Symptoms of Being Human (12 page)

“Nah, just back to Bullet Hole.”

I pull up at the studio and kill the engine. We sit there for a while, neither of us moving or talking. Just sitting and breathing. I sense more than see her hand resting on the center console. It seems to have its own magnetic pull, drawing my hand toward it. I release my death grip on the steering wheel and let my right hand fall gently into my lap. Then, slowly, I inch my arm toward the console.

“I'm glad you came,” Bec says.

“Me too.” I take a slow breath, and then reach for Bec's hand—but, at the same moment, she turns and grabs the door handle.

I waited too long. I put my hand back on the wheel and look away.

“So,” Bec says. “You want to do this again next week?”

My breath quickens, and I turn to look at her. I want to scream YES! YES! YES! But instead, I say, “Yeah, that would be good.”

And then the van door opens and Bec hops out, grabs her guitar from the back, and slams the sliding door shut. She waves, crosses the parking lot, and disappears into the studio in a swell of crashing cymbals.

I get home thirty minutes before curfew. As I pull into the driveway, the light goes out in my dad's den; he waited up for me. I kill the engine and head inside.

Lying on my bed, my laptop whirring to life next to me, I stare up at the ceiling and just breathe. I feel like a completely different person from when I left the house just a few hours ago. The kind of person who drives to LA with a hot girl on a Saturday night. The kind of person who lies to their parents and goes to support groups and tries to make a move on said hot girl in a parking lot with live punk rock thundering through the walls.

A few butterflies still twitch in my stomach, and I savor the delicious discomfort. I wonder how things might have gone if I had reached for Bec's hand just a moment sooner. Would we have kissed? What would her lips feel like? At this thought, the butterflies flap up a hurricane. But kiss or no kiss, she still asked me out on a third date. A slow, triumphant smile spreads across my face.

My laptop emits its welcoming chime, informing me that my immersive online experience is only moments away. I roll over onto my stomach and log in.

When my dash pops up, my jaw drops.

FOLLOWERS: 10,161

I stare at the number for a solid minute, not moving a finger.

From five hundred–something to over
ten
thousand
? How the hell could that even happen? It has to be a glitch. I click Refresh. The page goes white and then comes back to life—but the numbers remain the same. I expect a swell of excitement to rise within me; instead, I feel a wave of cold dread that drowns whatever butterflies remain.

I click on the envelope icon: I have hundreds of messages. I start scrolling through.

yell0wbedwetter: OMG have you seen the article?

QueerBoi1996: Guess ur gonna be bloglr famous now! ;-)

Anonymous: Alix, I can't believe you responded to that kid. WAY above your pay grade. You're responsible for what happened and I hope they prosecute you.

My panic rises as I skim message after message that makes reference to some news story. I have to scroll through a dozen before I find one that includes a link to the article. I click it and begin to read.

Transgender Teen Survives Alleged Assault by Father

Nicholas Price, special contributor to
The Advocate

NORMAN, Okla.—An Oklahoma teen sustained a severe
beating by her father after coming out as a transgender girl to her parents on Sunday, police said.

She was treated for a fractured jaw, two broken ribs, and multiple cuts on her face and arms at Oklahoma University Medical Center and was released early Monday.

Her father, Douglas Gingham, 42, was arrested on suspicion of assault and is being held at the Cleveland County Jail, Norman Police Department Sergeant John Harmonson said.

The alleged attack reflects a growing trend of violence inflicted on US teens who reveal their nonconforming gender identities to family or classmates. While it is
The Advocate
's policy to conceal the identity of minor victims, Andrew “Andie” Gingham requested that her name be used—with the permission of her mother—and that her story be told to put a human face on the issue.

“When I told them, my dad hit me in the face,” said Gingham, 17. “So I just left.”

That was when Gingham said she reached out online. She sought the advice of a gender fluid blogger named Alix, whose diary-cum-advice column, Hiding and Other Social Skills (bloglr.com/alix), has been gaining popularity in the LGBTQ community.

“That blog saved my life,” Gingham said. “When I left my parents' house, I was lost. Ready to end it. But then Alix responded. And just knowing that one other person out there knew what I was going through—and cared enough to write back—made me stop.” (Click
here
to read the original blog post.)

Gingham said she didn't sustain her severest injuries until she returned home in a second attempt to reconcile with her parents.
That was when the beating ensued, police said.

“Dad had been drinking,” Gingham said. “He just lost control.”

Gingham's mother was eventually able to calm her husband and call an ambulance, Harmonson said.

Neither of Gingham's parents was available for comment.

Despite the severity of her situation, Gingham remained hopeful about the future.

“If I can live through this, I can live through anything,” Gingham said. “It's time for all of us to come out. Trans girls and trans boys and everybody. The longer we hide, the more of us will get hurt every day. I don't want to be a part of that anymore.”

Gingham spent the night at Oklahoma University Medical Center before being transferred to a Child Protective Services facility in Oklahoma City, but said she expects to be returned to her mother after a closed hearing later this week.

I read the story twice, and by the time I'm finished, my face is tingling.

She listened to me—and she got beaten for it.

In the next moment, I'm overcome by an ironclad conviction that the link is a fake, that this is some kind of elaborate prank. Hastily, I Google the headline—but sure enough, the
Advocate
story comes up as the first search result. I go to QueerAlliance. The article is the top story, along with a special profile on my blog, including my now-notorious David Bowie avatar. Finally, I open a new browser window and go directly to
The Advocate
's website. Andie Gingham's story isn't on the home
page, but I find it after only a few clicks. I stare at her photo, and it feels as though a hand is squeezing my heart. My eyes blur, and then the tears spill out, running down my face.

Her father
beat
her. She went back, and he beat her.

I stand up, start to close my laptop, then sit back down again. I clap a hand to my chest as if I can somehow slow my heartbeat from the outside. I take a deep breath.

I'm not responsible for her injuries—of course I'm not—but I'm not innocent, either. I got involved. It may not have been my fists that beat her—but my words left their own marks. Very real, very tangible marks. But Andie didn't blame me—she
thanked
me.

This can't be my life; it feels like I'm watching it happen to someone else. And yet, I know it's real. I know it's true. And what started out as a half-assed attempt to appease my doctor has now affected someone's real life
—
and potentially the lives of ten thousand other people who read what I wrote.

It's too much. It's too big. I can't wrap my mind around it.

I click over to my inbox and start skimming through again. Many of the messages are from transgender people—adults and teenagers—expressing their sympathy for Andie and praising her courage. The others are directed toward me, and they're split more or less evenly between support and criticism. DocMama82 tells me in raging capital letters that I'm unqualified to give advice to anyone, while Outguy-in-Denver says I should pursue therapy as a career. One anonymous sender claims Andie wouldn't have been beaten if it weren't for me—but another insists I prevented her suicide.

But it's the message from DanielD87 that gets to me.

DanielD87: Wow. I almost came out to my dad because of what you wrote to that girl—but I changed my mind at the last second, and now I'm glad I did. I'm not ashamed of what I am, but I'm sorry, if coming out is gonna get me beat or kicked out of my own house then it's not worth it. I'd rather stay in the closet.

Tears blur my vision a second time. I'm enraged at Andie's father for hurting her, and I'm angry at DanielD87 for letting his fear keep him in the closet—but mostly, I'm ashamed. Ashamed that, just like Daniel, I'm too afraid to come out myself. Ashamed that I've been hiding behind this fake name, pretending to be some kind of counselor, some kind of activist—when the truth is that I can't even face my own problems. I'm only a scared kid, just like Andie was.

I read the rest of the messages—all of them. I take particular satisfaction in the hateful ones; reading them hurts, and the hurt feels like punishment. Punishment that maybe I deserve.

Finally, I come to the last message in my inbox. I click it, and I freeze.

Anonymous: c u at lunch. fuckin tranny

THE NEXT FEW DAYS
go by in a dark haze; my sense of belonging seems to evaporate, along with my confidence. Sierra Wells glares at me when I walk into AP English, and Cole, Vickers's stringy-haired teammate, grabs his crotch at me as I pass him on the way to my locker before Precalc. I try not to let it get to me, but it does. In fourth period, Casey Reese tries to cheer me up, but I brush her off; I just want to be left alone.

I have vague, humorless conversations with Solo, and when he asks me what's wrong, I just shake my head. Bec shoots me concerned looks, but she doesn't say anything. Maybe she's trying to give me space. It's hard to tell, because I feel so detached, like everything is unreal, and I can't seem to relieve the pressure that's settled on my chest.

c u at lunch. fuckin tranny

The message plays over and over in my mind—and instead
of paying attention in class, I'm compulsively trying to puzzle out who sent it, and why. I figure it comes down to two scenarios.

Number One: The message is an empty threat by a stranger. It contains no names, no places, no specifics—just a vague “c u at lunch.” But
everyone
eats lunch—so while it's reasonable that I immediately think of Vickers and his gang because they've been harassing me in the cafeteria, there's no actual evidence to suggest that they're involved. Anyone could have sent that message—in fact, it's probably the same anon who wrote “your a fag” and “r school doesn't need another faggot.” In other words, it's just some random troll trying to scare me. This is the most likely conclusion. But the one I find myself turning over and over in my mind is Number Two: It
is
someone from school—most likely Jim Vickers. If it's him, it means he's somehow managed to connect me with my blog—which means he could do much worse than harass me: He could
expose
me. The thought turns my stomach to ice water.

But if he wanted to out me, why wouldn't he just post a link online, or email it to all his friends? That clearly hasn't happened, because the looks and comments I receive would be getting worse instead of slowly tapering off, as they seem to be doing now.

Still, even though there is absolutely no evidence to support it—I can't shake the feeling that it
is
someone at school. That someone knows. And, if not Jim Vickers, then who?

I can think of only two other possibilities: Bec and Solo. And the thought that either of them would out me, even by
accident, let alone
threaten
me, is so devastating and far-fetched that I don't even want to think about it.

But I do.

I know Bec knows something. She seems to understand something about me that I've never been able to say out loud; it's almost as if she's read my diary. She invited me to the Q, after all. But she's been nothing but supportive; she'd have to be hiding some serious issues to be capable of sending a message like that, and I just don't think that's the case. Could she have let my identity slip out while she was talking to one of her Hardcore friends? It's possible—but she hasn't been at school much, and when she is, she seems to be spending her time with me. I just can't believe it's her.

Which leaves Solo. Just thinking about it makes my heart sink and my throat constrict. He was the first friend I made at Park Hills, and even when we had our big disagreement, he was always straight with me. I can't imagine him typing out a message like that. But, if he's figured out I'm gender fluid, could he have told someone about me? Let it slip to one of the football guys who he thinks might keep his confidence? It's possible—but it doesn't ring true. It doesn't seem like him.

Still, I find myself playing back all these possibilities.

To make matters worse, by Monday afternoon, the Andie Gingham story has been covered by every major gay and trans rights blog in the country. The
Huffington Post
does an editorial on Tuesday, and my blog's readership expands to fifteen thousand followers. On Wednesday, CNN.com picks up the story, and I hit thirty thousand.

The focus of the story in the LGBTQ community is
Andie's call for transgender people to come out, while the mainstream media are selling the drama of a family hate crime. But regardless of the angle, most of the stories mention Alix—especially the online ones. Some paint me as a dangerously irresponsible child who put Andie at risk; others cast me in a much more positive light, as some kind of anonymous, gender fluid celebrity.

Meanwhile, I haven't posted at all on Bloglr—each time I log in, I'm intimidated by the massive increase in followers, and I log out without even checking my inbox. I feel guilty for abandoning my followers, and for not reaching out to Andie when she probably needs it most—but I'm terrified of the messages that must be waiting for me. Not just responses to the story, but more threats from the anonymous sender I've come to think of as my stalker. Twice, I've sat down at my laptop with the intent of deleting the whole blog, only to chicken out at the last minute. The anxiety I've worked so hard to eradicate over the past two weeks has crept back in, and now I walk around with it constantly buzzing in the background, a vague tingling in my cheeks, an unrelenting pressure behind my eyes. I get very little sleep. My mom asks me several times if I'm feeling well, and I have to lie and smile. I'm doing my best to fake it at school, but I know I can't fight the pressure much longer. Something has to give.

On Thursday, Bec and I eat lunch on the ramp as usual. I won't go near the cafeteria, so I'm eating the peanut butter and banana sandwich I packed, while Bec subsists on her traditional fare of beef jerky and juice boxes. Between bites, she's her typical, witty self, but today I can't seem to keep up. I try to nod
and laugh in all the right places, but I'm too distracted; I keep thinking about the message. I keep thinking maybe I should tell someone.

I set down my sandwich, wipe my hands on a napkin, and look up at her.

“I want to—” I start to say, just as Bec says:

“So what's going—”

And then we both stop. Neither of us laughs.

“You first,” she says.

I shift on the uncomfortable concrete ramp. “I want to . . . tell you something.”

Bec nods as if she expects this. “Okay.”

I take a deep breath, open my mouth, shut it. Bec waits patiently. I want to continue, but it feels like all the saliva in my mouth has suddenly turned to glue, and I have to swallow before I can speak again. “I have this . . . I mean, I've been writing. Online. And . . .”

I stop, because Bec's eyes have wandered over my shoulder and out of focus; she's no longer listening. I clear my throat. “Bec, I'm trying to tell you something important.”

“I know,” she says, still looking past me and frowning slightly. “But maybe you should wait.”

Something inside me recoils, and suddenly I'm certain Bec thinks I'm about to confess my feelings for her. I'm convinced that she's interpreted my strange behavior this week as a sign that I have a massive crush on her, and she doesn't want to hear me say it. Even through my fog of confusion and paranoia, the rejection stings like a slap.

And then I hear movement behind me, heavy footsteps on
the rough concrete, and I turn around.

Solo is tramping toward us, pizza box in hand, a determined expression on his face. He walks to the foot of the ramp and stands there looking down on us.

“Erik said I might find you here,” he says.

Bec looks up at him. “Chewie,” she says.

Solo frowns.

“What a surprise,” Bec continues. “The League of Douchebags must keep you very busy playing with balls, because I haven't seen you around our table much for, oh, the last year and half.”

Solo glances at me, then back at Bec. “Haven't seen you there much, either, Francesca.”

Bec stiffens. Her pale face flushes red, and the ring in her lip twitches. “Don't call me that,” she says. It's almost a hiss.

“Don't call me Chewie,” Solo says, “and you've got yourself a deal.” They stare at each other.

Finally, Bec says, “Fine.”

Solo turns to me. “Mind if I join you?”

“Not at all.” I scoot back to make room for him.

He sits, and the three of us form a lopsided triangle on the ramp. Solo folds his pizza into a grotesque, wedge-shaped, quadruple-decker cheese and pepperoni sandwich, then takes an enormous bite.

Bec grimaces. “Disgusting.”

“Delicious,” Solo says around his mouthful of pizza.

I take a bite of my sandwich, Bec tears off a piece of jerky, and for a minute, everything feels normal. Just three friends eating lunch on the ramp behind the auditorium. In that moment,
I feel ridiculous for having thought either of them might be my anonymous hater. Solo swallows a huge bite of pizza, then fixes his eyes on me, and I feel a question coming.

“So,” he says. “You've been off in another galaxy this week. What's up with you?”

I set down my sandwich and wipe my hands on a napkin, stalling for time. Next to me, Bec shifts on the ramp.

“Sorry,” I say. “There's been a lot going on.”

“I gathered,” Solo says. “Thing is”—he gestures at Bec with his pizza sandwich, and a pepperoni slips out and drops into the box; he ignores it—“you're supposed to talk to us. We're your friends.”

Bec folds her arms. “Don't lump yourself in with me. You haven't spoken to me outside class for almost two years.”

Solo smiles, retrieves the fallen pepperoni, and stuffs it into his mouth. “I've actually missed arguing with you, Bec. Did you know that?”

Bec rolls her eyes. “Of course you've missed it. You spend your time in a locker room, slapping asses with a herd of witless sweat rags. You must be dying for intellectual stimulation.”

Solo shakes his head, but he's smiling. “You're incredible.” He turns back to me. “Seriously. You've been distracted. You're not laughing at my hilarious jokes.” He pauses as if waiting for a smile or a laugh, which I don't give. “You're acting strange. Even for you.”

I glance at Bec, hoping she'll defend me, but she only shrugs and says, “He has a point.”

“So,” Solo continues, “what's going on?”

And then both of them are staring at me, waiting for me to
talk. I look down at my lap and wait for the tingling to come.

As if he senses my turmoil, Solo relents. “Hey, I didn't mean to add pressure. Talk when you're ready. Just know we're here for you.”

Bec cocks her head at him like a curious predator.

Solo blinks. “Okay,
I'm
here for you. I can't speak for Bec.”

Bec leans back and grips the railing casually. I brace myself for another argument.

“I'm here in ways you wouldn't understand,” Bec says.

The ferocity in her voice sends a warm sensation through me; but now, it's Solo's turn to stiffen.

“Why are you so pissed off at me?” he says. “Because I decided to play football?”

“Because you abandoned your friends to join a bunch of assholes who shit on the people you used to hang out with.”

“I don't shit on people,” Solo says, defiant.

“But you don't defend them from your ‘friends,' either,” Bec says, making air quotes. “Or are you telling me that you and your gang of apes are actually grooming Erik for a spot on the team?”

Solo folds his arms. “No one groomed me. If Erik wants it, he has to fight his way in just like I did.”

Bec throws up her hands. “See? This is what I'm talking about. ‘Fight his way in'? That's not how friends treat each other. Who would want to fight their way into
that
?” She shakes her head. “You don't even see it. It's like you're a different person.”

Solo regards her with the coldest look I've ever seen on him. “That's really how it seems?”

“That's how it
is
,” Bec says.

Solo looks away, nods. “Then I get why you're pissed.” He gestures toward me, then locks eyes with Bec. “But don't you think it's telling that the first two people Riley meets, less than a week after coming to a new school, are you and me?”

Bec releases her grip on the railing. She glances at me, then back to Solo, then shrugs.

“I have a proposal,” Solo says, wiping his hands on his jeans. “The two of you come to my game on Saturday.”

Bec and I look at each other. I picture the two of us, climbing the bleachers side by side to shouts of “
Fag!
” or “
Dyke!
” Bec blinks, looks at Solo, and lets out a grunt of contempt.

“Hear me out,” Solo says, raising his hands defensively. “You can sit by the exit. You can leave at halftime if you want. But come to the game.” He lets his hands drop to his lap. “I know you think football is stupid. But I really love it. I don't love all the people involved—but then, I don't love all
Star Wars
fans or all Whovians, either.” Bec and I glance at each other again. Solo continues, “I think if you watch me play, maybe you'll understand. And if you don't think differently about me after that, you don't have to speak to me ever again.”

“I don't have to speak to you ever again
now
,” Bec says.

Solo opens his mouth, shuts it. “Fair point. So. What do you want in return?”

Bec regards Solo coldly, as though sizing him up. After a moment, she leans forward. “We'll go to the game,” she says, “but first, you have to come to a club with us. Tomorrow night.”

My head snaps toward Bec. What is she doing? Agreeing to go to the game is bad enough, but inviting Solo to the Q
?
I open my eyes wide in protest, but Bec's are locked on Solo.

He gestures at his chest. “You want to unleash all
this
at a club? Do you have any idea what kind of devastation that could cause?”