None of the Above(25)

“I’d better go,” I said, blinking as Angie sprawled on Faith’s bed.

“Krissy . . .” Faith reached out after me. “Give me a call if you need me, will you?”

I shook my head. “No cell phone.”

“Then . . . email?”

“Internet’s cut off, too. But maybe my dad will let me use it just once. If I need it.”

Back at home, I asked Aunt Carla if Vee had stopped by, but of course she hadn’t. She wasn’t an early bird. Her dad had probably flaked out and forgotten to tell her I’d dropped in yesterday. If Vee hadn’t even rehashed the night with Faith, it almost certainly meant that she wasn’t going to talk about it with anyone.

Vee didn’t tend to let things percolate—not like me. She either made a big deal out of something, or dismissed it to clear her bandwidth. I imagined Vee thinking of the randomness of my Y chromosome, asking herself, “WTF?” and forgetting about it.

That night, as I got ready for bed, I realized that, all in all, it had been pretty peaceful spending the weekend without my cell and internet. I did wonder whether Sam had called, or if Maggie had emailed again, but I’d know soon enough.

Just one more night, and I’d be back in the game.





CHAPTER 13


My dad didn’t give me my cell phone back on Monday until I literally walked out the door. As I reached for it, he gave it a warning shake. “Don’t let it happen again,” he said, the crack in his voice almost too small to be noticeable. I paused to give him a hug, even though I could see Faith’s car waiting at the curb.

I thumbed on my phone as I cut across our lawn, and saw my seven missed calls and ten text messages at the same time I registered there was only one person waiting in the car.

“Where’s Vee?” I said, opening the shotgun door for the first time in months.

“She’s hitching a ride with Bruce today,” Faith said. “She needed to get there early to put up some posters.” She wasn’t smiling. Faith always smiled, even at 6:50 on a Monday morning. She put the car into gear and started driving, sneaking a peek over at me after a few seconds. “So, uh, I guess you never got in touch with her?”

“No . . . but it looks like she called me,” I said. Twice, it seemed. “Why, did you two talk?”

“Yeah,” Faith said. I felt a little jolt in my chest, a shot of adrenaline like the feeling I got when the starter would tell runners to get on their marks. Just like at the beginning of a race, though, Faith made me wait for the gun to go off. As I held my breath, she kept her eyes on the road, pacing herself a perfect two car lengths behind the Chevy in front of us.

“So,” I said finally, “what’d you two talk about?”

“Well . . . after church I called her because I was so sad about your news. And she filled me in on some of the details you left out.”

I couldn’t look at her, and stared straight ahead. The Chevy in front of us had a large, rusting dent in its rear fender.

“Krissy,” Faith said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Your sister was there. I couldn’t say it in front of her.”

“That you’re . . . partly a man?”

I flinched like I’d been slapped. “Is that what Vee told you?”

“No. Yes. I mean, that was kind of the take-home message.”

“Oh my God.” Stumbling, I tried to explain to her about how it was all just a chemical misunderstanding. “Dr. Cheng said that I was basically still a girl.”

“Okay. I’m sure . . . I mean, I hope people believe you.”

My heart stopped.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, now that people know . . . you know how rumors spread, Krissy. We’ll have to do some damage control.”

This time my heart didn’t stop. It exploded. “People? Plural? What people know?”

As if in answer, my phone pinged. I looked down and saw an unfamiliar number, and out of habit I clicked it open. There was no message, just a picture. An old-style movie poster with my face Photoshopped onto the body of a pudgy figure with eighties clothes, and the words:



It’s Kris—the Hermaphrodite!



It was as if someone had grabbed me by my throat and twisted.

No. No no no no.

My lungs didn’t seem to work. I felt like I was underwater, could barely hear Faith ask me over and over again if I was all right. If I had been able to breathe, her question would’ve made me laugh, because I was pretty sure that things would never, ever, be all right again.

When I showed Faith the tiny photo on my phone, she shook her head. “Why are people so small?”

That wasn’t the right question. “Who told everyone?” My words came out in a gasp. I didn’t have enough air to scream. “Does Sam know?” I whispered.

She looked away, biting the inside of her lip. Even she couldn’t sugarcoat this. I crushed my book bag into my chest as if I could squeeze out all the pain.

Faith reached over to hug me, her face a mess of emotions. “Krissy, you will get through this. Sam’s crazy about you. You just have to explain the situation, like you did to me.”


The last few minutes of the ride to school were a blur. After Faith got out of the car, I sat there for a few beats, reminding my lungs how they were supposed to work. Trying to tamp down the feeling that catastrophe was just around the corner.