None of the Above(22)

More recently, we’d moved on to an epic game of bluff wars. One of Vee’s more successful dupes ended with me dressed in a slutty nurse’s outfit in one of the stalls in the boys’ locker room.

I got her back, though, when I managed to convince her—with the help of some “articles” that I’d gotten from the internet—that laxatives were an aphrodisiac. Vee didn’t speak to me for a week after that. But I’d proved that, in the right circumstances, I could pull off a lie. Which was maybe why she thought I was trying to pull a fast one when I told her I was a hermaphrodite. Because who in the world would possibly believe that? Certainly not Vee, who’d helped me buy my first bra, who’d seen me naked in the shower after swim class every Friday during sophomore year. She’d set Sam and me up, for God’s sake.

So she laughed, and I wanted so badly to smile and say ruefully, “Damn it, I thought I had you for sure.” But I couldn’t.

“It’s not a joke,” I said. I am not a joke, I thought.

Vee’s face scrunched up in confusion. Faith had stopped puking, and rested the side of her head on the rim of the toilet seat. Her eyes were glazed. “That you, Krissy?” she slurred. “I think I’m sick. I don’t have the enzyme you need to drink, you know. It’s my parents’ fault. Everything’s my parents’ fault.”

“Shhh,” Vee said, stroking Faith’s long, straight hair. “We’re both here. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

Was it? I hoped so badly that it would, so badly I allowed the truth to stumble out.

As if from far away, I heard myself say, “That visit to the ob-gyn? I found out why I’ve never gotten my period. When my mom was pregnant with me, something went wrong. I’m not . . . I’m not exactly a girl.”

Vee’s hand, still intertwined in Faith’s hair, froze. “Shit. You’re serious, aren’t you?”

I got up, wincing, but this time I held on to the pain like a touchstone. With fire burning in between my legs, I told Vee about my chromosomes taking a detour. About not having a womb. About having testicles.

At the word testicles, Vee let out a nervous giggle.

Being laughed at once was bad. Twice was unbearable. My face flushed, and I could barely breathe from the humiliation. How could I have been so stupid? I lurched up and headed for the door, but before I could run out, Vee reached over and grabbed my arm.

She covered her mouth with her other hand, and I could feel her stiffness, like she was trying to control herself. “I’m sorry, Krissy . . . I . . .” She groped for something to say, and I felt the shame start to dig into my bones.

Vee put a hand up to her head. “Jesus, Krissy. I totally don’t know what to say.”

The silence in the room pressed in from all sides, suffocating me. I stared at Faith’s hand splayed against the Sullivans’ impeccable grouting. She always had the best nails.

Finally, Vee said one word. “Shit.”

I looked up at her, saw the crease in between her eyebrows. She was in the confusion stage. Had I already missed the revulsion, or was it still to come? “You can’t tell anyone,” I told her, feeling the panic rise in my throat.

She just shook her head. Then she asked, “Have you told Sam?”

I leaned against the door and closed my eyes, still feeling slightly fuzzy. “I will. I just need some time. There’s a lot I don’t know. I might have surgery.”

Vee grimaced. “What, like he’ll deal with it better if he thinks you had a sex change?”


“It’s not like that!” I insisted, stung. “I’m a girl. Dr. Cheng said that people with androgen insensitivity syndrome should be considered girls.”

I saw the reflection of my words on Vee’s face: should be. Meanwhile, Faith, always a happy drunk, started singing. She got up and tried to dance, and tripped on the bath mat. Vee caught her. “Okay, I think it’s time to make my first drop-off of the evening.” She looked over at me. “You wanna go home, too?”

I nodded. I did, more than anything in the world.

The minute Vee turned the engine on, the metal station we’d been listening to pulsed through the car at max level.

“Turn it off,” Faith moaned from her position curled up in the backseat.

So we drove home to country music dialed down to a murmur. Somehow, even though I couldn’t understand the words, I still got their misery.

I sat shotgun, of course, and looked over at Vee every once in a while, but she kept her eyes glued on the road as if she were taking a driver’s test.

At the Wus’ house, Vee spritzed some breath freshener into Faith’s mouth and we walked her into her house and up to her room. We made sure that she was lying on her side in case she puked while she was in bed. Her parents were already asleep.

From when we walked out of the Wus’ until we were almost near my house, Vee didn’t say another word. The silence, the not knowing what she thought, felt like a bowling ball in my stomach. Finally, I blurted out, “Aren’t you going to say something?”

Vee let out a frustrated puff of breath, and pulled over. “Oh, Krissy. I just . . . What the f*ck?”

“Tell me about it. Promise you’re not going to treat me like a freak?”

That got her to grin. “Oh, Krissy,” she simpered, like she was quoting from a second-rate chick flick, “don’t you know I love you just the way you are?” She switched to her normal voice. “Seriously, haven’t we been through enough shit in our lives that you trust me not to drop you just because of some . . . hormone thing?”