Both Can Be True

by Jules Machias

  Griffey gives me a side hug. “Gotta jet, my homeroom teacher’s a stickler about butts in chairs before the bell.”

  “Thanks,” I say faintly as he and Esme and Sam leave.

  Nobody in homeroom or algebra says anything about what happened. I guess that’s a benefit of going to a huge school. But in English, Zoey gives me a weird look.

  As class drones on, the butterflies in my stomach turn to bees. When the bell rings, Zoey’s at my desk in a flash. “What was up with those gay kids defending you?”

  I push my folder into my bag with shaking hands. “Well,” I say. “Um.” I watch Jordan leave the room.

  Zoey lets the silence stretch. If she knew how to do that as a musician, she’d be a lot better.

  I clear my throat as I stand up. “I’m not . . . a girl now.”

  Zoey’s eyes narrow. “What does that even mean?”

  “Gender can change. It’s not based on biology.”

  She shakes her head like I’m an idiot. “Did you miss the part about Tyrannosaurus Rocks being a girl band? Did you miss that the fundraiser’s called Girls Who Rock the Future?”

  “No. Actually. I did not miss that.”

  Zoey wrinkles her nose. “Thanks a lot. You came swooping in like you could make everything perfect for us and now, boom, you’re a freaking liar.” Her face is a thunderstorm.

  “So . . . I can’t still be in the band?”

  “Are you even kidding? You’re so out. You could barely focus on Monday anyway.”

  I bark out a laugh. “Says the kid who—” I cut off can only play four chords.

  I walk out of the room, chin up, eyes straight ahead. I’m done with these stupid games. I am who I am. If the world doesn’t like it, they can go huff Booper farts.

  Griffey’s kinda green around the gills at lunch when I sit by him with my tray of rubbery pizza. “You look like you’ve been put off your tea and crumpets,” I tell him.

  “Eh, that thing this morning got a little . . . well.” He shows me his phone. There are a string of comments under Bella’s latest Insta post. They’re calling her antigay, a bigot, saying she’s stuck-up and pretending to be an animal lover when she’s really a homophobe, a genderphobe, a jerk.

  “Oh.” I hand Griff his phone. “That’s . . . not what I wanted to happen.”

  “Me either. A couple of the commenters are in Rainbow Alliance, but most of them aren’t. I think they’re people she’s friends with.”

  “Or people she was friends with.” I push my pizza away.

  “Yeah.” Griffey puts his sandwich back in its bag.

  We sit there looking out the window for a while. Then he says something about needing to go to the library to do research for a paper and leaves.

  I fail to eat my pizza.

  In the photography classroom, Daniel’s at our table with his head resting on his crossed arms. Fiona and Braden aren’t here yet. I sit next to him. “Hi,” I say quietly.

  He doesn’t look up.

  “Are you okay?”

  “No.”

  “What’s . . . where’s Chewbarka?”

  “My basement.” He sits up and rubs his face, not looking at me. “Mom’s making me take her back to the vet as soon as I get home.”

  I didn’t think my stomach could sink any lower. “Oh.”

  “Tina left a voice mail saying to call her. But there’s no point calling back. Mom said Dr. Snyder . . . well. I guess he’s going to make sure Chewbarka’s really . . .” He swallows like he’s trying not to hurl. “Actually dead this time.” His voice is flattened out. He drops his head back onto his arms.

  I want to touch his shoulder, to say he did everything he could and at least Chewy lived longer than she would have. But he’s so closed off, and I don’t know if it even matters that Chewbarka got to live an extra week, since her days were spent in a stinky tent. There’s nothing I can say that will unbreak Daniel’s heart, or mine. “Maybe . . .” I fold my hands under the table. “Maybe you could call Tina back, though?”

  “No point.”

  He’s probably right. He—well, we—did so much to try to save her, and none of it worked. We’ll just be disappointed again. “But . . . I don’t know. You could try?” I know hope is dangerous. But I can’t help feeling it.

  I don’t think Daniel feels it. He shifts in his chair so he’s farther from me.

  I touch his shoulder. I don’t mean to do it. It just sucks to see him so sad. I want to pull the pain out of him so he doesn’t have to feel it.

  Fiona comes in and sees us. She gets a weird look on her face that I can’t read.

  I drop my hand from Daniel’s shoulder and hug my stomach since I can’t hug him.

  26

  Heads on a Platter

  Daniel

  For the first time in my life, I’m too sad to cry.

  It’s a tight fit in Frankie’s crate with Chewbarka. I’m folded up like a pretzel. But I feel 2 percent less bad crammed inside here. I can still smell Frankie in this flattened old dog bed. A little. When the breeze blows through the open basement window and stirs up the air.

  My phone rings. I ignore it. I keep my eyes on the door that leads out to the patio under the deck.

  I can’t go through that door. I’ve tried everything I can to save Chewbarka, and it came to nothing. Mom will be here in less than ten minutes. We’ll get in her car and she’ll drive me to Dr. Snyder’s office and . . .

  Well. Maybe I’ll feel Chewbarka’s heart stop under my palm too. Like with Frankie.

  Or maybe Dr. Snyder won’t let me be in the room when he does it. Probably he won’t.

  Chewbarka licks my neck. It tickles like mad, but I’m so jammed into this cage that there’s nothing I can do to stop her. She licks her way up to just under my ear. I can’t help the laugh that comes out. It’s a tortured laugh, not a happy one.

  The sound only encourages her. She wiggles up my shoulder, licking all the way, until her tongue is in my ear.

  I twitch and bang my head against the crate bars. “Chewy, stop. Please.” I try to get her off me but I’m so tangled up that she steps on my face. Her paw slides off and her claw rakes my nose. My eyes smart at the sting.

  I unfold and emerge from the cage like a jacked-up bat waking from hibernation. Chewbarka follows me out with a hopeful expression.

  I look at my phone on the floor. The missed call was Tina. There’s another voice mail.

  I feel the warmth on my shoulder where Ash’s hand was. He wanted to make me feel better. Even after I was a jerk at the tent and told him to leave. He still cares about Chewbarka.

  About me.

  He felt so bad about telling Bella that he let her out him so she wouldn’t find out where I was hiding Chewbarka.

  I guess . . . the least I can do, maybe, is what Ash suggested and call Tina back.

  It won’t do any good. But Ash thinks it might.

  I listen to Tina’s second voice mail: “I’m sorry things happened the way they did. I’d really like to talk to you.”

  I take a deep breath and hit the callback button. It only rings once before she answers. “Daniel?”

  “Yeah.” My throat immediately closes up.

  “Oh lord, I’m glad you answered!” Her raspy voice is comforting to hear. “Kid, I’m so sorry I left you in that mess. Are you okay?”

  “No,” I choke. I want to tell her I’m sorry I got her fired, but my voice isn’t working.

  “I realized a couple hours into the drive that I forgot the dog. I was so focused on getting to my girl, everything else went right out of my head. But I didn’t have your number and I was more concerned about what was in front of me than what was behind me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I squeak out. “I got you fired.”

  “It’s not your fault. I’m the one who lied and tried to hide the dog.” She clears her throat. “Truth told, I was embarrassed to call you once my daughter got out of ICU and I realized a whole week had gone by. I felt so guilty f
or leaving you in that mess. You didn’t deserve to get stuck with my impulsive choice. You didn’t deserve for me to ignore my conscience and not call you. I’m real sorry about that, Daniel.”

  “I—” I don’t know what to say. I think this is the first time an adult has apologized to me and meant it. “Aren’t you—you’re not mad at me that you don’t have a job now?”

  She laughs her raspy smoker’s laugh. “Truly, it’s not your fault. Anyway, I been through a lot worse than this and Doc was a crap boss. I’m just glad my daughter’s all right.”

  “How is she?” I cover the speaker on my phone so she won’t hear me sniffling.

  “They got her set up in a rehab place. She’s busted up real good, but she’s gonna be okay. Even took a few steps yesterday.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Yeah, me too. It was good to be with her, but I’m sure happy to be back home.” There’s a pause like she’s inhaling a cigarette. “What happened with the dog? I got the idea from Doc that you have her.”

  “I do. For the next few minutes, anyway. Mom’s gonna . . .” I choke up again. “Bring me back. To the. To the vet office. To . . .”

  “Ah, criminy.” Tina exhales long. “You’ve had her all this time?”

  “I hid her in a tent.”

  Tina lets a beat go by. “Bet you fell in love, huh?”

  “Yeah.” I press my mouth so she won’t hear me crying.

  “Look, if you can hang tight a few minutes . . . when I realized yesterday she might be alive, I reached out to a lady who runs a medical rescue. I can’t take Chewbarka right now, I’m sure Doc would find out and have both our heads on a platter. But my rescue friend said she could maybe help us.”

  “R-really?”

  “She was gonna ask around about a foster home. It was yesterday that we talked, so maybe she’s lined something up by now.” I hear the cigarette sound again. “Sure wish you woulda called sooner, kid. You not get my voice mails till just now?”

  “I did, I just—I thought it was hopeless.”

  “It’s never hopeless. Even when real bad crap happens. You gotta use your grief or your anger or whatever to make things better. Got me?”

  “O-k-kay.”

  “I’ll call you back real soon.” She hangs up.

  I smear my face. Chewbarka cocks her head at me. I hear Mom’s car pull into the driveway.

  “What am I doing?” I say. “What am I actually freaking doing?” My heart is pounding so hard. If I disappear now with Chewbarka and whatever Tina’s doing falls through, I’m toast. Chewbarka will die. Mom will never forgive me. Doc Snyder will probably sue us and put some kind of flag on my name or something so I can never work at a vet or with animals. Everything, everything that can go wrong will go wrong.

  Mom’s car door slams. Her footsteps come toward the house.

  I scoop Chewbarka into my arms, slip out the patio door, and close it behind me. There’s no time to grab Vlad the Rapid. I’ll have to hoof it.

  I can’t go to the tent. That’s the first place Mom will look. There’s nowhere to go. I have to keep moving around until Tina calls back. Which could be in five minutes or an hour or—

  My phone pings with a message as I’m hurrying away. The foster spot got filled this afternoon. Working on finding another. Hang in there.

  Thank you, I text Tina back. Do you know how long it might take?

  Not sure. Rescue org is making calls now.

  There’s nothing else to say or ask. I’m at the mercy of forces I can’t control.

  I don’t know why I open my messages with Ash. Everything’s messed up with us, and it’s mostly my fault. But I still feel like he should know what’s happening. I tap out a quick message as I speed-walk away from my house:

  Maybe there’s still a chance.

  27

  Halfway Through the Crossfade

  Ash

  Is Daniel talking about Chewbarka? Us? Something else? What do you mean? I text.

  He doesn’t answer. I keep my phone in my hand while I walk Booper around the complex. My eyes are so glued to the screen that I trip three times before I pay attention to where I’m going.

  Daniel keeps not answering. I smash down the urge to text him again.

  Back upstairs, I curl up on Mom’s bed under her ceiling fan. The faint sound of metal scraping plastic is calming. I close my eyes and steady my breathing, letting the soothing static fill my brain.

  I don’t need to freak out. His text could mean anything. I just have to wait for him to answer.

  I open one eye and check my phone. Still nothing.

  I sit up fast. I haven’t gone on a single run since we moved here. Time to fix that.

  I change clothes and jam my feet into my cross-country shoes. They’ve gotten too small. Or I guess my feet have gotten bigger. But it won’t kill me. I grab some headphones and leave.

  Running feels amazing. I fly along the sidewalks of our complex all pumped up on the music, pouring all my stress about Daniel and Chewbarka and Bella and everything else into my working muscles and pounding feet. It isn’t long before I’m winded. I’m way out of practice.

  I go for longer than feels reasonable anyway, needing to tire my body out so my brain will chill. Then I walk back home, checking my phone every two seconds.

  In my room, I open my laptop and set my phone on the desk so I’ll know the moment Daniel responds. I look over the song I wrote for Zoey’s band. I’m so freaking mad that I cut out all the good stuff so a no-talent buttclown like her could play it. My gender is really all she saw when she looked at me? Come on. There are a million more facets to me, to everyone, than that.

  Bummer that a huge facet of the shiny diamond of Zoey had to be “narrow-minded dipwad.” Maybe I should rewrite the lyrics to say Roses are red, I’m not a girl, I’ve got five fingers and the middle one’s for her.

  Bleh. Stewing’s satisfying, but it gets me nowhere. And sometimes I am a girl anyway.

  I add in everything I took out of the song, then go through it a gajillion times, changing the lyrics to words that matter to me. All the stuff Mom’s been telling me about gender being a whole big colorful spectrum instead of a one-or-the-other binary finally starts to click as I write. I realize I’ve been trying to categorize every feeling I have as either a guy feeling or a girl feeling, because Dad made me think that’s how the world works. Like when I thought “punk-rock songwriter” meant dude and daydreamer meant girly. Like when it seemed that wanting to fight Daniel’s sadness with a lightsaber was boy and cuddling him or blushing was girl. I labeled those feelings with a gender because I wanted it to be easier to know what I am.

  But all that’s done is make it harder. Life’s edges aren’t so defined. Like Daniel doing what was right and saving Chewbarka, even though it was technically lying and stealing. Or me wanting to be in Tyrannosaurus Rocks even though I’m not that into their kind of music. Like the Rainbow Alliance kids saving me from being outed and deadnamed, but making a target of Bella.

  None of those situations can be jammed into a neatly defined box. Really, nothing about how it feels to be alive is strictly a one-or-the-other game: happy or sad, scared or mad, hopeful or despairing. Introvert or extrovert. Boy or girl. Kid or teenager. There’s a little of each one in its opposite, and that’s what makes life so complex and interesting. More painful, yeah, but also . . . richer. More real.

  By the time I’m finished, the song’s not punk anymore, but it has punk’s best elements: It’s stripped down, it’s to the point, and it tells the world’s social norms to take a flying leap. It’s definitely my real voice.

  It wasn’t that long ago that being between genders felt like being stuck in a bad DJ’s crossfade. But for real . . . I’m my own DJ. And good DJs know how to layer music. How to fade one song into another so you’re riding the wave of both for a few measures and they’re working together, instead of against each other. Those moments are complex and interesting and wonderful, the way the sky can
be purple and orange at the same time at sunset. How the ocean can be deep and dark and bright and scary and exciting all at once.

  It really can be beautiful to be complicated and contradictory and in between. To live in that musical and personal space that’s halfway through the crossfade.

  I giggle with pure, clear happiness. The sound is high-pitched and girly but has some bass to it, and it ends with a goofy squeak—an Ashley shape and an Asher one, a laugh I might’ve found embarrassing or uncomfortable before that’s now simply what it is:

  Happy.

  I scribble the silly shape of it. It comes out looking like Dr. Seuss on an off day, so I add amateur ballerinas in tutus.

  I finish tweaking my lyrics, then title the song “Halfway Through the Crossfade.” I record myself playing it on the keyboard and singing it. It feels good. It feels right. I’m saying my truth, and I’m not afraid people won’t like it. In fact, I hope it makes people think. I hope it’s a light in the dark for anyone who feels like they have to be one thing or the other when both can be true.

  Bummer it can’t be used for Girls Who Rock the Future. It’s a hella dope song and I’m proud of it.

  I open the nightstand drawer that holds my makeup. I pick through the box of nail polish and find a bright blue and an audacious pink Mom bought for me a while ago. It’s way too garish for Ashley, but it’s perfect now—the perfect pink and the perfect color to stripe with the blue on each nail. I paint both hands, slowly and carefully, then admire how it looks: kinda girly, kinda punk, definitely badass. Definitely me.

  I tuck the makeup I don’t use anymore into a plastic bag to give to Esme since her dad chucked hers. It’s just drugstore stuff, but it’s better than nothing. I smile when I think about how much she and the other Rainbow Alliance kids enjoyed making their flags. Like someone finally gave them permission to be who they are. It was inspiring to see.

  Feeling that fire, I open Insta and make a story post of the first part of the video of me singing my song. I upload the full song to SoundCloud and link it in my Insta bio.