Chapter Six: Meeting

“Taborn and Everdale, room 214..” Logan muttered to himself, glancing at the sign by the door before walking in.

Inside were two other people walking around, singing to themselves whilst they had a conversation.

“Hold on, wouldn’t like, your friends be here?” the girl said.

The boy shrugged. “I feel too sick and stressed to go looking for them, so!”

“Fair!”

Logan took a breath. “Uh- heyyy, everyone!” he said with a slight grin.

“What’s up, bitches!” Camryn stuck her tongue out at them before proceeding to climb onto the top bunk of one of the empty beds and setting her bag down.

The two exchanged glances for a moment and giggled before putting their stuff down as well.

“Yeah, hi,” the girl waved, still giggling.

She was quite pretty, Logan thought. With wavy dark brown, almost black hair that reached past her shoulders and a dark olive skin tone, there was practically a glow of some sort around her.

“Nice to meet y’all,” the boy said before whispering something to her, the two of them cackling after.

“Nice to meet you too, I think,” he replied, starting to laugh himself, and sat on the empty bottom bunk below Camryn.

“You think?” he got onto his top bunk as the girl got onto the bottom one.

“Yes, I think!”

“Don’t they sound like Peter?” he glanced down at her.

“Don’t be mean-” she was interrupted by more giggling. “Anyways.. I’m Krystal, spelt with a K!”

“I’m Jackson.”

“Hey there, Krystal with a K!” he began giggling as well.

“One time I misspelled it and got chased with soda.”

“You can’t spell my name with a C, that just makes it ugly!”

Logan crossed his legs on his legs on his bed, smoothing out the comforter beneath him and giggling to himself at the interaction. The blanket his grandma made for him at home was definitely much softer, but it wasn’t awful. At least the bed wasn’t extremely hard.

“Y’know, aunt Harmony hates people named Logan.”

“Oh yeah- there’s a lot of backstory to that, but anyways,” she glanced over at Camryn, still slightly giggly. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Camryn!”

“Cool name-!” he said, staring a little.

“Why thank you person with the awful resting bitch face!”

“You’re welcome, elf-sized version of Jade West!”

“ELF SI- I’m not that small, you know!” she said, her mouth gaped open.

“I’m sorry, he’s mean… he’s right about your name, though! I think we’re destined to be best friends now!”

Camryn gave her an excited nod and grin before they were called for dinner on the intercom. Everyone went ahead whilst Logan decided to stay back for a bit to look around the room. He was curious about the small little bathroom connected to their dorm, with three little overhead showers and a toilet in the corner.

He glanced over at himself in the mirror before doing a little pose. But something felt… off. It’d been like this many times before, he’d look in the mirror and feel like he didn’t exactly fit. He’d wondered what it was like to be a girl before. When he was younger, he’d tried dresses and makeup. The only thing that stuck was growing his hair out, but still, ‘boy’ didn’t quite feel right either. He couldn’t make out what he was. Some days he would feel more feminine, some days he would feel more masculine, and some days he felt like nothing at all. Or occasionally, he felt like a mix of everything. What would that make him? Just a blob existing in the universe?

He sighed and left the bathroom whilst continuing to overthink his not-so-newfound gender crisis. He’d identified as nonbinary for a while, but then one day that didn’t fit either. How he felt about his gender was always changing, and he couldn’t help but think that made him some sort of freak. Why can everyone else figure it out? Is there something wrong with him? And he still didn’t mind he/him pronouns no matter what he felt that day, did that make what he felt invalid too?

He finally finished looking around the room and began making his way to the cafeteria, his thoughts spiraling more with each step. His nose began to burn, but he shook his head, willing himself not to cry. Will he ever feel comfortable in his own skin? Would he be a burden to confide in someone about how he feels? Will he-

Suddenly, he bumped into a girl. He glanced down to find someone he hadn’t seen in a while, and someone he certainly didn’t want to see now. Melody.

“I am so sorry, I-”

“Oh my gosh, Logan?!”

“Heyy, Melody-” he said awkwardly, his voice drifting off as he began fiddling with his hoodie strings.

“I didn’t know you would be here! This is insane, I totally thought your family was poor!” she giggled, throwing her silk black hair behind her shoulder.

“Yeahh, kinda why you left me-” he mumbled under his breath whilst glancing around the empty hallway, desperate to get out of the conversation. “I mean, we-”

“Oh my gosh, is Payton here too? Y’know, your sister is so fun, I loved that girl. And you still look great!”

“She’s not, Camryn got selected, so- wait hold on, great-?”

“Mhmmm, never looked better, actually!” she reached up to twirl his hair.

“Right, um-” he sighed as butterflies filled his stomach. “I think I need to be getting to dinner, actually, so- I’ll see you, uh- later-” he pushed past her, letting out a breath in an attempt to compose himself.

Was that some kind of joke? She must think I’m an idiot. And is she wrong, honestly? My stomach is already a mess.

He eventually reached the cafeteria and grabbed a tray of food before finding the group and sitting down. He glanced out the window to find it pitch black outside. It was definitely past 6pm now.

“Where were you?” Camryn asked.

“Bathroom.”

She nodded as he began stuffing his face with food. Mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, and even steak filled his stomach. He’d barely eaten all day, and the effects of depriving his body of food hit about an hour before. His tray was nearly empty in a minute or two, and it left a warm feeling in his chest. He hadn’t had food so good in a while due to the rise in prices, and while it felt good going down, it did manage to make him feel a bit sick. His body didn’t appear to be used to it.

“Logan! Slow down, you’re embarrassing me!” Camryn hissed, nudging him in the side.

“I’m hungry!”

“You’re always hungry.”

“I haven’t eaten all day, okay!”

“You guys wanna play a game before we have to do anything important?” Krystal said, looking at herself in a little pocket mirror and applying lip gloss.

“Ooh, sure! What game?”

“I should have some UNO cards in my bag, we can play that if you want!”

They all agreed as she began searching her bag for the playing cards, however the topic quickly got changed back and forth, and soon they went from knives to jewelry to flirting.

“I’m basically a master flirt because I can do a northern accent,” Logan said with a proud expression on his face.

“A master, huh?” Krystal glanced over at him, giggling.

“Mmmmhm!”

She rolled her eyes. “Should we play just us then?”

Logan agreed and the two went over the rules before beginning to play. He glanced down at the cards in his hand, slightly disappointed at his luck. They were mostly green cards and the majority had the same number.

“OOH, I got lucky! I got pretty good cards!” Krystal said.

“You should donate some to the poor! Spare change!”

“Uh, no, actually, you should’ve just refused to be poor, master flirt!” She poked him.

“Listen, I tried, it didn’t work!” He poked her back, the both of them in a fit of giggles now.

“Okay well- you should’ve tried harder!” Krystal folded her arms.

“I’m really sorry!” Logan said, putting on a mock sorrow-filled expression.

“You don’t seem it, Logan.”

“How can I prove it to you? Do ya’ want me to flirt wit’chew?” He joked.

“To prove you’re sorry?”

“Yeah!”

“Alright sure, let’s watch and learn from the master!” She shuffled her chair a little closer to his and was a bit in his face.

“Alright, ahem uh-” He cleared his throat. “Ya’ eyes are more beautiful than a fresh rose baby!” He stared into them, still unable to control his giggles.

Krystal’s face heated up a bit. “A fresh rose? I’ve never heard that one before-”

“My grandpa said it once!” He took her hand in his and held it closer to his face. “Can I paint ya’ nails so I have an excuse to hold ya’ hand?”

She wheezed. “Grandparents are so cheesy- you can, though! I have wanted to redo them for a bit.”

“Oh- wait fun! It can distract me from how hard I’ve fallen for ya’!”

“How ha- okay, I can’t fault that one, that was funny.”

“I’m just a comedian like that!”

“That I can agree with funny guy, looks like we’re gonna have a lot of fun however long we survive here!”

“Hopefully we’ll survive for a while, at least-!”

“If I do die, you have to be around so the last thing I see is someone cute.”

Logan’s eyes widened a little as he felt butterflies rise up from his stomach to his chest. He nervously moved his hair out of his face and looked back at her.

“I- oh? That was smooth-!”

“Looks like I’ve taken your role as master flirt!”

“You wish.” He replied, rolling his eyes as one of the guards marched in. He signaled for everyone’s attention, and in turn the whole room turned to look at him. He wore a dark purple uniform like everyone else’s, except it was adorned with a badge. Logan squinted a little at it, and it didn’t take long to come to a horrifying realization. He was on the wrong side.