Both Can Be True Read online

  Dedication

  To my animal-loving, creative, funny, musical, label-defying wild child: I love you with my whole entire heart, plus my auxiliary heart.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1. Normcore

  2. Dog Smuggler

  3. Klutzy Nincompoop

  4. Nothing to Lose

  5. Crossed Fingers

  6. Impress the Girl

  7. One Step at a Time

  8. The Shape of a Snore

  9. Punk and Pricey Diapers

  10. Hazel Surprise

  11. Boy Skirt Girl Punk

  12. Closed for Business

  13. Dude Mode: Activate

  14. Bodily Function

  15. Bargain

  16. Chewbarka’s Person

  17. Fold It Up, Shove It Down

  18. Happy Fun Sunshine Time

  19. Sneet Snart

  20. What If?

  21. Confession

  22. Just for Now

  23. The Gatorade Kid

  24. We Need to Talk

  25. Hump Day

  26. Heads on a Platter

  27. Halfway Through the Crossfade

  28. Doofy Floof

  29. Old Soul

  30. Human Too

  31. Remix

  32. Both Can Be True

  33. Liberated

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  Normcore

  Ash

  I can’t put it off any longer: It’s pick a gender or pee myself.

  My best friend, Griffey, crashes out of the end-of-day crowd and bumps into me so hard I nearly pop. “Oof! Didn’t see you there torturing yourself over a toilet choice!” He adjusts his wire-frame glasses and grins at me. “It’s just peeing. It doesn’t have to be an existential crisis.”

  “For you it doesn’t.” He’s 100 percent dude at all times. Lucky him.

  “Isn’t that bathroom the main reason you moved to this district? Just use it, for Pete’s sake.” He nods at the pictureless door with the word NEUTRAL between the bathroom entrance with the girl symbol and the one with the guy symbol.

  I shift my stance like it will help. “My mom moved us to this district. She doesn’t have to worry about getting called a freak when she takes a leak.” Or about being misgendered forever for using the “wrong” bathroom or peeing in the “wrong” position or—

  “You need moral support? I’ll go in the neutral too.”

  “That’d be weird. I think it’s a single.”

  Griffey huffs a sigh, but he hasn’t thought this through as obsessively as I have. If I go in GIRLS, I’ll be “Ashley” forever to everyone in this jam-packed hallway who sees me, and if I go in BOYS, I’ll be “Asher” forever. Either one means I can never go in the other one no matter what. I made two resolutions when I started at this school two weeks ago: I’d avoid the whole dumb conundrum of feeling weird about bathrooms by never peeing at school, and I’d always let people assume I’m an Ashley. People think it’s cute for a girl to be a tomboy. But an Asher in a dress is a freak. So it’s safer to let people guess Ash is short for Ashley.

  But the girl mode I’ve been in for a couple months has started to shift back toward guy. This morning on the bus, I was trying to write down a melody I heard in a dream last night, and the light, airy feeling of it kept wiggling away. My awake mind ran off with the dream-sounds, changing them to a song with power and energy and a fast beat, and I realized I’m headed for that in-between state I hate. I’ve been tied up in knots over it all day and now I’m about to pop, so I gotta pick and picking is the worst—

  “Ash, your eyes are turning yellow. You’re gonna burst if you don’t let it out.”

  I lean forward against the building pressure. “Why are bathrooms split by boys and girls? It makes way more sense to do pee versus poop—”

  “Oh my god, go.” Griffey shoves me toward the bathrooms.

  I stumble toward NEUTRAL because it’s closest, but then of course, of course, Daniel Sanders steps out of the middle-school herd of hormonally hijacked humans and stops at the fountain. I freeze in the river of kids and stare, distracted from my bladder by the spectacle of him: sad, dreamy Daniel. Daniel with the Hair and Eyes. Daniel who in our photography class on Friday shared a smile with me when our teacher made a Led Zeppelin joke no one else got. Daniel who probably thinks I’m Ashley-as-in-girl, not Asher-as-in-boy, definitely one or the other but not both or neither. Daniel who’ll be surprised if I pick the wrong bathroom or go in the NEUTRAL. Daniel who Griffey says kissed smart-gorgeous-graceful Fiona Jones at a party in June, so he’s definitely, probably only into feminine girls like her—

  Daniel who’s making eye contact and smiling at me.

  Something takes over—instinct, pointless crush, the threat of total humiliation if I don’t make it to a toilet in two seconds. I veer away from NEUTRAL and duck into GIRLS, trip into a stall, undo my belt, pee and weep in frustration and relief.

  Griffey makes a ba-gawk sound when I come out of the bathroom. Daniel’s gone, thank the lord/dang it, and the hallway is leaking kids like my ancient beagle, Booper, oozes smells. “How about let’s not make a thing of it,” I tell Griff.

  “I’m not making a thing. I’m just glad we won’t be late to Rainbow Alliance because of your pee crisis.”

  I follow him down the hall. It sucks that I was just forced by my full bladder into declaring to Daniel that a part-time truth is a full-time one. I’ve been wearing boot-cut jeans and band T-shirts and Converse every day, trying to look as neutral as possible. The kids in my overstuffed classes are wrapped up in their own dramas and seem too busy to notice me, which I am 100 percent fine with. We’re all in the same boat, paddling through the chaos of seventh grade. Except everyone else’s oar is pink or blue and mine’s purple with glittery flecks of angsty confusion on it. “I just don’t want to make a declaration by peeing,” I say. “Why can’t I be plain Ash?”

  “Plain Ash? Please.” Griff dodges a frantic boy careening toward the front doors. “I hoped when you said you were moving here that you’d be you out loud.” He plucks at my Imagine Dragons T-shirt. “Instead you’re boring me to death with this normcore Walmart crap.”

  “Did you get the spiky haircut you’ve wanted for six months? Have you worked up the guts to wear that hot pink jacket you bought? Did you ask Jacob to the fall dance yet?”

  He laughs as if my barbs don’t sting, and just like that, just like always, I forgive him. He’s been my best friend since we met in kindergarten at Bailey Elementary. We were together constantly until he moved here to Oakmont during my first trip through sixth grade. Which is part of the reason I had to do sixth grade round two, ’cause Griffey left at the same time my appendix went kablooey and I missed a month of school and my parents split. It’s hard to focus on fractions and adverbs when your whole life comes apart all at once.

  Lately it feels like that’s happening again. New apartment, new school, a chance to be Ash 2.0 after Ash 1.0 crashed and burned at Bailey Middle. It’s all so intimidating, and now I have to go to this Rainbow Alliance meeting with Griff and I’m having second (and third and fourth and fifty-seventh) thoughts because I don’t want to stand out. At all. In any way.

  “Ash. Breathe.” Griffey pulls me into a side hug as we walk. “If any of the big scary gays try to eat you, I’ll go mama bear on them.”

  I take a deep breath and try to refocus. To be grateful for what’s good in my life, like Mom says I should do when I’m stressed. I’m lucky to have Griffey. I’m so glad we’re at the same school again, even though he’s in eighth grade
and I’m in seventh since I flunked sixth. But I’m dependent on him to fill the entire friendship hole in my life. Sucking up my fears and going to Rainbow Alliance with him is the perfect chance to make more friends. Like Mom’s said eleventy billion times since Griff “casually” mentioned it in front of her, because he knew if she knew about it, I wouldn’t be able to weasel out.

  It’s just that Griffey’s safe. He likes the music I write and listen to. We share a sense of humor. He gets me, no matter what gender I am on a given day. When people don’t get me . . . well, I’m gun-shy for a reason. It’s not like there’s a guarantee that just because it’s called Rainbow Alliance, they’ll be cool. One of the worst bullies at my old school was a super-girly lesbian who insisted that trans women aren’t real women and that trans guys are just girls cross-dressing to smash the patriarchy from the inside. Which, no.

  Griffey makes a quick pit stop to tie his shoe. While he’s hunched over, for a flash of a second, I’m back at Bailey Middle: Jackson Burgess twisting my Avicii shirt and blocking my locker, hissing No flip-flop freaks allowed. Hallway kids laughing. Alana Meyers sneering, Look, it’s so embarrassed. It’s turning purple like its hair. Madison Blevins saying, It should be embarrassed. That haircut is trash.

  Griffey grabs my hand and plows through the mass of kids like he thinks I’m gonna bolt. It feels like we’re swimming upstream. I keep my eyes on the back of his strawberry-blond head and apologize to everyone we bump. When we finally make it to the classroom, my palm is so sweaty Griff has to wipe his hand on his plaid button-down.

  Someone is taping a poster to the door with their back to us. The poster has a bunch of colorful flags surrounding WELCOME/BIENVENIDO written in big rainbow letters.

  “See?” Griffey points at a pink-white-purple-black-blue flag. “There’s one for you.”

  I don’t even know what those colors mean. The kid taping the poster turns around.

  “Hey, Sam,” Griffey says. “This is my best friend, Ash.”

  “¿Cómo estás?” Sam holds the poster against the door with an elbow and reaches to shake my hand. “Thanks for coming.”

  “Hola. I mean you’re welcome. I mean thanks for—um, having me.” Great, off to a graceful start. I search Sam’s smiling face for signs of makeup or a hint of facial hair, but find neither. Just friendliness and purple-framed glasses and a curious expression.

  “Come on.” Griffey tugs me into the room. There are twelve or so kids clustered in groups. Griffey beelines for the back corner where a tall, skinny Black guy is talking to a short white girl with a high ponytail and a lip piercing. “Ta-da!” Griffey says. “You each owe me five bucks.” He holds his hands out like he’s presenting me.

  The guy pulls me into a hug I’m unprepared for. “You exist! We were starting to wonder.” He pushes me back, holding both my shoulders, and spins me in a circle. “Griffey, you were right. I can’t tell either.”

  Alarm rises in me. “Can’t tell what?” Did Griff tell them I switch genders? I’m gonna straight-up strangle him if he did—

  “If ‘cute’ or ‘adorable’ is a better word for you,” he says. “Alyssa, what do you think?”

  Alyssa tears the top off a box of jawbreakers and gives me a casual once-over. “Cute. Not my type, though.” She pops a jawbreaker in her mouth.

  I must look crushed, because she laughs. “Don’t sweat it. I got a thing for girls built like tanks.” She shows me her phone background, a photo of her hugging a blonde girl who is, in fact, built like a tank. “Trish. She’ll be here later.”

  I sit at a desk and cross my legs one way, then the other. Cute and adorable make me feel like I’m five years old. “Um, what’s your name?” I ask the guy.

  “Henry. And this is Alyssa, and the Filipino chick in the pink shirt is Esme . . .” He points around the room and names everyone, but my eyes keep snapping back to Sam in the front corner, talking in a mix of Spanish and English to a curvy red-haired girl wearing purple jeans and a black blazer. More kids keep coming in. I start to think the Rainbow in Rainbow Alliance means more than just people on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. Oakmont’s way more diverse than Bailey Middle, and RA seems to contain a sampling of everyone. It’s refreshing after mostly white Bailey.

  Mr. Lockhart, the guy who runs the club, is a tall, skinny white dude with unruly Einstein hair, a nose like an eagle’s beak, and a wide, friendly smile. He starts by saying there are some new folks and we should introduce ourselves with our name, grade, the pronouns we want to use in this room today if pronouns are important to us, and anything we’d like to share.

  While everyone’s moving desks into a circle, I quietly freak out. No one but Griff, Mom, and my former friend Camille asks what pronouns I prefer. They just assume, or call me “it.” And here’s this guy asking our preference. And “in this room,” which means he gets that some spaces are safe and some aren’t. And “today,” which means he gets that . . . it can change.

  He understands that.

  I trip over the desk I’m shoving. I look across the room at Sam sliding into a desk next to the girl in the purple jeans.

  We get situated and start. Henry and Alyssa go first (Henry’s a he, Alyssa is a she, they’re both eighth graders), then Griffey, then I tell everyone I’m Ash and in seventh, since I’m too intimidated to say anything else. The girl Henry pointed out introduces herself as Esme and says she goes by she/her at school and is pre-HRT MTF, but I’m not sure what that means. Sam is an eighth grader like Griff and claims not to care about pronouns. Sam’s friend’s name is Mara, in seventh, and is going by he/him today. The rest of the kids use the pronouns I expect from their appearances.

  “Great,” Mr. Lockhart says when we’re finished. “Last time I asked you to think about ideas for decorating our booth in the gym for the fall dance in a few weeks, so let’s start with those.” He uncaps a marker. “Just shout stuff out.”

  “A rainbow balloon arch for photos,” Henry says.

  Alyssa says they should give away rainbow light sticks. Griffey suggests a punch bowl full of Sprite with rainbow ice cubes. Sam says the dance is the same day as National Coming Out Day and it could be a great chance for anyone who wants to come out publicly to do it, maybe with a premade poster they could hold up under the rainbow-balloon photo arch.

  Griffey wiggles his eyebrows at me. “How’s that for an opportunity?”

  I ignore him and play imaginary piano scales on my legs under the desk, trying to settle my nerves. There’s so much conversation, and I’m missing most of it, because I can’t stop staring at the kids around me. Trying to figure out Sam. How Mara can so casually proclaim to go by he/him with those curves. What the heck all those letters Esme said might mean.

  Griffey jabs me. “Stop staring.”

  I snap my eyes to Mr. Lockhart, my face burning. I’m doing the exact thing I hate when people do it to me. All the arguments I imagined yelling at kids at my old school about not assuming my gender crowd my mind. But now they’re aimed at me.

  It does not feel comfortable.

  I doodle the shape of Mr. Lockhart’s croaky vocal fry to distract myself. Then I draw the triangular scuff-shuffle of my shoe scraping the tile floor. Then I draw Griffey’s explosive sneeze that looks like a bomb going off, and then I’m nowhere, lost in sounds and lines, far away from bathrooms and genders and uncertainty.

  Griffey squeezes my arm and I blink back. It looks like we’re finished. I’ve filled the bottom of my notebook page with a sketch of the dream-song I was trying to write down this morning. Stick figures are break-dancing on top of it. It’s so thick and angled and guy I can barely look at it.

  I rip out the page and crumple it. My eyes drift again to Sam. Their voice is in that middle range where mine is, with a texture and color like sun-faded purple construction paper. Their black shirt, black jeans, black canvas shoes, and wire-frame glasses could go either way. Like the carefully neutral outfits I’ve been wearing.

  It’s an itch in my brain I ca
n’t scratch. A box I can’t check off. Next to a box labeled Mara that keeps changing from pink to blue and back again, and two boxes labeled Yes and No under a question Mom asked me a while ago: Does your soul have a gender?

  When the meeting is over, I follow Griff to the front of the school where the activity buses line up. “You okay?” Griffey asks. “You’re quiet.”

  “Fine. Um, do you know what . . .” I bite back the question. I can’t ask if he knows what Sam really is. It’s the wrongest thing I can ask. It’s fully disrespectful. Not to mention “what Sam really is” is a flawed concept to start with, which I totally freaking know, despite my dad telling me that gender fluid and nonbinary aren’t real identities.

  So why can’t I stop thinking about it? What if puberty hits me like a freight train and I don’t look androgynous anymore, like Mara doesn’t? What if I still feel undecided after that? How can Mara be so casual, like this stuff isn’t terrifying?

  “Do I know what?” Griffey asks.

  I blink back to the line of buses. “Um, Esme said a bunch of letters. Pre . . . something.”

  “Pre-HRT MTF. That’s pre–hormone replacement therapy male to female. She’s trans. Hasn’t started physically transitioning yet.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “Which doesn’t make her any less of a girl.”

  “I know.” I say it so fast it sounds defensive. As if I don’t know.

  But I do.

  “I’m glad you came with me.” Griffey wraps me in one of his rib-cracker hugs, then punches my arm. “Ladies first,” he smirks. He gestures for me to get on the bus before him.

  We slide into a seat at the back. Griff sticks his left earbud in my left ear and the right one in his right ear. He opens TikTok and we laugh at stupid videos the whole ride while my brain does its acrobatic best to figure out where I fit with my gender that never holds still.

  2

  Dog Smuggler

  Daniel

  Tuesday afternoon, I’m coaxing a Siamese cat out of a dryer and kicking myself for the millionth time for forgetting my best friend’s birthday when Tina the vet tech opens the kennel door carrying a black plastic trash bag of death.