The Names They Gave Us(41)
“So, did I—” I shut my mouth, lopping off yet another sentence. “Never mind. Sorry.”
“You can ask. Not all trans folks want to spend their time educating. But I mean, hello.” She gestures around us. “Kids’ camp. If I weren’t okay with questions sometimes, I probably couldn’t be here.”
“No, no questions. I just wanted to apologize if anything I said to those campers yesterday was wrong. Thank you for talking to me. You didn’t have to.”
“Oh, I know.” She smiles gently—reminding me that of course it’s her business. “But Mohan and Keely and Jones have been with me for everything. I didn’t want you to be confused if one of us referenced it. Although I guess we don’t talk about it much anymore.”
This big, personal thing . . . and she talks to me because she doesn’t want me to feel left out. And stranger still, I’m not even surprised. Anna has shown me exactly who she is from the moment she burst into my cabin two weeks ago.
“I think I would have left Daybreak after my first day,” I confess. “If it weren’t for you, I think I would have bailed. So, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I like that she says this simply, sincerely. She doesn’t try to downplay her own goodness. “Well, whew! We’re okay, right? Mohan thought you were going to freak.”
“What! Why?” Maybe that’s not an unreasonable assumption, but I still feel insulted.
“He’s just protective.”
“Yeah. I like that about him. About all of you,” I tell Anna, smiling a little. “So, speaking of which, do you have any good crushes at home? Or here?” I admit, I ask this because of the way Tambe is with her. He’s always funny, but when he gets a laugh from Anna? His grin is triumphant.
“How is that speaking of which?” she screeches, her cheeks flushing.
I hold my hands up innocently. “Okay, okay. Maybe it’s not. I retract the question.”
“Good,” she says, scolding. “Because I just told you a big thing. You owe me.”
“Well, unfortunately for both of us, my life is pretty boring.”
“Please don’t take this the wrong way.” She places one hand on my arm. “But you got paused. That is shitastic. But pretty interesting.”
We stay seated on the piano bench as I try to explain Lukas Pratt. But I can’t capture what a presence he is—more mature than other guys our age. When he speaks in class, it’s well-thought-out and logical; everyone takes his opinion seriously. He’s handsome in a way that belongs at an all-boys school, one with blue oxford uniform shirts and a rowing team.
“So, what does breaking up for the summer accomplish, according to him?” Anna asks.
I open my mouth to say that Lukas is just cautious. I mean, all his running gear has strips of reflective material for visibility. But is breaking up with me really cautious? Or just full of doubt? Especially after my conversation with my mom, I’m lost in the fog of it all. “I . . . don’t know. I thought I did, but I don’t.”
“Hmm. To see if you miss each other? Do you miss him?”
“Yes?” I’m just not sure if I miss him in a serious boyfriend way or in the way that I miss my bedroom at home. That is: It’s mine, and it’s familiar, and I like it. But I’m also fine without it.
“That was convincing,” Anna says with a laugh. “Okay, okay. I am pleased with your gossip offering, so I suppose I will tell you about my megacrush from school. Liam. Liam Teller.”
“Liam,” I say, testing it out. “That’s kind of a sexy name.”
“Right?” My sheet music sits there unturned as we stay up too late, talking about boys and heartache and what we hope to find somewhere in between.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
On Monday morning, I plant my feet on the end of the pier and survey the still-dim sky. I like swimming in the earliest morning light. Stroke after stroke after stroke—arms cycling, feet kicking. I do a clean freestyle until I’m midlake and panting. And somehow, on the return lap, I find myself thanking God for Anna. The quick prayer is as second-nature as my backstroke. It would be unremarkable, as prayers go— except that I’ve been too angry with God to thank Him for anything in weeks. Maybe it’s a start.
Our class after morning chores is supposed to be with Bryan, but he isn’t in the mess hall. Garcia pulls the counselors aside. “Bryan’s tied up, so I’m gonna give out the art prompts. Can you space out and draw with them? And try to facilitate conversation about what they’re drawing?”
On long stretches of butcher paper, we draw our favorite animals first. It’s a neutral enough topic, and we talk about trips to the zoo and family pets. Thuy doesn’t say anything, but she does draw a cat with a bushy tail.
“A group of dolphins is called a ‘pod,’?” Sofia announces. She’s outlined a pod, arcing above the waves.
“Here.” Payton hands her a crayon. “It’s called ‘stone.’ A good dolphin color.”
“Payton has all the crayon colors memorized,” Sofia tells me.
“Is that right?”
Payton nods. “But my favorite favorite is cerulean.”
She pronounces it “kuh-ROO-lee-un” instead of “suh-ROO-lee-un.” I don’t have the heart to correct her.