“As long as you have the ice cream.”
It feels so good to be talking like this that I almost forget all the lies that surround it. I almost forget all the things I’m not telling her.
—
I meet A back at the bookstore. Today he’s this somewhat pudgy Indian girl. And I feel awful for thinking that right away, for noticing that first. It’s A. I am spending time with A. Focus on the driver, not the car.
As we decide to go for a walk in the park, I stare hard at Surita and imagine her as a boy. It’s not that hard. If you stare at anyone’s face long enough, it’s easy enough to imagine them as the other gender. Then I stop myself and wonder why I’m doing this. It’s not like I would stare at her and imagine her white. That would be messed up. But I still want to see her as a boy, to think of A as a boy inside.
Part of the problem is words. The fact that there are separate words for he and she, him and her. I’ve never thought about it before, how divisive this is. Like maybe if there was just one pronoun for all of us, we wouldn’t get so caught on that difference.
Part of me wants to ask A about this, to ask, Are you a he or a she? But I know the answer is that A is both and neither, and it’s not A’s fault that our language can’t deal with that.
I’m sure A must notice. The fact that I’m not holding Surita’s hand. The fact that there’s not the same charge in the air as there was when A was in a guy’s body. I want to undo this. I understand it’s the wrong way to feel. But it doesn’t feel like a knot I can actually untie.
A explains that Surita lives with her grandmother, and that her grandmother doesn’t really pay attention, so she can be out as late as she wants. Which means I’m the one with the time limit today. I tell A about this, but then I also tell A I have a plan for the weekend, and that I know a place we can go. I don’t tell A what it is, or where it is. I want there to be some surprise.
We get to the jungle gym, and since there aren’t any kids around, we allow ourselves to become kids ourselves, climbing and swinging and laughing. A asks me who I hung around with in third grade, so I tell stories about me and Rebecca, me and my crush on this boy Peter, me and Mrs. Shedlowe, the lunch supervisor who would listen patiently to any problem I wanted to share. I know I can’t ask A the same question, so I ask instead for things A remembers from being younger. And A tells me about a Valentine’s Day his (her) mother took him (her) to the zoo, a birthday party where he (she) saved the day by finding a dog that had gone missing, and a Little League game where he (she) hit a home run, because somehow the body knew when to move, even if A didn’t.
“Small victories,” A jokes.
“But you made it through,” I say. “That’s the big victory.”
“And this,” A says, pulling closer, “must be the reward.”
I know I should touch this girl’s arm. I know I should draw him (her) close and find a way to nest inside the jungle gym. But instead I say, “Look—the slide!” and jump over to it, beckoning A to follow.
If A notices, A doesn’t say anything. And even if we don’t end up physically nesting in the space that’s entirely ours, it still feels comfortable. It still feels like time is comfortable.
I’m good. Except for one moment, when I imagine Justin at home, playing video games. Sensing something wrong. Mad about it. But having no real idea how far I’ve strayed.
Then I think about what A would be doing if A weren’t here with me. Lost in someone else’s life. Erasing himself in order to be her.
After we slide, I suggest we swing. Instead of splitting into a push and a rise, we sit down on swings that are next to each other, and pump our legs to get moving in the air. At one point we’re exactly even. A reaches out her hand, and I take it. We swing like that, perfectly even, for about twenty seconds. Then we start to pull apart, the difference in our weight, or in our strength, or in the angle of our bodies—something about our bodies—preventing us from continuing like that forever.
—
Back in the bookstore, I make A lead me back to Feed, to The Book Thief, to Destroy All Cars and First Day on Earth. I buy them all.
“You’re so lucky,” A says.
“Because they’re good books?” I ask.
“No. Because once you have them, they’ll always be there. You don’t have to keep looking for them.”
I’m about to offer to lend them to her, but of course I can’t.
“But enough of that!” A says. “Who needs worldly possessions when you can have the world instead?”
The voice A is using is cheery. Maybe A actually believes this. Maybe I’m wrong to want things, and to want to have things. Or maybe A just gave me a glimpse of something he (she) didn’t want me to see.
There’s not enough time to explore this. I have to get over to Rebecca’s. But A and I will have tomorrow. I remind myself we’ll have tomorrow.
It’s a hopeful farewell. It’s only when I’m back in my car that I realize I could have kissed her when we said goodbye.
It didn’t even occur to me.
—
That night, Rebecca can tell I’m thinking about something other than Lindsay Lohan and Tina Fey. She pauses the movie.
“Is something going on with you and Justin?” she asks. “Is that where your mind is right now?”
I’m immediately defensive—too defensive. “Why do you think there’s something going on with me and Justin? There’s nothing going on with me and Justin.”
With this last sentence, I realize I’ve accidentally told her the truth. But she doesn’t pick up on it.
“It’s just—I mean, it’s nice to have you back here. This is the first time we’ve done this since, well, the two of you got together. I wasn’t sure we’d ever do this again.”
Clarity. I’ve hurt her. I haven’t even noticed, and I’ve hurt her over these past months. She’s not going to tell me that, but it’s there. I see it now.
“I’m sorry,” I say, even though she hasn’t asked me for it—or maybe because she hasn’t asked me for it. “Things with him are fine. Really. But I also want to have more than Justin, you know? Like my best friends.”
Best friends. It’s like a gift I’ve been given and don’t deserve. But here I am, pointing out that I still have it, that I haven’t returned it for something else.
“Do you want more ice cream?” Rebecca asks, picking up her bowl. “Because I want more ice cream.”
“Sure,” I say. Not because I want any, but because I know she wants to have more and doesn’t want to have more alone.
As I sit there in the rec room I’ve known for most of my life, as I see photos of Rebecca and her family at all different ages, I realize this is one thing about us: Rebecca has to see me as more than just a body, because the body she’s known has changed so much over the years. That must help a person see inside.
She comes back and unpauses the movie. Our double feature takes us well past midnight, for all the breaks we take for food and random things like seeing whatever happened to the guy who played Aaron and if he’s still cute. (He is.) The only awkward moment comes when Rebecca asks me what I’m doing for the weekend. I know this is when I should recruit her to be my alibi, when I should warn her that my parents might call. But I use the grandmother excuse again. She tells me to say hello, and I promise I will.
I go to sleep wondering what I’m doing and wake up wondering what I’m doing, knowing for sure that whatever it is, I’m going to do it anyway.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The drive to Uncle Artie’s cabin is about two hours, so I have plenty of time to think. I have the spare key in my pocket, as well as the bag I packed for my weekend at Rebecca’s. Or my weekend at my grandmother’s, depending on who you ask.
I’m excited to have time alone with A. I know it will only last until midnight—I hope that A will be able to come back tomorrow as well, but I know it’s not a sure thing. It’s funny to me that in all the time I’ve dated Justin, it never occurred to m
e to take him here. Maybe because we had his house. Or maybe because it never felt like we needed this kind of getaway.
Getaway. With enough time to think, I know that what I’m doing is technically cheating. I guess I knew that all along, but this is the first time I actually use that word in my head. It doesn’t seem right to explain what I’m doing, but it doesn’t seem entirely wrong, either. I feel I am in a messy middle ground of trying to figure it out. I know what Justin would say about that, and how he would see it. I am sure that I am doing to him something he has never done to me.
I am also mad at him for not noticing. Which is, I realize, completely unfair.
I could text him when I got there. I could break up with him that way. But he deserves more than that. And, more, he deserves an explanation. Only, there’s no way to explain this.
I’m falling for someone I met when he was in your body for a day.
—
I’ve made sure to get there a little early to straighten the place up. I love Uncle Artie, but there’s a reason his girlfriends always leave him. The cabin’s basically one room with lots of stuff piled into it—including a lot of “trophies” from his hunts. The couple of times I came here with my parents when I was a little kid, it freaked me out to have glass-eyed animal heads staring at me from the walls. And it still freaks me out—but I’ve learned not to really see them anymore. There are one or two that are starting to get a little ragged, and I throw some sheets over those. The rest look on.
The problem with being early is it means there’s a time when the groceries I’ve brought are put away, the floor’s been swept, and I have nothing to do. I’ve brought First Day on Earth with me, but I’m too distracted to really pay attention, which doesn’t seem fair to the book. I light a few candles so the air will smell more like vanilla and less like Uncle Artie. But the scent also starts to give everything a dreaminess. Or maybe I’m just tired.
I wake up when I hear a car outside. I come alive when I hear the car door open. Nobody else knows about this place, so it has to be A. I peek out the window and see this beautiful guy. My age. Him.
I open the door, wait and watch. Beautiful skin. Beautiful hair. Like the universe somehow knew what this day was for.
“You’re really cute today,” I say as he closes the door and comes closer. I expect him to have a bag, but of course he doesn’t have a bag. He’s only here for today.
“French Canadian dad, Creole mom,” he explains. “But I don’t speak a word of French.”
“Your mom isn’t going to show up this time, is she?” I joke.
He smiles. “Nope.”
“Good,” I say, getting closer. “Then I can do this without being killed.”
I put everything into the kiss. All of the waiting, all of the desire. All of the today we have and the tomorrows we might not. I kiss him to tell him I’m here. I kiss him to tell him he’s here. I kiss him to connect us, to meld us, to propel us. And he kisses me back with all of these things, and something else I can’t identify. His arms around me, my arms around him, and both of us pulling, both of us pressing. His hands feeling me all over, giving me shape. No space between us. No space. Then I pull back a little to take off his coat, kick off my shoes. He kicks his off, too, and I lead him back, my mouth barely leaving his. I push him onto the bed. I’m pinning him down, we’re meeting in the middle—still fully clothed but not feeling clothed at all. I kiss his neck, his ear. He moves his hands up my sides, kisses my lips again. There is not a single part of me that doesn’t want this. I feel like I’ve been holding back my entire life, and now I’m letting go. Feeling under his shirt, following the trail to his chest. Keeping my hand there, feeling how hot the skin is. He is moaning and doesn’t even realize it. I don’t know his name and I don’t need to know his name because he is A, he is A, he is A, and he is with me now. We are sharing this. Finger across my breast, finger along my back. Kissing lightly, kissing deeply. Shirts off, skin on skin. The only sense I have left is feel. Lips on shoulder. Hand under the back of his waistband. Arm on arm. Leg against leg. Fast then slow. Fast. Then slow.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” I say back.
I lie on my back and he hovers over me. Finger along the side of my face. Side of his hand along my collarbone. I respond, tracing his shoulders, reaching down the valley of his back. I kiss his neck again. His ear. The space behind his ear.
There is nothing like this. In all the world, there is nothing like this.
“Where are we?” he asks.
“It’s a hunting cabin my uncle uses,” I explain. Even when I gave him directions, I didn’t tell him where he was going. “He’s in California now, so I figured it was safe to break in.”
He looks around. “You broke in?”
“Well, with the spare key.”
He lies back. I feel the center of his chest. The exact center. Then I move my hand to the right, heartbeat territory.
“That was quite a welcome,” he says, his own hands unable to leave my body.
“It’s not over yet,” I assure him, turning his way as he immediately turns mine.
Closeness. That’s what this is. Sex should have closeness.
Now there is closeness. Not just of our bodies. Of our beings. A is careful, but I am not careful. I don’t want anything between us. So I take off his clothes, and I take off my own. I want all of him, and I want him to have all of me. I want our eyes open. I want this to be what it’s supposed to be.
Naked and kissing. Naked and needing. Naked and here. Moving in the inevitable direction. Sometimes moving quickly, but then slowing down and taking our time. Enjoying it.
It is dangerous, because I will do anything. But I will only do anything because I know it’s not dangerous.
“Do you want to?” I whisper.
I feel him against me. The heat, the breath. I feel the momentum. I feel how right this is.
“No,” he says. “Not yet. Not now.”
Suddenly I feel the colder air around me. Suddenly I feel the world around me. I feel all the parts of it that aren’t us.
I tell myself he’s being considerate. I look at him and say, “Are you sure? I want to. If you’re worried about me, don’t be. I want to. I…prepared.”
But he’s pulling back, too, now. One hand still holds my side, but the other settles in the small space between us. “I don’t think we should,” he says.
I say, “Okay,” even though it’s not, because I don’t understand.
“It’s not you,” he tells me. “And it’s not that I don’t want to.”
Exit dream, enter nightmare. “So what is it?” I ask.
“It feels wrong.”
He says it’s not me, but who else could it be? I’ve pushed it too far. He must think less of me.
“Let me worry about Justin,” I say. “This is you and me. It’s different.”
“But it’s not just you and me. It’s also Xavier.”
“Xavier?”
He points to his own body. “Xavier.”
“Oh.”
“He’s never done it before. And it just feels wrong…for him to do it for the first time, and not know it. I feel like I’m taking something from him if I do that. It doesn’t seem right.”
This seems more in line with the way the universe has treated me all my life. Send the perfect guy in the perfect body. But then make him a virgin whose first time I’ll be taking away without him knowing it. There’s no vocabulary in my head for dealing with this.
Closeness. I got so caught up in sex that I forgot what I was really after, what I really wanted. Even if we’re not going to have sex, I don’t have to give up on everything else.
That’s what I wind up telling myself.
After a spell of being only in my mind, I return back to my body and press it closer to his. Turning so we’re knees against knees, arms around backs, face to face.
“Do you think he would mind this?” I ask.
His body answers for
him. I can feel the tension fall away. I can feel my welcome.
“I set an alarm,” I say. “So we can sleep.”
I roll over, and he presses his chest against my back, echoes his legs behind my legs. Gathering into a pocket of time, and refusing to leave it. Together, our bodies cool. Together, our breathing slows. Together, we feel unalone.
Our bodies can fit in so many different ways.
—
The current of sleep carries us at different wavelengths. Sometimes I wake and he’s asleep. Sometimes he must be the woken one. And other times, our wakefulness coincides, and we have brief conversations as we remain holding on.
—
“Are you he or she?” I ask.
“Yes,” he replies.
—
“I know we don’t talk about it,” he says, many minutes, maybe hours, later. “But why are you with him?”
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “I used to think I did. But I don’t know anymore.”
—
“Is this love?” I ask. But he’s asleep.
—
He mumbles something. It sounds like, “Is your uncle Artie tall?”
—
When we are both more awake, but still without any desire to move from the bed, I face him and ask, “Who was your favorite?”
He puts his hand on mine. “My favorite?”
“Your favorite body. Your favorite life.”
“I was once in the body of a blind girl. When I was eleven. Maybe twelve. I don’t know if she was my favorite, but I learned more from being her for a day than I’d learn from most people over a year. It showed me how arbitrary and individual it is, the way we experience the world. Not just that the other senses were sharper. But that we find ways to navigate the world as it is presented to us. For me, it was this huge challenge. But for her, it was just life.”
“Close your eyes,” I whisper.
I trust that he does. We feel each other’s bodies as if we’re in the dark.
—
Hours later, or maybe it’s minutes, the alarm goes off.
—
The day is passing, and we let it. The light is fading, and we say nothing as it goes. This is all we want. Two bodies in a bed. Closeness.