Four days later, I found myself standing at the front door of my community college. The sun had just dipped behind the horizon, leaving the air chilly, and I wore a nondescript winter jacket, backpack, and held a box of pizza under one arm. I let out a long sigh. I was a little early, so I-
“Oh hey Max.” I nearly jumped and spun around to see Micah. He was Chinese-American, a little shorter than me and a little older, and in this January weather was wearing a thick, formless sweater and held his bag at his side. He was also, bafflingly, hatless, exposing his buzzcut to the air.
I waved with my free arm. “Hi Micah, sorry didn’t see you there.”
“No problem, dude.” He paused for a second. “Are you…” he said and pointed to the door.
“Hm?” And then I realized that I was just standing in front of the door, and if he had come up from behind he would have seen that I wasn’t going in. “Oh! Yeah, I forgot my keycard,” I lied.
“Ah, well I’ve got it!” He stepped around me and swiped his card, unlocking the door with a mechanical “click”. He pulled it open and gestured. “After you.”
I thanked him as I entered. “So, Micah, how was your New Year’s?”
“It was swell, thank you for asking,” he said as he dashed through the door behind me and fell into step. “Just hung out with the roommates, had a few beers, real casual. How about you, you went with Amber to that thing right?”
“I, yeah I-”
“There you guys are!” Amber appeared around the corner. “Come on, the rest of us already arrived.” She waved us out of the modest entrance hall to the library, which was a multistory affair with balconies and classy plate glass windows. I would have spent I lot of time there on study days during the semester, which was what made it even more fun to be there after hours, and during winter break, no less. We were the only ones in the entire library, and possibly the whole building, which was useful, especially considering Amber’s volume.
“Really?” I said. “Usually I’m the first one to show up, and I even got the pizza this time.”
She laughed. “What can I say, I’m excited. It’s been a long couple of weeks.”
“Tell me about it,” I sighed. I put the pizza box down on the table that had been pushed to the center of the library. A cheer went up around the group of four other people.
“Hey bring me a slice,” Bo said from his vantage point at the far end of the table. I set my bag down at a chair, opened the box, and carried over a slice on a napkin. Micah sat across from me, and started pulling out his own things; laptop, printed character sheets, bag of dice. I passed by Kimmy, with her highlighted spiral-bound notebook with doodles in the margins and big poof of auburn curls.
“Hi Kimmy,” I said.
“Been a while, Max!”
Bo was a big guy, with a looming presence that the massive library window behind him accentuated at moments, though he was presently preoccupied on his own computer, planning and typing away, no doubt. I bowed dramatically, holding the pizza out for him.
“Your humble sacrifice, my lord.”
“Thank you,” he said in a monotone voice while scooping up the slice from my hand. “In return I shall refrain from killing your character tonight.”
“If I bring you a second slice will you promise to kill Amber’s?”
I was rewarded by her shouting “Don’t you dare, jackass!” behind me, accompanied by Micah’s stifled giggles.
Bo glanced up from his computer at me with a rye smile. “Perhaps.”
“Ohh I missed this,” Amber said through a mouth stuffed with pizza. “A month is way too long to take a break from D&D.”
“Count yourself lucky,” Kimmy said. “My last group met once every like, four weeks! And it was online.”
Amber rolled her eyes at that.
“Seriously, though,” I said. “It’s awesome that the librarians let us play here on Fridays, I’m baffled we haven’t done something wrong and gotten kicked out yet.”
“Just you wait, Cuevas.” Micah patted me on the shoulder. “Amber here will rip a textbook in half if Bo follows up on that promise.”
How did Micah know my last name? Wait, did I know his last name? Micah… nope, nothing. I mean, the guy was cool, but he only joined the group a few months ago when Amber brought him in, and we’d never seen each other much outside of Dungeons and Dragons. I wouldn’t have called us friends. Do people just, learn the last names of casual acquaintances?
I took my chair next to Amber. As everyone settled in, eating pizza and chatting while Bo prepped the game, Amber leaned in to me.
“So Max, do you mind if I ask how you’ve been? We haven’t talked since the party.”
“Hehe.” I rubbed a hand on the back of my neck. “Yeah, I’m ok, just going through some stuff. I’ll talk about it later, don’t worry.”
“Ok,” she said. “You know, Gabe was pretty worried. He says you haven’t talked to him yet either.”
I shut my eyes. This was what I was afraid of. “Yeah, I’m, sorry, it’s just that there’s nothing to say right now. I’ll talk to him, but I don’t want you guys to worry, please.”
“Alright…” Amber leaned back and turned to her own things. I looked down at my lap. Not now. We can fix this later, but not now.
“Alright.” Bo spoke up, his voice a rolling baritone that captured the table’s attention. “New game, new characters. I asked you all to make them before hand, so let’s introduce ourselves, ok?”
The next few minutes was a cacophony of D&D jargon, which I happily joined in on. Micah was the Rogue, Kimmy a Warlock (of course), Amber regaled us about her Bard Florence’s lengthy backstory, and I was happy to tease her on the matter with the rest of the group. It was a fun that I had missed, and sorely needed over the last few days. It was so nice to finally stop feeling inside myself and just hang out with my friends. I had spent far too long reading all sorts of things online, blogposts, forums, opinion pieces, news stories, and spiraling myself further and further into a network of confusion. But this was easy, and fun, and distracting. Well, mostly. I was about to do something very stupid, but necessary. As Amber finished her story, I felt the eyes of the group turn to me.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
It turns out a lot of trans people play D&D, and plenty had talked about their characters online. Talked about their characters’ gender.
“Well, Max?” Bo said.
“Right, yeah,” I said, shifting in my chair. “I thought I would switch things up a bit.”
“Ooooo how so?” Amber asked. “Finally gonna be a spellcaster?”
“No, no, I’m playing a Barbarian,” I said, pulling out my character sheets. “And uh, uh, her name is Gwendolyn.”
Stupid, my mind exploded. I made a mistake, this was so obvious, what was I thinking? But I had to know. I had to feel it.
“Oh ok!” Amber said. I scanned the rest of the group. My panic response convinced me that they all were thinking I was a weirdo. What kind of guy plays a female character? Weirdos.
The clacking of Bo’s keyboard brought me out of it. “Roger that. What subclass?”
“Hm?” I said.
“What subclass?” Bo’s face was the same concentrated expression as always.
“Oh. Right.” I looked around again. Kimmy was nodding excitedly, like she always did when new characters were introduced. Micah was leaned back. And Amber seemed surprised, but she wasn’t judging me. Right? Could it be they don’t really care?
I leaned forward and shared Gwendolyn’s details with Bo, feeling the steam pressure inside releasing safely. I sat back in my chair, the deed done, and allowed myself the tiniest smile as Bo launched into the beginning of the adventure. The game began.
“So Gwendolyn,” Micah said as his character Raincourt. “Where are you from?”
I must have given myself whiplash from turning my head to look at him. “Oh? Just from over the mountains that way,” I responded, slipping back into the game. Still, he called me… that. I know my character and I are different people, but for a second there, I got to not be Max. For the first time in my life. I bit the inside of my lip, surprised by how ecstatic I suddenly felt.
And so the game rolled on. Dice rolled, monsters splattered on Gwendolyn’s axe, the last rays of sunlight peeking through the window slipping away into a timeless darkness.
An ancient dwarven puzzle sat before our intrepid heroes, stumping us.
“It makes the most sense to use the statue over by the waterfall,” I said, deep in character and leaned over the diagrams strewn before us.
“He’s right,” Amber said in her flowery Florence voice. “I-”
“Point of order,” Micah interrupted. “Wouldn't it be ‘she’s right’?”
I felt my spine go stiff. The temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees.
“What?” Amber said.
Bo spoke up. “No, he’s got a point, Max you said that in character, right? As Gwendolyn?”
Was it possible to sweat out of your tongue? It must have been because that’s what it felt like in the moment. “Uh, yeah I guess I did.”
Bo nodded to Amber. “Then yeah. ‘She’s right’.”
“Unless that’s like, weird for you, Max,” Micah said.
“What?” Weird? Well I suppose, but… “Oh, no I don’t mind! It makes sense in character, after all.”
Amber blinked. “Oh alright!” She resumed the character. “She’s right, then.”
A flower was blooming in my chest. I felt like helium, I was floating. It came out of nowhere, and almost scared me. She…
The game finished up around midnight.
We yawned, packed up our bags, and dumped the remains of the pizza box. We walked out together, Kimmy and Amber feeding off each other’s energy as they bounced off the walls, talking about how excited they were about the new game. Bo waved goodbye, walking off to his car, and a moment later Amber and Kimmy took off.
“Motherf-” I head Micah mumble, and I turned around to see him tucking away his phone.
“Everything alright?” I asked.
“Yeah, my ride just dipped,” he said. “Gonna have to Uber I guess.”
“Nonsense!” I said. “Let me drive you. You live in town, right?”
He held up a hand. “No, you’re fine, really. It’s late and-”
“Micah,” I laughed. “It’s not a problem. I drive my friends all the time, I like it. Let me take you.”
“Huh. Well I guess I can’t say no.”
“Nope!” I said with a smile. I led him through the parking lot to my car. He told me his address and we took off, darting between streetlights into town. For a few minutes the houses passed by without much commentary from us, the air hanging the way it does between two people who are not quite at the point of casual chit chat in their friendship yet.
“So, uh,” he said after a while. “I’m excited for the new game, can’t wait to see what Bo throws at us. I like your character, too.”
“Yeah?” I said, pulling up at a stoplight that was red despite the road being completely empty. “Thanks, I guess. Kinda threw her together at the last minute, I put it off too long.”
The “her” rolled out of my mouth and I felt it mist in the air around me. It smelled something like mint.
Micah nodded. “I just think it’s cool that you’re playing a different gender. Not enough players do that, I think.”
“Oh?” I asked. “Cool, I was kind of worried about you guys judging me about it to be honest.” I tapped my fingers on the wheel, glancing furiously at the red light.
“Well don’t be, don’t worry. It’s cool, you’re cool.”
The light went green. “So have you played female characters before?” I asked. “This is my first time.”
He let out a chuckle. “Yeah, but not in a while. It can be fun though.”
“It is!” I said, with entirely too much energy. “I want to see where it goes.” Back up there buddy, don’t make it weird.
He nodded. “Well hey,” he said after a moment. “We don’t know each other very well, Max. Let’s change that! Tell me about yourself.”
“Oh, sure. I don’t really have much to say, my life’s kind of boring to be honest.” I signaled to turn left.
“Don’t be ridiculous, no-one’s boring! Everyone’s got something going on.”
Don’t you know it, Micah.
“Well I guess you’re right. Maybe my something hasn’t shown up yet.”
“Huh. Maybe. Well, just like basic facts then. Where are you from? Whatcha in school for? Got uhh… a girlfriend?”
I felt an internal smile upon realizing that he was just as awkward about this as I was. “Lived in Nevada my whole life,” I started answering, lifting my fingers one at a time to keep track. “Taking ‘Communications’, and nope, never had,” I said. “What about you?”
“No, me neither,” he said.
“Boyfriend?” I asked.
“Oh,” he said. “No, not one of those either.” Wait, was he blushing?
Ah.
I cringed a little. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
“No, you’re fine,” he said. “I’m not exactly hiding it, I suppose.” He gestured to his pair of Converse. “I don’t even dress very straight.”
I honestly hadn’t noticed. “Do… gay people dress differently?”
“Wait, so you’re not?” he asked.
I opened my mouth. Wait, was I? How did that work? I didn’t… “No, sorry to disappoint,” I heard my voice say. “But you’re not the first to assume. My brothers uh, tease.”
He sat up in his seat. “Sorry to hear that. For the record, I didn’t mean to, I just… when you asked I-”
“Yeah I know what you mean. Kind of meant it as a joke, sorry about that, realizing that’s probably bad.”
He laughed. “Hey, you’re chill about it, it’s fine. Better than half the folks in this town would say, at least.”
I rubbed my jaw. “That must suck.”
He chewed on the inside of his cheek for a second. “Eh, I haven’t had trouble, really. I keep to my own circles and things turn out okay. Can’t ask for much out of butt-fuck Nevada, can you?”
As if on queue, a billboard on the side of the road came into view, lit dramatically from bellow, that displayed the massive, fatherly face of perhaps the whitest Jesus imaginable. White writing in what appeared to be impact font sat next to him and read “Let no DELILAH lead you to SIN! Find PROOF in the Christ Scientist TODAY”, followed by a phone number. The colors were vibrant, like pop art, and glared into the post-midnight darkness, as though to challenge the blasphemy of the town around us.
Micah clicked his tongue. “Well… that’s new.”
I shook my head and let out a small sigh. Our town was the sort that is just small enough for signs like that to be pervasive, and just big enough for most of us to be embarrassed by that fact.
“Like I said,” Micah let out a small laugh. “Can’t expect much.”
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa that pronouns parttttttttt
I really like this story!! Thanks for the chapterrrrr!