Second Chances in New Port Stephen - Chapter 15

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Second Chances in New Port Stephen - Chapter 15

Then came the picture that was taken on Eli’s graduation day. In the original, he and his parents
were standing out in front of his old high school, Eli in his cap and gown and clutching the black
folder that held his diploma. He looked a little dazed, likely because his breakup with Nick had
still been fresh. Behind them was the sign for Port Stephen Preparatory with the puma mascot
slinking across the words in profile.
“Let’s hop in the car and head over there,” Cora said with unvarnished excitement in her eyes. “I
bet we can find the exact spot we were standing.”
Eli raised both brows. “Isn’t the school shut down because of all the hurricane damage?”
“There’s a fence,” Max said, “but only around the buildings. This looks like it was taken out in
the parking lot, right? That should be fine.”
Wendall looked up from his self-appointed task of folding up Orlando Bloom. “We still have your
cap and gown too. It’s hanging in the laundry room.”
“Why on earth would you keep that?” Eli asked.
“It cost fifty dollars!” Cora protested. “Plus, it’s still good. Max can borrow it at the end of the
year, save some cash.”
Max snorted. “Yeah, if graduation ever even happens.”
“Oh, honey, one way or another, you’ll have a graduation. It just may not be the one you
pictured.” Cora patted Max on the shoulder, but her gaze was locked on Eli.
Very subtle. Eli took off his tie and followed the chaotic bustle of his parents ushering everyone
into the Subaru.
They reached the school as the sun started going down, painting the sky all kinds of oranges and
pinks. Max muttered some comment about losing the light, which Eli felt was a tad dramatic.
They pulled into the abandoned student parking lot, now ringed with a chain-link fence that
bristled with warning signs about the danger of trespassing beyond that point, by order of Saint
Stephen County.

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“Hurry, get this on.” Cora tossed the voluminous burgundy graduation gown in Eli’s face before
he’d even had a chance to fully exit the car.
“Why does this smell like lavender?” he asked as he wrestled it over his head.
“Your mother’s potpourri game is, as the kids say, on point.” Wendall plopped the matching
mortarboard on Eli’s now-free head.
“No kids say that. Not since, like, 2004.”
Wendall put his hands on his hips and surveyed the damage beyond the fence. Some of the
metal roofs had been peeled back by the high winds like the lid of a tin can, the scraps either
littering the ground or barely holding on to the roofline. “What a mess. We won’t need to have
this in the background, right?”
“I’ll crop it out.” Max jogged backward several yards, holding up the original photo to use as a
guide. “A little more to the left, I think. Yeah, come closer? Perfect.”
“Which side is Eli’s tassel supposed to be on?” Cora called. She brought the mortarboard tassel
to the front of the hat, switching it from left to right and back again. “I can’t remember which
way is post-ceremony.”
While she and Max hashed out that small detail, Eli let his gaze wander over the high school
buildings. Some of it was new construction, completely unfamiliar to him, but he could spot the
old single-level classrooms he’d used, all
connected by open-air walkways. He remembered how chaotic it had been when it was time for
classes to switch. Those sidewalks had roiled with bodies, every student desperate to use the
four or five minutes they had to high-five a friend, to kiss a girlfriend or boyfriend, to visit the
dank restroom at supersonic speed. Eli could practically hear the late-nineties alt-pop, could
smell the cucumber melon body spray that the pretty girls seemed to bathe in. And he could
feel, in the pit of his stomach, the old sinking dread that this place had filled him with every day
for four fucking years.
It had taken years of therapy for him to grasp what had happened to him in high school. It
wasn’t that he’d been bullied or had a hard time with his teachers; on the surface, everything
was normal. He hadn’t been super popular, but he wasn’t disliked. He wasn’t the smartest kid,
but he got decent grades. His swimming career wasn’t record-breaking, but he was a
dependable member of the team. He had a secondhand car, parents who weren’t divorced and
didn’t want to be, and a sweetheart of a boyfriend in Nick. It all looked ideal.
But growing up trans without knowing what it was? Without knowing that trans people even
existed? That had hollowed him out, like there was a piece missing and no one would tell him

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what it was. He thought it was normal, that everyone must feel that way from time to time, so
he ignored it right up until he couldn’t anymore.