I opened the door and saw Coach Donnelly.
“You sick, Carver?”
I didn’t feel like lying. I shook my head.
“What’s up?”
“I give up,” I said.
Donnelly stared at me like I was speaking another language. “You give up? What are you talking about?”
“Everything,” I said. “I can’t do it anymore.”
“You can’t do it anymore.”
I walked back over to my bed and sat down. “Right.”
“What can’t you do anymore?”
“Any of it. All my life I’ve been told what I need to be, and I can’t be it. It’s too much.”
Donnelly looked around my room. “I’m reminded of the great philosophical debate about a tree falling in the forest,” he said.
This got my attention. “Oh, yeah?”
He smiled, like he was happy to have an audience. “You see, a tree fell in the forest. And then, well, nobody was there to hear it. So the question is, did it fall?”
“Yes,” I said. I didn’t have the patience to humor him.
“Ah, but how do you know?”
“Because you just told me. A tree fell in the forest.”
“But no one was there to hear it,” he said.
“So how did you know it happened?” I asked.
He looked confused for a second, and then he recovered and said, “Exactly. I might have been making it up. That’s the thing, Carver. Alls you gotta remember is, don’t believe everything you hear. Maybe somewhere along the way, you believed something that wasn’t true. You bought into it, and now it’s yours. That’s alls I’m trying to say to you.”
I stared at him. Someone should confront Coach Donnelly, I thought. Just shake him and tell him to stop. To please stop.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Don’t mention it,” he said. “And get to class this afternoon, okay? I don’t need my star third baseman and team captain getting into trouble before the Florida trip.”
He left. I lay back down, and I wondered where Rafe was. He was the one person who would get what I was feeling. Well, Bryce too. But Rafe was my boyfriend.
Wait. No, he wasn’t. Shit. Because I was a wuss. Because I was afraid of what people thought.
If I just let people know. If I ran down to the quad, found Rafe, spun him around, and kissed him in public. What would happen?
I laughed. The world would end.
Wait. Would it?
My dad’s voice was loud in my head as I lay there in bed, revisiting my problem again and again. Don’t embarrass me, Ben. Stop being so lazy. You’re sitting on your ass, wasting your time thinking about a bunch of foolishness. You’re being stupid and lazy. Buck up and get to work. We’re Carver men. We work. We work hard.
All my life. All my life I’d heard these voices, and I’d heeded them. I’d railed against myself, again and again. You’re stupid. You’re lazy.
And now I heard Donnelly’s voice.
Maybe you bought into something, and now it’s yours.
This funny, murky feeling had invaded my head. Maybe, against all odds, Donnelly was right, after all. What if what I’d bought, I’d bought from my dad? What if the biggest purchase I’d made in my life was a soundtrack of negative thoughts about myself that I’d played non-stop? And what if it was, indeed, now mine?
Shit. How could Donnelly be right?
At lunch, I sat silently with the team, focused on my ham steak and sweet potatoes. I couldn’t possibly joke today, and I wondered if Mendenhall noticed and thought it was about the cheating. It was, partially. Did this happen to everyone who cheated? Steve had certainly seemed pretty stoked when he showed me the A on his test. I definitely wasn’t going to be celebrating whatever I got in calculus.
That’s when Albie and Rafe entered the cafeteria. I saw them out of the corner of my eye, and this sad feeling pounded at my chest.
Behind them was Toby.
He wore a beige-and-pink pocketed skirt and a white blouse, with dangling earrings, eye makeup, and a little blush on his cheeks. He’d shaved his legs.
It was hard not to stare at him with an open mouth. Not just because he looked so different, but because it was thirty-seven degrees outside.
The room didn’t go quiet all at once, like in the movies. It went quiet in waves, like the volume dropped by half, and then another quarter, and then some more, until everyone was staring at him.
He walked from table to table with a stack of flyers. Rafe and Albie fanned out to other parts of the cafeteria. Toby came to our table, and Steve said, under his breath, “What the serious fuck?”
Toby ignored it and handed me the leaflet.
It was a head shot of him, made up. It read, ANNOUNCING: THE COMING OUT OF TOBY RYLANDER, AGE 16, AS GENDER FLUID.
Underneath there was a Q&A section.
Q: Is Toby trying to get attention?
A: No. I mean, Toby likes attention, but this is about being true to his gender orientation.
Q: What is gender orientation?
A: Gender is complicated. Some people are male, some people are female, and others feel somewhere in between. It changes. Sometimes Toby feels male. Other times, he’s female.
Q: Who cares?
A: I wrote this so that you would understand. You can care or not care. I don’t care.
Q: What should I know?
A: You should know that Toby is fine being called a he, a she, or a they. Some people have preferred pronouns, but Toby is happy to be called any of the above, though if she’s obviously dressed female she prefers she or they. Also, Toby, who here refers to him/her/themselves in the third person, is not a freak. He/She/They are a human being with feelings. If you hurt his feelings, he will feel sad. Also, if you are cruel to her, you’ll get in trouble with the school, which is fully aware of Toby’s gender orientation and is fine with it. If you touch them in a violent or inappropriate way, you will be kicked out of school.
Q: What else should I know?
A: Toby knows this is confusing to a lot of people who don’t know what gender fluidity is. He gets it, and he’ll be patient with you so long as you try.
As I read it, my heart soared, and I couldn’t help but smile. It was so—Toby. I felt a little choked up, actually. I wasn’t ready for my teammates to see me cry, but I was ready for them to see me support him. So I said to Toby, “Cool. You be you,” and I passed the leaflet to the guy seated next to me, who was Zack.
Noise started up again, and the coolest thing happened. A couple guys started pounding their fists on their tables. It started really softly, but soon it picked up, and I watched Toby put his hands over his mouth, clearly moved by the support. He started crying, and Albie gave him a hug, and Rafe too.
“Fucking crazy shit,” Zack said above the din of the table thumps. Our table wasn’t doing it. I ignored the comment, walked across the cafeteria to Toby, and hugged him tight. And damned if a bunch of other guys didn’t do the same.
At practice on Wednesday, I took a lot of shit.
“Yo, Carver, is your friend aware that this is an all-boys school?” Mendenhall said as he warmed up, playing soft toss with Zack.
I shrugged. I was busy throwing with Steve, and I was truly uninterested in discussing the little I knew about gender fluidity with a bigoted idiot.
“He’ll get special treatment too,” Zack continued. “Just watch.”
“Yup,” Mendenhall said. “The freaks always get special treatment. Meanwhile, the normal people get fucked, of course.”
I held the ball and turned to Mendenhall.
“Are you really serious right now?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Do you have any idea what privilege is?”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m sure you’ll tell me, Professor.”
I shook my head. “You’re an asshole. You think he’s lucky to be gender fluid at an all-boys school? That has to be the hardest thing I c
an imagine.”
“Toby’s imagining something hard,” Zack said.
I turned to him. “What are you, three? Seriously, guys. Grow up. You think it’s easy? I’m sorry, but that’s fucking stupid.”
“I’m tired of your mouth,” Mendenhall said, taking his glove off his left hand.
I punched my glove. “Well, which is it? I don’t talk enough, or I talk too much? Make up your mind so I can figure out who the hell I need to be.”
“Fuck you,” Mendenhall said.
“Fuck you back. Are you ready to practice? You ready to close your mouth and get serious? Because we have a game in less than a week. You in, or are you out?”
And Mendenhall stopped talking, and put his glove back on his hand, and I felt a surge in my chest.
“And by the way: No more talking shit about Toby. I’m not gonna listen to that. Got it?”
No one said anything.
“Good,” I said.
Rafe, Toby, and Albie were in my room when I got back after practice. Toby was wearing the same skirt, and he was sitting cross-legged on my floor. His shaved legs smooth as a baby’s. Rafe had commandeered my bed, and Albie was on the other one.
Seeing Rafe in my room was confusing. He’d said we could go back to being best friends, just like that. And now he looked all casual, like he’d already made that switch, but I wasn’t even close to there. But I was too tired to do anything other than pretend everything was fine. I chuckled. “Make yourself at home,” I said.
“I wanted to see this incredible closet you have,” Albie said. “I’ve heard reports but have never had the opportunity.”
“I should charge ten bucks per showing,” I said.
Rafe jumped off my bed, walked to the closet, and made a big show of presenting it. He slowly opened the door, pulled the string for the light, and said, “Ta-dah!”
“Oh, my,” Albie said. “That’s intense.”
“Laugh it up,” I said. “I can see things. And at least I don’t have half-eaten candy bars on my closet floor.” I nodded at Toby.
He sucked his cheeks in. “Of all days to compare my closet to yours,” he said, and Rafe said, “Boo. Leading statement. I’ll ask the jury to disregard.”
I rolled my eyes. “Subtle,” I said.
“Can you guys give us a sec?” Rafe asked.
Toby and Albie nodded and left the room. Rafe sat down on the other bed, and he tapped the spot next to him. I tentatively sat there. My body felt warm, being so close to him again.
“You ready for your parents?” he asked.
“Never.”
“Yeah, I’m not envying you. How about your speech?”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. “Ready but not ready, you know?”
“How’d your test go?”
I gave him a thumbs-up and averted my eyes. There was no way I was ever going to be able to tell Rafe about my cheating. That was going in the vault.
“I feel bad,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done that to you. You were right. I wanted what I wanted, like, immediately. That wasn’t fair to you.”
He put his hand on my shoulder and leaned the side of his head on top of it. I just sat there and let the feeling of his warmth run through me. Rafe. My Rafe.
“Thanks,” I said. “Thank you for saying that. I was really down when you left last night.”
“I know. Me too.”
“And I know it’s not fair to you either. But. Can you slow down, like, a bit? This is—a lot.”
“I can,” he said. “Love you, Ben.”
My facial muscles relaxed. I hadn’t realized it, but I’d been tense in my face all day until that moment.
“Love you more,” I said, and I turned to face him, and our lips met, lightly, and we stayed connected like that for what felt like forever, and I was home again.
Having my parents in my room, the same room in which I’d slept with Rafe the night before, was weird. I kept glancing around to see if there were any signs of Rafe’s presence.
“You have this all to yourself!” Mom said, looking at all the space.
“Yep. After Bryce left, they didn’t put anyone else in here with me.”
“That must be nice,” she said.
“Yep.”
“And have you made any new friends?”
“Give it a rest, Marlene,” my dad said. “The boy’s an award winner, captain of the baseball team. Of course he has friends.”
It was nice to have his approval, but something about him saying this made me want to correct him. “It’s been only okay in terms of all that,” I said. “The baseball guys, for instance. We’re kind of friends, but I’m nothing like them. I hang out with other kids who I like better.”
My dad looked out the window and frowned.
“This is why I didn’t want you going to a rich kid school like this. Those kids will smell the stink of the farm on you.”
I took a deep breath as I felt his words press down on my chest.
I gave my parents the grand tour. I took them to math class, where Ms. Dyson welcomed them warmly and then gingerly placed a paper in my hands.
My calculus test. A minus.
My heart jumped. And then I remembered that I wasn’t seeing an achievement so much as a ruse.
“I told Headmaster Taylor this morning,” Ms. Dyson said. “You’re good to go, Pappas Award guy!”
I smiled. “Thanks.”
We went to all my morning classes. My parents didn’t have much to say about them. Dad, for one, seemed a little less—opinionated, maybe?—than usual. Instead of making comments about the ostentatiousness of the campus, he seemed downright awed by the plaques in the hallway of the Arthur Building.
“For each Pappas winner, huh?”
“Yep.”
“That’s some beautiful wood,” he said.
I smiled. That was what I always thought when I walked through the hallway, but I’d never heard anyone else at Natick say it. Maybe that was one really good thing about coming from my family; I never for a second took for granted anything about my education or the incredible institution that was the Natick School.
We wandered out onto the quad after chemistry. It was a reasonably warm day, and I decided to take them down to the waterfront, where we could sit at one of the picnic tables and rest a little.
Toby was out making sun angels on the grass, which were basically like snow angels except there was no snow, and it was sunny out. He was wearing a different skirt and hoop earrings. I’d seen him do this a week earlier, only in men’s clothing. I knew my dad would have a comment about Toby’s appearance, and I hoped he’d at least be polite and save it for private.
Rafe and Albie were with him, and my heart jumped. I lightly waved over to Rafe, who smiled my way. Rafe was teaching Albie stage combat, which was something he’d done back in Boulder. He’d tried to teach me a few weeks earlier. Stage combat is how actors portray violent acts in movies and onstage. The move he taught me was a face punch, where the puncher actually punches his other hand to make the smack noise, and the punchee whips his head around so that it looks like he’s absorbed the punch. I followed the directions, but never really felt like we’d be fooling anyone if we did it in front of an audience.
“So when I lunge my fist at your stomach, you pull your stomach in and grab my fist, and you say, ‘Oof,’ ” Rafe said to Albie, who was faced the other way and couldn’t see us.
“You’re asking Albie to pull his stomach in? Do you have a crane?” Toby yelled from his prone sun angel position. Albie gave him the finger.
“You should be doing this with Toby. More people want to hit Toby,” Albie said. I smiled but said nothing as we walked by.
“Oh, please. Albie, you’re way more hittable than I am. People find me delightful. The focus groups we hired found you derivative and sophomoric.”
“Jesus,” my dad muttered, once we’d passed them. “Them boys play for the other team, don’t they?”
I glanced ba
ck at my friends, and then I turned away from them and kept walking with my folks.
“Only straight bones in this family,” Dad said, and something broke in me.
Something Hannah had said to me came to mind. That thing about vulnerability. Either you do vulnerability, or it does you. She’d been right, hadn’t she? Because I could pretend that what he’d just said hadn’t hurt me deep inside, but that’s all it was: pretend.
I stopped walking. I turned to my dad and opened my mouth to speak.
“Has anything ever really made you laugh, Dad?” I asked. “Like, really laugh? Uncontrollable laughter?”
He frowned. “What is this? What kind of question is that?”
“I just wondered,” I said, and we started walking again, and I realized there was nothing more that could come out of this conversation. “Never mind.” I looked over at Mom. “Hey, are you seeing Hazel again?”
She put her head down, and Dad said, “I think there was a McDonald’s on the way in. We’ll probably just eat there.”
I looked at Mom. How was all this avoidance acceptable to her? And then I thought: How is this acceptable to me? It wasn’t.
That night at dinner, while my parents were at McDonald’s, I sat with the baseball guys, as usual.
Zack started talking about Kyle Guidry, who had gotten into Yale.
“That’s you next year,” Steve said, pointing to me.
I shook my head, hard. “Nah,” I said. “I doubt I’d get in there.”
Steve shrugged. “You’re that guy. You got that Pappas thing, like Guidry. You’re fuckin’ perfect.”
“Yeah, real perfect, that’s me,” I said. I glanced over at Mendenhall, who knew the truth about my math test, but he wasn’t paying attention.
“Dude’s so humble,” Steve said.
Walking back to the dorm with all the guys after dinner, I felt like I could vomit up my insides. And there wasn’t a person in the world, Rafe included, who could know that I was a cheater. I was a fraud.
That night, as I brushed my teeth and went over my speech for the zillionth time in my head, I looked in the mirror.
What happens if you have everything, but you feel nothing? Because everyone thought I was perfect, and my parents were here, and proud of me, and I was about to give a speech in front of everyone I knew. And then I would be given the keys to everything I ever wanted, a scholarship that would almost certainly allow me to be the first in my immediate family to go to college, and study more history, and maybe become Dr. Carver, which was a lifelong goal. But there I was, in the mirror, blurred by smudged specks of toothpaste and streaks of water, and no less heavy than I’d been that day at the pool with my brother, when sitting submerged on the floor seemed like a normal and fitting place to be.