Both Can Be True Read online

  As soon as we’re out of the woods, a text from Mom comes in. Noticed when I went out for groceries that Sir Reginald Bevis isn’t in the bike rack. You and Griff out terrorizing the town?

  More like terrorizing the Frisbee golf course at the park. I bite my lip. I don’t like lying to her. I’ve done it way too much since yesterday.

  Your helmet’s still in your room. Make sure you wear it next time, please.

  Oops. Sorry.

  I keep an eye on my screen as I walk, but she doesn’t say anything else. I sigh in relief and pocket my phone. After a few minutes of walking, I notice Chewbarka has a limp. I pick her up and carry her. By the time we’re at the store, my arms feel like lead, so I put her back down.

  It takes two seconds of shopping to confirm that dog diapers are out of my budget. I find a bin of discount treats wrapped in plastic, take one, and head for the checkout.

  A German shepherd on a retractable leash comes around a shelf and Chewbarka freezes. I quickly scoop her up to avoid another dogfight. The shepherd is followed by a girl from my English class who’s wearing a Snarky Carcasses shirt. I’m pretty sure her name is Zoey.

  “Rex, quit pulling!” she says as she attempts to reel her dog in. She looks up and sees me holding Chewbarka away from Rex’s sniffing nose. “Sorry, just a sec!” She tugs Rex back in and finally gets the leash locked. “Sit, Rex!”

  Rex obediently sits next to her foot. He raises his paw like he wants to shake my hand, but I can’t really take his paw. Chewbarka is shaking like a leaf.

  “Good boy,” Zoey tells Rex as she pushes her blonde hair out of her eyes. She’s one of the few girls at Oakmont who has short hair, and she’s a total dude magnet because of her, uh, build. “What’s your dog’s name?” She tries to pet Chewbarka’s head but Chewbarka ducks away.

  “Booper.” I mentally facepalm. “I mean Chewbarka. Booper’s my beagle. This dog isn’t actually mine. I’m—uh, dog-sitting.”

  Zoey laughs, but not in a mean way. “So is this one Barka or Chewbooper?”

  “Chewbarka.” She’s trying to climb up to my shoulder. “She’s not great with other dogs.”

  “Aw, poor thing. Rex is big, but he’s really chill with other dogs.”

  Chewbarka scratches my neck with her frantic paws. “Can you translate that into dog and tell her?”

  “Arwoo-arf bark bark awooo!” Zoey says. “Good dog, Chewbooperbarka. Ar-wooo!”

  I grin at her. “Love the shirt. I heard they’re gonna tour for their new album.”

  Zoey’s eyes widen. “You like the Snarky Carcasses?”

  “What’s not to like about an all-girl punk-cover band?” I love them when I’m a dude, but rarely listen to them when I’m a girl. “Their version of ‘I Wanna Be Sedated’ is one of my favorites.” Chewbarka finds a spot near my left shoulder that seems to make her feel secure.

  “That song rules,” Zoey says. “My band’s been working on it but we suck.”

  A warm trickle goes down my shirt. I shift Chewbarka to hide it. “What kind of music do you guys play?”

  “Punk. We’re not good, but boy, we’re loud. We’re called Tyrannosaurus Rocks. We’re practicing tonight, if you wanna come watch.”

  “Seriously? I’d love that.” The band name’s a little on the nose for punk, but it would be awesome to check them out. I try to get my phone out without dropping Chewbarka, but I drop the phone.

  A tall blonde woman in a short skirt comes around the shelf carrying a giant bag of dog food. She’s followed by a towheaded kid in a soccer uniform. The kid looks like he’s about eight and the woman looks like Zoey if Zoey did CrossFit twelve days a week. “For god’s sake, I’ve been looking everywhere,” she says to Zoey. “We don’t have time for you to flirt with boys. Alan’s game starts in ten minutes. Let’s go.”

  My face burns. I shift Chewbarka again.

  “Mom, god! Ashley’s a girl.”

  I cringe and then try to hide it with a fake smile.

  “Sorry,” Zoey’s mom says like she’s not. “Now, kiddo.”

  Zoey picks up my phone and hands it to me. “Mom, can she come to band practice tonight?”

  “As long as she can get a ride. I’m done being a taxi.”

  “I’ll ask my mom.” I open my contacts with a shaking hand. “Zoey, put your number in?”

  “Yep.” Zoey types it in and hands my phone back. “Text me and I’ll give you the address and time and stuff. See ya!” She follows her mom and brother to the checkout line.

  I yank the hair band loose the second they’re out of sight. Chewbarka licks my neck like she’s saying thanks for keeping her safe from big, scary Rex. We lurk in the clearance aisle till I hear Zoey and her family leave. Then I pay for my treat and head back to the tent, wondering how Sam from Rainbow Alliance reacts when someone’s mom assumes their gender. Probably a lot better than I just did.

  Maybe I should see if they give lessons. In dealing with other people. In being confident.

  I call Griffey while I’m walking and ask if he knows Zoey. He doesn’t, which isn’t surprising since Oakmont’s so huge. “Hey, so why’d you ask me to cover for you?” he asks.

  I explain about Daniel getting stuck with Chewbarka and needing help, and about me fighting with Mom and staying in the tent. “Oh, and you and I are out Frisbee-golfing if my mom texts you,” I tell him. I doubt she will, but better play it safe.

  “Wow, so you’ve got a thing with Daniel now.” He pauses long enough for me to realize he’s about to ask the question I don’t want to answer. “Are you gonna tell him?”

  “No!” I practically shout. But then I hesitate. “I mean . . . not yet. I don’t know. I think, like, things aren’t that far yet. Like, I like him, like I like-like him, but I’m just, like—”

  His laugh cuts me off. “Can you cram more ‘likes’ into one sentence?”

  “Shut your trap, turd huffer. You sound stupid too when you talk about Jacob.”

  “Ugh, I know. It’s like my IQ drops twenty points when I’m around him.”

  “I just wish I knew more about Daniel. At least with Tyler I knew his family was a bratty pack of hell-raisers, so I should’ve seen it coming how stuff turned out.” Not that your family sucking means you suck too, but in his case, it was definitely a clue. I totally should’ve listened to Camille. And Booper. And Mom.

  “Do you follow Daniel on Insta?”

  “No, what’s his account?”

  “It’s called The_Ugly_Twinn, with underscores and two n’s. It’s not a meme account like everyone else has. It’s like legit good photography. I don’t think he’s posted in a while, though.”

  “I’ll look it up. I’m at the tent, I gotta deal with the dog. I’ll call you tonight and tell you about lunch with my dad and how the band thing goes.”

  “Cool.” He sounds disappointed, like he was hoping to hang out. “Good luck with your dad. Later, tater hater.”

  In the tent, I attempt to tie my wrinkled Imagine Dragons T-shirt around Chewbarka like a diaper. It doesn’t really work, and I don’t want her to pee all over my shirt even though I’m no longer the raging Imagine Dragons fan I used to be. I take her outside and we curl up on my dry but still-stanky sleeping bag in the sun. I put on some wistful, sad music that looks like silk blowing in the wind, then open Insta to search for Daniel’s account. I haven’t opened the app since the day of The Tyler Disaster, when I made my account private to everyone except Griffey. There’s one new notification on the last selfie I posted, a comment from Griff that says Miss your face on here xoxoxo.

  I search for The_Ugly_Twinn. It shows up right away, and my breath catches. Daniel’s pictures are lovely and lonely: a sunset with a single cloud catching the light. An empty field of golden grass under a heavy gray sky. A flower being sucked into a flooding creek. A dead tree with one leaf still stuck to a branch. A tarnished silver teapot sitting beside a road with a bunch of fast-food trash. A cracked snail shell nestled into a bed of moss.
/>   I could take a hundred pictures of a snail shell on moss and it would look like I just snapped it with my phone. But Daniel obviously used that rule-of-thirds thing Ms. Bernstein was talking about. He’s so good I don’t know why he’s taking photography. He’s already won at it.

  Halfway through looking at all his stuff, I find a selfie. It’s a simple mirror shot taken in what might be his bedroom. He has one eyebrow up and he’s half smiling.

  I zoom in. His lips look so . . . ugh. So ridiculously kissable.

  I’m not going to kiss him. I’m Ashley to him, not Asher. Dad said once that girls aren’t supposed to make the first move. Besides, I’ve never kissed anyone. I don’t know how it works.

  But good lord. I’m blushing just thinking about it and no one’s even around.

  I curl up and hug Chewbarka, turning over Griffey’s question about telling Daniel. I saw a TikTok a few weeks ago of a girl sitting on a floor looking at her phone. A guy in the background notices her and starts dancing toward her like he wants to ask her out. Some dude runs into the frame and whispers, “Don’t do it, she’s trans!” in the dancing guy’s ear. But he just shrugs the dude off and keeps dancing toward the girl.

  I cried when I saw it. I don’t even know if I’m trans. Like whatever I decide I am for good, Ashley or Asher, one of those will make me trans and one won’t. Plus, if I’m Asher I’ll be gay, and I’ll be straight if I’m Ashley.

  But that meme is exactly what I hope will happen: A guy will see me for me. He’ll shrug at my whatever-whatever gender mess and keep dancing toward me like woop woop cutie-boo!

  Daniel really is nothing like Tyler. But liking him is an intense mix of exciting and scary, and I’m feeling even less girly than I did yesterday. If I wake up tomorrow in full-on dude mode, it’ll suck to fake being a girl. I’ve tried faking before. It’s like someone’s rubbing my eyebrows the wrong way.

  I don’t want to be fake with Daniel. But if he only likes girls, I’ll lose whatever this thing is that might be starting. This feeling that I want to make his life easier, that I want to be the one he comes to when he’s sad or lonely. This feeling that he might look past my outsides and see me for me. A task so challenging my own freaking dad can barely do it.

  I hug Chewbarka. “Dogs are so lucky,” I tell her. “You don’t gotta worry ’bout this crap.”

  She licks my arm and pees on me.

  10

  Hazel Surprise

  Daniel

  While the morning kennel worker is cleaning the cages in room B, I sneak a look in the supply closet. There’s so much stuff in there, old blankets and bags of food from past boarders, extra leashes, flea dip solution, toenail clippers, cat litter. On a top shelf near the back, I find what I’m looking for: a plastic bin of disposable dog diapers. I fish through it as fast as I can, searching for one small enough to fit Chewbarka. I finally find a couple at the bottom. I roll them up and shove them into my pocket along with a dog brush. Then I duck into the employee bathroom and check Facebook. There’s a reply to one of my messages. My heart leaps, but when I tap the message, it says I have no idea what you’re talking about.

  I wish I could ask someone upstairs to look up Tina’s number. But Saturdays are chaos up there and I doubt anyone would have time for me. The only front-office worker whose name I know is that Gavin guy, and he doesn’t come in on Saturdays. Besides, maybe they can’t give me her number. At my last checkup at the doctor, we had to wait forever and I read the HIPAA paperwork because I was so bored and it made it sound like you can never, ever give someone’s personal information away without their consent. What if I ask and they say, Sorry that’s illegal, and then get too curious about why I want Tina’s number?

  I’m playing with a basenji in the kennel yard an hour later when I have a brain wave: Maybe I could ask Dad to help. He backed Mom on the no-getting-another-dog thing, but his heart wasn’t in it. He loved Frankie as much as I did.

  I hate that there’s so much everyone in my family keeps hidden lately. I know what’s going on with Mitch, getting ditched by his friend who has a girlfriend now, plus losing Dad and hitting puberty and crushing on a girl who’s not into him. And Mom’s . . . well, whatever she is about Dad. Sad? Disappointed? Relieved? Mad? It seems like all of it at the same time. I keep looking back at the last few years and how Dad’s slowly been withdrawing from us and I worry it’s my fault somehow, because I’m so emotionally over the top. The inside of my head keeps getting bigger and more complicated and it seems harder and harder to share the full truth of it with anyone, especially when everyone already thinks I’m way too in my feelings.

  I just miss Dad. A lot. I missed him before he left and I miss him more now. All of us have huge private struggles, and none of us talk about them. We keep big parts of ourselves locked away.

  But maybe Chewbarka could fit into Dad’s separate, hidden part. Just for a few weeks.

  My mind churns as I put the basenji back in her cage. I can’t bike all the way to Dad’s with Chewy in the backpack. It’s awkward to ride that way. But we still have our old bike trailer from when me and Mitch were little. I could bike Chewbarka to Dad’s apartment tomorrow while Mom’s doing her church stuff. I’ve never pulled the trailer, and there are busy roads between our house and Dad’s apartment, but maybe I can find a back way.

  Maybe I can make this work.

  It’s an imperfect solution. But if I have to go through another week like the one I just had, I’m going to crack and cry and spill my guts to Mom, and it will doom the dear little doggo I’ve fallen in love with.

  After I’ve walked all the dogs, I bike back to the patch of woods. I jam Vlad the Rapid into the underbrush next to Sir Reginald Bevis and pick my way toward the tent. Ash is curled up on her sleeping bag outside it with Chewbarka in her arms. She must not hear me, because she’s staring up at the trees with a sad, worried look on her face. “Hi,” I say softly so I don’t startle her.

  “Oh!” She sits up fast and smiles. “Hi! Welcome home. Or welcome back. Whichever. Thanks for the food. Especially the cheese. Cheese is my favorite food.”

  I smile at her blush. “Look what I got.” I hold up the diapers and brush.

  She giggles. “Are those for your rule-of-thirds photo assignment?”

  “Totally. I’ll stage them on a peed-on blanket.”

  “I tried to make a diaper out of my T-shirt. It didn’t work out so great.”

  We give Chewy a good brushing and get some of the mats out of her fur. As we’re trying to figure out how the diaper goes on, I tell Ash my Dad Plan for tomorrow. Our hands keep brushing together as we put Chewbarka’s legs through the leg holes. When I pull her fuzzy tail through, Ash’s wrist bumps mine and a wave of heat goes through me.

  Once the diaper’s on, we both crack up. It’s flattened Chewbarka’s back-end fuzziness and her butt looks super tiny compared to the rest of her. “That’s so adorable,” Ash says. “And sad. Sad-dorable. Oh! Check out what I discovered.” She gently touches Chewbarka’s nose and Chewy’s tongue falls out the side of her mouth. “You boops the snoot, you gets the blep!”

  Both of us laugh. I reach out and squeeze Ash’s hand, then quickly let go. I don’t know if she’s more surprised by it or I am. “I wish I could bike you to your apartment. But my mom’s probably wondering why I’m not home yet.”

  “It’s fine,” she says. “I have junk I gotta get done today. Lunch with my dad and I’m gonna go see this girl Zoey’s band tonight.” While she rolls up Darth Vader, she tells me about running into Zoey at PetSmart and getting invited to her band practice. She stands up and brushes Chewbarka’s hair off her shirt. “Do you think your dad will understand? Or do you think he’ll tell your mom?”

  I kick at a stick. “I don’t know. I can’t tell him what’s really up, you know?”

  “Why not? You haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Well—” I press my arms to my chest. “It’s sort of . . . it’s maybe more complicated than I told
you.”

  Ashley’s brow furrows.

  I press my lips together and look down. My eyes are starting to sting. “I, um.” I take a deep breath. “So some guy brought Chewbarka to the vet to be killed.” I spill the story, explaining how I not only have to protect Chewbarka but Tina too, and how telling any grown-ups could result in Chewbarka getting killed and Tina getting fired. I can’t look at Ash while I’m talking. My throat closes up and my eyes water when I explain I wasn’t sure who I could trust, that I just wanted to keep Chewbarka safe.

  The tears spill over when I think about that guy walking away from his sweet little leaky, lovey-dovey dog he paid to have killed. I turn away and wipe my face. “I’m sorry,” I say with my back to Ash. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.”

  She’s silent for a moment. And then I feel her hand on my shoulder. “I get it,” she says softly. “And I’m even more glad I could help.” I hear her kneel and pick up Chewbarka. She moves in front of me, holding the dog. “I want to help. When you take her to your dad tomorrow.”

  “You don’t have to.” I smear my face, light-years beyond embarrassed.

  “I know I don’t have to. But I want to. I care about Chewbarka too, you know.”

  It would be so good to have her along. “Really?”

  She nods. “Where should we meet? What time?”

  I half gulp. She’s actually going to help me. “My mom leaves for church at eight fifteen. How about by the dollar store on the corner of Kenmere and Montgomery at eight thirty?”

  “I’m there like a mama bear.” She laughs. “I don’t even know what that means.”

  I smile. “Seriously, Ash, thank you. It’s good to have a friend again.”

  “Again?”

  “Yeah.” I take a breath. “As long as I’m spilling my guts . . . I had a best friend for like forever. Cole.” Where do I even start with this? “So, last spring, he started hanging around with this girl Erin Rogers.” I explain how I thought he liked her, but he said he was crushing on Fiona, and that he decided to throw an end-of-year party with a spin-the-bottle game so he’d maybe get to kiss her. And how awkward it was that Mitch liked Fiona too, and that Cole had invited him not knowing that. I tell Ash I didn’t want to play the game, but everyone else was and it looked weird that I wasn’t. I tell her how when Fiona spun it stopped on me, and how no one else had backed out and I didn’t want Fiona to feel rejected, and that the kiss was quick but still sort of had some tongue because that’s what everyone else was jokingly doing, and that it was just enough to enrage both Cole and Mitchell. I tell her Cole didn’t talk to me for the rest of the party, that he texted me while Mom was driving me and Mitchell home and said, You French-kissed the girl you knew I liked RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME.