Luminosity by Annabelle Jay

Author:Annabelle Jay [Jay, Annabelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: young adult
ISBN: 978-1-64080-182-0
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2018-02-20T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

EGRET TRANSITIONED behind the diner amidst a dumpster and a lot of trash that had missed the mark. As had become our usual positions, I climbed on her back and grasped her green feathers. This time, however, her back stiffened at my touch.

“I’m sorry,” I said as she took off and soared back toward the Council’s Mansion. “I shouldn’t have kept all of this from you.”

Which part? The fact that you were a girl inside, or that you’d transitioned on the outside? Oh, or the small detail about sacrificing yourself at the incubi portal?

“All of it?”

Egret fumed. She took turns so sharply that she almost threw me off—and I wasn’t sure she would catch me if I fell.

“Listen, I said I’m sorry. The truth is….” I inhaled deeply while urging myself to be brave. If I was going to be dead in a day, I had to start taking risks. “I like you. A lot. And I knew you wouldn’t be interested in me as Luke, but I thought maybe as Lumi….”

So you wanted to trick me into liking you by changing into a girl?

“No. That’s not what I’m saying—”

That’s what it sounds like. And in one way, you’re right; I was attracted to Lumi in a way I wasn’t attracted to Luke. Physically. So your little scheme worked. But I don’t do relationships, and eventually, I would have figured out the truth. Once a space boy, always a space boy.

Her words cut through my confidence like dragon talons through air. I knew that I was Lumi on the inside, but maybe on the outside I would always be a pale imitation of her, my gender tainted by every day I’d lived as Luke. Would Lumi have dealt with this whole situation differently? Would she have confided in Egret instead of lied to her, or sought solace in Rochelle instead of feigned death?

No.

Lumi could not have reacted differently, because Lumi was me.

No longer did Lumi wear Luke’s skin like a costume, and no longer did I have to wonder how life would be different without the mask. Maybe I would mess things up or react in the wrong way, but it wasn’t because I was “being Luke.” I had never been Luke, not really.

“You know what, Egret? I’m sick and tired of you projecting your fears onto everyone else. ‘Oh, they’re lying to me,’ you say, when really, you’re the liar. You convince girls to fall in love with you, and then you drop them faster than you dropped physics. Well, guess what? This girl doesn’t want to be with someone who breaks hearts for sport, so don’t flatter yourself by using my transition as some kind of validation of your universal attractiveness. If you can’t see that this is the real me, then I’m done with you, friend or whatever else we were.”

Fine.

“Fine.”

The rest of the ride was excruciating. The only sound was wind whipping by my ears, and then, when we hit a quiet patch of stagnant air, the beat of Egret’s wings.

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