The mask falls back on my face.

The doctors count down from ten and my eyes shut at eight. Next time I wake up, I’ll just be an ordinary straight guy in his bed.

PART THREE: LESS HAPPY THAN BEFORE

1

THIS TIME AROUND

   I’m just as surprised as anyone else to be alive.

Pain rocks my bones in a way I didn’t think was possible. Looking back to when I cried over falling on my knees on my ninth birthday seems stupid now, completely laughable. That time I was jumped on the train for liking Collin is a pinch in the cheek compared to this last assault, this hate crime. It’s not even the heartache from Thomas that’s shredding me apart.

Every mistake I’ve made, every wrong I’ve repeated, every unhealed heartache: I feel it all and more as the weight of my old world crushes me. If you looked inside me, I bet you’d find two different hearts beating for two different people, like the sun and moon up at the same time, a terrible eclipse I’m the only witness to.

My worlds collided and I can’t get up.

Undergoing the procedure was like a blackout. Leteo dealt the cards on how I woke up. Some of my memories were altered, little disguises forced onto them to trick me. Others were beaten over the head with shovels, buried alive and out of my reach. But Leteo fucked up. Somewhere in the uncharted territories of my mind, they failed to scrub something clean and I became the person I forgot.

The goal was for me to forget I’m gay. Easier said than done since there isn’t exactly an off switch like my father thought there was. To beat nature, Leteo fostered the shortly lived straight me by targeting and burying memories connected to my sexuality: my relationship with Collin, my dad’s cruelty, my childhood crush on Brendan, etc. If I could simply believe I was straight, I would be straight. Life would be easy. But Leteo didn’t have the power we both hoped they did.

My eyes are too heavy to open.

It’s hard to breathe, like whenever Fat-Dave pins me down.

This headache feels like someone’s playing a game of jacks inside my skull. Thoughts bounce around like a rubber ball.

My face feels swollen. Maybe that’s because my friends beat me up because they hate me.

“Aaron, blink if you can hear me,” I hear Dr. Castle call to me.

Evangeline.

I can’t face her or anyone right now, so I keep my eyes shut and hide in the darkness where the awful pain drowns her out.

I can’t sleep anymore, no matter how hard I try.

I can open one eye easily, but the other still feels too heavy and hurts, so I leave it alone. I see half of a midnight-blue room I don’t recognize, and it reminds me of a starless night. I turn my neck a little bit to see Evangeline asleep in a chair with a clipboard on her lap. It’s hard to believe she sleeps. Maybe this visitor’s chair is cozier than the one in her office; that one looks like it’s made of concrete to prevent her from getting too comfortable. Next to her is my mother, sitting forward with her face in her hands, praying.

“Mom—” I can barely breathe her name without my throat aching, but she hears me anyway. Evangeline, too; she snaps awake like her boss caught her sleeping at her desk.

“Baby, my son.” Mom kisses my forehead and it hurts like hell. She’s apologizing to me and thanking God I’m okay until Evangeline pulls her to the side, giving me some much-needed space.

“You’re stable, Aaron,” Evangeline tells me. “Try not to move too much.” She invites my mother to give me water through a straw. She presses an ice pack wrapped in a hand towel against my bad eye and forehead. “I imagine your head hurts, but we’re all so impressed with how you’re recovering.”

“So impressed, my son,” Mom adds.

I sip more water and it soothes and stings. “Why am I . . . not in . . . a hospital?”

“You were originally, but your mother contacted me when she heard you screaming things you’d forgotten,” Evangeline says, and it hurts my neck to look up at her. “The ambulance drove you here and we’ve spent the past four days returning your mind to its former state before it could collapse entirely under the weight of the unwound memories. We’ll perform some test work when you’re feeling up to it to make sure all is well.”

Four days. I’ve been knocked out for four days.

I feel like I know everything I once knew, but I can’t be sure. I remember believing Evangeline was my old babysitter, as sure as I know Santeria is stupid or how I’m an asshole and a coward. “Did you . . . change anything?”

“Certainly not, kiddo. Too many complications.”

My mind is once again busy with terrible things: my father’s body, his hateful words; Collin turning his back on me, Collin’s kisses; Eric giving me shit for dumb things; the judging looks of the other guys on the block; and, the most pressing, my mom and one of our last moments together before my procedure.

The memory of coming out to her the first time feels both familiar and unfamiliar, like an old bully you haven’t seen in years but still kind of recognize, even all grown up. I know she knows I know she knows, so I just shut up and focus on what needs to happen next.

“When can you change me back?” I ask, my throat aching less and less. “Make me straight again. For real this time.”

Evangeline doesn’t answer. Mom cracks the silence with fresh tears.

My voice hardens. “Your procedure didn’t work . . . and we paid a shitload of money for it to work so you need to make it work.”

“The procedure cannot be faulted for the heart remembering what the mind forgot,” Evangeline says.

“Bullshit,” I say.

“I warned you that this procedure was still very experimental, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember. That’s the problem.”

I turn to my mom, who shakes her head. “No, I’m not signing off on this. Not again. I have my son back and I’m not giving you up again.”

I wish I could’ve just been exorcised or spent the summer at a conversion camp or something.

“Can you both leave? I want to be alone.”

“I can maybe give you five minutes to yourself,” Evangeline offers. “But anything longer isn’t allowed with all things considered, I’m afraid.”

“Fine. Five minutes.”

Evangeline hooks my mom’s arm in hers, escorting her out.

I have to piss, and I’m not doing it in one of these bag things, so I rip off the wires from my forehead and chest and try steadying myself on my feet. I’m dizzy. It feels like the awful combination of a head rush and a hangover. I balance myself against the wall and make my way to the bathroom.