She finds some old sweatpants for me, and a worn-out T-shirt from a concert at the Showbox in Seattle. I take them to the bathroom, and when I come back, free of my binder and swaddled in Phoebe Bridgers merch, the Christmas lights are out in her room. I have to squint through the dark to climb under the covers with her. She wraps her arms around me, burrows her nose into the back of my neck.
“I’m sorry about your mom,” she murmurs. “And her job.”
“Thank you.”
She’s quiet a second, and then, softly, she says: “You’ll get through this, you know. You and your family.”
I turn, search her face in the dark. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, yeah, your parents fight all the time and shit. Unemployment’s definitely not gonna make things any easier. But, like, they’ve got each other’s backs, you know? Nobody’s gonna split.”
Her voice cracks on that last word, split, so I ask her: “Did your dad . . .”
“Yeah. Two days ago. Another fucking pathetic e-mail. He started going to church again, he’s praying for me and my mom, will I stop being such an ungrateful little bitch and write him back, blah, blah, blah . . .”
“I’m sorry, Lulu.”
“Don’t be. I don’t give a fuck about him. I’ve got the best mom in the world.”
“You really lucked out, you know?” I mean it. “You two just . . . you like each other. You really, honestly like each other. And you are so much better off without him.”
She moves closer to me, ’til we’re nose to nose. “You ever wonder why people get married?”
“I mean, financial security. And there’s all this stigma against single parents, too. Our whole society is basically built to lock out anyone who isn’t part of a nuclear family. There’s this guy Michael Cobb who wrote a whole book on—”
“Okay, I love a political diatribe as much as you do,” she says, “but that was not an invitation to go full debate champ on me.”
“Sorry. I probably deserved to be interrupted.”
“I’m just saying—sometimes I’m glad my dad walked out, you know?” She blinks; I feel her lashes up, down on my cheeks. “Like, if he’d stuck around? If I’d spent the last decade actively dealing with his shit? I would be way, way worse off than I am now.”
“I think there are lots of people who are just happier not being married.” I pause. I can feel my voice shifting, going small, timid in my throat. “But if you really love someone, and they really love you, and the two of you take good care of each other . . .”
“What the hell?” Lucy laughs, kicks me lightly in the shin. “Since when are you a hopeless romantic?”
“I’m not!” I squirm away from her—her, and her icy-cold feet. “I swear!”
“I know, dum-dum. I dated you.”
“I really don’t know if I’ll ever date anyone ever again.”
It’s the kind of thing I wouldn’t say to anyone but Lucy. Wouldn’t say to anyone at all if the lights were on. If I weren’t already so sad.
Lucy’s sigh feathers my face. “Don’t do this,” she says. “You’re always doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Cockblocking yourself,” she says. “Or, like, clamjamming.”
“I . . . clamjamming?”
“I’m trying to respect your anatomy!” She twists away from me; I’m trying, hard, to land a kick of my own. “Leave me alone!”
“Clamjamming is the worst thing I’ve ever heard in my whole life.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll never say it again.” She crosses her heart, and we settle back into place, both giggling unstoppably in that stupid, sleepover-giddy way. “I just wanted to stop you before you went into one of your self-hate-y spirals.”
“I do not hate myself,” I scoff. I don’t. I really don’t. Well. I don’t think I do. “It’s just . . . hard for me to date anyone, you know? Especially ’til I have my surgery.”
She snorts. “I dated you.”
“Yeah, but you like clams.”
“Only if the clams are attached to girls,” she says. “And, for the record, I like all kinds of girls. Girls with clams, girls without . . .”
“But not everyone’s like you! Most girls . . . they wouldn’t even think about dating a guy like me. And that’s . . . you know, whatever. Fine. To each their own.”
Lucy’s silent for a second, staring up at the ceiling. Her quiet feels heavy, loaded.
“You know,” she starts, slowly, “I spent a long time wondering why my dad walked out.”
This feels like a non sequitur. “Where are you going with this?”
“Well, like, I spent a lot of time asking myself, ‘What’s wrong with me? What did I do? Why doesn’t he love me?’ ”
“Lucy.” Something in my stomach sinks like a stone. “You know it wasn’t your fault.”
“Exactly. His rejection of me? It had nothing to do with me. Fuck-all. He didn’t know me. Didn’t want to know me. He just wanted out of my life. And that was a him problem, not a me problem.” She tilts her head onto my shoulder, kisses my cheek, makes sure I’m listening. “So, like, don’t go through life thinking you’re the problem. The girls—the people—who can’t look past your body? They’re the problem. Not your chest. Or your clam.”
“I will pay you real human money if you never say ‘clam’ again.”
She laughs, leans away, blows me a raspberry. “You’ll find someone, Finch.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. Now, go to sleep.”
And somehow, in spite of everything, I do.
* * *
—
I manage to show up at school the next morning even though all I want to do is curl up in Lucy’s bed and sleep the day away beneath her mountain of stuffed animals. I sleepwalk through my first few classes. By lunch, I’m beyond bleary-eyed, nodding into my locker while I search the clutter for the student ID I’ll need to breach the cafeteria. I’m so sleepy that it takes me a second to register the hand on my shoulder. I turn around, look up: It’s Jonah, giving me a big, easy smile.
Behind him, a few feet away, Bailey doesn’t look up from his phone. He seems very absorbed. I don’t know what he’s looking at, but whatever it is, it must be fascinating.
“Did you get my message last night?” Jonah says brightly. “There was this article in the Atlantic about a school that had a big blow-up over a trans kid wanting to use the bathroom. They were talking about like, single-stall bathrooms, and I thought maybe we could . . . Finch? You with me?”
“Totally.” I’ve absorbed maybe half the words he’s said. “Sorry, I didn’t see the . . .” I break, yawning wide. “. . . the article. Didn’t check my e-mail last night.”
“Whoa. That’s a first.”
“Yeah.” I let out a limp laugh. “Kind of an intense night.”
“Aww, I’m sorry, Finch,” Bailey says, a sympathetic glimmer in his eye. “I have to steal Jonah now, but if you guys wanted to catch up later . . .”
“Actually, Bee?” Jonah turns to Bailey. “Could you give us a minute?”
“Sure.” Bailey’s smile seems oddly tight, tense. “No problem.”
He rolls his eyes as Jonah turns back to me. Jonah doesn’t see it, but I do. It’s a rude, luxurious circle, arcing up to the ceiling and ending where it began: the screen of his phone, emitting a low, sugary bloop. Candy Crush. Unmistakable.
“You said you had an intense night?” Jonah lowers his voice, just a little: I can hear him, but Bailey can’t. “Intense like how? Good intense, or bad intense?” He sounds truly concerned. “Please don’t say bad intense.”
“Intense like, um . . .” My throat pinches every word on the way out. “My mom, she . . . she lost . . . lost her job.”
“Oh my God.” Jonah’s hand; my shoulder. “Finch, I’m so, so sorry.�
��
The look on Jonah’s face is genuinely devastated—like he’s the one who got the bad news, not me. It sears me, seeing it. I can’t meet his eyes, so I lower my own to the floor. Even his sneakers are the color of a bruise.
“I mean, we’ve known it was coming for a while.” I want to say something to soften the blow, to wipe that sad look from his face. “It’s not really a surprise.”
His arm around my shoulder now, he’s steering us down the hallway. There’s an alcove here, a bench welded to the wall. It’s quieter. We perch.
“Are you okay?” he asks. “Can you tell me more about what happened?”
I’m about to give him an answer—a long one full of sound and fury about the venture capitalists who picked the bones of our local paper—when Bailey, suddenly, appears in front of us and lifts his phone. A clock goes tick-tick on the screen.
“Hey, sorry,” he says, “but lunch is over in half an hour, and we’re going to get stuck in the lineup at the boba place if we don’t—”
“Babe.” A flicker of real anger rolls through the word. It’s something I almost never hear in Jonah’s voice—definitely not when he’s talking to Bailey. “Finch’s mom just lost her job.”
“Oh, Finch, honey.” There’s that sympathetic look in Bailey’s eyes again; this time, I trust it less. “That sucks.”
“Yeah,” is all I can manage to mumble. “It really does.”
Talking is hard when I feel like this: funny, foggy, like I’m floating out of my body. It’s only when Jonah presses into me, his arm like an anchor, that the world filters once more into sharp focus.
“Do you want to grab a bite with me and Jonah?” Bailey asks. “I mean, unless you’re not feeling up to it.”
“Bailey. Come on. This is kind of a crisis.” Jonah cuts in stern, like he’s addressing an unruly Renata or Benjie. “You and I can just get coffee after school instead.”
“But we’re meeting at the Green Bean after school,” I pipe in. I don’t want to be a pain; I also don’t want him to forget. “We have to prep with Adwoa.”
“Right.” Jonah purses his lips, blows out. “Okay! We can have a lunch date tomorrow, then, Bee. Does that work?”
“KIRO-7 is interviewing me tomorrow at lunch. Remember?” Bailey lifts a hand, crosses his fingers. “Hoping to drum up some press before my callback at Juilliard.” He sings this last word, really draws it out: Juuuuilliaaaard.
“Well, we’ll just . . .” Jonah thinks for a second, then gives up, sighing. “We can go out some other time.”
Bailey throws an arm over his forehead, going for a Southern belle–ish swoon. “I’ll just grab lunch by my lonesome, then.”
Before Jonah can say anything more, Bailey’s spinning on his heel, striding down the long, blurry stream of the busy hallway. I look at Jonah. He’s wincing with his whole entire body.
“Are you sure you’re the one who should be comforting me right now?” I ask him. He tries to give me a reassuring smile and misses the mark so badly that I burst out laughing. “Seriously, Jonah, he’s being kind of a jerk today. Is everything okay with you guys?”
Jonah squeezes me around the shoulders again. “Finch, trust me: That had nothing to do with you,” he says, even though that wasn’t what I’d asked. “Bailey’s just stressed out. His Juilliard callback is this weekend. The musical opens next week. We’re still sorting out the whole long-distance thing. He’s on edge, and it’s seriously not your fault. Like, if anything, it’s my fault.”
I lower my voice, lean in. “You still haven’t told him about UDub?”
“I’m going to,” he says, wincing only slightly this time. “When he’s in a good headspace, and he’s ready to hear the news, I will.” Jonah’s arm falls from my shoulder. And, wouldn’t you know: I miss it! It’s that same thing I felt last night, curled up between Lucy and her stuffed animals. I want it back. “Don’t worry about me, Finch. You’ve got enough to worry about these days.”
I look up at him, at the look on his face, hopeful and sad all at once.
And I can’t help it: I worry about him.
* * *
—
We really should’ve known better than to book a sit-down at the Green Bean right after school. Shoulder to shoulder with Jonah and Adwoa, I scan the crowded dining room, a wide sea of squalling babies and squalid co-eds, for a free table somewhere, anywhere.
Adwoa’s the first to lift her hand: A cluster of silver-haired men are rising—very, very slowly—from a rare four-top. She bounces on her toes briefly before charging forward.
“Finch! Help me colonize that table.” She tosses a crisp petty-cash twenty to Jonah: “Cabrera. Drinks?”
“On it.” Jonah veers for the counter. “Your poison?”
“Black,” says Adwoa. “Zero cream, zero sugar.”
We branch a little through the crowd. Jonah calls out, “Finch?”
“A hot lemonade? With some honey, maybe?” Something flickers across Jonah’s face, a startled kind of squint. Does he think I’m being finicky? “Sorry!” I call out. “I know it’s weird, but I don’t want to lose my voice, and . . .”
“No, no. Not weird at all.” Jonah pulls away from us, telegraphing two thumbs-ups. “One black coffee and one hot lemonade, coming right up.”
Then we really fork—Jonah angling all the way to the counter, me and Adwoa booking it to the four-top to drape parkas, scarves, bags over the seat-backs. Adwoa drops her purse into her chair, and I laugh.
“Your bag needs its own seat?”
“Uh, yeah,” she says. “It’s a Telfar. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has one.”
“Oh. I don’t know much about fashion, but I do know that I’d die for her.”
Adwoa laughs, sweeping her braids up into a low ponytail. “Hey, have a seat, would you? I wanted to see if you’re okay with this trans resolution. Since it’s personal for you, and all.”
“But isn’t every resolution personal?” I take a cautious seat; I don’t love being singled out like this. “You’re always saying the personal is political.”
“Well, sure. But there’s a difference between, like, ‘this affects all of us’ and ‘this one affects me,’ you know? Like, we all worry about gun control, right? We don’t all worry what bathroom to use.”
“They make Muslim girls debate about hijabs,” I tell her. “They make Catholic kids debate about abortion.”
“You’ve got a point,” she says, thoughtfully. “God knows I debate police abolition all day every day with any white guy on campus who opens his mouth about this ‘Blue Lives Matter’ garbage.”
“I honestly don’t know how you do it.” I can hear awe sneaking into my own voice. “I never have the energy to engage with people like that.”
“Well, I have to ‘engage’ whether I like it or not,” Adwoa says, sighing. “It could be me one of these days, you know? Like . . . God, I don’t want to get too heavy, but Sandra Bland? She looked just like me.”
A wave of sudden, total guilt swirls through me. I’ve seen a lot of headlines about murdered trans people; I’ve never seen a victim who looked like me. They seem more like Adwoa, if anything: almost always girls, almost always black. Sometimes, they’re sex workers. Their lives are so much more dangerous than mine. So why am I quailing about this debate? What do I have to lose, anyway? If I’ve got all this privilege, shouldn’t I be body-checking terves every second of every day?
I square my jaw. “I’m okay with this resolution, Adwoa,” I say. “I have to be.”
“. . . Okay,” she says, skeptically. “That’s . . . good to hear. Let’s just make sure you’re taking care of your . . .”
Before she can finish her sentence, Jonah’s back, heavy tray in hand. “For the lady: tall, dark, and handsome.” He hands her a pristine ceramic mug—no paper or plastic at the Green Bean, ever—full of black co
ffee. “And for the gentleman: hot lemonade with honey and just a touch of ginger.”
I take the mug from him. Ginger, I think, that’s new. I take a cautious sip; the flavors bloom on my tongue. It’s so good. I surprise myself by sighing out loud.
“Did I get it right?” he says, sounding worried.
Was it the sigh? Did he mistake it for, I don’t know, dismay?
I set the mug down. “No, no,” I hurry to tell him. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”
“Another satisfied customer,” he says, his shoulders falling in relief. He shifts Adwoa’s coat and slides into the chair next to her, kitty-corner to me. Then he reaches for the tray again. His drink of choice is an iced coffee housed in a glass the size of a car battery. At least, I assume it’s coffee. It’s . . . pink? Can coffee even be pink?
Adwoa says exactly what I’m thinking. “What is that? A strawberry milkshake?”
“This is an iced raspberry white chocolate mocha with soy milk.” Jonah, saving the turtles, takes a long slurp from the metal straw he brings everywhere. “With rose petals on top.”
“I see.” Adwoa pauses. “May I say something low-key homophobic?”
Jonah laughs. “You may not.” Defiant, he stirs the rose petals into his admittedly very pretty drink. “Anyway, tell me: What did I miss while I was getting drinks?”
My eyes meet Adwoa’s. She nods—go ahead—so I do.
“We were, um, talking about the resolution,” I tell him. “Whether I’m comfortable with it.”
“Oh!” Jonah snaps his fingers. “Same talk you and I had at my place, right?” I nod at him; he nods back. “And you’re still cool with it? You don’t want to skip this one?”
. . . Skip this one? “No!” I yelp. “No way. This is the national championship we’re talking about.”
“I know. I know. I’m just saying: I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to debate about something so close to home.” He sighs, shrugs: “I mean, I skipped the musical this year, pretty much for the same reason, so . . .”
“Wait.” I blink at Jonah, confused. What “reason” is he talking about, exactly? “I thought you just wanted to focus on Nationals.”
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