by Rachel Gold
Only a few people knew and none of us would share that info. Tucker kept trying to play it tough, but this wasn’t a thing you could tough through. She’d talked to me about it more than anyone. I listened and hugged her and told her she was going to be okay, but I didn’t know how to make her okay, just that she wasn’t yet.
“What’s your problem?” I asked Summer, loud enough to turn heads in the dining room.
Summer fluffed her curls and chewed her lip, contradictions of confidence and uncertainty. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m edgy. Everything’s changing too fast.”
“Yeah,” Tesh said and didn’t elaborate.
To me Summer added, “And you. I don’t know if it’s okay to be attracted to you or not. It spins my brain.” Her plain-faced honesty made me like her a little more.
“Of course it’s okay,” I said.
“So you are a girl?”
“No!”
“You’re a guy?”
“There aren’t only two genders, or two sexes,” I was raising my voice. “Shit, for chunks of western history there was one sex, check out early Aristotle. And a lot of cultures have three or more genders. I am never going to fit in your binary.”
“Then how do I know if you fit in my bed?”
“You’ve got to work that out for yourself.”
“Yeah but if all the women who have any masculine traits stop being women, what does that do to the feminist movement—if women are opting out of being women instead of changing what it means to be a woman. What does it do to kids looking for role models? To women who like butches?”
From the doorway behind her, on the way back in, Tucker said, “Butch is still a thing,” and I wanted to cheer. On Tucker it was more than a thing; butch was amazing.
“But obviously not a thing Tesh wants to be,” Summer said. “There is seriously one butch girl at this school right now and it’s you. There used to be more but one transferred and one is turning into a guy and I was seriously hoping, Tesh, that when you started wearing guy clothes you were finally coming out as the strapping butch dyke you’d be perfect as.”
Summer and Tesh stared at each other with gunfighter showdown intensity. I had missed something big. I had a lot of answers for Summer’s questions, mostly about doing away with the binary and seeing people as individuals, but I got the vibe that this was not my fight.
Tesh said, “I’m not. At least not right now. You can’t be a role model to anyone if you’re pretending your identity. If I have kids, I don’t want them growing up in a world where they’ve got to have a fixed identity all the time.”
Summer contemplated her mostly-empty beer bottle, sighed and walked out of the room.
“What is going on with you two?” I asked Tesh.
A deep red blush took over Tesh’s pale cheeks. Glancing away, Tesh said, “Her girlfriend left and they broke up and, you know, stuff.”
Way more stuff than Tesh was saying, but I didn’t push. I had enough of my own stuff.
Tucker was staring in the direction Summer had gone and I couldn’t read her face. What would she do when she found out the person she liked and now thought of as a girl—me—wasn’t exactly a girl?
Chapter Four
Tucker
Around midnight, in a house party, thinking about someone else’s sex life—that was me. Granted the sex life in question was my adorable roommate Ella’s, who by my calculations should have lost her guy-virginity about an hour ago with her boyfriend. But it still made me feel weird. For the first time other people’s sex lives were more compelling than mine.
Where mine used to be was blank. I had this fight starting in my head again—like my brain totally wanted to get down with Nico and my body was all “screw you” about it.
It was hard enough being in this house again. I went to get a colder drink from the back porch, to be outside, see if the cool air helped. But standing on the porch made me feel twitchy: that point in a horror movie when the music starts to play and you brace in your seat because you know that despite your best efforts you’re going to jump when the killer comes out of nowhere. I got a beer fast and went back into the mass of people in the kitchen, shouldering through them to the dining room and finally the living room.
Summer was back, in the middle of the couch now, with Tesh on one side and Nico on the other. She had one leg pressed up against Nico’s and was playing with a curl by Nico’s ear. That was a disaster in the making.
Did she think it would make Tesh jealous to see her flirt with Nico? Or was she trying to piss me off? Or, bonus, both at the same time?
“Can I talk to you?” I asked Summer.
“Don’t want me flirting with your date?” she asked, brown eyes locked on mine. “I thought you had dibs on Ella pre-boyfriend. You can’t call dibs on every eligible…person who shows up.”
Her pause before the word “person” was obvious. A glitch in her affected cool. Summer couldn’t seem to get over wanting to fit Nico into male or female categories, and some days I wasn’t much better at it. Using nonbinary pronouns fluently was harder than I’d expected.
“I’m not—” I started to protest, but that didn’t seem right since I very much wanted to call dibs on Nico. I began again with, “I didn’t—”
“You called dibs on Ella?” Nico asked, raising sculpted eyebrows. Up close Nico’s light brown eyes held hints of green, like flecks of jasper.
“She totally did,” Summer told Nico, leaning close, conspiratorial. “She got all Neanderthal when I said I was willing to test out just how bisexual Ella is.”
“Maybe because saying you’re going to test someone’s bisexuality is not cool,” Nico suggested.
Summer sighed, flipped her hair and stood up. “Fine, Tucker. What?”
I walked to the front porch, trusting she’d follow me. There were a few people smoking on the steps, but no one in the three-season porch. Cal didn’t like people smoking there and it was too cold for hanging out. I liked the cold. And this was the only part of the house I didn’t hate at the moment.
Summer followed me to the far corner and folded her arms high on her chest.
“I’m not going to tell anyone what I saw,” I told her. “So whatever you think you’re doing with Nico, back off.”
“You think you get to call the shots? You think you can walk in here as a first year and get whatever you want?”
“Whoa, what are you talking about?” I asked.
“You’re the big hero of the campus now after that stunt last fall. I’ve been working my ass off in Women and Gender Studies and all anyone can talk about is you. Around here.” She circled a finger, meaning Cal’s house and by extension our student organization. “Nobody moves without asking you or Ella first. Trans is the flavor of the decade and you scammed your way into it. Two years I’ve been busting my ass to get the good work study, to get considered for research.”
She jammed her finger into my shoulder. “You think you know what it’s like. You think you saw something today. Me getting shot down. That’s not the half of it. What happens when you get picked to do research next year that I should’ve been doing, that I need for my transcript, and all because you pretended to be a trans woman?”
“I’m not trying to take work away from you,” I told her.
“Oh good, so you’ll turn it down if they offer?”
I didn’t think I was going to get offered research work study, but if I did…college cost so much and I didn’t make a lot at the hardware store, especially only working weekends and summers. Research work study paid better than my hardware store job and came with credentials for future projects and jobs.
Would I turn that down for Summer? Even before this semester? Even before she started acting like a raging ass?
“I thought so,” Summer said while I struggled with the answer. “You’ve got that presentation in Callander’s class when? A month from now? Wait and see what she offers you after that. Then come tell me to back off, moron.”
I didn’t want to go back into that house. Her jab at my shoulder, the smell of the place, had made me jumpy again. I leaned my forehead against the cool window and watched the smoke rise from the clump of people on the front steps.
Some days I was still foolishly happy I’d even gotten into college. Growing up I wanted all sorts of things, but I figured if I was really lucky I’d eventually run a small contracting company. Summer was planning to go to an ace law school, set herself up for a career in politics, rise as high as she could. She never doubted what she could do professionally, intellectually.
I rubbed the calluses on my fingers. I’d been thinking maybe I did want to be a professor someday. Prof. Callander made that feel doable. But the money for grad school, all those years of study, all that debt…
I didn’t get offered help, being big and dykey. People in my town figured I could handle myself, or they didn’t want anything to do with me. The best I got was leftovers: my sisters’ clothes that never fit right, their marked-up books. If Summer was right about the work study, that would be the first time I got offered something first, something I really needed.
What if I got it, but didn’t deserve it?
* * *
When the porch got too cold, I forced myself back into the living room. Nico was talking to Tesh. When Nico saw me, yo pushed off the couch in a single motion that rippled with physical grace.
Holding out a hand, Nico said, “If you have dibs.”
Our fingers curled together and yo pulled me down the house’s back hall, past the clump of nervously shifting people standing in line for the one bathroom. I was about to protest that I didn’t feel right going into Cal’s bedroom when Nico opened the door diagonal from Cal’s and pulled me through.
The room managed to be Spartan and yet messy. In one corner lay a pile of socks like a nest of snakes, in another was a trash can crammed with old potato chip containers and cereal boxes. The bed wasn’t made but someone had thrown a Freytag University wool blanket over it. Lumps and ridges from the underlying bedclothes made it look like a landscape scored by glaciers.
On the foot of the bed was a gray and dark red duffel that said The Ohio State University across the front.
“You’re staying here?” I asked.
“For tonight, so I don’t have to drive back late. Cal’s roommate said it was cool. But hey, this isn’t like me inviting you into my bedroom, get it? I want to talk.”
“Yeah,” I said, but my breath had quickened at the word “bedroom” and caught in my throat.
Around Nico, the jumpy feeling from the porch turned into something much better: warm and buzzing.
“You and Summer, are things okay?” Nico said.
“No. But it’s about school. It’ll work out.”
She couldn’t stay mad at me for the whole rest of the semester. And I didn’t want to think about Summer anymore.
Standing in front of me, Nico seemed taller than when we’d first met. Still a hair shorter, but barely. Late growth spurt? Yo always struck me as older than Ella but now in the stark overhead light, looked young for mid-eighteen.
Nico took the beer bottle out of my hand and offered me yos half-empty bottle of orange soda. I took a long drink from it. My throat still felt dry after. Nico set the bottle of beer on the desk, far enough toward the back that no one was going to carelessly knock it over.
Since I’d met Nico in the fall, yo had been growing out yos hair. Now it lay in little black curls all over yos head. At the same time, Nico had stepped back the makeup so that yos face appeared plainer, more masculine. Under the orange shirt, I saw the sharp definition of strong shoulders.
Nico said yos gender was nonbinary—what did that mean? I’d seen Nico in the dress in Ella’s room looking entirely like a girl and my brain kept going back to that image.
And I didn’t want to just talk.
I perched on the bed, near the foot. Nico sat halfway to the headboard, within arm’s reach. Yos fingers played along a thick wrinkle in the wool blanket.
“What are we doing?” Nico asked.
The question was legit; we’d been emailing, talking, messaging, video chatting and calling each other since the middle of winter. And there was flirting, but not a lot. Nico was being careful of me. For the first time in my life, I appreciated it.
I shook my head and shrugged. “Having an awkward conversation?”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“Do we have to talk?” I asked. I felt like all I’d been doing was talk for the last three months. I wanted to stop talking.
“It’s usually a good idea,” Nico said, but yo was smiling.
But I thought, “she was smiling” because for a moment Nico seemed very much like a girl, peering up through her eyelashes, flirting with me.
I crawled forward on the bed and kissed her. Nico’s lips were soft but agile, like diving into a lake and finding it easy to float. Sensations like water lapping along the surface of my mouth. Her tongue touched my lips gently, harder, pressing against my tongue.
I was off balance, sliding forward, and she pulled me down on top of her on the bed.
Yo, I reminded myself, Nico’s pronoun was yo. But wrapped in the kissing, our legs tangling together, my body said “girl” or at least “girl enough.” Not that I was thinking that much. It was all mouth and hot and soft and thank God I can do this again, like coming home, Nico smelling of wheat in the sun, peppermint and ginger and salt water.
I brought my lips from yos mouth to yos ear and kissed around its edge, intermittently nuzzling yos neck. Nico laughed, hooked one leg around mine and rolled us over.
Nico shifted yos weight more onto me. I wanted that pressure but it scared me. It was too much like what I’d been trying to forget with Lindy. The world twisted. My hand trailed down from Nico’s shoulder to yos arm—touched the solid mass of tricep and that reminded me of my Lindy’s ropey muscles. Sickening panic surged through me.
I pushed away: one hand holding Nico back, the other bracing me up. From lying on top of me, Nico flowed into a sitting pose beside my legs.
“Tucker?” yo asked.
“I can’t,” I said.
I got up so fast I was dizzy and spun around to see if I had a jacket somewhere. No, it was on the porch and I had my boots on. This wasn’t the night with Lindy. It wasn’t. But spinning was a mistake. I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes and that made me feel sicker.
“What happened?” Nico asked, yos voice even and soothing.
I had to get out of this house, away from the throbbing, sick feeling.
“I can’t do this.”
I jerked the door open and shoved my way through the crowded hall. On the front porch, my jacket lay in a heap with others. Snaring it, I kept going down the front steps. I couldn’t stop moving until I was a few houses away.
The cold air cleared my head enough that I paused on the sidewalk and looked back at the brightly pink house. I should go back and explain. I owed Nico that much. But I didn’t want to walk back into that place, into the people and the memories and the panic.
I put a hand out to the tree next to me to remind myself which way was up. My heart pounded against my breastbone and the bottom of my throat.
Nico hadn’t come after me, wasn’t anywhere to be seen on the porch or the front steps. Maybe this was better. Without me and my damage, Nico could dance and talk with everyone and have a good party after all.
I walked a few more houses away and glanced back again, hoping I’d see Nico standing out front. Wanting to see anything that gave me a reason to go back. Instead I watched a drunk kid stagger off the porch and puke on the lawn. If that was a sign, it said I should get the hell out of here.
I headed toward the dorms but it was Valentine’s Day night and Ella would be in her room with her boyfriend. I didn’t want to be anywhere near that. I didn’t want to pollute her wonderful night.
I dug my phone out, found my favorites list and hit the third number down.
“Jess?” a sleepy voice grumbled.
As my older sister, Bailey was one of very few people in my life who got away with using my first name. I almost liked it when she used it. Back in high school I’d called her a bunch, to get rides or just hang out and talk. Last semester I didn’t. I was in college; I wanted more space from family and the tiny town I’d come from.
“You drunk?” she asked.
“Screw you too, Bay. I’m sober enough but I want to come home. Can you come get me?”
“You buying me pancakes?” my sister asked.
“You know I am.”
“Yeah, where are you?”
“I’ll be at the gas station on the corner of Tyler and Lawrence.”
Bailey muttered an indecipherable affirmative and hung up. My phone said it was one a.m., I owed Bailey more than pancakes. I went into the gas station’s 24-hour store, decided on a canned coffee drink for Bailey. I paid and jammed it into the pocket of my oversized coat, went to wait outside.
Bailey’s ancient Honda pulled into the gas station, creaking as it came to a stop. I slid into a hot interior that smelled of hair spray and a dozen other sweet and fruity beauty products.
Bailey differentiated herself from her identical twin Brenna by changing her hair color and style every month. Tonight she sported purple braids, starting with indigo near her scalp and going lavender toward the ends that hung down her back.
The color wasn’t great for Bailey’s skin tone, or maybe it was the effect of the harsh gas station lights on her already cool, white-tan face. She was smaller than me with a rounder build like our mother’s, but she carried her weight with an easy confidence and the heavy jewelry in her ears suggested she wasn’t someone to mess with.
“You’re lucky I’m not on shift until noon,” Bailey said.