“I know,” I say quickly. I glance around. The nearest kids are laughing at someone’s phone. “My mom told me they’re different.”
“Gender’s just, like, socially overemphasized decoration. Fun to play with.” They point at their face. “Like today I’m feeling a little girly. Hence the mascara. But guy’s there too, so I thickened my eyebrows with a brow pencil.”
“But—” My brain is shorting out. Sam is a walking, talking example of all the stuff Mom tries to tell me. “You wear makeup to look like a guy?”
Sam takes another bite of apple. It still has a sticker on it. “I wear makeup so my outsides match my insides. I’m into coordination. You are too, yeah? You’ve got the red blush to go with your red Chucks.”
Curse my fair skin. “What do you call yourself?”
“Sam. Nice to meet you.” They hold out their hand and Griffey laughs.
I shake it awkwardly. “I mean . . . what label do you use?”
“I don’t label myself. But other people like to label me. Enby, genderqueer, nonbinary, freak, agender, whatever. I get it all.”
“But—are those accurate? I mean, except for freak. You aren’t a freak.”
“If you like being defined by something you’re not, they’re technically accurate.” Sam takes another bite that just barely misses the sticker. “You like playing chess?”
Griffey laughs. “Ash sucks at chess. No offense, but you do.”
“So are you non-chess?” Sam asks. “Chess-queer? Are you a-chess?”
I’m not sure if I’m being made fun of. “I guess?”
Sam shrugs. “Zero people will die if you don’t label yourself. Or if you don’t want to define something that shifts.”
It’s the kind of thing Mom would say. “I know,” I say again, even though I don’t, entirely. “It’s just that the world’s set up like it’s one thing or the other. Are eight billion people wrong?” That’s a big sticking point for Dad.
Sam leans in, their dark eyes looking right into me. “Yeah, they hella freaking are.”
I shrink a little under Sam’s intensity. “Do you—do you use the neutral bathroom?” My face is on fire. “Wait, that’s too personal. Forget I asked. Sorry.”
“I use whatever’s closest when I need to pee. So yeah, sometimes.”
“But—do people freak out at you?”
Sam shrugs. “Who cares? I just suggest they download the Genderbread Person so they can explore their identity, since their interest in my junk might mean they’re more fluid than they think. Works like a charm.” Sam notices the sticker. They pluck it off and stick it to Griffey’s sleeve. “People get weird when your identity conflicts with how they think the world works.”
“I’ve noticed,” I say. “Which is why I’m, like . . . not out here. I’m not embarrassed, I’m just . . . I don’t really know what I am. I’m not ready to—”
“I won’t tell.” Sam looks me in the eyes. “Promise. I’d never out anyone unless they specifically asked me to.”
I slump in relief. “He knows, obviously.” I nod at Griffey. “And my parents. That’s all.” And the kids at my last school. I’m “out” to them as the “flip-flop freak.” As “it.”
Mara joins our group. “Hey, guys.”
“Hey, babe.” Sam gives Mara a peck on the cheek that makes me blush, then turns to me. “All I’m saying is, nobody has to pick between two opposites. It’s a spectrum, not a binary. You can be on both ends at the same time, or neither end. Hang out anywhere you want on the whole glorious continuum. You don’t have to look like a guy to be a guy, or a girl to be a girl.”
Mara nods. “Preach.”
“I second that. I mean third it,” Griffey says.
“Then it’s settled.” Sam chucks the apple core at the trash can by Mr. Lockhart’s desk. It misses and bounces across the floor, leaving smears. “Oops.” They get up to retrieve it.
Mr. Lockhart calls the room to order and asks us to shove the desks into a circle. I wind up between Griffey and Esme, the girl who’s pre-HRT MTF. Mr. Lockhart hands everyone an index card. He drags an empty desk to the middle of the room and puts a big bin of markers on it. We’re supposed to look up the pride flag that best represents us at this moment, then draw it on our index card. He says if we don’t know what flag is right for us or don’t feel like making one, we can write an inspirational quote.
I steal a glance at Sam, who rolls their eyes and mouths labels, then grins.
Everyone gets to work, talking and laughing. Griff starts on a rainbow. Esme uses pink and blue to make the trans flag. I look over at Sam. I can’t tell what other colors they’re using than the purple they’re holding.
I stare at my blank card. There’s no flag for just plain dude. Which is what I am “at this moment,” which is what Mr. Lockhart said we should do. And I don’t think any of Mom’s cross-stitches count as “inspirational” quotes.
Griffey shows me his phone. “How about this one?” His screen has a flag labeled Gender Fluid with five colors on it. He nods at Sam. “That’s probably what they’re doing.”
“I’m not that right now,” I say. “I’m just a guy.”
“And you like a guy, right? So go with a rainbow. It covers everything anyway.”
I guess he’s right. I borrow his red marker and start the first stripe.
I’m so stressed about the Daniel-Chewbarka-Bella situation that I barely pay attention to the conversations around me. I don’t snap out of it until I look up and realize everyone’s putting their flags in a pile. Mr. Lockhart says he’s going to make a collage to put in the school lobby.
Esme tells Griffey and Sam how she pronounced peninsula as “pe-nin-sweh-lah” when she was reading from the textbook in social studies today. “It’s spelled the same as it is in Tagalog, and that’s how my mom would say it in Tagalog. It was so freaking embarrassing. Everyone laughed and that’s how I realized I said it wrong.”
“It sounds way cooler than peninsula,” Griffey says. “Like you’d go to the pe-nin-sweh-lah to party.”
Sam laughs. “I’d party on the pe-nin-sweh-lah with you folks any day.”
The conversation drifts for a while. Esme starts talking about how she goes to thrift stores with her friend on the weekends and buys girl clothes, then hides them at home because her parents insist she’s sick for saying she’s a girl. She leaves her house wearing guy clothes every morning and changes in the neutral bathroom here. She starts crying as she says her dad found her expensive makeup and chucked it. She’d saved the money to buy it by mowing lawns all summer, even though it made her dysphoria wicked bad. Her dad told her if he ever found out she was dressing like a girl again, he would send her to live with her aunt in Texas.
Sam tells her that’s a horrible thing for a parent to do. “Like grade-A actual worst.”
“Totally,” I agree. “You win the crappy-dad contest.” At least mine never threatened to throw me out.
Esme sniffles. “Sometimes I think there’s a universal law. Dads are required to suck.”
“You want me to punch his lights out?” I push up the sleeve of my Chainsmokers shirt to show my nonexistent bicep.
She laughs through her tears. “He spends every night drinking Bud Light and watching ESPN. You could totally take him.”
“Well. Probably I need to do more push-ups first.” I pull my sleeve back down.
Sam snaps their gum. “It’s such a load of smelly bull for a parent to make their kid feel bad about who they are. I’m sorry you have to deal with that.”
Esme gives us a grateful smile. “So hot and smelly.” She wipes her face. “Thanks. For real. You’re cool, Ash. Even without the push-ups.”
I feel my cheeks turn pink, which is so not a dude color. I gotta get the focus off me fast. “Did you know ‘trans teens’ spelled backward is ‘sneet snart’?”
Sam, Esme, and Griffey burst out laughing. I take out my phone and pretend to be fascinated by my wallpaper. My face is so red I’m
sure people can see the glow from Kansas.
While Mom’s driving me to Zoey’s, she mentions she got a voice mail from school that I had a lunch DT. “What was it for?”
“Wearing socks with cuss words on them.”
She makes a raspberry sound. “Guess it’s a relief you weren’t setting off smoke bombs in the teachers’ lounge. Maybe I shouldn’t have encouraged you to wear those particular socks to school.”
“Yeah, probably not.” I keep trying to pop my already popped knuckles. I texted Daniel after school to ask how Chewbarka was, and he said Cute as ever and sent a few pictures. I can’t stop thinking about what’s gonna happen when he finds out I told Bella. And what will happen if Bella goes looking for me on social and finds the Gatorade video.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Mom says after a while.
“Just tired.” I look at the weather. It’s gonna get stupid cold tonight.
“How’s Griff?”
“Fine.” Whoops. “For getting rejected. I met the kid at lunch. Cute but dumb.”
She gives me the side-eye. “Well. It’s important to support the people you love.”
“I know.” Was that a dig? Because I didn’t go to the meeting for PFLAG so she could “support” me by shoving me into a social situation I don’t want to be in?
Keeping my mouth shut is the best strategy. Luckily, the rest of the ride is short.
Rex the shepherd is happy to see me when we get to Zoey’s. He noses my hand again and sniffs all the Booper smells on my jeans. “You must be a dog person,” Zoey says. “He’s usually standoffish when people come over.”
“I love dogs.” More than people, usually. I hug Rex. When Olivia starts banging the drums, he startles like last time and goes back into the house.
Practice doesn’t go great. My head’s not in the girl-punk groove. My mind’s too busy holding up everything Sam said against what Dad said at lunch. Trying to figure out who’s right. If they both are. If I should stop thinking because it’s all baffling and I feel gross about not having anything figured out. It’s killing my confidence.
Zoey keeps giving me weird looks, like she’s confused I’m not as excited as I was last week. I realize I must seem like a different person than I was then, when I was jumping around all pumped up on the music.
I pull it together enough to be sort of convincingly enthused. When we’re done playing “Rebel Girl” for the third time (they’re improving, but slowly), I take my phone out and start walking the girls through how to use GarageBand to layer tracks. Zoey and Jordan follow along on their iPhones, but Olivia has an Android. She keeps losing interest and wandering off to play drums. Zoey gets annoyed with her for making noise while I’m talking and tells her to get her head in the game, that we won’t be ready for Girls Who Rock if everyone’s not on the same page. Olivia sighs and comes over to watch me explain how to add in a beat. “Let me hear that one again,” she says while I’m showing Zoey the presets.
I turn my phone volume up and loop it for her. She sits at the drum set and starts trying to play along with it. She’s got the general idea, but the specifics are eluding her.
Zoey asks how the song I’m writing for the fundraiser is coming along.
“It’s getting there. I’m mostly focused on the bridge now. It’s a little tricky.”
“What’s a bridge?”
It’s hard to believe someone who has a punk band doesn’t know what a bridge is. “It’s that part after the chorus repeats for the second or third time that changes the mood. Like it can be in a different key, or faster or slower or whatever. So you come to the final chorus with a different take on it.” I try to think of a punk example, but of course my brain spits out a Disney one. “You know in ‘Let It Go’ from Frozen, that part where Elsa’s singing about her soul spiraling in frozen fractals? That’s a bridge.”
Zoey laughs. “I haven’t watched that movie since I was like six. So the bridge part is harder to write?”
“It can be. There are so many different ways you can go with it.” Like my whole life right now. My gender. Whatever the heck is gonna happen with Daniel. This Girls Who Rock the Future thing that I’m probably gonna be a boy for. “I’ll figure it out.”
“Can you play what you have so far?”
I pick out the chord progression on the keyboard. But I didn’t practice it enough to play it perfectly. I miss a note with my left hand, then lose the beat trying to recover. “Sorry, I’m super tired. I promise it’s better than this.”
Zoey looks disappointed. I’m saved from feeling like a total idiot by the arrival of Olivia’s and Jordan’s moms, and mine right after.
“Chug a Rockstar before practice next time,” Zoey tells me. “Punk’s all about energy. You were kinda lacking in that department tonight.”
I look down at my hands in my lap. “I know. I’m sorry.”
Zoey shrugs. “I’m not mad or whatever. I just really wanna kick butt at this Girls Who Rock thing and get into that camp. I’ve been dreaming about it for months.”
“For real,” Jordan says. “It would kick so much butt. Not to mention it would prove to my annoying brother that Black girls can totally rock some punk.”
“Totally,” I echo hollowly.
“Sweet.” Zoey gives all of us a fist bump and we leave.
I keep my headphones in all the way home so I don’t have to talk to Mom.
20
What If?
Daniel
I’m a sleepwalking mess Tuesday morning when I leave for the tent. I brought two more blankets there on last night’s late-night run, and I wrapped Chewbarka in them before I went home. But when I unzip the door this morning, I find she’s peed through her last stolen diaper and both blankets are damp. She’s sluggish, like the cold has seeped into her bones and she’s too chilled to even shiver.
I hold her for as long as I can before I have to go home, working on her mats with the borrowed brush. My warmth slowly sinks into her. She finally looks up at me and licks my arm.
It’s so hard to leave to get ready for school. It’s only going to be in the mid-forties today. She’s old and cold and must be sick to death of this stinky tent and maybe Ash is right that I should tell Bella, even though that’s the last thing I want to do because what if? What if?
But I might have to take the chance. Because freezing alone in a tent overnight with pee-soaked blankets when it’s thirty-eight degrees is a worse way to die than euthanasia.
At school, I steel myself and head for Ash’s locker. As I approach, I see someone yelling at her, a girl whose back is to me. I step up my pace.
“—found that video of you,” the girl says.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
The girl turns and faces me. I recognize her from the Insta screenshots Ash sent me. “Do you know where my dog is?” she demands. “Because this loser won’t tell me a thing.” She jerks her thumb in Ash’s direction.
I slump against the lockers. Ash told her behind my back? “No.” I can’t meet Bella’s eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Bella scowls and turns back to Ash. “If you don’t tell me where she is by tomorrow, I’m sharing that Gatorade video with everyone. And then maybe the same thing will happen to you here.” She takes off down the hall.
I look at Ash. Her face has gone pale. “What is she—”
“It’s nothing.” She spins her combination lock, not looking at me.
“Why’d you tell her?” I hug my stomach.
“I didn’t mean to.” She sounds like she’s going to cry. “I didn’t tell her where the dog is, I promise. Or anything else.”
“What Gatorade video? What’s that mean?”
“Nothing.” Her voice is faint. Her hands shake as she slides a book into her bag. She closes her locker and ducks across the hall into her homeroom.
All through first-period chemistry, I avoid looking at Cole and Erin, as usual. I imagine the conversation between Ash and Bella. How
could she have done that when this isn’t even her problem? She’s not the one barely sleeping, getting up at five a.m., constantly hiding a lie from her mom. She hasn’t been in contact with so much dog pee it’s probably stuck to her for life.
She’s said so many times that she wants to help.
She has helped. On Friday night, and then going to Dad’s with me.
But she just straight-up told Bella. Without asking me first.
I feel stabbed in the back. Everything is even more out of my control now. All I want is for Chewbarka to be safe. And warm. And not dead.
When the bell rings, I’m too caught up in my head to notice I’m right behind Cole. Just as we’re about to go out the door, he looks back at me. I suddenly recall my bike-ride revelation about apologizing to him the right way.
I open my mouth, but then stop. I haven’t thought it out enough. I need to do it right.
He goes out the door and the moment is gone.
In English, Erin sits on the other side of the room and, like always, ignores my presence. I’m used to it now. But it still hurts. Especially when I’m already feeling stung. Betrayed. Scared that my attempt to help a dog is going to get the dog killed.
She looks so happy, talking to Tatianna. I keep hearing snippets of their conversation about dress shopping for the fall dance. The one Erin’s going to with Cole.
The whole “dance” thing is so dumb. The janitors cover the gym floor with thick black plastic so our shoes don’t mess it up. There’ll be punch and bad junk food, like unsalted pretzels and stale marshmallows. Some kids wear jeans and hoodies and some kids get dressed up and it feels weird, like you’re in two realities at once. It’s never helped by the creepy mix of awful gym fluorescents combined with cheap spotlights that spin colored beams over the plastic floor. One of the bus drivers is the DJ. He’ll play “Baby Shark” at least twice.
I still don’t get why Cole connects with Erin. They’re so different. She’s all sportsball and fashion and doesn’t like dogs, and he loves dogs almost as much as I do. It seems weird that they’re dating now when Erin’s not Cole’s type. Whatever his type is. Who even knows.
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