Knowing Me, Knowing You

Don't Shut Me Down

Like it was after every swim practice, the locker room was a mess that Xander and Trevor needed to clean before they could leave. "I swear, we need to have another meeting about respecting this space. If it weren't for us, we wouldn't be able to use this space anymore. We'd most likely be banned from using the locker room."

"We can just talk to coach about it tomorrow," Xander stated. "I just want to go home right now."

"And listen to ABBA with your girlfriend?" Trevor smirked.

"No. Well, maybe the ABBA part, but you know Carter and I are not dating. And we have no plans to start dating either."

"You keep saying that, yet the entire team is making bets about who's going to confess first and when."

Groaning, Xander hung his head. "It really isn't like that with her. Carter may be my friend, but we haven't even had an actual deep conversation yet. We sort of had one a few weeks ago, but nothing since then. I don't know her well enough to want to be with her."

"But if you got to know her better, do you think you would want to date her?"

"I don't want to think about dating her, because I don't want things to be awkward and ruined between us. I care about her a lot. If romantic feelings got involved..." Xander sat down on the bench, gripped the edge of it, and began breathing quickly and heavily. "I can't think about that."

Kneeling in front of Xander, Trevor placed his hands on his shoulder and began to instruct his breathing. "You need to learn to not have a panic attack every time you think about dating someone."

"I just can't lose her. She means too much to me to lose her like that. I love Carter. She's the best. I don't want feelings to be the thing that prevents us from staying this way. I'm happy where we are. We both are."

"Then I'm sorry for bringing it up. I'll make sure no one brings it up, but I want you to know that if you two do wind up dating, it's not going to be the worst thing in the world. Carter would be respectful of your feelings if she turned you down. But if she felt the same way, you now know things will just get better. You've done the friend part. Dating is like being friends, just with perks."

"That's not how you two are," he scoffed.

"That's because that's our relationship. If you were to be with someone, I know you'd want them to be more buddy-buddy with you than anything. But being romantic is nice, too. And I know you can be romantic. But the reason you're always freaking out about being with someone long term is because you don't have those long-term feelings for them. When you find someone you actually want to spend time with, the only thing you'll worry about is losing them."

"Isn't that what I'm freaking out about now?" Xander scoffed.

"You tell me," Trevor replied. Slinging his backpack over his shoulder, he said, "It's date night, so I'll see you tomorrow."

"Good job today," Xander exhaled, waving dejectedly to Trevor as he exited the locker room.

He understood what Trevor claimed. Part of him even believed it. It made sense that he didn't want to be with those other girls long term, but he'd never seen Carter in that way. Sure, he may have been worried about losing her, but that was more as friend. It was why he had a panic attack in the hallway when he thought their friendship was over.

Getting along with Carter was easy. He could talk about whatever trivial thing he wanted, and she'd respond with no judgement. He didn't have to have hard conversations with her in order to be entertained and to get to know her. But thinking about not having those conversations made him want to have them even more. He wanted to probe deeper into her brain and learn about the less trivial things. He wanted to read all the pages that were already written in the book about her. He wanted to cherish that book and take care of it. He wanted to make sure that whoever she ended up with would do the same.

Since he could picture her dating other people, Xander assumed that meant there were no feelings. But as he sat in the empty locker room, he began to picture what it would be like to date Carter. The image may have been a bit foggy, but he could see it. In a strange way, he liked it. At the same time, he didn't care about it. Maybe what he liked more was the fact that he could see himself with her at all. He just wanted her in his life. He had that now, and that was all that mattered.

Then why did Trevor's words stick with him? Why was he afraid to lose what he had with Carter when they'd already talked it out? Carter didn't want to stop being his friend either. They were friends, and thinking about her in a more romantic way made him nervous because he was afraid to lose her. He didn't want to risk losing her. That was would break his heart. He didn't want to break his heart.

Exiting the locker room, Xander wasn't surprised to find Ryan leaning against the wall in his cheer leading uniform. "Missy," he nodded.

"Xander."

"I feel like this is déjà vu."

"I guess it is in a way," he smirked. "I've been thinking about us this past weekend."

"Oh?"

"How we both agreed we were over each other."

"I believe it was you who said you were over me. I've never had those feelings for you before."

He rolled his eyes. "Whatever. I'm over you. That means we can go back to what we had before." He pushed himself off the wall and stepped up to Xander. Wrapping his arms around Xander's neck, Ryan pushed himself up onto his toes and leaned in. "Everything can go back to normal."

"I don't want that anymore."

Not only was Ryan surprised to hear those words, Xander was surprised he even said them. When did he ever deny going back to Ryan and hooking up with him? Every time Ryan allegedly got over his crush on Xander, they'd resume what they had and keep going until Ryan admitted to loving him again.

But in the past month since he rejected Ryan again, Xander felt as though he'd grown up. There was no reason for him to be with Ryan. The only reason he slept with him was for companionship. It was the main reason he dated half the girls he was with. But what he needed more than anything was a friend, a real one who he could talk to and have both fun and light and deep conversations with. He had half that with Carter, and he was looking forward to the second half. He didn't need to sleep with Ryan in order to have a companion. The loneliness he felt was gone now that he had someone. The best thing to do was kick his unhealthy relationship with Ryan to the curb.

"You know you'll always be my friend, because that's what's best for both of us. You're going to find someone who will love you and cherish you. You'll never find that if we keep this up." Pushing Ryan off himself, Xander waved goodbye as he headed for the side doors. "Tell Jessica I said "hi.""

Ryan remained planted in his spot, staring at the empty space where Xander stood in a panic. It was officially over. Gone were the gentle touches, the intimacy. No one would want to touch him once he came out. No one would cherish him the way Xander claimed someone would. No one would be able to look at him with desire and find him attractive, because he was transgender. No one wanted to be with someone transgender.

Falling back against the wall and slipping to the floor, Ryan bundled himself up into a ball and cried.