It is an awful thing to be betrayed by your body. And it’s lonely, because you feel you can’t talk about it. You feel it’s something between you and the body. You feel it’s a battle you will never win … and yet you fight it day after day, and it wears you down. Even if you try to ignore it, the energy it takes to ignore it will exhaust you.
Vic was lucky in the parents he was given. They didn’t care if he wanted to wear jeans instead of skirts, or play with trucks instead of dolls. It was only as he grew older, into his teens, that it gave them some pause. They knew that their daughter liked girls. But it took a while for him to articulate—even to himself—that he liked them as a boy. That he was meant to be a boy, or at least to live as a boy, to live in the blur between a boyish girl and a girlish boy.
His father, a quiet man, understood and supported him in a quiet way. His mother took it harder. She respected Vic’s desire to be who he needed to be, but at the same time had a difficult time giving up the fact of having a daughter for the fact of having a son. Some of Vic’s friends understood, even at thirteen and fourteen. Others were freaked out—the girls more than the boys. To the boys, Vic had always been the tagalong, the nonsexual friend. This didn’t change that.
Dawn was always there in the background. They’d gone to school together since kindergarten, friendly without ever really becoming friends. When they got to high school, Vic was hanging out with the kids who furiously scribbled poems into their notebooks and let them lie there, while Dawn was with the kids who would submit their poems to the literary magazine the minute they were finished. The public girl, running for class treasurer and joining the debate club, and the private boy, the sidekick on 7-Eleven runs. Vic never would have noticed Dawn, never would have thought it was a possibility, if Dawn hadn’t noticed him first.
But Dawn did notice him. He was the corner that her eye always strayed toward. When she closed her eyes to go to sleep, it was thoughts of him that would lead her into her dreams. She had no idea what she was attracted to—the boyish girl, the girlish boy—and eventually she decided it didn’t really matter. She was attracted to Vic. And Vic had no idea she existed. Not in that way.
Finally, as Dawn would later recount to Vic, it became unbearable. They had plenty of mutual friends who could have done reconnaissance, but Dawn felt that if she was going to risk it, she was going to risk it firsthand. So one day when she saw Vic piling in with some of the other guys for a 7-Eleven run, she jumped into her car and followed them. As she’d hoped, Vic decided to hang out in front while his friends played in the aisles. Dawn walked over and said hello. Vic didn’t understand at first why Dawn was talking to him, or why she seemed so nervous, but then he slowly realized what was happening, and that he wanted it to happen, too. When the chime of the front door marked his friends’ exit, he waved them off and stayed with Dawn, who didn’t even remember to pretend she needed something from the store. Dawn would have talked there for hours; it was Vic who suggested they go get coffee, and it all went from there.
There had been ups and downs since, but the heart of it remained: When Dawn looked at Vic, she saw Vic exactly as he wanted to be seen. Whereas Vic’s parents couldn’t help seeing who he used to be, and so many friends and strangers couldn’t help seeing who he didn’t want to be anymore, Dawn only saw him. Call it a blur if you want, but Dawn didn’t see a blur. She saw a very distinct, very clear person.
As I sift through these memories, as I put together this story, I feel such gratitude and such longing—not Vic’s, but my own. This is what I want from Rhiannon. This is what I want to give Rhiannon.
But how can I make her look past the blur, if I’m a body she’ll never really see, in a life she’ll never really be able to hold?
I arrive the period before lunch and park in my usual spot.
By now, I know which class Rhiannon is in. So I wait outside the door for the bell to ring. When it does, she’s in the middle of a crowd, talking to her friend Rebecca. She doesn’t see me; she doesn’t even look up. I have to follow behind her for a ways, not knowing whether I’m the ghost of her past, present, or future. Finally, she and Rebecca head in different directions, and I can talk to her alone.
“Hey,” I say.
And it’s there—a moment’s hesitation before she turns. But then she does, and I see that recognition again.
“Hey,” she says. “You’re here. Why am I not surprised?”
This isn’t exactly the welcome I was hoping for, but it’s a welcome I understand. When we’re alone together, I’m the destination. When I’m here in her life at school, I’m the disruption.
“Lunch?” I ask.
“Sure,” she says. “But I really have to get back after.”
I tell her that’s okay.
We’re silent as we walk. When I’m not focused on Rhiannon, I can sense that people are looking at her differently. Some positive, but more negative.
She sees me noticing.
“Apparently, I’m now a metalhead slut,” she says. “According to some sources, I’ve even slept with members of Metallica. It’s kind of funny, but also kind of not.” She looks me over. “You, however, are something completely different. I don’t even know what I’m dealing with today.”
“My name’s Vic. I’m a biological female, but my gender is male.”
Rhiannon sighs. “I don’t even know what that means.”