Birthday(61)

The drive is silent until we’re out of Thebes proper, and I’m glad for it because there’s too much going on inside me. As we turn onto the interstate headed west for Nashville, I think, someday when I come back here I won’t be coming home.

It’s a sobering thought. As much as I hate Thebes, the idea of leaving forever makes me feel like I’m at the top of a roller coaster. Because if this isn’t my home, what is? The farthest I’ve ever been from my hometown is a few miles into Kentucky and Georgia. But then I remember that Eric is my home. Forever, because he promised. We promised.

But … what if I show up at his doorstep and something has changed? I look at myself in the passenger-side mirror and my stomach tightens. My face has rounded out a little, my skin is smoother. I used some of my YouTube money to pay for laser hair removal, and I’ve been using voice tutorials I found online, but it’s still early days. Eric says I’m beautiful, but he’s only seen me in carefully posed selfies, on grainy webcams, or in videos where everything is lit and filtered and edited.

“You got your driver’s license, right?” Dad asks for possibly the seventh time in the last twenty-four hours.

“Yeah, Dad.”

“And your name-change papers in case they give you trouble?”

“Yeah.” Hard to imagine why they even would when all I changed was my middle name.

“And you printed your boarding pass?” he says.

“Yeah, Dad,” I say. I roll my eyes and show him the folded piece of paper in my purse.

“Okay,” he says. “All right. All right. I’ll shut up.”

“You don’t have to shut up,” I say softly as we climb higher and higher up Cumberland Plateau, sheer mountain walls rising up to our left to partially blot out the sun. “I didn’t say shut up.”

“Better not,” he says with a weak smile.

“But could you please stop babying me?” I say. “Please? I am eighteen.”

“Emphasis on the teen,” he mutters.

“Dad!”

“Okay!” he says. He holds up both hands long enough to show he’s giving up, before placing them back on the wheel. “All grown up. Nothing left to learn. You got it, bud.” I try to hide how much I tense at being called “bud,” but either I do a bad job, or Dad’s become tuned-in enough to see that I hate it. He winces and rubs his forehead. “Sorry. Sorry…”

“It’s fine,” I say. I put on one of Eric’s playlists and silently turn my attention to the valley below as John Denver croons, appropriately enough, about country roads. I know Dad’s doing his best. I know I’m insanely lucky, especially now that I have some other trans kids’ stories to compare mine to. And I know Dad gets worried, but things feel different for me now. Used to be even when I was swinging at other people, I really only hated myself.

Now—when someone yells something cruel from a car, or treats my body like an inconvenience or a freakshow, I don’t really get mad at myself. Now, I get mad at them. I can throw a half-finished drink at a car full of catcallers. I can commiserate with other trans people on forums about how much flying sucks. Now that I’m eighteen, I can vote out politicians who try to pass bad laws. It’s productive anger.

Dad turns the music volume down as we crest a rise and start drifting down a winding mountain road. “Morgan?”

“Yes, Dad?” I roll my eyes again reflexively and immediately feel guilty.

“I just need you to know that I love you,” he says.

“Love you too,” I say.

He takes my hand in his, rests both on the gear shift, and squeezes.

“But I reserve the right to be annoying.”

I throw my head back and groan, but my smile widens. “Thanks, Dad. I’ll remember that.”

Before I know it, we’re pulling into Nashville International Airport. As we unload my bag and suitcase I can’t help noticing the stiffness in Dad’s shoulders. And then there we are, a father and daughter facing each other on a raised ribbon of concrete, jets screaming overhead, the wind whipping my hair while he blinks faster and faster.

“So hey,” I say. I favor him with a grin. “You know that I’m coming back, right? This is just for a few days? And when I do move out, I’m still gonna come back and visit all the time.”

He nods and pulls me into a hug that neither of us breaks for a long time. When we finally part he rummages in his pocket and produces an envelope with Mom’s handwriting on it. “This is the last one. Thought it might be nice if she kept you company on the plane.”

“Thank you,” I say, “for holding on to all of these.” I tuck the letter into my coat pocket, close to my heart.

“She’d be so proud of you.”

I nod and now it’s my turn to hold back tears. We hug one more time, and Dad gets back in his car without ever taking his eyes off me. I take a breath, and then a step, and then I’m through the automatic doors and one with the crowd.





ERIC



A breeze blows in from the ocean. I can faintly hear dogs barking and the rumble of car stereos. Mom sings from the kitchen as I tune my guitar. I lie back on Peyton and Chelsea’s couch, our couch, I guess, at once gross because it smells like cigarettes and spilled beer but somehow more comfortable than anything from our old house. It had been weird to see how run-down this place was, but even more surprising was the fact that Mom was fine with it.