Authors: Julie Anne Peters
I was relieved, glad for him, but worried. When I’d finally drifted off to sleep around midnight, I’d had a dream. A premonition that Liam was going to do something dangerous again. Impulsive. Reckless. The dream was hazy and I couldn’t invoke a clear image this morning; couldn’t conjure up what he’d done or where. Only this ominous foreboding remained.
A car honked outside. “That’s Aly.” Liam jumped up and glugged down the last of his milk. On his way past Mom, he looped an arm around her shoulders and said, “You look lovely today. As always.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Have a good one, Pops.” He waved to Dad.
Dad choked on his Cheerios. The front door closed and he said to Mom, “What’s he on? Some of your happy pills?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mom snapped.
Yikes. I prepared to exit stage right.
Mom said, “You know, Liam’s eighteenth birthday is next Saturday. Has he mentioned to either of you what he wants?”
Dad blew out a breath. “Like he’d tell me.”
They both angled their heads my way, eyebrows raised. Yeah, I considered telling them, Liam wants to be a girl. Can you arrange a small reception for his sex reassignment surgery? Maybe a little Post-op Party by Patrice? And Dad, you could redecorate the basement. She’s partial to pink.
“Not to me,” I mumbled.
Mom sighed. “I suppose we could give him money — again. Not that he needs it.”
Dad lifted his coffee cup. “I guess you’ll have to write the check since it’ll be coming out of your account.”
Mom’s fiery glare scorched the length of the tablecloth.
“Outta here,” I said, and jettisoned through the fire exit.
Liam intercepted me on my way to first period English. “Are you coming straight home from school today?” he asked.
“Yeah, I guess. Unless I have to stop by the bank to make a rather large deposit.” I exaggerated a grin.
“I’m going to tell Aly.”
My backpack thudded to the floor. As I squatted to retrieve it, all the blood drained from my face. “Liam, no,” I said on the way up. Speaking to air.
He was halfway down the hall.
I sprinted to catch up. As I caromed around the corner, I had a head-on with a body. Chris Garazzo’s, to be precise.
“Regan, hey.” He clutched my arm to steady himself. I must’ve jerked because he let go fast. “Sorry. I, uh, want to talk to you,” he said.
In my peripheral vision, I saw Liam duck into the media center. “Not now.” I sidestepped Chris. “I have something to do.” More important than you, was the interpretation. I didn’t look back as I hammered down the hall. To save my brother from himself — again.
He was just slipping into a carrel. “Liam.” I perched on my haunches beside him, gulping for air. “You can’t tell Aly.”
He blinked at me. “Why not?”
“If you don’t know . . .”
He pulled out his physics text and said, “She already thinks I’m gay.”
My jaw dropped. “She told you that?”
He cast me a withering look. “She isn’t stupid, Re.” Flipping open a spiral, he licked his finger and leafed to a blank page, then printed his name at the top, the date underneath.
No, but you are, I thought. “Don’t, Liam.” The warning bell rang and I straightened to stand. “Don’t do this to her.”
His mechanical pencil poised over the page. “To her?” He shook his head. “You don’t get it, do you?” he said, sounding angry.
He
was angry? “Liam —”
His cold stare froze me solid.
Releasing me from the icy grip, his eyes skimmed down the page of his physics text and he added, “I’d really like you to be there. For moral support in case I need it. If you don’t want to, though, I’ll understand.”
I hissed a breath between my teeth. It’s not that I don’t want to! I wanted to scream. But that’s exactly what it was. When he told Aly the truth about himself, I wanted to be on any other planet.
S
he was in the basement with Liam, cursing and squealing, “You pig! Get off my ass.” Alyson smacked his arm. When my foot creaked on the bottom stair, I saw him lean away from her, looking smug and grinning evilly.
“I’ve decided to call this game Aly Oops,” he told her.
She slugged him in the arm, hard.
Please, I prayed to God, tell me that megabrain of his picked up Pentium speed during the day, that it executed the code called Understanding and Logic.
“Re, there you are.” Liam dropped his joystick and scrambled to his feet. Mine were weighted to the stair tread.
“Hey, Regan.” Aly acknowledged me with a wave over her shoulder. Liam’s death screech wailed from the speakers over-head —
Aaah!
“Whoo hoo,” Aly cheered. “I baked your butt.” She continued to punch her joystick for a moment before realizing Liam wasn’t playing. “The game isn’t over yet, is it?” She swiveled her head upward. “We’re only in eighth grade.”
Liam’s eyes locked with mine. Please, I mouthed. Don’t.
“I want to tell you something, Aly.” Liam blinked down at her.
My stomach hurt. I skittered to the sofa and dropped onto it like a body bag, doubling over and trying to swallow the rising bile in my throat.
Aly said, “Okay.” She set her joystick down and glanced over.
I felt her questioning eyes on me. All I could do was burn holes in the carpet and hold my breath. Hold out hope he wouldn’t go through with this.
Aly spun on her rear and hugged her knees. “So, what?”
Liam said, “I like your hair that way. I always have.”
Aly reached back to feel her ponytail. “Thanks. I wear it this way like, eight days a week.” She crossed her eyes.
“I know. I love it.”
I peered up to see Liam touch the top of Aly’s head. Please, God, no, I prayed.
“What I wanted to tell you . . .” Liam swallowed hard. He folded his arms around himself and let out a shallow breath. “What I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time, Aly, is ...um...” His voice trailed off and he turned to me.
No. No way.
“Well, spit it out,” Aly said. “Christ. Do you have a brain tumor or somethi — Oh God.” Her hands covered her mouth. “You don’t —” Her voice muffled. “Liam —”
“No.” Liam placed a hand on her shoulder. “No, it’s nothing like that. I’m not sick. I’m ...a girl.”
The air in the room stilled. Stopped. The walls closed in. Aly went, “Huh?”
Liam said, “That’s it. I’m a girl.”
That was it? Hadn’t he thought more about how he was going to reveal the truth about himself? Aly wasn’t going to understand “I’m a girl.” I’m sure.
Liam let out a little laugh. He sauntered over to the TV and took a swig of his soda. He set it down and said, “What you see on the outside? This,” he swept a hand down his body, “isn’t me. The real me is on the inside.”
“Well, duh.” Aly cocked her head. “That’s real deep, Liam. It’s true for all of us, isn’t it?” She rolled her eyes at me.
Really. He was blowing this. He was so inept.
Liam met my eyes, pleading.
No, Liam. No.
Please, Re, I could feel him begging. Help.
God. Why me? “What he means is he’s not really a guy.” I said the words so fast they all ran together. “He’s a girl. He’s trans. Get it?”
Aly frowned a little. “Trans what?”
Right. She didn’t know the lingo. “Transgender,” I told her. “He’s a girl in a boy’s body.”
Her expression didn’t change, but the height of the ceiling did. The weight of the world came crashing down. My heart began to hammer in my chest.
“I don’t understand.” Aly blinked up at Liam. “This is a joke, right?” She scrabbled to her feet. Punching Liam in the gut as she passed, she said, “You guys.” She retrieved her Sprite from the coffee table and flopped onto the sofa next to me.
“No joke,” Liam said. “I’m a trans girl. A T-girl. The way you’re a genetic girl, a G-girl.”
“G-girl, T-girl. What the hell are you talking about?” Aly gulped her Sprite.
Liam held my gaze. “Maybe I should just show her.”
“No —”
“Show me what?” Aly cut me off. “Your boobs? Your T-boobs?” She snorted and drank again.
Her hand was shaking. She was shaking. Liam noticed, too. He perched on the coffee table opposite Alyson and folded her hand between his. “My name is Luna,” he said softly. “I want you to know me. The real me.” His thumb traced the length of her slender index finger. Liam gently placed her hand in her own lap, stood, and headed for his room. He closed the door behind him.
Aly said, “What’s he going to do?”
I mashed my lips together, wishing to God I didn’t have to tell her. Wishing none of this was happening, that it was a dream, a nightmare, that I’d wake up to my actual life. My real life.
Aly said, her voice unsteady, “I thought he was going to tell me he was gay. I thought he was telling me he had AIDS.”
“Oh God, Aly. No.” I swiveled to face her. “It’s nothing like that.”
She was so white. “I mean, it’s okay if he’s gay. Gay people get married, right? They have kids. He could change.”
Was that the hope she’d been holding onto? All these years? She was deluding herself. Even if he was gay —
“He’s not gay,” I said. “He’s trans. He’s not what he appears. He’ll show you. He’s going to change into her girl role. Except, it’s not really a role. It’s who he really is. Luna. Who she is.”
Aly looked so confused, so lost.
I was doing as bad a job at explaining as Liam had. I tucked a leg under me and took a deep breath. “I know this is hard to understand. It’s even harder to explain, but Liam feels like a girl. He is a girl, really. Problem is, she’s a girl who was born with a boy’s body. I don’t know how it happens, or why. Luna says it’s hard-wired into her brain to be female. It’s who she knows she is, same way you and I know. It’s instinctive. Natural.”
Aly stared at me as if I’d just told her her best friend had died. Which, I suppose to her, he had. That disbelief-before-reality-smacks-you-in-the-face look. Denial. Fear of facing the truth.
I forged ahead. “It’s horrible because you want to be this person you are in here,” I pressed my heart, “and here.” I touched my temple. “But you can’t because you don’t look the way you should. You look like a guy. And that’s what people expect you to be. Every day you have to put on this act, play a role, and the only time you can ever be free is when you’re alone, when nobody’s watching and you can let yourself go. In your world, your private world, you can present yourself the way you want the world to see you and treat you. That’s how Liam explained it to me. Does it make sense?”
Delayed reaction. Slowly sinking in. Not wanting it to. Aly shook her head from side to side. “What you’re telling me is, he’s in there,” she thumbed over her shoulder, “putting on girls’ clothes?” Her voice rose.
“More than that. He’s transforming. She is. You’ll see.”
“He’s a ...a cross-dresser?”
“No! God. Don’t call him that.” My face burned. “It’s not the same. Liam’s dressing because he wants you to see what he sees on the inside. His true identity. Hers, I mean. Luna’s. There’s all kinds of psychological mumbo jumbo and names for this stuff. Dysphoria, Gender Identity Disorder, I don’t know. She can explain it better than me.”
“She?” Aly smiled sardonically. She raised her Sprite to her mouth and tipped the can. It was empty so she put it down.
“That’s another thing. When she’s dressed, she wants you to address her by her chosen name — Luna. And use ‘her’ and ‘she’ It won’t be hard. She really is a girl.”
Alyson’s smile stuck to her face.
“Don’t you remember that time at her ninth birthday party when she asked for a bra?”
“No,” Aly said.
“Or that time at my slumber party when she absolutely loved having her nails polished?”
“No,” Aly said faster.
She remembered; I know she did. “There’s always polish around her cuticles, Aly.”
Aly shook her head.
There had to be other traces of evidence, other instances. All the time she and Liam spent together? Luna couldn’t have hidden from Aly entirely.
Aly bent forward and began to scrape the side of her Sprite can with a fingernail. “If this is some kind of game you two are playing —”
“It’s not a game.”
She looked at me, hard.
“Aly, you had to have seen.”
Her mouth opened and words spilled out, but I was distracted by Luna, who had emerged. She pressed a finger to her lips and slipped into my room, carrying two pairs of shoes to try on.
I tuned into Aly. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“When did you know?” she repeated. “How long have you known? When did he tell you?”
Tell me. Did he tell me?
“Hurry up, guys. All the good prizes are going to be gone.” Dad comes out of the hallway, fastening his watch band. I’m sitting on a kitchen stool while Mom is French-braiding my hair. Liam’s leaning over the counter, reading a comic book. Or pretending to. I can feel his eyes on me. He’s always watching, watching.
“Pat, come on!”
“Oh, hold your horses,” Mom says. “I don’t know what the big rush is. You never win anything anyway.”
“Hey, I represent that.” Dad punches his fists into his sides. He winks at me and I smile. He wins games all the time. He just always gives me the prizes.
We’re on our way to the school carnival, which is fun. For me and Dad. Liam’s in sixth grade and he thinks it’s babyish. Mom goes because all the moms do. It’s what moms do. Dad spends about four hours at Whack-a-Mole with me, then drags Liam over to the baseball toss. Last year Liam actually knocked over the stack of milk bottles on his first try and won a huge stuffed panda. Which I begged and pleaded to have. He’s so stingy, though. He never gives me anything.
The only thing Dad’s ever won at the baseball toss is the free giveaway — a number two pencil engraved with “Eagle Elementary.” He must have a drawerful.
Dad points to Liam. “This year, buddy boy, it’s the O’Neill grudge match. Winner take all.”
“If you ever lose your job, you can always sell pencils on the street corner.” Liam smirks.
“Why you.. .” Dad threatens him with a fist, but he’s grinning. “Come on, girls.” Dad throws up his hands. “Let’s gooooo.”