Birthday(2)

He rolls his eyes. “Fine, don’t tell me, weirdo.”

He didn’t hear. I feel sick.

Weirdo.

Eric swims away, clambers over the edge of the pool, and stands, looking down at me as I follow slowly.

Our parents call us over and I imagine saying it now: I’m really a girl. It sounds ridiculous. It sounds weird.

We run to meet our parents, our wet footprints quickly drying on the hot pavement. Carson, Eric’s dad, is wearing a “Big Kahuna” T-shirt and long, black swim trunks. He’s imposing, over six feet tall, with Eric’s same blond hair cut short and sharp green eyes that always seem angry. He used to like me, back when I played football. I even thought of him like an uncle. But ever since I quit, he barely says anything to me, even when I sleep over at their house. I’ve always thought Eric’s mom, Jenny, looked classic, like a starlet from a black-and-white movie. She makes me feel welcome at Eric’s house, making sure I have a home-cooked meal whenever I’m over there.

My dad, all rangy limbs and a deep farmer’s tan from running around on the football field, gives me a tired smile and slouches back in his chair. Our parents have known one another for as long as Eric and I have been alive. They met at the hospital when we were born, trapped during a freak blizzard—the only September blizzard in Tennessee’s history, apparently. During those three autumn days, Eric and I came into the world, and our parents—our families—became friends for life.

Since then, we’ve done everything together. A shared birthday eventually became a shared everything. For a long time our families were closer with each other than we were with our own uncles, aunts, and cousins.

Then Mom died and, not too much later, I quit the football team.

At least we still do our birthday together.

“You boys ready for lunch?” Jenny asks, lifting her oval sunglasses with a smile.

I flinch at her casual use of the word “boys” but try to hide it.

It wasn’t always like this; it used to be a dull pain, the ache of a bruise, a faint confusion when school activities split us into boys and girls—but in the last year it’s grown unbearable. I might have said something sooner, vaguely remember wanting to say something sooner, but I actually used to like football, and I knew instinctively that two kinds of kids weren’t allowed to play: girls and sissies. I didn’t want to give up something I liked, and I didn’t want to be made fun of. Back then, stamping down my confusion was easier, but over time it’s turned into something like you’d see in a cartoon, where a character plugs a leak with their finger only for two more leaks to pop out in its place. Feels like it’s only a matter of time before the dam bursts right in my face.

“Not yet,” Eric says to his mom as he twists the water out of his hair. “I want to hit the Vortex.”

Our white-and-blue birthday cake sits at the center of the table. It says Happy birthday, boys! in red icing, so even if grocery store cakes didn’t taste like trash compared to Mom’s baking, I still wouldn’t want to eat it. I nod along with Eric and try to look like I’m excited about the Vortex too.

“Okay,” Dad says, starting to rise. “I’ll come with you.”

“Hey, hey, Tyler. They’re thirteen now,” Carson says, leaning back and sipping his Coke. “Maybe it’s time to let out the reins a little bit.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Dad says, scratching his cheek. He looks at me, giving me an are you okay? expression.

Dad used to let me run around like a crazy person, used to say it was good for boys to scuff their knees. But then Mom got sick, and then she got sicker, and a year ago she was gone, and ever since it feels like he’s either always on the football field, gone, or trying to put a leash around my neck. It’s like we’re both treading water around each other, unsure of how to act without her.

I let my hair fall into my face. It’s always easier to view the world through the veil of my hair. I turn, and with my eyes locked on Eric we jog away from the pool toward the main walkway, closer to the looming shadow of the Vortex.

“You okay?” Eric asks as we get in line and start to mount the wrought-iron stairs.

“I’m fine,” I say.

I have to tell him. I have to tell him.

“Is it because you’re scared of heights?” Eric asks.

I look around and we’re almost to the top now. A breeze whips Eric’s hair. A cloud of starlings wheels above the park like a school of fish.

“I’m not scared of heights,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I’m not scared of anything.”

What a lie.

“Then why are you acting weird?”

“I’m not,” I say. I look down at my feet and at the dizzying vista visible through the gaps in the wrought iron.

Eric gives me a look like he doesn’t believe me, but before he can say anything else, we’re on the top platform with the dark, open mouth of the waterslide beckoning. An attendant guides us to a small, yellow inflatable raft and instructs us to hold onto the handles, not to stand up, not to leave the raft, not to do any of the stupid things teenage boys apparently do, which reminds me for the millionth time: I’m a teenage boy now. It’s official. I feel sick.

“Ready?” the attendant asks us.

I nod. Eric shoots his arms in the air and hollers.