I trip a couple times because I’m so busy looking at the excellent sunset. As it fades to a dusky purple, I find a running groove and enjoy it for a while before heading back.
Griffey’s in my room when I get home. He proudly shows off his brand-new plain white Converse. “They’re so pure,” he says. “Like two baby bunnies.” He takes a bunch of Sharpies out of his bag. “They need a rainbow alien. Or peace signs and hearts and gay symbols. Will you help me decorate them?”
“Sure.” I kick off my stinky shoes.
“You should get a white pair too. You could decorate them with the nonbinary colors.”
I make a face. “Gender nonbinary sounds so restrictive. Like your gender can either be binary or not binary. Which . . . is a binary.”
“You’re more like gender-nonconforming anyway.”
“Gender noncompliant. Gender disobedient.” I uncap his red Sharpie and pretend I’m gonna stab him.
He holds up his hands. “Held in contempt of gender.”
“Busted for smuggling my gender across state lines.”
“You’re Schrödinger’s gender!” He snatches the Sharpie back.
“Did you just compare my gender to a dead cat?”
“And a live one. Simultaneously.” He takes a pencil off my desk and starts sketching an alien on one of his shoes. “So is Daniel bi, then, or what?”
I pick up a skirt and T-shirt. “Are you in cahoots with my mom? She’s all up in my business about it too.”
He shrugs. “You could invite him to the next Rainbow Alliance meeting.” He digs in his pocket and comes out with a package of Sour Patch Kids. “Want one?”
I take a green one. “I don’t know if it matters what Daniel is. I think labels are more hassle than they’re worth. It’s easier to just like . . . be.”
“That’s the stinking truth. And anyway, it’s about the junk in your heart, not the junk in your pants.” He chucks a red Sour Patch Kid at me.
I snatch it out of the air and grin. “Darn right.”
Griff and I stay up till almost midnight, playing Mario Kart and decorating his shoes and talking about school and music and nothing and everything. He finds karaoke pop songs on Spotify and sings into my hairbrush. It’s everything a Friday night should be.
After he leaves, I put on my Ramones shirt with fuzzy unicorn pants and brush my teeth. Above the toilet, a new cross-stitch has been added to the ones that say Have a nice poop! and Buddha would shut the toilet lid. Along the outside edge of the new one, Mom has stitched a bunch of emojis: the strong arm, the pink flower, the dude with the beard, the lipstick, the one flipping the bird, the nail polish. The unicorn and the you-rock sign and the high-heel shoe. The middle says This bathroom has been liberated from the artificial construct of a gender binary.
I snap a photo of it and post it to my story. I tag her in it and add #BestMomEver.
After I brush my teeth, I climb into bed and look up the Gatorade video. I’ve been pushing away the thought that it’ll always be out there. That I’ll always have a nagging fear that people I know will find it, and see that happening to me, and think less of me for it.
But really . . . it’s part of me now. Trying to pretend it never happened feels like denying part of who I am. And boy, am I done with that game. Anyone who thinks less of me because a few jerks teamed up and humiliated me isn’t someone whose opinion I care about anyway. Or who I even want in my life.
So maybe it’s time to say that. Time to claim all of me, including what I went through that made me who I am now.
I was so desperate to hide the Gatorade video when I started at Oakmont. So tied in knots about the gendered signs on the bathroom doors.
Not anymore.
I download the video and post it to my Insta. Being yourself can be a dangerous business, I write. Bullies can make you want to hide who you are, especially if you’re unsure who that is. But incidents like this can also show you what really matters.
I look down the hall at the light coming from the living room. Mom’s listening to Green Day. I picture her working on a cross-stitch, something subversive and funny and totally Mom.
I know who I am, I write. It took a while, but I’ve finally found my voice.
Good luck getting me to shut up now.
Acknowledgments
SuperAgent John: Thank you for being the first industry pro to believe in my writing. Thank you for continuing to believe in it through every spectacular faceplant, and thank you for aiming my fervent but scattered ambition in a focused direction. Who knew I had a middle grade book in me? You did. You’re smart like that.
Editor extraordinaire Alyssa: The kindest, most brilliant kindred-soul editor I could have hoped for. Thank you for shaving off the story’s rough edges and tightening up its saggy bits and guiding me through the publishing process with compassion, humor, and wisdom. Your insights made this book so much better, and I am deeply grateful.
Thank you to everyone at HarperCollins who saw the potential in this story and brought it from a draft on my laptop to vivid, breathing life. Thank you to Teo DuVall for a cover that fits the story so beautifully, and thank you to Erin Fitzsimmons for your design expertise in fitting all my silly little sound drawings into the text at just the right spots. Thank you to Jacqueline Hornberger, Veronica Ambrose, and Nicole Moreno for your eagle eyes in catching my typos and inconsistencies
To all the good souls who slogged through early drafts of this book and all the books I wrote before I wrote this one, who encouraged me and pulled me out of the doldrums and provided essential solidarity: Thank you. A special shout-out to Cara Olexa, Sid Birkett, Amy Bearce, Sara Bennett-Wealer, Bruce Hamren, Sarah Archer, Allison Haden, Jean Maskuli, Pat Pujolas, and Georgine Getty.
To my teachers, friends, and fellow parents who provided support, guidance, kindness, and much-needed camaraderie: Karen Anderson, Larissa Howell, Renee Jacobs, Jen Decker-Strainic, Katie Kovach, Sherrie Inness, and Amy Goff: Thank you for being there when I needed you, and thank you for everything you’ve given me.
To Mom and Pops, who have supported me through every hair color, questionable tattoo, and life stage: Thank you. It’s so good to know I always have a home to come home to.
To Matt, thank you for being the bestest co-parent possible to our wild child and our herd of disabled, disheveled, and discount-rack dogs. Nobody can make me laugh in the trenches of four-a.m. kitchen-floor poop cleanups like you can. I love you.
To my wild child, my inspiration: Thanks for letting me write down all the brand-new sentences that come out your mouth; thanks for bouncing off the walls of our house and my heart, drumming a beat everywhere you go; thank you for the songs you sing and the characters you draw and the love that fills you and the hope that drives you. Thank you for answering my questions about day-to-day middle school life and telling me what I’m getting right and being frank when I suck at stuff. Thank you, most of all, for being you out loud. I love and adore you beyond measure.
And finally, thank you to my dogs. Y’all are stinky punks who make a boat-load of messes on the daily, but I sure do love you.
About the Author
Photo by Max Sewall
JULES MACHIAS is an author, editor, artist, and athlete who loves dogs beyond all reason. Both Can Be True is inspired by their combined passions for rescuing animals and breaking down society’s gender norms to create a more inclusive world. Jules has worked at a veterinarian office, a construction company, a car-parts warehouse, and a middle school for kids with disabilities. They now own and operate an editing and proofreading business for clients in publishing and marketing. Jules lives in Cincinnati with their family and three rescue dogs: the world’s happiest pit bull, a sweet Chihuahua with congestive heart failure, and a paralyzed terrier with a whole lot of sass. To learn more about Jules and their dogs, visit www.jules-machias.com.
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Copyright
Quill Tree Boo
ks is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
BOTH CAN BE TRUE. Copyright © 2021 by Jules Machias. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Cover art © 2021 by Little Corvus
Cover design by Erin Fitzsimmons
* * *
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021934341
Digital Edition JUNE 2021 ISBN: 978-0-06-305391-5
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-305389-2
* * *
2122232425PC/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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Both Can Be True Page 22
