“No,” she says. “I don’t realize that.”
Frustrating. It’s like talking to a child who still believes that proclaiming something out loud can make it real. I wish I could believe like that.
I stop walking and put my hand on her shoulder. The truth hurts to say, especially because she looks so unready to hear it.
“You need to realize it,” I tell her. “I can care about you. You can care about me. But we can’t be together.”
“Why?”
“Why?” It’s exasperating to have to spell it out. “Because one morning you could wake up on the other side of the country. Because I feel like I’m meeting a new person every time I see you. Because you can’t be there for me. Because I don’t think I can like you no matter what. Not like this.”
“Why can’t you like me like this?”
“It’s too much. You’re too perfect right now. I can’t imagine being with someone like…you.”
“But don’t look at her—look at me.”
I am. I am looking at her.
“I can’t see beyond her, okay?” I say. “And there’s also Justin. I have to think of Justin.”
“No, you don’t.”
This makes me angry. Whatever Justin and I have, it can’t be dismissed in a single sentence.
“You don’t know, okay? How many waking hours were you in there? Fourteen? Fifteen? Did you really get to know everything about him while you were in there? Everything about me?”
“You like him because he’s a lost boy. Believe me, I’ve seen it happen before. But do you know what happens to girls who love lost boys? They become lost themselves. Without fail.”
I don’t want to hear this. “You don’t know me—”
“But I know how this works!” Her voice is loud, certain. “I know what he’s like. He doesn’t care about you nearly as much as you care about him. He doesn’t care about you nearly as much as I care about you.”
I can’t hear this. What good is hearing this?
“Stop! Just stop.”
But she won’t. “What do you think would happen if he met me in this body? What if the three of us went out? How much attention do you think he’d pay you? Because he doesn’t care about who you are. I happen to think you are about a thousand times more attractive than Ashley is. But do you really think he’d be able to keep his hands to himself if he had a chance?”
“He’s not like that,” I say. Because he’s not.
“Are you sure? Are you really sure?”
“Fine,” I say. “Let me call him.”
I don’t know why I’m doing this, but I’m doing it. I take out my phone. Turn it on. Call him.
“Hullo,” he answers.
“Hi!” I’m too cheery. I take it down a notch. “I don’t know what you’re up to tonight, but I have this friend in town I’d love for you to meet. Maybe we could all get dinner?”
“Dinner? What time is it?”
“It’s only two now. Maybe at six? At the Clam Casino? I’ll treat.”
“Okay. Sounds good.”
“Great! I’ll see you then!”
I hang up before he can ask me who my friend is. I’ll have to think of a story.
“Happy?” I ask A.
“I have no idea,” she replies.
“Me either.” Because now that I’m thinking about it, I’m wondering what I’ve just done.
“When are we meeting him?”
“Six.”
“Okay,” she says. “In the meantime, I want to tell you everything, and I want you to tell me everything in return.”
Everything.
I start when I was born. My father was away for business and my mother was all alone in the hospital. She knew I was going to be a girl. One night my father, after a few beers, told me the story of how she called my name as I was being born. As if I would hear her calling. As if he were there in the room to know what she said.
We moved around a lot when I was really young, but I don’t remember much of it. My first memory is actually of Liza hiding with me under our parents’ bed. I remember her telling me to be quiet. I remember seeing their feet, hearing their voices looking for us. I don’t remember being found.
I give A all these little Lego-like details, and don’t have any idea what they build. But I can see A building something—a story—as I hand them over. I can see A putting it together, and wanting to.
I ask her when she first knew about being the way she is. She tells me that until she was four or five, she just assumed she was normal—she assumed everyone woke up every day with new parents, in a new house, with a new body. Because when you’re young, people are willing to reintroduce the world to you each day. If you get something wrong, they’ll correct you. If there’s a blank, they’ll fill it in for you. You’re not expected to know that much about your life.
“There was never that big a disturbance,” she tells me. “I didn’t think of myself as a boy or a girl—I never have. I would just think of myself as a boy or a girl for a day. It was like a different set of clothes. The thing that ended up tripping me up was the concept of tomorrow. Because after a while, I started to notice—people kept talking about doing things tomorrow. Together. And if I argued, I would get strange looks. For everyone else, there always seemed to be a tomorrow together. But not for me. I’d say, You won’t be there, and they’d say, Of course I’ll be there. And then I’d wake up, and they wouldn’t be. And my new parents would have no idea why I was so upset.”
I try to imagine going through that, but I can’t really. I don’t think I could ever get used to it.
A continues. “There were only two options—something was wrong with everyone else, or something was wrong with me. Because either they were tricking themselves into thinking there was a tomorrow together, or I was the only person who was leaving.”
“Did you try to hold on?” I ask.
“I’m sure I did. But I don’t remember it now. I remember crying and protesting—I told you about that. But the rest? I’m not sure. I mean, do you remember a lot about when you were five?”
I see her point. “Not really. I remember my mom bringing me and my sister to the shoe store to get new shoes before kindergarten started. I remember learning that a green light meant go and red meant stop. I remember coloring them in, and the teacher being a little confused about how to explain yellow. I think she told us to treat it the same as red.”