Birthday(49)

“Why aren’t you at practice?” Dad’s voice shoots through me like an arrow, his tone low and dangerous.

I spin my chair around and there he is, home early from the car lot, red-eyed and sallow.

“It got canceled,” I lie, trying for nonchalance. I’ve never been a good liar.

“Drove by the field on the way home,” Dad says. “It sure didn’t look canceled.”

“I mean,” I say. I try to look pathetic and fake a cough. “I had to cancel. Is what I mean. I’m feeling sick.”

“It’s your birthday,” he says, his voice cold and flat, “so I’m gonna pretend you didn’t just lie and then keep lying after I caught you.” He reaches me in two steps and takes my guitar, and I don’t try to stop him. At least he’s not yelling.

“Hey!” I start to stand, but he looms over me, eyes narrowing, and I sit back down.

“Watch your tone,” he says. He tosses the guitar on my bed and I wince at his rough handling.

“Yes, sir…”

“I can’t hear you,” Dad says.

“Yes, sir!” I say. It’s not worth fighting with him when he’s like this.

“Went too easy on you,” he says. “That’s the problem. You were the youngest, so I let your mother baby you. But she’s not here.”

Because of you, I think. He watches me for a moment and I feel like a bug under a pair of tweezers.

“Anyway,” he says. “You got birthday plans tonight, or are you waiting for the weekend?”

“Probably just gonna hang out with Morgan,” I say, knowing I should have tried to lie again.

His eyes narrow as he moves back to the doorway and shoves his hands in his pockets. I can see what Dad’s thinking.

Over the last year, I’ve noticed something, and of course Dad has seen it too: the way Morgan unconsciously crosses his legs at the thigh and flips his hair when he laughs, the way his voice lilts and flows more and more when he talks, the way his hands dance as he makes a point … he’s different now. More … alive. He still really loves horror movies and metal, though. That’ll always be quintessential Morgan.

“You should really think about what kinds of people you surround yourself with,” Dad says.

“He’s my best friend,” I say. I have to force myself not to scowl or let anger seep into my voice.

“I know that seems important now,” he says, “but you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. If you let Morgan get between you and the team, you could lose a shot at recruitment. And people could get ideas. Your girlfriend could get ideas.”

“My girlfriend knows I’m not gay,” I say, and now I can’t help rolling my eyes.

“Watch your tone,” Dad says.

“Yes, sir…”

“If I start to see you slacking on the field because of that boy, I’m going to put my foot down,” Dad says, pointing a finger at me. “I can’t stop you from seeing him at school, but I sure as hell can make sure you never see him outside.”

“Yes, sir,” I reply again, my voice automatic—trained. My face is a mask but my insides feel like they’re on fire. I hate that he thinks he can talk to me that way. And I hate that there’s nothing I can do about it. But I haven’t survived in this house for this long by letting him get to me.

He nods, apparently satisfied, and turns to leave. I reach to pick up my guitar from the bed and accidentally ping a string. The sound vibrates through the room.

Dad pauses in the doorway, his wide back rising and falling.

“I don’t have a lot of warnings left in me,” he says, not even looking at me. “Get your shit together.”





MORGAN



My therapist Judith’s office is nestled in a strip mall between a pet groomer and a nail salon. I park my car, the one Mom gave me last year on my birthday. It’s a beater but I love it more than anything I’ve ever owned. Having a car has meant having freedom, and that’s what I’ve needed the most this past year. I glance at the console clock and notice that I’m early for my appointment. My three-year-old iPod’s playing “Rome” and I decide to let Yeasayer finish before I head inside. The car hums beneath me, the old leather seats hugging my body.

I still haven’t been able to tell anyone but Judith and her assistant, Gavin, that I’m trans, though the people in my support group have assumed and I haven’t corrected them. I couldn’t even tell the psychiatrist at the mental hospital, but I feel pretty blameless in that—I didn’t really want to talk to anyone but Dad and Eric after what happened, and a hospital wing full of strangers and a hulking roommate who wouldn’t stop talking about fire wasn’t exactly a healing environment.

Mom’s car has allowed me to drive into Nashville for support groups where I’ve gotten to meet other trans people, some of them still in the closet like me, some of them my age and already transitioning, and a couple in their twenties with, like, actual lives and boyfriends and girlfriends.

To be honest, it was kind of hard to be around them, at first. To watch them ignore the ways their bodies and voices betrayed them. But every month I see a little bit more of the beauty in these people like me. It feels like I’m on the cusp of something, a chrysalis just on the verge of cracking.