so much in my past that I couldn’t accept myself, so I changed into the most drastic thing I could think of: a trans-guy who wanted out of life.

Being trans, I could escape everything. I had a reason to hate the world; I blamed it on my new identity.

People keyed my car: it was because I was trans.

People made fun of my hair: it was because I was trans.

The list could go on. I hated life and it hated me back. So when I left, I wanted to bring my new ‘trans’ identity with me. I thought it could be the break I was looking for and I was set free.

However, I never took the time to realize that my trans-ness was a direct result of my continuing trauma and abuse at home. Once I was away from that, within days I had started healing, in my mind, and parts of the old me were coming to shine. By the time people were showing up on campus I was very gender neutral in everything. I was trying to figure out who I wanted to be and I made a choice to be me rather than a rebel who suppressed my real feelings.

The first move-in day, I met a guy. We will, for arguments’ sake, call him Mr. Z. When I first met him, I was with my roommate and a foreign language major. None of us knew each other. I kind of didn’t care about him when we first met; I liked the other guy better. Mr. Z was quiet and awkward and short.

He was short.

For me, I’m 5’8”-9”-ish, so height for me was something I thought was uncomprimisable. This guy, clocking in at only 5’6” was a good few inches shorter than me. And as I learned later, when I wear heels, I tower over him. Good thing I like flats. Or maybe that’s a bad thing…

Anyway, he just said he was a biochem major so right off the bat I figured he was lame and was going to be a doctor or something and was smarter than anyone.

So on the way back from where we all were going, he needed help carrying his stuff to his room. My roommate was already carrying her stuff and I was the only one with nothing, so I offered to help. I got to go up to his room within an hour of meeting him. (not that we did anything, I’m not that kind of person)

He and I went back to my room where my roommate was waiting then, and he gave me his number (even though my cell phone still had a parental lock on it and I couldn’t text or call him- I could only receive calls) and wrote his schedule on my calendar. So the whole month of August was reserved for his schedule.

We ended up having breakfast every day, lunch most days, and dinner, unless he was working. We would watch movies with my friends and we’d all pull the mattress on the floor to be more comfy and we would end up asleep curled around each other. We were so close, yet looking back, it couldn’t have been further in the end.

I thought there was something. He paid for me when we went to restaurants (for me we’re talking mc d’s and taco bell, not actual restaurants). He bought a whole playlist of “gay songs” we made with my other friend because he thought it’d be funny. He gave me piggy back rides. He would come to my room after class and we’d watch youtube videos and laugh our asses off lying on my bed, legs intertwined. He would text me all the time when I finally got a new phone, without a parental lock. We loved- at least, I loved- all the stupid things we did together, like go to a party and get his car towed and not get to sleep until 6 am in my room because we had to walk 3 miles to get it back. Or when he would play with a strand of my hair (which was short at the time, due to the trans thing).

I was stupid, I thought it meant something. I thought that maybe, for once in my life, I had a chance. I was wrong.

All the things we did I thought were because maybe he liked me. I liked him, I liked him a lot. I could see myself being happy with him. But he didn’t think the same. 

There was another guy in the picture this whole time, and this is where it gets complicated. He will be called GUY. GUY was just getting over his girlfriend who dumped him right before coming back to school. I was in a similar situation, seeing as me and my ex had broken up the day I came to college. (Long distance and trans thing, long story). So I kind of knew where he was coming from. However, with me and Mr. Z getting so cuddly every night we’d watch a movie or watch 24 (which was practically every night) and all the time we spent together, he’d be like “you guys really look like a couple,” bla bla bla. It wasn’t said in a nice way, either. It was said in the “what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” kind of way.

I didn’t really take offense at this, I liked being called out for it. I hoped Mr. Z would get the hint and maybe see that I liked him.

But that didn’t happen. And I had to make the choice to give him up.

After first semester, Mr. Z’s roommate moved out. They were fighting, with a lot of tension over me (since according to GUY they both liked me,) and the roommate finally left. Mr. Z got a new roommate and soon Mr. Z decided he would move in with GUY. GUY didn’t mind, since his roommate had never come back, and we figured it would make things easier having people in the same room we could all hang out more.

But right before Mr. Z was going to move in with GUY, GUY told me I had a choice to make.

Correction: he told me Mr. Z liked me. Then he gave me a choice.

I acted surprised, and he believed I didn’t know Mr. Z liked me. Truth is, both of us were wrong about it so it doesn’t even matter. I was stupid for believing and GUY was just stupid for thinking that Mr. Z did the things he did because he liked me. Maybe he did it for the kicks, maybe I did it to him and he just went along with it. I was just young and stupid, that’s all I know, so when he told me Mr. Z liked me I was ecstatic.

The choice, though, made me far less excited. I could either tell Mr. Z I liked him or not tell him ever.

Clear enough, I thought, and it gave me initiative.

But, GUY said, there was a catch.

If I told Mr. Z I liked him, GUY would stop being friends with both of us. And GUY also wouldn’t want Mr. Z rooming with him, so Mr. Z would have been stuck with his new guido Italian roommate that went out partying all the time.

If I didn’t tell Mr. Z I liked him, Mr. Z would be free to move in with GUY and we could all go on being friends.

Here was my predicament: if I told him I liked him, I would turn Mr. Z’s life to hell. GUY was Mr. Z’s only guy friend, really. Acutally, his only other friend other than me sort of, on campus. And if I made GUY mad at him, he would lose half of his friends. Not only that, he would loose his one chance at leaving his new greasebag roommate and be stuck with him the rest of the semester.

If I kept it to myself, I could be happy with both of them. I wanted my friends, both of them. I didn’t want to have to choose. But the heart wants what the heart wants, and I am a living testament to that. I still know what my heart wants; just because someone tells me to stop wanting it does not mean I will stop wanting it. It only means I will stop pursuing it.

So I stopped. I didn’t want to ruin Mr. Z’s life, I didn’t want to take the chance that if he didn’t like me, I’d have completely fucked myself over.

See, in our circle, GUY holds all the power. He degrades women and thinks I’m a baby still because I graduated a year early, he calls me a liar, and says that I’m incompetent and my opinions don’t matter because women are more weak minded than men and can’t stick to what they say.

Mr. Z can’t stand up to him because GUY is the only guy friend he has… and who knows why else. Maybe he feels some sort of reverence towards him, all I know is that he follows everything that GUY says. Maybe that’s just a guy thing, looking up to a guy like that.

So I talked to Mr. Z that night, and asked him if he liked me. He said no.

I asked him why he did the things he did, and he said I was doing them to myself, that all those times we ended up kind- of cuddling during movies was because I kept moving towards him and he didn’t want to be an ass and ask me to move. That he paid for all his friends at restaurants, that he ate practically every meal with me because that’s what friends did, and if it had been anyone else he would have done the same. He said “if we did have a thing, I would have made a move a long time ago. There’s this girl back home who I have more of a thing for than you.”

Dreams squashed.

I don’t know who this girl is, but if she’s reading this, I hope she’s happy. I hope she knows what she has is precious. If she exists, which I hope she doesn’t, even though hoping that is wrong of me. If she exists.

I asked him multiple times, saying GUY insisted that he liked me (which is true, I just left out the part of me insisting, too). He said every time that he didn’t. He said that we were just friends. And when he asked if I had told GUY that we didn’t have anything, I lied and told him I had. In reality I had told GUY that I did like Mr. Z back but that I wouldn’t tell him I did.

In the end I kept my promise to GUY. I didn’t tell Mr. Z I liked him. Even if my chances of meaning anything to Mr. Z were slowly closing in to zero, I didn’t want to screw things up with GUY. He’s my only other close friend, so if I could keep one friend close I’d be happy. It’s better than none.

Mr. Z could have been my everything. We fit together like puzzle pieces, we thought the same things, we liked the same things, and I thought we had chemistry. My roommate, my friends, even GUY thought there was something.

In the end, there was nothing. And since they moved in with each other a month and a half ago, I haven’t gotten to talk to Mr. Z like the way we used to talk. GUY is always there, and I think he’s suspiscious of Mr. Z liking me still. To GUY, Mr. Z needs to be watched to make sure he doesn’t try to make a move, which I now know is impossible because he doesn’t like me. I should come in and tell GUY that so he doesn’t have to worry, but I don’t want to because he would know that I asked Mr. Z’s opinion on the matter if I did that.

As I type this, there is a hope that maybe one day, I can have my first kiss. I would have liked it to have been with Mr. Z, but that’s not going to happen.

Somewhere deep down, a piece of me doesn’t want to accept that I will never be anything more than a friend to Mr. Z. And until that piece is extinguished, I keep the facts in line and repeat them to myself: he doesn’t like me. He doesn’t love me. I am just his friend. Just. A. Friend.

As I type this, though, I am also reading Steven King, his favorite author, because he loves reading and I’ve never read Steven King. It is spring break right now, so he is probably off somewhere with that new girl, and I am back here reading something because I know he liked it. Because I still hope there is something between us. I trust his judgement. If he read it, it was good.

If he loved me, it would have been good. But since he doesn’t, it isn’t.