how to make friends
my first short story ever, now in Lilac Peril's 1st issue
how to make friends, by hyunji
bedrot your whole life, the entire 24 years, doing nothing but staring at the ceiling. one day, randomly open your eyes at 6:15 am. it was a nightmare but the details evade you. still tired, your mind starts racing. well, it's technically blank but a lot is happening. you can't go back to sleep, so open your phone and type into Google: how do i know if i'm trans. strange, you don't know how that appeared on your search bar. press return.
your stomach starts hurting again, with stronger nausea this time. it's as if someone added four each of reverb and modulation and delay pedals to a board, turned on a 300 watt 4x12 Marshall tube amp inside your stomach at max volume, started playing Meshuggah guitar solos, and the output is coursing down your intestines, the sound waves crashing and bouncing off the walls at each twist. your head is ringing. flip over and dry heave a few times.
back on the phone. click on a super sus looking url. click on a big red button. it turns you into a girl. get shooketh. spend the next three months doing just enough work to not get fired and become a full time biochemistry psychiatry queer history feminist gender theory medical researcher, studying the mysterious magic of turning a lazy depressed gifted ugly boy into a lazy somewhat less depressed dumb hot girl.
a year later, you're a girl. a goddess babygirl princess. you're hot af. you know this because two internet strangers told you so. decide it's finally time you get a girlfriend. go on Reddit, where all the other depressed hot girlies are at. search for all relevant posts. open 48 tabs and crash Chrome. restore all tabs. you can't miss a single one even though they all literally say the same shit. scour every post and comment, copying and pasting relevant quotes onto your notes app. the paste is messed up. command+z, shift+option+command+v.
most posts are depressing and pointless. you already know everything but you're still reading them for some reason. you finally come across useful info: there's this cool dating app, specifically designed for sapphic dating. god bless. download and start swiping. it's kinda like Tinder, but with a more clunky and ugly UI.
three consecutive hours of swiping later, match with a hot single trans girl in your area (only 64 miles away). Google Maps her city because you've never heard of it. it's a 2 hour drive. well, um, perfect. initiate the convo hella smooth: hiiii omg you're so cute :3
successfully secure a date after a couple days of talking nonstop about using your favorite text editor to write your favorite statically typed programming language (lily walks you through her Neovim config setup and gushes about Rust. get super wet).
get behind the wheel for 2 hours to nowhere, even though you drive like 4 miles on an average week because you hate driving. as you drive, swerve wildly a few (7) times. tell yourself pretty girls don't have to be good drivers. chug the last bits of your morning oat milk latte. blast some Charli XCX to keep awake.
lily is already at the coffeeshop. she suggested her local Starbucks (note to self: do not talk politics). awkwardly make eye contact and wave. pray no one is looking at your table. this starbucks is huge for no reason, but thankfully half empty.
she stands up from her seat as you walk towards her. act calm. pretend you didn't just almost do a double take. her profile said 5'11". she's definitely not 5'11". you're exactly 6 feet (which is 5'10" in trans girl math), and she's a few inches taller than you, probably like 6'3". decide that it's for the best since you feel smaller for once.
she opens her arms. awkwardly step in and manage a half hug. your hands and arms feel the bones in her shoulders and upper back. her boniness startles you. you've never seen a girl bonier than you. her bones and your bones clash together with minimal buffer flesh and it kinda hurts and ain't at all comfy. touch is your love language but you can't even imagine cuddling with her. step back to get a better look at her for the first time. damn, girl got no ass. and she's not quite like her photos. she must got the state of the art photo filters. notice the faintly visible stubble. did she look in the mirror today? exclaim, "omg girl you're looking gorg." for some reason, her face and voice remind you of Bojack Horseman. tell her again how amazing she looks.
you and lily get coffee and sit down. well, lily gets coffee and you get a grande ice water cuz like, Starbucks. sit and talk for a few hours about a lot of nothing. she says words, you say words. feel a slight panic when you realize you have no way of telling whether she likes you.
halfway through the date, notice her long flowy blonde wig slightly slip off, offering a sneak peak into her mighty forehead – a textbook case of a fivehead, as kids these days would say. silently stare but pretend nothing happened. it's hard to ignore. don't say it, don't say it, don't look, focus on her eyes, no not there, her lopsided blue wild wings freak you out, try her lips, her dense stubble gives you vertigo.
she unexpectedly pivots the convo into Warhammer 40k. notice the raw excitement in her eyes and the voice, still monotone and low but pitching up just a little, which makes you smile. do your best to show then immediately lose all interest. suppress the urge to interrupt with wait why is it 40k, and not 30k or 50k? try to stay awake and nod and mhmm and oooo at somewhat regular but slightly irregular intervals to demonstrate your undivided attention.
you're a shitty date. blame yourself for being your usual rude, selfish self. actually, blame Nixon. fuck america and fuck capitalism too, but also extra fuck Nixon in particular. recall that Nixon created the DEA to target black drugs to target black folks. marvel at the sheer genius. meditate on the DEA, our beloved Doctor Pharmacist Economist Biomedical Scientist Philosopher King who sets arbitrary hard quotas on manufacturing life saving drugs and then graciously attributes the manufacturers for the inevitable shortage, which combined with the supply chain issues caused by COVID and just the fragile ass weak sauce capitalist mode of production in general, means your local CVS hasn't had addy in stock in a couple months, which you know because you've called all pharmacies within a 25 mile radius, all 37 of them. it took all day. you got mad ADHD. you can't focus for shit without adderall, everyone knows that. so yes, you feel bad for being rude, but you can't help it, Nixon got you good.
“um, emma? my apologies, i didn't mean to infodump on you. should we talk about something else?"
you so got this, you can recover. decide a little honesty might help here. "wow sorry i didn't mean to look bored, i just don't know very much about uh, video games."
"oh no worries, thanks for telling me! um. ooh i know, i've been really getting into drag shows lately."
freeze. you feel your brain whirling, isn't modern drag just white gay men stealing black queer culture for funsies and clout? pray you didn't think aloud. apparently everyone and their grandma is into it now but you've never met any trans girl who positively actually actively consumes drag. it makes sense though, since lots of trans women performed drag like 60 years ago and still do so today.
mask mask mask. look interested. you're doing great this time, because lily happily yaps on. keep nodding and asking clarifying questions. don't think about how randomly encountering even just a poster of drag events is a top 10 most dysphoria-inducing phenomena for trans women in the 21st century united states. seeing a drag queen makes you wanna bleach your eyes and wipe your memory and jump off a rooftop bar. shut the fuck up.
happy thoughts. you like listening to lily talk. you're polite and curious. no, not just curious. you're very supportive, a strong and outspoken ally of the LGBTQIA+ community. there's absolutely no way you don't love this stuff. after all, who wouldn’t want to tightly squish tuck their dick with surgical tape, stuff a Victoria's Secret bra with socks and padding, put on a beautiful dress -– bareback with sexy straps of course to show off them broad Hulk shoulders and back muscles, sleeveless to showcase them massive bi's and tri's with bulging veins crisscrossing throughout every which way like the highways of LA, and form fitting to reveal that sexy straight drop line that connects the square block Lego Roblox torso and waist to them beautifully narrow Mr. Incredible hips -- put on enough foundation to be a woman in an ancient japanese woodblock painting, paint scary modern art eye makeup with wings big enough for a monarch butterfly, and perform black femme caricatures on stage to cis white fans dolphin screaming "yas queeeeeen" at the local gay bar? yas truly so brave and subversive, big slay. smile smile smile. no, actually.
"should i change the subject?"
you fucked up. reassure her, "oh my god no sorry i was just thinking of something else, uh my cat, no ya drag rocks." attempt to continue the sentence with "i go to shows all the time" but the words get stuck in your throat; you're too autistic to lie that far.
"oh good, i thought you looked kind of disgusted for a sec. i'm kinda autistic so i misread expressions a lot."
do a demifake laugh. "no worries i get it cuz like, same here."
the conversation continues. you hear sounds but they don’t make words. stare out the window behind her, your vision is losing focus. she turns around to check out what you were looking at.
"sorry, i sometimes stare at random stuff cuz i'm bad at eye contact."
god, this is so awkward. the store starts to slowly spin around you. mumble sorry and excuse yourself. stand up, but awkwardly pause midflight with your knees slightly bent. deliberate, and for some reason, feel like it would be a good idea to bring your purse along. head to the restroom. the floor feels like the deck of a small boat on moderate waves. painfully glance at the women's for 50 milliseconds just with the whites of your eyes and gently kick open your door. it's a small but decently kept bathroom, with warm lighting and a recently cleaned mirror. you see yourself in excessive detail.
close your eyes. briefly replay the date thus far in your head: the fuck are you doing? all you did was disassociate like hell and disappoint a perfectly okay girl.
did you actually think things would be different this time? just because she's not cis? just because you got more estrogen flowing in your veins? estrogen ain't fixing the reason why your partners leave you, the reason your dates ghost you, the reason friends avoid you, you annoying selfish hideous weird ass bitch that no one would want to fuck. no lesbian actually wants you. go suck dick.
stumble a little to the left. open your eyes and barely catch the wall at the last second for balance. take a couple steps forward for a better view. lean against the sink into the mirror, unintentionally jutting out your butt. it's flat as fuck -- you can see it in the equally pristinely clear side mirror. stare into your eyes. see nothing. zoom back out. see the silhouette of your face. grotesque monstrosity. try not to look but the visuals already reached your mind. the subtle stubble, the paper thin lips, the acne, the hollow, bony cheeks, the giant hooked nose, the strong square brick jaw, the razor sharp jawline.
the longer you stare the uncannier it looks. feel the mouth of your throat tighten. your eyes and sinus cavities burn. desperately gasp for air. take slow, deep breaths like your med student ex-friend told you. inhale. count to three, exhale. your lungs shrink in half. air is coming in through your nose but dissipates to nothing before it can reach your lungs. feel gelatinous fluid drip down from the sinus and coalesce in the back of your mouth. spit out a warm lump of dark blood into the porcelain sink. seeing red brings you back to childhood.
a man barges in and politely says, "'scuse me boss."
jump a little. step aside cooly as if you didn't just flinch despite towering over him. text lily: omg so so sorry i had a random fmaily emergency come up and hve to go asap. it was lovly meeting you we should def do this again <3
gently push kick the door open, stumble out the back, crawl to the car, crumple.
* a beatifully typeset version of this story is published in the first anthology published by Lilac Peril of DC, edited by Andrea and Luke.
you can pre-order a copy at: lilacperil.bigcartel.com/product/issue-01-taboo
Lilac Peril is an indie press publishing local trans writers. lilacperil.com/
if you liked any aspect of this feel free to message/comment any feedback or thoughts <3