Both Sides Now

by Peyton Thomas

  “ ’S’all good!” Nasir puts his hands up, defensive. “Gotta bounce anyway.”

  He flits away to bother another pack of debaters. Ari doesn’t follow him, though. She wanders away from us, leaning by herself against a patch of stone wall. Her hands are full, and her eyes are busily scanning the tournament schedule. But she seems to be sneaking glances, every few seconds, at me. Even after we leave the lobby, hoisting our bags and heading to the dorm where we’ll sleep, I can feel her eyes on me.

  Whatever she’s up to, though, I don’t have much time to theorize about it. A bell is ringing through the Gray School’s gray halls. A voice is speaking through an intercom: First round, thirty minutes. Half an hour to wash our faces, get changed, and run through our speeches one last time.

  We’re on the starting line. No turning back now.

  * * *

  —

  When I saw Texas Red on our schedule, I wondered what we were in for: rich white liberals from Austin, the spoiled sons and daughters of South by Southwest? Or rich white conservatives from Dallas, descendants of decades of oil barons? As soon as I walk into the classroom, I have my answer: two boys, six feet tall each, in mustard-yellow blazers that make their blotched pink skin look downright rosaceous. One wears a signet ring; the other, a tie clip. They look like they could buy our present environs—Chemistry Lab 3; regular rounds always take place in normal classrooms, with desks as podiums—and turn it into their own personal country club.

  We take our seats in front of a frankly colossal plasma-screen television. What it’s doing in a chemistry lab, I haven’t the foggiest. I’m on one side of a microscope, and Jonah’s on the other, and it’s welded to the table so neither of us can run off with it. Back home, at Johnson Tech, a class of thirty shares a single microscope.

  It’s clearer to me, suddenly, why my chemistry grades are so bottom-of-barrel.

  The moderator for our first round is a freshman from the Gray School with a cloud of curly black hair, tiny, in knee socks and a sweater-vest. She does not look like she’ll be able to intervene if a brawl breaks out between us and Texas Red. “Good evening,” she reads, from a sheet of crisp white paper, “to all debaters, judges, and honored guests.”

  The only “honored guests” in the room are Adwoa and another woman who must be the Texas guys’ coach. She’s wearing a pink suit, black piping at the hems. All that’s missing is a pillbox hat. Why is a woman from Dallas going for Jackie’s motorcade look?

  “Debating for the proposition today,” the moderator goes on, “from Washington State Blue, we have Jonah Cabrera and Finch Kelly.”

  We nod, and we smile; the woman in the back can’t disguise her disdain. Is it our lack of uniforms? Our shaggy haircuts? The fact that Jonah is Asian and I’m trans? I mean, not that she’s capable of clocking me. I’d be shocked if she’s ever met a trans person.

  “And debating against the opposition, from Texas Red, we have Grantley Fairview and Remington Beveridge.”

  I only just swallow a loud, rude laugh. My hands scramble for a pen; they close around the one that Lucy gave to me. I feel a pang of guilt, missing her, as I scribble a note to Jonah: Those cannot be their real names. He glances at the notepad, then sucks in his cheeks, inhales deeply. I can tell he’s straining not to laugh, putting every bit of his drama club breath control to good use.

  The Texan coach, though—she’s onto us. She’s glaring daggers, like we’re in a Bath & Body Works, and Jonah and I are polyester-vested employees, and her debaters are a couple of three-wick candles she’s desperately trying to purchase with an expired coupon. On his way up to the teacher’s podium, Jonah tries to calm her with a friendly smile.

  “Evening, everyone,” Jonah begins. “Today, we’ll be discussing the rights of transgender and non-binary students who—”

  “On that point, sir,” says Grantley—or Remington, I can’t remember—leaping to his feet, flinging out his arm.

  Now, any debater worth their salt knows to reserve their questions. Lie in wait ’til the middle of the speech, then pounce. You want to time your questions carefully, chop up the other person’s flow. You absolutely do not want to leap up in the first five seconds to spit out a fervid “On that point, sir!” Not if you want to win, anyway.

  “Yes, sir?” says Jonah, still smiling. It’s a smart move on his part: If the question’s coming this early, it can’t be a good one. “You had a question?”

  “Sir, do you not agree that if we are to have a productive conversation today, then we must be in agreement that”—God, Brantington, get on with it—“this whole notion of ‘non-binary’ is facially unsupportable? From a biological standpoint?”

  Jonah exhales. “Madam Speaker, my colleague from Texas is mistaken,” he says, in the most polite voice he’s got, his purest, cleanest, Grandma-is-listening diction. “Many biologists have proven conclusively that humanity is not a perfectly sexually dimorphic species. Hundreds of thousands of intersex babies are born each year with both ‘male’ and ‘female’ sexual characteristics, and—”

  “On that point, sir!”

  The other one—Rentleyton, or whoever—is on his feet. Jonah stops talking and nods like, yes, please, dig yourself a deeper hole.

  “We concede that a tiny fraction of babies really are born that way,” says the Texan. “But what about the people who are born boys, and are born girls, and just claim they’re not, just because they feel like it?” He pauses, laughing in a theatrical way. “I mean, do you know of any real biologists who support these so-called ‘special snowflakes’?”

  On “snowflakes,” Jonah turns to me, very slightly, and grins like a shark.

  Oh, yeah. We’ve won this round.

  * * *

  —

  After we leave the room, we wait a polite minute ’til Ridgeview and Fremley are well out of earshot. And then we turn to each other, our faces breaking into wide, giddy smiles. I lift my hand for a high five, but Jonah has other plans. He reaches out, arms around my shoulders, and hugs me tight, trapping my arm between his chest and mine. When I pull away, I can feel my face going pink, warm.

  “So,” I say, and hope I’m not too flushed, “that was . . .”

  “The easiest round we’ll have all weekend,” he finishes for me.

  “But you can’t get complacent!” Adwoa says, pushing us gently down the hall. “You have to bring it! Every! Single! Time! Even against the dodo birds!”

  “Right on,” says Jonah. “Doesn’t matter how many rounds we win. If our scores aren’t high enough, we’re not highest-seeded.”

  “Definitely.” I’m about to give him a quick critique of his speech—almost perfect, except when he said Foster-Sterling instead of Fausto-Sterling—but I can feel my phone buzzing in my pocket.

  My first thought? It’s got to be Lucy, reaching out with a digital olive branch. I’ve been waiting for it—feeling guilty, and wanting to apologize, but not wanting to make the first move, lest she refuse to talk to me at all. I reach into my pocket and scan the screen for her name.

  Instead, I see a white banner. Two lines:

  Georgetown University—Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service

  Subject: Your Admission Status

  Oh. My. God.

  This is it. The moment I’ve been anticipating for months. Years. My whole life, even. I will open this email and the long, wintry purgatory of my deferral will be over. I will know where I stand. Finally.

  “Everything okay?” Jonah glances at me, a worried brow going up. “You’re, like, vibrating.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everything’s great.” I’m falling behind him and Adwoa, so I slip out of the stream of the hallway. “Hold on. I just got . . . I really need to check this . . .”

  Jonah was right: I am shaking, my phone rattling in my hands as I punch in my passcode. One, two, three nanoseconds go by.
/>   And then the letter loads.

  Georgetown University

  Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service

  Office of Admissions

  Finch Kelly

  9230 Dibble Ave NW

  Olympia, WA, USA

  98508

  Dear Ms. Kelly,

  The Committee on Admissions has completed its review of applicants to the incoming class. Following a very careful consideration of your application, I am sorry to inform you that it will not be possible to offer you a place in the

  This can’t be real. It’s a mistake. I’m sure of it. The letter is addressed to Ms. Kelly—and didn’t I note, specifically, in the very first line of my essay, that no matter what my gender marker might say, I am a boy? So, there we have it: a mistake. I’ll get an acceptance letter any minute now, addressed to Mr. Kelly.

  And even if it’s not a mistake, this letter—even if I have been rejected—well, that’s not so bad, is it? I’m competing at Nationals, right now, this very minute! If all goes well, I’ll be a national debating champion by Sunday! How could Georgetown say no to that? I’ll appeal their decision; they’ll reverse it. They’ll have to. I may be hanging by a thread here; so be it. I’ll cling until every last fiber’s frayed.

  “Finch?” Jonah’s hand. My shoulder. His hands seem to be finding my shoulders a lot these days. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”

  I shove my phone back into my pocket, and I half nod, half shrug. “I’m fine,” I tell him, even though I can hardly breathe to get the words out.

  “We did a fantastic job in that first round, okay?” His voice is low, gentle, soothing; he clearly didn’t buy my whimpered I’m fine. “And now we’re up for our second round, and we’re going to do a great job on that one, too.”

  I manage another nod, a more deliberate one. And then I follow him into the Gray School’s dining hall to get our second-round pairing. He’s doing his best, I know, to keep me calm. I have to reach down inside myself and do my best, too. This is absolutely no time for panicking. In fifteen minutes, we’ll be arguing against trans rights, not for them.

  This is how it always works. If you argued yes in the first round, you’ll be arguing no in the second. Tomorrow, we’ll run through four rounds: two yes, two no. On Sunday morning, the highest-scoring teams from these first six rounds will advance to the final round. Who will triumph? Will it be Minnesota Red? Nevada Blue? Any of the other randomly reddened or blued teams who qualified from their state tournaments? The final is less than 48 hours from now. It feels like an eternity.

  And I feel like I’m swimming through thick, dark mud for our entire second round. We wind up debating Florida Blue, a couple of Cuban American kids from a Catholic school in Miami. They’re better—leagues better—than the Texas team. And they’ve got an edge: They don’t have to stand behind a podium and argue against their own right to use a bathroom.

  For maximum winnability, we built our opposition case on a soft concession: Transgender students shouldn’t use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender, but rather, a single-stall, unisex bathroom. To protect trans kids from bullies, see? To keep them safe.

  The only place I’ve ever really felt safe, though, is behind the podium. This is where I first learned to defend myself, to hold my head high, to declare that I was worth listening to.

  So why am I using these skills to tear myself down?

  We crush Florida Blue in the end, but it’s a joyless victory. A wave of guilt rolls over me as we walk to the dorm where we’ll sleep. Maybe it’s cosmic punishment, that rejection letter. For betraying trans people.

  For betraying myself.

  “Okay, Finch, what’s up with you?” Jonah reaches for me, rubbing my shoulder. “Ever since we won that first round, you’ve been dragging your feet.”

  “I’m just tired,” I mumble. “I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. And it’s been a long, long day.”

  “You’re sure there’s not anything else?” he asks. “You’re not feeling bad about how that round went?”

  “It went great,” I tell him bluntly. “You were great. Now, let’s get back to the dorm and go to sleep.”

  I pace forward, through the courtyard. Jonah sort of half jogs, hustling to keep up with me.

  “But you wanted to hit that party!” He ups his pace, steps in front of me—those long, long legs. “You were so excited to see Georgetown!”

  The word is a knife to the gut.

  I push past Jonah, grumbling. “I don’t want to go anymore. I’m too tired.”

  “Look, Finch. I know you. And this?” He sweeps his hand from my yawning head to my shuffling feet. “This isn’t ‘I’m tired.’ This is ‘I’m stressed.’ Getting some fresh air and catching a glimpse of your dream school will help you decompress. A lot more than curling up in your sleeping bag and hate-reading InfoWars, anyway.”

  He’s right. That’s exactly what I’d planned to do: wash my face, brush my teeth, and “unwind” by reading whatever nonsense that one gun nut who pooped her pants posted on Twitter today.

  But somewhere, deep inside me, a voice is crying out: Fuck it! I just got rejected from Georgetown! I’m spending this whole weekend parroting terf talking points! Nothing means anything anymore! Let’s go to a party! Let’s be bad for once in our lives! Let’s finally find out what alcohol tastes like!

  I can already feel the rational side of my brain sprinting to catch up to this outlaw. He’s repeating Alateen slogans. He’s droning on about sleep, nutrition, personal responsibility. He’s telling me I can still persuade Georgetown that I’m worthy, but only if I win Nationals. And if I want to do that, I’d better get some sleep tonight.

  But the outlaw dodges the sheriff, and against all my better judgment, in this hail of internal gunfire, I open my mouth. I say, “Sure.” I say, “Why not?”

  * * *

  —

  Nasir is a liar. The party is not “at Georgetown.” Not in any way, shape, or form. It’s in a house rented by Georgetown students. Google Maps tells me the campus is a brisk half-hour walk away. There will be no breathless, consolatory stroll across the quad. Not tonight.

  Instead, I get to spend my evening in a row house whose occupants are treating it like a public toilet—beer-sticky floors, pungent smoke, tartan uniforms askew. Half of Louisiana Red is riding half of Michigan Blue’s lap on a low-lying bench in the mudroom. I pull my eyes—up, away—to Jonah.

  “What,” I ask him, “are we doing here?”

  He doesn’t give me an answer. He just pulls me, gently, by the wrist, into the kitchen. We pass dozens of sweaty bodies, but the only one I care about is the one that belongs to him. He steers me to a counter strewn with beer and wine and a single measly six-pack of Coke. There may be time, later, for hard liquor. Right now, though, I think I’ll settle for softness. I pry a can out of the dolphin-choking six-ring packaging and hope Jonah will forgive me.

  A few more steps, and we’re in the living room, where people I don’t know are dancing to a pop song I don’t know. I take a swig of room-temp Coke. It is not delicious.

  “This tastes disgusting,” I tell Jonah. By way of reply, he passes me his beer, and—oh, what the hell? I take a drink. I grimace. “This tastes disgusting.”

  There’s some relief in this revelation, actually. I can’t imagine ever becoming addicted to this stuff. It tastes like raw sewage. With one sip, I may have just broken an intergenerational curse. Go, Finch!

  “We’ll get you started on the fun alcohol,” says Jonah, as I hand back the half-empty bottle. “The alcohol that doesn’t taste like alcohol at all.”

  “No way,” I say, newly committed to the temperance movement. “Alcohol is a class-one carcinogen.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says WHO.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. As cancerou
s as cigarettes.” I lift my hands: this crowded room, these kids all swilling liquid cancer. “And nobody cares because the beverage industry fights tooth and nail to keep the public in the dark. It is a scandal. It is a national scandal.”

  Jonah doesn’t respond to my excellent points. He looks at me like you look at a feverish child, brows bent in concern. “Are you okay?” he asks. “You seem really anxious tonight. More than usual.”

  “I’m always anxious.” Another swig of lukewarm soda. “I don’t need a because to be anxious.”

  “Is it the tournament?” he asks. “Is that the because?”

  “No, it’s just that I got a letter from . . .” I catch myself just before I can say “Georgetown.” “. . . No. Sorry. I’m anxious because this was a bad idea. We’ve got four rounds tomorrow, and we’re out here carousing.”

  “ ‘Carousing,’ ” he repeats, and laughs. “Oh, Finch.” He slings a hand around my shoulder, tucking me under his warm, sweaty wing. “Don’t worry so much. We’ll be fine. We worked our asses off. And we’ve only ever lost one round in our whole lives.”

  “Just the one,” I mumble, my words getting lost in the soft fabric of his sweatshirt. “Just the state final.”

  “And we still made it to Nationals,” he says. “We’re in Washington, D.C., baby!”

  He lifts his hands, and he sweeps them around the squalid room. Beer puddles. Weed smells. People fornicating on the formicating furniture. This is not how I wanted to see D.C. Oh my God, why did I come to this party? What did I think it would do for me? Why, why, why did I listen to the outlaw in my head?

  “I have to go.” I leap to my feet. “Right now.”

  Jonah takes a very calm sip of beer. “How are you getting home?”

  “On the Metro,” I answer.

  “In the middle of the night?”

  “When else?”

  “By yourself?”

  “I just need to not be here, okay?” I abandon my Coke, search for a door. “If I don’t go back and get some sleep, I’ll screw up tomorrow’s rounds the same way I’ve been screwing up everything else lately.”