Birthday(64)
“Surprise.” Morgan brushes her bangs from her eyes and laughs. “Happy birthday, Eric.”
“Happy birthday, Morgan.”
MORGAN
He sings about Tennessee snow and a girl locked in a cage with bars made of fire. I curl my body around his back and stare up at him. The covers are a knotted mess. The fitted sheet is loose and bunched. The vibrations from his singing echo from his back into my stomach. Eric said that tomorrow night I can listen to him play the songs onstage at one of the best bars in the city. Just thinking about watching him play for a crowd feels so close to my dreams that my breath catches.
He sings about poison mountains and roads like typewriter ribbons waiting to spool, about kisses in the street and heartbreak in hiding. I close my eyes and let my mind wander. His voice lifts me up, the lyrics melting together.
But then he sings about a dark-eyed girl full of secrets and an empty-headed boy tumbling down from the sky, and how the girl filled her cold spots with fire, cooling the boy enough for him to see. The idea that I could fit into any of these flowery metaphors makes me want to cover my face with a pillow. But if that’s how he sees me then I certainly won’t rush to correct him. His voice rings earnest and clear and I can almost believe in this version of myself.
The song winds to a close. He sets his guitar aside and makes a nervous little face. I rest my head in his lap and smile up at him and tell him the song was as beautiful as him. We kiss, and we kiss, and we kiss, our whole future spiraling before us.
Acknowledgments
Everyone warns you about the second book, and it turns out it’s all true. The novel you just read would absolutely not have entered the world without a network of professional and emotional support for which I am eternally grateful. In no particular order, here are the people I need to thank.
Joelle Hobeika, you opened the door to this crazy job, and I’ll never forget our first conversation when I was a sophomore in college. Sara Shandler, Josh Bank, Les Morgenstein, Hayley Wagreich, and everyone at Alloy, you have been absolute saints through my habit of stumbling over deadlines, and without your reassurances I might have given up before we landed on a book worth really being proud of. Thank you to Sarah Barley, Amy Einhorn, Marlena Bittner, and everyone at Flatiron for believing in this project and for your patience and support. Thank you as well to Dana Levinson for lending us your beautiful voice, and the stunning talent and hard work of everyone at Macmillan Audio. And thank you to all of the above for being willing to put up with me over drinks and too-long phone calls. I consider you friends as much as editors, and I hope the feeling is mutual.
Writing is lonely work, and writing while living with mental illness is even lonelier. The following people regularly went out of their way to get me out of the house these last two years. Anthony, Sierra, Amanda, and Luna: I don’t know where I would have been without our Saturday night ritual. There were weeks when making a meal, playing D&D, and watching a movie were the only things I looked forward to. The tradition itself might be over, but I still cherish all the time each of you chooses to spend with me. Kayla and Claudio: one for being among my most ferocious advocates, the other for being so clearly gentle and unambiguously decent that you were the first Chattanoogan I came out to in real life.
Special thanks as well to Kyle and Athena. You both live too far away to get me out of the house, but your writing advice and friendship have meant more to me than I quite know how to say. As we three grow older and more young trans people emerge, it’s good to know I’ll always have y’all to keep me company while we grow into our roles as the trans aunties and uncles (and eventually grandmothers and grandfathers, ugh!) that we never got to have.
Finally, thank you to my parents, Karol and Toby, and my sister, Katie, for your unfailing love and support. I doubt I would have lived to witness the publication of this book without you. You are a better family than most trans people even know to ask for, and I don’t want you to think for a moment that I don’t know how blessed I am.