I Kissed Shara Wheeler(52)

Because I still don’t know where you are, she finally types.

Shara responds, The next one should get you there.

And then what?

“I’m really sorry if this is a stupid question,” Smith says to Ash, “and you don’t have to answer it, but … the thing you said about gender. Can you explain the whole nonbinary thing to me?”

That finally pulls Chloe back to the present. Ash’s brush pauses over Smith’s half-glittery eyelid.

It hasn’t exactly been a smooth coming-out process for Ash, or even really much of a coming out at all. Their parents don’t know, and the Willowgrove faculty would probably go into collective cardiac arrest if a student asked for their deadname to be dropped from class rosters. But last year, one of their TikToks about weird earrings went viral, and everyone in school saw their pronouns in their bio, so that was pretty much it.

Chloe can see them doing the same math she did with Smith at Dixon’s party, but under his long lashes, Smith’s eyes are warm and curious. A faint memory returns to Chloe: Smith, shoving hair ties and concealer toward the back of his locker.

“When you first started at Willowgrove, back in middle school, you had to tell all your teachers to call you Smith, right?” Ash asks. Their brush starts moving again. “Because it’s not your first name?”

“Yeah. It’s my middle name. Mom’s last name before she got married.”

The answer surprises Chloe. She arrived at Willowgrove after Smith, so she always assumed Smith was his first name.

“What’s your first name, then?”

“William.”

“Your parents named you Will Smith?” Chloe interjects.

Ash ignores her. “And when did you start going by Smith?”

“When I was a little kid.”

“Why don’t you go by William?”

Smith shrugs. “I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel right. Like, Smith feels like my name, but William doesn’t.”

“How do you know you’re not a William?”

“I don’t know. I just … do.”

“Okay, so,” Ash says. “That’s how I felt about being a girl. When I was a kid, I thought I didn’t like girly things, but then I got older and realized that I liked some girly things, but I hated that liking them made people think I was a girl, because on some level I always knew I wasn’t one. So then I thought maybe I was actually a boy, because I wanted to be feminine the way boys can be feminine, but then I’d look at other boys and I wasn’t one of them either. I knew I wasn’t a girl, and I wasn’t a boy. Like if someone yelled your first name at you. You might answer to it, but it wouldn’t feel right, because that’s not you.”

“So, wait—why did you cut your hair, if you don’t want to be a guy?”

Chloe winces, but Ash seems unbothered. “Because I’m still not a girl, so I don’t like it when someone takes one look at me and automatically shoves me into the girl category in their brain. The hair helps.”

“Okay, but I feel like that too, and I’m not nonbinary.”

There’s the slightest change in Ash’s face. “What do you mean?”

“Like … I like my body, because it’s fast and strong and good at football. But it also has to be a dude’s body, because I play football. So like, maybe sometimes I wish it was smaller or softer or … different … but I don’t really have a choice. And I can wear stuff like my letterman jacket and feel better because I could be shaped like anything under that, and I can imagine that maybe I’m not shaped like a dude sometimes. But that’s not the same thing as what you’re talking about, right?”

“Are there … times you don’t want to be a dude?”

Smith’s eyes are closed so Ash can keep working, but his eyebrows furrow above them. “Does it matter? I’d have to be a guy no matter what.”

“You know … if being a guy feels like something you have to do, like it’s an obligation or something…” Ash says carefully. “Maybe think about that.”

Smith looks like he might have another question, but the choir room door flies open, and a dozen lowerclassmen come tumbling in, ready to have their makeup topped off by Ash’s glitter stash.

“An orderly line would be appreciated,” Ash yells over the burst of noise, and Smith glances over their shoulder to check his face in the mirror wall. Chloe sees him smile before she leaves.



* * *



“If this thing makes me break out from your leftover face juices, I’m gonna murder you,” Chloe says, tugging at the mask covering one side of her face.

“I have great skin,” Ace says. “Which you should remember from all the times you kissed me.”

“I try not to think about that,” Chloe says.

Ace’s dress is a beaded floral confection that is straining dangerously across his chest and ends about four inches above his ankles. He looks like he’s halfway into a werewolf transformation, and he is having a spectacular time. Chloe found him surrounded by chorus members, yelling the punch line of some joke she can’t begin to imagine. He’s a little sweaty, but he’s got the spirit.

“I love kissing people,” Ace says. “It’s like, a hobby of mine. I would describe myself as a make-out hobbyist.”