Tuesday goes pretty much like Monday, including the note in my locker.  Alex is finding their own way back to the house again. They won’t be there until close to dinner time. Would I please let my parents know.

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I manage to avoid Alex completely until we’re sitting down to eat. Even then, I manage to avoid looking at them. My mom knows something is up. My dad’s unreadable, as usual.

“Is that nail polish?” my dad asks. 

I panic. Did I not get it all off the last time I tried some? Wait, no that’s been weeks. No. I look up from my food. My dad is looking at Alex, and their perfectly manicured, bright red nails. Kill. Me. Now.

“Yeah,” Alex says, “since my folks are still away, I realized I could safely wear it for a couple of days. As long as I get it cleaned off by Friday it will be fine.”

“Are boys wearing nail polish now?” Dad asks.

“A lot of the guys at school do,” I break in. That’s stretching the truth a bit, unless you count fewer than twenty out of seven hundred as a lot. My Dad does not look convinced.

“I don’t really get that,” he says. But he looks back at his food.

Good. His not wanting to be rude is winning out over whatever outdated view of gender and gender roles he has. Crisis averted. As Long as Alex doesn’t say anything to keep the conversation going.

“I think it looks pretty good,” Alex says.

Like that.

“Are you one of those boys that thinks he’s a girl?” Dad asks.

Crap. What’s Alex going to say? How are they going to make this worse?

“Oh,” they say, “no. I am definitely not a girl.”

Whew. They’re not even lying, I don’t think. Just leave it at that. Please.

“Actually . . .”

Oh, no. They’re going to say they’re not a boy, either.

“I’m wearing it in solidarity with a friend.”

I don’t think this is going to be any better.

“She is one of those girls that everybody thinks is a boy. She’s afraid to tell anyone, though. Even her parents.”

I’m going to kill them. I try to keep my face completely blank. Why are they doing this to me?

“You’re saying he’s transexual?”

“The term now is transgender. She’s— ”

“Anybody want dessert?” My mom steps bravely into the line of fire.

No one speaks for a moment. I silently beg Alex to just let it go. And the same to my dad. And, by some miracle, they both do. 

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I don’t speak to Alex at all during clean up.

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I lie in bed, seething. Alex had no right to do that. They need to go. I don’t care about the stupid deal we made. If I really can’t get out of it, they can come stand near me at lunch once a day. There’s no way they can stay here anymore, though.

It takes me a moment to register the knocking at my door. It’s so quiet. If they’re coming in to apologize, they can just go to hell. I don’t want any of it, I ignore the knocking.

Why did they do it? I told them I didn’t want to talk about it. I told them it’s too late. My parents may not be the greatest in the world, but i get along with them. I don’t want to ruin that.

The knocking comes again. When I ignore it, my door opens, just a crack.

“Danny?”

It’s Mom. 

“Can I come in?” she whispers.

I don’t answer. What would I say? What does she want? She hasn’t come into my room in months. Maybe years. Why now?

She opens the door a little more, and I see her silhouetted in the light from the hallway. Then she slips in and closes the door behind her. I feel the bed shift as she sits on the edge, near my head. I feel her fingers run through my hair.

“You can tell me anything, you know.”

No, I can’t. You wouldn’t understand, You freaked out when I told you that an office supply store was like a religious experience. I don’t say it. I just lie there. I’m not crying.

“You know your dad and I love you, no matter what.”

I shake my head. I’m trying not to cry. I am not going to talk about this. Alex can’t make me. Mom can’t make me. 

She wraps her arms around me. No more words, just a long, warm hug.

I tell her everything.

It just pours out. There’s no logical order to it, just a stream of feelings and events bouncing back and forth through my life. When I realized it was sixteen and realized it was too late. When I was six and figured out that I wouldn’t be growing up into a woman. When I was thirteen and first learned the word for what I am, transgender.

She listens. She holds me tight. She hands me a tissue when I need it. And another. And another. She lets me repeat myself and ramble and sob quietly. She waits for me to run out of steam.

“I’m sorry,” she says, “ I should have known, And I’m sorry that I taught you you couldn’t trust me.”

She kisses me on top of my head.

“We can talk about this more in the morning. For now you need to sleep.”

She tucks me into bed for the first time in probably eight years. At my door, she pauses. “I love you,” she says. 

My head hits the pillow and the world goes away.

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I don’t want to leave my bedroom. Everybody is out there. Everybody knows. How can I face my parents? How can I face Alex without punching them in the face?

But I have to. 

Or maybe not. Mom and Dad both left for work early. Alex is nowhere to be seen. There’s a note from my mom that just says “I love you.” Damn it. Now I wish she was here.

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Alex isn’t at school. I don’t know where she is, but it’s not here, or nearby.

I spend the day flinching, I feel like everyone knows about me now. I don’t think Alex would have told anyone at school, but until last night, they were the only one who knew. Now my mom knows, and that’s got to mean that my dad knows. Did they call Becky and tell her? Probably not, but I just don’t know. I feel like everyone is staring at me. Judging me.

The only time I’m able to not think about it is in welding class. We finally get to use the equipment. We’ve been learning the different kinds of welding tools. What they’re called. How to use them safely. Mel gets sidelined because he picks up a torch without his goggles on.

It’s fascinating watching the ways the other kids approach the tools. Some pick up a torch and just start blasting away. Others are very methodical. One girl stares at the flame until Ms. Mikkelsen declares her turn is over.

Now it’s my turn. I go down the checklist we’ve had to memorize. I make sure everything is just how it should be. I take a short length of rebar in my gloved hand and position it against a longer piece mounted in a block. Then I take hold of it with a pair of tongs and pick up the torch. I carefully play the flame across the join until I feel the metal softening. I push the shorter piece against the longer and hold it there.

When I release the tongs, the shorter piece falls to the floor with a clang.  Apparently, not all rebar is weldable. And Ms Mikkelsen didn’t tell us this for some reason.

Still, I don’t think about my main troubles again until I’m headed to my car after school.

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Of course, then it comes back with a vengeance. I mean, I know it wasn’t as bad as I feared. My parents didn’t kick me out of the house this morning. They didn’t call me names. But now they know, and they’ll never look at me the same again. When they look at me there will be disgust in their eyes. Or worse, pity. I don’t want that.

I text the shelter and see if I can pull a shift tonight, rather go home. No luck. I text my friend Leon. I haven’t even talked to him since a month into the summer, but maybe he’ll want to get together and catch up. He doesn’t bother to answer. I scroll through my other contacts.

There isn’t anyone to contact. I’ve spent the last year cutting everyone out of my life, Not on purpose, or, at least, not entirely on purpose. I’m not comfortable with people. I’m not comfortable with guys because I don’t know how to be one. I don’t feel like I belong, and I’m always on guard. What if I slip up and they realize what I am? 

I feel like I should belong with the girls, but I don’t. They don’t see me as one of them.  And why would they? I don’t look like them. I’m afraid to act like them. 

The only place I was comfortable was at home. Maybe I can be again, I guess I need to find out. So I drive home.

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I get home before either of my parents. I’m too keyed up to sit still and do my homework, so I check the dinner list for the week to see what I can make. We’ve got lasagna and burgers left. The burgers would be easy, but I’ve never made lasagna, so I start pulling out the ingredients. How hard can it be?

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My parents don’t ask about Alex during dinner. We don’t really talk about anything until we’ve all finished our burgers.  Then my dad asks how welding class is going. Oops. I’d forgotten that I’d “forgotten” to mention the change to my parents. Apparently they actually read the emails from the school this year and have known since the second day. I’m surprised they didn’t say anything.

Once I apologize for that (which they both brush off), I tell them about the class and how much I’m enjoying it. And how my first attempt was a total failure. I play it for the humor value and actually get a chuckle from my dad. Yay me.

Once the table is cleared my dad excuses himself. He’s got a little work to do. There’s a big project deadline looming. My mom volunteers to help me with cleanup, since I made dinner. Twice. I know where this is going, but there’s no point in avoiding it.

For a little bit we clean in silence. The clicking of the dishes and the rush of water from the faucet are the only sounds. That can’t last.

“Are you okay?” Mom asks.

How am I supposed to answer that? Am I okay? No, of course I’m not okay. I’m a wreck. I can’t be the girl I’m supposed to be, and now everyone knows it. They’re going to look at me with anger or shame, or, worst of all, pity. How could I be okay?

“Yeah,” I answer. I keep loading the dishwasher.

“No, really.”

“I mean, I’m not okay, but I’m as good as I’m going to get. So what’s the point in talking about it?”

“I just,” she hesitates, “You aren’t going to hurt yourself, are you?”

“What? No,”I say, barely catching a dish that slips from my hand, “What would make you ask something like that?”

She looks away. “Well, I did some reading today. And, the suicide rate—”

“I’m not going to kill myself.”

Honestly, I had considered it at one point. Never all that seriously, but when I first decided that it was too late, I could barely stand the thought of going on.

“But last spring, when you got so sad and angry . . .”

Yeah, that’s the time. I alternated between the two emotions. In the end, even though going on seemed almost unbearable, not going on seemed even worse. 

“Yeah, that was the worst of it,”  I shake my head, “I was never going to kill myself, though.” Probably.

We do most of the rest of the cleaning in silence again. I guess we’re done with the topic. At least for tonight. I know she won’t let it go forever. I’ve almost certainly got therapy in my future. I’ll enjoy the respite while it lasts.

“I didn’t tell you father,” she says out of nowhere.

What? Why not? Is she ashamed of me? I say nothing. Waiting for her to go on.

“It’s not my place,” she continues, “It’s yours to tell, if you want.”

I don’t like this. I hate the idea of them keeping secrets from each other. They’re not perfect, but they’re Mom and Dad. They’re supposed to be a team. 

So there’s only one thing I can do. I know it’s what she’s trying to get me to do. I don’t like being manipulated. But I have to do it. It’s the only right thing.

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The door to the study is open. I knock on the frame.

“Dad, do you have a minute?”