Both Can Be True

by Jules Machias

  Fiona is the first to be called at our table. She walks to the front of the room with her chin tilted up and her shoulders back. I recognize her debate persona taking over. She projects self-assurance as she tells us about her mom’s baptism gown and her own baptism candle on a swath of altar fabric, and about putting each object at the top intersections to show there’s more yet to be written to the story.

  Braden goes next. His photo is a pair of torn-up leather gloves and a cracked motorcycle helmet on a street. “These were my mom’s,” he says in an abrupt tone. “She got killed last year by a dipwad driving drunk. Now we’re rich from the insurance but I’d rather have her than the money.” He hurries to his seat without waiting for Ms. Bernstein to ask him anything about it.

  Ash gives his shoulder a quick squeeze. Braden seems like he’s trying not to cry. The room is full of awkward silence.

  I stand up quickly. “I’ll go next.” I walk to the front while Ms. Bernstein opens my photo. I face the class and clear my throat. “The lock on the left is my bike lock. Without my bike, I couldn’t have saved a dog’s life. The lock of hair on the right is from the dog. The background is the floor of the tent I kept her in while I figured out how to get her to safety.” I look at Ash. “I had some help, and I’m proud of what we did, even though it was hard.”

  “Very good,” Ms. Bernstein says. She glances at Braden, who’s looking down at a notebook and seems to have regained his composure. “Ash?”

  I walk back to our table. My knees are shaky with relief that my turn is over. Ash and I brush our fingers together as we pass.

  Ms. Bernstein displays Ash’s photo. It’s two drawings of figures like you’d see on a bathroom door sign, cut out and set on a plain white fabric. Half of each drawing is guy-shaped and half is girl-shaped, and there are different patterns inside each half. “These two drawings represent my gender and my love of music,” Ash says in a steady voice. “I have synesthesia, so when I hear sounds, I see shapes in my mind. I always categorized the shapes of music by male and female. Guy music to me was made of thick, angled shapes, and girl music was made of flowing lines. But I realized recently how limiting it is to categorize sounds, or anything else, as one thing or the other. So I drew what I used to think of as guy music and girl music inside these gendered symbols, and then I mixed them together. I wanted to show that being human comes first, and the parts that make up who you are—your gender, the music you like, what you wear, everything else—is secondary.”

  For the first time all year, Ms. Bernstein looks impressed. “I’d say you accomplished your goal, Ash. Excellent work.” She calls someone at table five, but her eyes linger on Ash’s drawings for a moment before she flips to the next kid’s photo.

  Ash sinks into the seat next to me. “Phew,” they say under their breath. “I was freaked out of my noodle up there.”

  Fiona stifles a giggle. “You did so good.”

  “Yeah, not bad,” Braden mutters, his face still aimed down at his notebook.

  “Could you tell I rehearsed it like fifty times last night?” Ash whispers to me as the table five kid starts talking.

  “Not at all,” I say quietly. “You were perfect.”

  That smile.

  Dinner at Ash’s apartment Friday evening is really good. It’s simple, burgers and baked potatoes and salad. But it’s fun to watch Ash and their mom constantly switch back and forth between arguing and trying to crack each other up. It’s like a sport. Bicker-joking.

  After dinner, Ash pulls on a black hoodie with a picture of a wave on it and we walk Booper. The air is cool and fresh and crisp, and the sun is heading into a colorful sunset. Booper is the cutest little dude with his soft, floppy ears and his big front feet that turn outward and his tail that wags as he walks in the golden late-day light. “He looks so happy,” I say.

  “He always does. I don’t know if he actually is or if it just seems like he is because of his whole . . . everything.” They wave their hands at Booper like they waved them at me back when they said I looked exhausted and offered to stay with Chewy overnight.

  I smile. “Ever wish you were a dog?”

  “Yeah. Seems way simpler.”

  “No lie. Feel what you feel, take a nap, eat food, take a nap. Go for a walk. Take a nap.” Booper finds a Highly Interesting Smell by a tree and roots around in the dirt, chuffing and snuffing. We stop walking so he can have a good sniff. “I like that I can be myself with you,” I tell Ash. “You’ve never made me feel bad about being a basket case.”

  “You’re not a basket case. You’re a person who feels really hard.”

  “You know what I mean. How like . . . society says it’s not okay for guys to show feelings. So everyone thinks I’m a weirdo when I do it.”

  “You’re not a weirdo either. But yeah, I know what you mean. Guys are supposed to stuff their feelings down. Grunt a lot. Move heavy stuff and be sweaty and manly.”

  “Hulk smash,” I agree. “It’s a load of crap.”

  “Total load. Stoic doesn’t mean dude. And emotional doesn’t mean girl. I feel dumb for just recently figuring that out.”

  I guess I had that programmed in my head too. And now Ash is making me reconsider it. “What made you figure it out?”

  Ash picks up a red maple leaf, holds it to the lowering sun, and twirls it. “My dad always made me confuse emotions with gender. He’d say stuff like, ‘Boys like to act confident and tough. Girls tend to be compassionate and empathetic.’ Like everything is always male or female and there’s nothing in between. Mom was always arguing with him about it, ’cause she’s Mom and she fixes trucks for a living.”

  “Your mom is basically the coolest.”

  “She’s pretty okay.” Ash smiles. “I get angsty that I can’t be a strong woman like my mom if I’m a guy part-time.”

  “You totally can. And you should tell her that. It would make her really happy.”

  Ash looks down, blushing. “I always wanted her to be right when she’d argue with Dad about gender. But I couldn’t believe that she was right because . . . I don’t know. I guess when you’re younger, ‘either/or’ makes more sense than ‘some of both.’ But life is complicated. Sometimes two things that seem like opposites are both true. There are a million ways to look at anything.”

  “That’s what I like about photography. You can shoot the same subject a hundred ways and create a unique picture each time.” I look at Ash sideways. “I’d love to photograph you. Sometime. If you’d be okay with that.”

  Ash’s blush deepens. It’s so pink and lovely in the golden light.

  “You’re a little of both. I mean a little of a lot of things that are really interesting. I mean you’re a lot of some interesting things. Some really good things, like funny and cool and smart and you love dogs like I do, which is awesome, and your hair is wicked cool and . . . um, please interrupt me so I quit embarrassing myself.”

  “You’re interesting too.” Their hazel eyes focus on my lips. Then they look away.

  I clear my throat and we start walking again. “You did such a great job presenting your rule-of-thirds photo today. It made me proud to be your friend.”

  Tears spring up in Ash’s eyes, then quickly spill over. “That . . . might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” They laugh, and it has enough of a sob in it that my eyes water as well. “Thank you,” Ash says. “Yours was great too.”

  “You should give those drawings to somebody in the office. They could use them to label the neutral bathroom, since the girls’ and boys’ have drawings but that one doesn’t.”

  Ash laughs. “You noticed that?”

  I nod. “I’m seeing things differently since you came out to me. Like more clearly.”

  “Yeah, same.”

  I want to hug them, but it feels forward. I clear my throat. “I like that I connect with you on two levels. Like a guy friendship level and a girl—um, a girl romantic level.” It’s scary to say. “It’s confusing, but honestly . .
. I like it. It’s a good confusion.”

  Ash wipes their eyes and doesn’t say anything. I start to think maybe that was too open, that I’m taking this honesty/vulnerability thing too far because that’s what I do with emotions and—

  “Well. If we’re being honest,” Ash says. “I like you whether I’m a guy or a girl. And that might make things weird for you, if you don’t know if you like . . . you know. What you like.”

  “I don’t think I have that figured out yet.” The word crush doesn’t seem right for what I felt for Ash when I thought they were a girl. It was . . . bigger. Better. More real. Like a crush is a thing you feel from a distance, but what I felt, maybe still feel . . .

  Okay, yes, still feel.

  Oh my gosh.

  What I feel for Ash is right here. Living and breathing and walking around with me. Moving back and forth between us like it has a soul of its own.

  I clear my throat. “Well. I’m glad we know each other. No matter what.”

  Ash smiles. “I’m glad too. It worked out good for Chewbarka that we do.”

  “I’d say so.”

  There’s a pause, and it feels a little awkward. Then, at exactly the same time, we both say, “Do you want to—”

  Ash laughs. “You first.”

  “No, you.”

  “No, you.”

  “Do you want to go to the dance together?” I blurt. “We could go as friends, or as . . . I don’t know. Co–dog rescuers?”

  “Oh.” Ash’s face shows surprise, then disappointment at the word friends. “Um.”

  My stomach sinks. “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry. Rewind thirty seconds and pretend that didn’t happen, okay?” I shouldn’t have asked and then said as friends, way to give a mixed signal Danny, you confused mess of a boy—

  “Actually, I was going to ask you . . . if you want to help with that Fall in Love Adoptathon Iris was talking about.” Ash tucks a strand of hair back. “It’s the same day as the dance. Mom and I are planning to help.” They look up at me. “It doesn’t have to be a date, or whatever. If you don’t want it to be. I just thought—”

  “Yes!” I say. “Yes times a million. I’d love to do that with you instead of the dance!”

  “Oh—really?” They smile.

  “Yeah. Absolutely. One hundred percent.”

  “Cool.” They look at their shoes. “I mean, we could do both. The event during the day and the dance in the evening.”

  “Oh, you’re right. Yeah, that would be amazing. Let’s do it!”

  “It’s a date, then,” Ash says brightly. “Or just, you know, two people hanging out. Whichever.”

  “How about we don’t worry what to call it? We could just . . . enjoy the day.”

  They look relieved. “Yeah. Good call.”

  “I shouldn’t have said ‘as friends,’” I tell them. “I want to go as more than friends.”

  “You do?”

  I nod. “But don’t, like, feel like you have to dress as a girl if you don’t feel it. I still want to be your date if you’re, you know, in a suit. Or something guy-ish or whatever.” The words feel jumbled and clumsy.

  “I think I’m past the point of dressing to meet other people’s expectations.” Ash smiles. “I’ll wear what feels right that day.”

  “Good. I guess what I’m saying is it doesn’t matter what you dress like because it’s you I like. Your smile, your laugh, your music, your dog, your—um, your everything.”

  Ash is trying not to smile. “I like your everything too.”

  We reach a bench by the playground. Ash sits and picks Booper up. They rub his ears and press their forehead to his and tell him what a good doggo he is. Booper laps it up, wagging and ramming Ash’s chest. Then he climbs into my lap and rams me with his head.

  Ash smiles. “I took Booper to the zoo once,” they say. “I wanted to show him all the other animals. But they only had two cats and one small dog.”

  I tilt my head.

  “Yeah, it was a real shih tzu.”

  It takes me a second. Then I burst out laughing.

  Ash scratches Booper’s ears. I can’t stop watching that beautiful one-dimple smile.

  33

  Liberated

  Ash

  The minute we drop Daniel off at his house, Mom asks if he and I are a thing now.

  “It’s complicated. I have no idea. But at least he knows why I’m Ash now, and doesn’t assume I’m a girl all the time.” I rub at a smudge on the car window that’s blocking my view of the excellent sunset. “I just don’t know if . . . you know. If he’ll wind up liking boys too.”

  She gives me a sideways smile. “Pretty sure it’s not gonna be an issue. Based on how he was looking at you when we brought the dog to Iris, and tonight at dinner.”

  I’m glad it’s dim in the car, because I can feel my ears going pink. “I think I don’t wanna talk about this.”

  “Fair enough. I didn’t want my mom involved in my love life when I was a teenager either. Or still. Even though my love life is currently nonexistent.”

  “I don’t think I wanna talk about yours either.”

  “Let’s play favorite random crap.”

  I relax into the seat. “You first.”

  We come up with categories, like roller coasters and Jolly Rancher flavors and daydreams and dog breeds and sunset colors, and tell each other our favorites. It’s nice, because we can go as deep or as basic into any answer as we want. “I’m glad you’re my kid,” Mom says after telling me her favorite band is Green Day, which I know ’cause she listens to them all the time like it’s still 1995.

  “I am pretty great,” I say.

  “Don’t get a big head about it.”

  “Too late.”

  She smacks my arm and tells me I’m lucky I’m cute.

  I look out at the sunset. “Can we talk about Dad?”

  “Whoa!” She glances at me. “Where’d that come from?”

  “I just . . . need to.”

  She gets a faraway look for a minute, then says, “Okay, shoot.”

  “Why is he so . . . so Dad?”

  She smiles ruefully. “I’d ask you to narrow it down, but I think I can guess.” She takes a moment to gather her thoughts. “You know how your grandma Rose and grandpa Roger, my parents, went to college? And I did too?”

  I nod. “And Dad’s parents didn’t, and he just went to medical technician training.”

  “Right. Your dad’s always been self-conscious about not having a degree. Notice how he uses bigger words than he needs to? He does not like it when people think his lack of education makes him less than them somehow. He’s very sensitive about that.”

  “I . . . did not know that.” Though it makes sense, now that I think about it.

  “I used to tell him I valued who he was and never thought less of him because of where he came from. But it seemed to rub salt in the wound. He said it was like a rich person telling a poor person, ‘You still have value even though you’re poor.’” Regret passes over her face. “It hurt him to hear that from me. I didn’t understand why then, but I do now, and I wish I’d handled it differently.”

  Kinda like how Bella and I butted heads over the dog, but now we might be friends. “Seems like a lot of arguments are like that. You don’t get where the other person is coming from until you’ve had time to cool your jets.”

  Mom nods. “When you were little, Dad thought you were just experimenting. Trying things on, seeing what fit. He kept waiting for you to ‘figure it out.’ He comes from a family that tends toward reductive thinking. Know what that means?” She stops at a red light.

  “Like stripping out complexities? Because it’s easier to slap a label on something. So you don’t have to think about the whole complicated everything of it.”

  “Look at you coming in with the big brain.” She ruffles my hair. “He rejected his parents’ beliefs—that trans folks are looking for attention, that it’s wrong to be gay, et cetera. But he didn’t go deeper to
reject the way they thought.” The light turns green and she hits the gas.

  “Meaning . . . he seems liberal on the surface, but when you scratch that away, you get a conservative?”

  “Eh, it’s not that cut-and-dried. It can be hard to change the way you learn to think when you’re young. The content of your thoughts, you can change by learning new facts. The structure of thoughts is a different ball game. Make sense?”

  I nod. “Do you still love him?”

  She sigh-laughs. “Ask a harder question next time, will you?”

  “Sorry not sorry.” I want to know. And I trust her to be honest with me.

  “He’s a stubborn cuss who’s too attached to being right. But also . . . his parents weren’t affectionate. Ever. They taught him some screwed-up ways of processing the world. So when I think about little-boy him, learning coping mechanisms for how sad and alone that made him feel . . . yeah, I have sympathy.” Her face hardens. “But when it started negatively impacting you, my sympathy dried up. Convincing you that his point of view is the only logical one felt more important to him. He said me disagreeing with him on that and parenting you differently meant I didn’t respect his point of view. He already had a hang-up about it because I grew up in a higher income bracket than he did. So it was kind of a perfect storm, and then you got appendicitis and I did the name change and, well, you know the rest of that story.”

  I mull it over. “Did you ever have to change anything about yourself that was negatively impacting me?”

  She laughs. “Let me tell you about the year I learned how to be patient. Your terrible twos were epic. Gave me all the gray hairs I cover up with green.”

  I smile. “So you’re saying you’re a better person now because I was stubborn?”

  “Everything about being your mom makes me a better person.”

  My smile is so big it hurts my ears.

  When we get home, the sky is still flaming orange and purple. Griffey’s coming over soon, but I have time to sneak in a quick run. I change my clothes, tie on my too-tight shoes, grab my headphones, and head out.