Both Sides Now

by Peyton Thomas

  “Hey. No.” Jonah’s hand presses into my side, just for a second—that same place he found before, the other night, at his house. I stop moving. “Don’t go anywhere. We’re going to turn this night around.”

  And then he steps away, and I’m alone in the center of the room. The party flows around me. I’m not a part of it—more like an obstacle in its way, a rock in a river, parting the current.

  Jonah strides up to the DJ—well, the guy with the laptop and the headphones, anyway. They put their heads together and talk for a few seconds.

  Then a beat begins to boom through the speakers. It comes through low, but loud, a pulsing drum. Jonah dances back to me, singing along with the silky voice pouring out of the speakers. “What song is this?” I ask him, and he sings, “Don’t worry ’bout it.”

  Then he takes my hand. Takes it, holds it, laces fingers through fingers. And there’s his other hand, again, at that place on my waist, and . . . what is he doing? Is he . . . leading me? Like we’re in a ballroom, and not something less than a frat house? Like that’s Beethoven on the speakers, and not whoever’s voice keeps chanting don’t worry ’bout it?

  I’m not ready for the beat to explode, for the room to erupt in light and color, for Jonah to send me spinning out across the floor, and then spinning back to him, his hand tight in mine all the while.

  Then he lets go.

  And I let go.

  I don’t want the song to end, but that’s what songs do.

  * * *

  —

  After a stop in the kitchen for cool water, we step out onto an empty balcony and take our first breath of fresh air in forever. It’s hot on the balcony—too hot for March, but I’m judging by the standards of the Pacific Northwest, and this is a whole new kind of Washington.

  It occurs to me about five seconds too late that falling onto the lounger is a very dumb idea. Reaching for the first rumpled blanket I see—doubly dumb. How many bodily fluids have these objects absorbed in their long careers as furniture? How many communicable diseases am I contracting just by sitting here? I’d like to leap up and douse myself in Purell, but I can’t move without disturbing Jonah. He’s seated on the balcony’s concrete floor, resting his head on the top of my thigh. The blanket is a kind of pillow for him.

  His head is in my lap, I think, and shiver.

  For the first time ever, I’m grateful I don’t possess a penis.

  “Are you feeling any better?” he asks me.

  He doesn’t lift his head, or turn, or look at me. He doesn’t really have to. We’re alone out here, in the quiet dark. He’s so close he can probably hear my pulse racing under my skin.

  “I feel like I was carrying a suitcase.” I feel my shoulders fall. A knot inside, coming loose. “A really heavy suitcase. And I got to put it down for a minute.”

  “That’s good,” he says. He reaches up, finds my hand in the tangle of the blanket, and squeezes. “I’m glad.”

  “But I’ll have to pick it up again,” I tell him, pressing my fingers into his palm. “Keep hauling it along.”

  “I know what you mean,” he says, and sighs. “I keep waiting for Bailey to get the hell out of my head. And I think he must be on his way, because I’m thinking about him less and less.”

  “That’s good,” I say. “I’m glad.”

  He saw what I did, echoing him: That’s good; I’m glad. He tilts his head, smiles widely. “It helps that I’m here with you,” he says. “You’re a good distraction.”

  I reach down to pull the blanket closer, but my hand brushes his head. It’s an accident, this touch. A week ago, I would have apologized for it. Now, though, something holds me back. Maybe it’s that single sip of beer in my system. Maybe it’s the newfound outlaw in my head. Something compels me to leave my hand where it is. To stroke his soft, blue-black hair. If he asks me why I’m doing it, I’ll tell him I’m drunk, and he’ll believe me.

  “It might take a long time.” My fingers brush up against the tip of one ear. “You loved him a lot.”

  “I don’t know, actually. I don’t know if I really loved him.”

  My hand, in his hair, goes still. All I can manage, in the smallest voice I’ve got, is a single word: “What?”

  “I thought I did. At one point. But these last few weeks, all this fighting over the musical, the way I was too afraid to tell him about UDub because I knew he wanted me to follow him to New York . . .” He exhales; it sounds like a weight coming loose, falling from his chest. “Maybe I was just calling it love. Maybe it was something else.”

  I try to keep my voice calm, neutral. “That makes sense.”

  “It’s less like I lost someone I loved than, like, I lost a part of myself.” He lifts his eyes to me. “I didn’t have a ton of friends before I got with Bailey, you know? I was the awkward, closeted Asian kid who never shut up about saving the whales.” He pauses; a sad laugh. “If people at school like me, it’s probably because they liked me with Bailey.”

  “I liked you before Bailey,” I tell him. Instantly. Honestly. “In freshman year, when you still had braces, so you talked with a lisp. You saw me writing with a mechanical pencil before our first round at that invitational in Walla Walla, and you gave me a lecture about ocean plastic. Then you handed me a pencil made out of recycled newspapers, and you said, ‘Uthe thith inthtead.’ ”

  “My lisp was never that bad.”

  “Oh, no, it was. But it was nice, your lisp. I liked it.”

  “Well, thanks,” he says, “for being a Day One friend.”

  I’m awake, suddenly. Deeply, profoundly awake. I bend in half to rest my cheek on the crown of his head. I need to be closer to him. It shouldn’t be a shock to learn that Jonah didn’t really love Bailey. But it sets something in motion within me, sends me hurtling to some point of no return, some ledge. I want to fall over it, drop like a falcon. I can’t stop.

  “I know what you mean,” I tell him. “About losing an important part of you. And thinking everyone will look at you different.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, uh . . .” It is so hard to say this. Even here. Even to him. I let out an utterly joyless laugh: “How many Finches does it take to get rejected from Georgetown?”

  “Oh, Finch.” He turns his head, knocks my hands out of place. “No.”

  I can’t cry, haven’t cried in ages. But I can feel my face growing hot, feel the pressure building behind my eyes. Jonah must sense it, too, because he’s reaching up, his hands aiming for my temples, like he’s trying to wipe away any tears that might come falling.

  It’s not until his fingers are brushing the round curves of my cheeks, not until his face is very close, too close, that I realize this might not be comfort at all.

  It might be a kiss.

  “Finch?”

  The screen door hits the plastic siding. Jonah springs up, away from me, rolling across the deck. It’s so sleek it looks choreographed. I lurch back, pulling the blanket up to my chin. There’s a stain: someone else’s vomit, vividly green. I fling the fabric away.

  Ari is swaying in the doorway, still in that goddamn uniform, red plastic cup in her hand. For a long, terrifying moment, I worry she’s going to mock us. But then she yawns—loud, wide, and undignified. I realize, with relief, that she’s way too drunk to have noticed our almost-kiss.

  “Finch, hey,” she calls out. “Need to talk to you.”

  My voice comes out a raw, anxious chirp: “Talk about what?”

  She groans effortfully. “That thing we talked about. When you came to my school.”

  That thing. Me, being trans. I do not want my secret to come tumbling out of her drunken mouth. Not now. Not in the middle of this crowded party, where it’d spread like wildfire.

  “Ari,” I say—my voice serious, warning her—“let’s get you home, okay? Before you do anythin
g that you—”

  She stumbles toward me and crashes into my lap—the very same place where, just a second ago, Jonah was laying his head. Across the deck, half hidden by a potted plant, Jonah blinks, as bewildered as I am.

  “When did you, like . . .” She pauses, hiccups. “When did you know that you were, like . . .”

  “Come on, Ari.” I try to lift her up and out of my lap; I don’t succeed. Did I mention she’s twice my size? “You’re way too drunk right now. Let’s go back to the dorms, okay? We can go together.”

  “ ’Cause I’ve been thinking about it,” she says, not moving from her perch on my thighs. “I’ve been thinking, since we talked, and I think that maybe I . . . you know, I might be a . . . a you.”

  Am I hearing her right? How drunk is she? She wobbles, threatens to fall; I hold her steady. “What do you mean?” I ask, leaning in, repeating slowly: “You might be like me?”

  In the low light, I see her eyes glimmer: excitement, maybe; terror, more likely. “Yeah,” she says, and rises to her feet, wobbling. “I might . . . I might be like . . .”

  And then she turns, opens her mouth, and aims for the potted plant.

  She misses. Drowns Jonah in a toxic soup of Grey Goose and Red Bull—all those colors, all those animals.

  He handles it like a perfect gentleman, tells her that we’ll get her home, and asks me, over her shoulder, to call us all a cab. We ride back to the Gray School together, in silence: me on the left, Ari snoring on my shoulder, and Jonah, still drenched in puke, being cussed out by the woman in the driver’s seat.

  That’s the last thing I remember thinking before my head falls against the dusty pane of the cab’s rear window—not, Did Jonah really mean to kiss me? and not, What did Ari mean, “I might be a you?” No, my very last thought was: How weird, a female cabbie.

  chapter thirteen

  At breakfast the next morning, Ari is nowhere to be seen—and I am relieved. I’ve never been so grateful to be stuck at the far end of a long table in the dining hall. I nod and mumble and uh huh my way through the conversation, happy to be mistaken for a participant in it.

  I’m grateful, too, for the bland food on offer. My stomach’s still upset about last night’s thimbleful of beer. I smear tepid cream cheese onto an unseasoned, untoasted bagel. Across the table, Jonah forges through a plate of French toast and bacon and eggs. He eats his feelings; I starve mine.

  The kids at our table veer into gossip about this year’s frontrunners. The girls of Connecticut Blue are, apparently, a force to be reckoned with. So are the boys in Massachusetts Red—who hail, weirdly, from a tennis academy. I’m craning my neck to hear more when Jonah, suddenly, reaches forward and touches my wrist.

  “So,” he says, in a low voice, just for us, “should we, uh . . . talk about what happened? Last night?”

  I leave my bagel on my plate. I wasn’t hungry before; now I’m on the verge of retching. What is Jonah doing? Not just mentioning “last night,” but saying it at the breakfast table, surrounded on all sides. The Alaskans can hear us, for God’s sake. The Alaskans!

  I swallow air and shake my head. “It’s okay,” I tell him. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “All right.” He lets out a breath: disappointment, or relief? I don’t know. “And you’re not feeling too hungover this morning?”

  Relief, then; he’s feeling relief. What happened last night was a fluke: Jonah, broken-hearted, reaching for the nearest warm body; me, desperate for acceptance after Georgetown’s rejection.

  “I had, like, one sip of beer.” I swirl my orange juice in my cup, praying it’ll restore my blood sugar. “But, still, when I woke up this morning, all I could think was, ‘Now I know how Trotsky felt when Mercader showed up with that ice-axe.’ ”

  Nasir, a few seats down, barks with laughter. “Damn, you guys are obsessed with this Soviet shit.”

  “Don’t worry,” Jonah says. “Our communist role-playing days are over.”

  “You sure about that?” Nasir says. “ ’Cause I got some Stolichnaya if you need a little hair of the dog that bit yo’ ass.” He reaches into a backpack freckled with little G’s and retrieves, from these designer depths, an eco-friendly aluminum water bottle, just like Jonah’s. Its silver is dotted with green leaves, blue waves. “Love these things,” he says, tapping on the metal. “Genius. Can’t see into it. Teachers don’t know if you’re drinking water or white wine.”

  “No, thanks,” Jonah says, and tosses his napkin onto a now-empty plate. “I’m trying to cure this hangover the good old-fashioned way.”

  I’d give Nasir and Jonah another lecture about alcohol being cancerous, but I don’t have it in me this morning. No, I’ve got carcinogens in me. A full sip’s worth. And I swear I can feel this microdose blooming, deep in my stomach, spreading through my bloodstream, making me sick.

  Or maybe it’s just nerves.

  As I’m contemplating all this—anxiety, or beer-induced cancer?—there’s a minor commotion at the front of the dining hall. Ari Schechter is striding through the double doors of the dining hall, looking like she woke up five minutes ago. Her short hair’s stuck in a wicked cowlick. She missed a button or two when she was doing up her shirt. And there’s no makeup, not even a stitch of concealer, covering the grisly pallor of her hangdog, hungover expression.

  “Looking good, Rodham.” Nasir claps her on the back. “Ready to hit the marketplace of ideas?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Ari grumbles, settling heavily into place at Nasir’s side. “Really reveling in the life of the fucking mind this weekend.”

  “Not my fault you can’t handle a hangover,” says Nasir.

  Ari scowls, snatches the bottle out of Nasir’s hand. She takes a long, slow glug, glug, glug, wipes her mouth with the sleeve of her blazer, and levels her eyes at Jonah.

  “I am very sorry about what happened last night,” she says to him. “I will pay for any and all dry-cleaning bills.” And then, without missing a beat, she shifts her eyes to me. “I was not in control of my faculties. I definitely did not mean the things I said.”

  The flicker of fear in her eyes tells me what her words don’t: that she did mean it, last night. But she’s determined—for now, at least—to ignore it. To stay in her fragile eggshell as long as possible, even though the cracks are showing.

  I remember what that was like. I know exactly how much it hurts. And as I watch her pour vodka down her throat, a lump swells in my own.

  “You missed a button,” says Nasir. “I can see your bra.”

  “One of these days, Nasir, I’m going to light this bra on fire. And then I’m going to throw it into a trash can, and then I’m going to throw you into that very same trash can.”

  “What the hell?” Nasir yelps. “Did you really just threaten to murder me?”

  “Sure did,” she says, and drains the bottle.

  * * *

  —

  We’re facing Massachusetts Red first thing—the boys from that tennis academy in the suburbs of Boston. It’s unclear to me why they’re here, debating, instead of playing tennis. But what do I know about sports? Maybe debating helps them strategize out on the court. Or something.

  The first speaker’s called James, and he’s about as threatening as one of Renata’s My Little Pony figurines. He’s slight, and only slightly tall, and he’s fidgeting something fierce, clearly nervous. The other guy, Matthew, is more how I imagine a tennis pro, sturdy and stoic. I can see muscles bulging beneath his rumpled blazer, an enormous, mustard-yellow stain visible above its only button. Eyes on this smear, I elbow Jonah.

  “Watch out,” I whisper to him. “The prep schoolers brave enough to walk up looking like shit?”

  “They’re killers,” Jonah finishes for me. “Always. I know.”

  We’re on opposition—arguing, again, that trans kids should be kept out of bathroom
s for their own safety. Jonah gives a solid opening speech, peppered with enough statistics and studies to keep us from coming off as ideologues. But James, the skinny, shivering one, hits back hard. He knows every study Jonah cited, and he knows them better: this one had a too-small sample size; that one was authored by a professor fired for fudging numbers. He’s relentless. No stone left unturned, no statistic left unquestioned. “Photographic memory” doesn’t do it justice. This kid’s a walking, talking JSTOR. His speech is a massacre.

  When the moderator calls my name, I can’t move. How am I supposed to follow that? It takes a forceful nudge from Jonah—and a frantic “Come on, Finch,” whispered under his breath—to propel me up to the podium.

  “The proposition would . . . would have you believe . . .” I begin, shakily, then stop.

  I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to give a speech full of terf talking points. Especially if we’ve already lost the round. I turn my head and look miserably to Jonah. He meets my eyes, his mouth a grim line. “Come on,” he repeats, mouthing the words: When have I ever steered you wrong?

  I laugh under my breath, and I turn away from him, fix my eyes on the judges. They wait, expectant. I open my mouth. No statistics this time. I’ll speak from the heart. The deeply conflicted heart.

  I can do this. Of course I can.

  “The proposition claims that transgender students are safe in bathrooms with cisgender students. But they’re mistaken.” I sound steadier now, I think. More sure of myself. What I’m about to say, after all, is, technically, true: “Allowing trans students to carry out these intimate functions in close proximity to their cis peers, Mr. Speaker—it only exposes them to more abuse.”

  I’m in this vein for a while before the boy with the burnt nose stands. “On that point, suh?” he asks, in a Boston brogue that he must be putting on, because there’s no way anyone actually talks like that. Outside of the Damon-Affleck Cinematic Universe, I mean.