Birthday(51)

“So,” Judith says as we begin our session. “I have a birthday surprise for you.”

I make a curious sound and she smiles, which is rare for her.

“You asked last month about referrals for hormones. Is that still something you’re interested in?”

I nod slowly and chew the inside of my cheek. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous—surgeries and medications are scary even when they’re something you need. “Yes,” I hear my voice say, almost detached from my body. I can’t believe I just said yes, but the answer is yes.

“Well then,” she says. “Let’s do this.”

“Really?” I ask, breathless.

“I’ve got no professional reservations, and your referral is ready to go. There’s a doctor I know in Nashville covered by your father’s insurance.”

She hands me a letter that’s been tucked into her notebook. My lips part but no sound comes out. Her smile shifts to a look of concern and then horror as she reaches out. I realize I’m about to drop my mug and catch it at the last minute. I laugh. I can’t stop laughing.

What does it feel like for something good to happen in your life? Ask me that five minutes ago and I’d have shrugged. Now I know: it’s a weightlessness, a shaking, electric tingle across my whole body. My body—not a machine, not a thing I inhabit, but the cells and muscles and bone of which I am made and which are me.

“I’ll just need your dad to sign off,” Judith says, watching me carefully. “Since you’re under eighteen.”

And there’s the catch. I close my eyes and click my teeth, biting back the swears trying to climb from me.

“What’s the matter?” she says.

“I’ll have to tell him,” I say.

“That’s the idea,” Judith says. “But I thought you said he was supportive?”

“About not wanting me to die, yeah. Nothing about gender,” I say. I lean forward. “I mean, where would he have even heard about trans people? Mean jokes on TV?” I rub my eyes and take a sharp breath. “Listen,” I say. “I used to have five people in my life who knew me from the moment I was born. Now I have two. I’m not sure I can handle losing another one. And…”

“And what?” Judith says. She must notice the way my eyes are twitching because she nudges a box of Kleenex in my direction, but I’ve got it under control.

“Nothing,” I say instead. “I’m being stupid.”

“You’re not being stupid,” Judith says with a frown. “Even if a concern isn’t logical, the feeling is valid. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

Judith is right, and this is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. “With the hormones … if I go through with this … what about…” I pause. “The future? I’ve never felt like I had one before…” I sigh and run my finger up the side of the mug. “What happens as I get older? Like, I can imagine existing as an adult, sort of, if this whole thing works out. But now that I want to live—I want to live. How’s a career going to work? How’s love going to work? God, how’s sex going to work?”

Judith looks at me, taking everything I say seriously. “I’d be lying if I said your gender won’t affect these things, but you have to make the right choice for you. Even though it feels like everything is going to be so hard, in lots of ways it’ll feel better to live honestly. The important thing is to be able to trust your support system. You need people who accept you and love you.” She gives me a reassuring smile. “Your father and Eric are a good start. The rest will come.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah…”

“Good luck, Morgan,” she says. “You’ll do fine tonight.”

As I leave the office, Gavin wishes me happy birthday. All I can manage in return is a nod as I pass under the portraits of monsters. Standing in the parking lot, I look at nothing and everything all at once. There’s a wind from the north, crisp with the warning of an early chill as it drags at the weakening trees, and under their rustle I can just make out the distant hum of the interstate, where thousands of unknown hearts hurtle every day to and from places I’d kill to go.

I’ve never thought much about the supernatural except when I’m at my worst—Mom didn’t make us go to church—but it occurs to me this place might be dying from more than just drugs and closed mines. Maybe a town has a soul. Maybe all the ways people like me have suffered turned Thebes sour a long time ago. I used to think the interstate was the finishing blow, but what if it’s the universe unfurling a rope ladder for people who need to get out?

I start Mom’s car, hook my iPod back into the aux cord, and blast “Bulletproof Heart” as I pull out of the parking lot and head home. I need to tell Eric, and I need to tell him tonight.





ERIC



No way in hell am I staying at the house after that “conversation” with Dad. There’s no dealing with him when he’s like this. The door chimes as I step into Taco Bell. It’s probably the only new building that Thebes has seen in ten years. There used to be another Taco Bell across town, but then a tornado came through last November, touching down at random, like God tapping an impatient finger. Nobody I knew was hurt, thankfully, but houses were swept away, along with the old Taco Bell and the Blockbuster where Morgan and I would wander for hours. Now there’s nowhere to go to rent movies except the library, and that’s not exactly the best hangout spot.