Love & Other Disasters(36)

Their two older sisters, Jackie and Sara, had been on board right away, too. Jackie and Sara were seven and nine years older than them—Julie and London had been a double whammy of a surprise for their parents—and were out of the house by the time London was in middle school. But London still remembered how protective they both were of London and Julie when they were kids, and that hadn’t changed.

Julie had been upset. Cried, even. At first, it was the most hurtful reaction London could have imagined. If Julie didn’t accept them, of all people . . . Well, it would have been a struggle. But it turned out Julie didn’t care about London being nonbinary; she was more upset that there was something so important about London she hadn’t known.

Although, as their twin, of course Julie had known something. She grew up practically glued to their side, after all. She was there every time London threw a fit about wearing a dress, about getting dumb girl gifts every birthday and Christmas when all they wanted were new cooking tools and gift cards to the music store. She had been there when London had finally started questioning their sexuality in college, when they had come out as pan.

So when Julie had discovered, during their mom’s grilling sessions, that London had already started microdosing testosterone, she had felt betrayed. London had been annoyed at the time, thought Julie was being selfish, that she had unrealistic expectations, sometimes, of the whole twin thing. But looking back, London got it. They had been a little selfish themself, maybe. But maybe it was okay to be selfish with some things.

And it was a hard thing to explain. That they didn’t want to be a man, but that they had never felt quite right as a girl. That they only started to feel really okay when they understood they could be their own thing. That they could exist in a space that was all their own, that they could shift and adjust until it felt right. They had settled on nonbinary feeling right for them, even though they knew others like them had their own names that felt right to their own experiences. And that was comforting, too. That each person could choose what brought them closest to belonging, the power in that. Knowing that one day, people might discover even better words for it. That there was only ever freedom in continuing to find new names for who we were, who we could be.

And so after more conversations, Julie had calmed down, and things were as normal as ever between them. Maybe even better.

Their dad, though, had refused London’s gender identity from the start. It had created friction between their mom and dad that London never remembered seeing before, which made them feel guilty as hell. They still didn’t quite understand it. Sure, their father had rolled his eyes a bit when London came out as pan, which had been less than ideal, but London had never taken that as out-and-out rejection. It was like . . . it was like the nonbinary thing was the last straw for him. Like he’d had a lifetime of London being the weird one, and he’d had enough.

Julie, Jackie, and Sara had all tried to work on him, and London could only imagine that their mom had worked the hardest of all. But London’s dad had never once used the correct pronoun for London in three years.

London worried that the longer their dad waited for London to get out of “this phase,” the wider and heavier the fracture in their family would feel.

When London had said those few short sentences in the solo interview set over two weeks ago, it really had been easy. It had just been them, a quiet room, and Maritza’s reassuring face next to the camera. They felt so far from Nashville, from reality. It had been important. Necessary. But right now, it felt a little bit foolish.

“London?” Julie asked quietly. She knew, of course, that London was going to be out on the show. They had talked about it before London left. “He should probably know before we all watch it.”

“I know.”

“You know how proud I am of you, right?”

Julie knew London better than anyone else in the world. She was always proud of them. But at this particular moment, it was what they needed to hear. For one second, London pushed their dad out of their brain. And they knew what they had done would be worth it: Viewers would view London as they were from the start. If they had the ability to see them as they were. The relief buoyed their entire chest.

“What about everyone else on the show?” Julie asked. “Are they cool with you? What about the judges? Oh my god, it would break my heart if Sai Patel was an asshole about you.”

“No, actually, Sai Patel seems like a genuinely good guy. All the judges are pretty much exactly how they appear on TV. If anything, they take the competition even more seriously than you would think. None of it’s an act. It’s . . . impressive, actually.”

London decided to not tell their sister about Lizzie. There was enough negativity brewing in the back of their head for one night, and they didn’t need to worry Julie. And anyway, they’d been doing a pretty good job, if they said so themself, at ignoring Lizzie’s existence.

“Thank god. Okay, so the other contestants, I need to know—are they assholes? Are there people I should be rooting for or not rooting for? Wait, ugh, don’t tell me; I don’t want spoilers. Wait until I at least watch the first ep and can put names to faces. And then you’re going to have to give me all the details. Holy shit, London, I can’t believe you are going to be on TV! ”

London had signed up for this thing.

But they couldn’t believe it, either.