Outside the Lines

by Kate Christie

  “So?” she said, tone even as she turned to face her girlfriend.

  “So.” Jamie watched her, expression maddeningly neutral. “I think we should talk.”

  Oh, god. Was this a “We need to talk” moment? Emma swallowed nervously and led the way to the couch in the living room. They weren’t about to break up, she assured herself. Jamie wasn’t about to walk away from everything they had. They loved each other and had for years upon years. People in love didn’t break up over a single conversation. Did they?

  “I’m sorry,” Jamie said once they were seated.

  Emma braced herself for what was coming next: I can’t do this anymore, or maybe It isn’t you, it’s me. She hadn’t seen this coming. Should she have seen this coming?

  “I shouldn’t have reacted like that,” Jamie continued, and Emma felt the relief pour through her, raw and almost frightening in its intensity. “You were right. I was cranky about losing the stupid card game. I think the thing about your dad just touched a sore spot.”

  “I’m sorry too,” Emma said quickly, words almost tripping over themselves. “I should have been more sensitive. A crowded plane wasn’t the right place for that conversation.”

  Jamie nodded. “Thank you for acknowledging that. I get that from your perspective it was good news, like, ‘Hey, my mom said my dad wasn’t a homophobe after all, yay!’ But to me it sounded like you were taking your parents’ side. Like you thought I belonged on the outside of your family and not on the inside.”

  Emma frowned. Why did there need to be sides of any kind here? Her father was long gone, and she and Jamie were adults, living their lives away from their families. She almost said as much, but then she heard her mother’s voice in the back of her head reminding her of the importance of listening to and empathizing with other people, especially when they were upset. She thought about how Jamie’s voice had cracked on the plane, how it had felt to ride through the Seattle traffic beside her but apart, how shockingly fragile their connection ultimately was. If she wanted, Jamie could hop on a train or a bus to Portland and they wouldn’t have to speak again until January camp. If then. From experience, Emma knew it was possible to avoid someone at residency camp, even if that someone was the person you cared about more than all the others combined.

  She took a breath and reigned in her defensiveness, because this was not the time for a good offense. Instead she asked, “Why did it feel like that to you? That I was putting you on the outside of my family, I mean.”

  Beside her on the couch, Jamie ran a hand over her short hair, leaving the longer swoop in front disheveled. “Do you know that not one father of anyone I’ve ever dated has reacted well to meeting me? They’ve all been somewhere on the negative spectrum—either shocked, or confused, or outright hostile. Not once has a girlfriend’s father smiled at me and told me it’s nice to meet me. The mothers, either—except yours, and we weren’t dating when I met her.”

  Emma frowned. “That sucks.” By contrast, she couldn’t remember a single instance of a partner’s parent treating her with anything other than easy acceptance—except Jamie’s mom. But, again, they hadn’t been dating back then.

  “It does suck,” Jamie agreed. “Your mom is the first one to hug me right off the bat, and I did feel welcome this weekend. But then you tell me that she doesn’t think your dad was homophobic even though he was officially on record as saying you should stay the hell away from me? I guess it feels like I can’t win with the whole parental approval thing.”

  Again Emma’s first reaction was to blurt out that Jamie didn’t understand, that she hadn’t heard her mom’s explanation about research and peer groups and worrying late into the night about your children’s friends’ potential inability to navigate a difficult world. But that was an explanation best left for later because Jamie wasn’t talking about Emma’s parents. She was trying to tell Emma how it felt to be her in that admittedly difficult world.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again, reaching out hesitantly to touch Jamie’s hand. “The last thing I want is to make you feel like an outsider in my family. My mom does care about you, and she’s genuinely happy that we’re together. So is Ty—which I think you already know.”

  Jamie turned her palm up and wove their fingers together. “No, you’re right. I think this is just my baggage talking. Or, you know, one luggage set of many.”

  Emma released a laugh that was more a vent of tension than amusement, gripping Jamie’s hand tightly. “Join the club, my friend.”

  “The woman-loving-woman emotional baggage club?” Jamie queried, a hint of a smile curling her lips.

  “That’s the one.” Emma hesitated. “Is this just about parental approval? Because I sort of get the feeling there’s more to this whole outsider thing.”

  Jamie traced the tendons along the top of Emma’s hand. “I’ve always felt like I don’t belong in very many places. That’s one of the things I love about soccer. It’s not about how you look or feel on the inside, it’s about how hard you work and what you bring to the team. Because off the pitch?” She shook her head and leaned back against the couch, staring up at the ceiling. “Things are never quite as simple.”

  “You’re right, they aren’t,” Emma agreed. “Especially on cold, dark mornings when you have to be up at four-thirty AM…”

  Jamie narrowed her eyes, but playfully. “Excuse you. Are you suggesting I don’t do well on cold, dark, early mornings?”

  “I was talking about myself,” Emma said. “But sure, we can go with you.”

  “How about both of us?”

  “Sounds accurate.” She rested her chin on one hand. “If neither of us does well in the cold and dark, maybe we should rethink the whole retiring to Northern Europe plan.”

  “Couldn’t be much worse than the Pacific Northwest, could it?” Jamie nodded to the wall of windows, where the Space Needle was lit up against the dusky afternoon. Then she moved closer and hid her head in Emma’s shoulder. “Does that mean you still love me enough to want to retire with me?”

  “What?” Emma craned her neck to see Jamie’s face. “Are you kidding me, Maxwell? If a decade of you freezing me out wasn’t enough to kill my feelings for you, what makes you think a couple of hours would get it done?”

  “I wasn’t freezing you out,” Jamie muttered. Then, as Emma remained pointedly silent, she added, “Fine, I was. But it was your own fault for beating me at cards.”

  “I can’t help it if I’m a ‘god-damned natural, for eff’s sake,’” she air-quoted. Jamie tried to pull away, but Emma wrapped her arms around her and refused to let go. “I love you, Jamie. That’s not going to change.”

  “I love you too.” Jamie paused. “Though I think I might love you even more if you feed me.”

  Food and coffee, Emma thought, practically salivating. “Your wish is my command,” she said as they unfolded from the couch.

  “No it isn’t.”

  “No, it isn’t. But how about we open Christmas presents after lunch? Will that make up for the cold, dark, early morning?”

  “Hells yes,” Jamie said, perking up immediately. She cast her gaze about the living room. “Where is it? I thought you said it was here.”

  “It is here. Just not in this room.” Emma was glad she’d had the foresight to place Jamie’s gift in the bedroom before she left. It was almost as if she had hoped Jamie would visit her in Minnesota and then fly home with her—because it was exactly like that.

  Jamie pretended to sniff the air. “Hmm, no dead puppy smell. That’s a relief. I give up. What is it?”

  “Food and hot beverages first, then presents.”

  “Aw,” Jamie whined, and Emma had a flash of Christmas Yet-to-Come: Jamie and their future children racing each other to see what Santa had brought them. Would Jamie let the kids win? Seemed unlikely.

  Life was good, she thought as she tugged Jamie toward the kitchen, the worry and overwhelming sense of fragility dissipating like fog from the Sound. More importantly
, they were good, and soon there would be presents.

  She couldn’t wait to see Jamie’s face.

  Chapter Twelve

  To be honest, this was not the face Emma had expected.

  “What the hell is that?” Jamie demanded, her brow thunderously low.

  “It’s a bicycle.”

  “Obviously.”

  “You asked.” Emma rested the gift in question in the corner against the recliner. “What is the problem? I want to be able to go for a bike ride with my girlfriend. Is that so terrible?”

  “I already have a bike,” Jamie said. “One that I’m guessing cost a third of what this does.”

  A quarter would probably be more accurate, but Emma decided not to mention it. “Yes,” she said fake patiently, “but it is currently in Portland, is it not?”

  Jamie stared at her. “So you’re saying this is a second bike for guests?”

  Emma stared back. “Is that what you want me to say?”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “I think so.”

  “Fine,” Emma huffed. “In that case, yes. For your Christmas present, I bought myself a second bike so that we can go on bike rides when you visit. Is that acceptable?”

  “I guess,” Jamie said grudgingly.

  Two minutes later she was reading the manual, eyes wide as she discovered the various bells and whistles on her new hybrid road bike. That, Emma thought, watching her, was the face she had expected. She enjoyed Jamie’s enthusiasm for a little while longer before finally saying, “Hello. Still waiting over here for my present.”

  “Oh, sorry!” Jamie scrambled up and made a beeline for her luggage in the hall, where she paused and glanced over her shoulder at Emma. “It’s not… it’s nothing like what you got me.”

  Emma winked at her. “That’s okay. I don’t need a new bike.”

  “Neither do I,” Jamie pointed out. She rummaged through her carry-on and stood back up, a paper bag in her hands. “I didn’t wrap it. Wrapping paper is bad for the environment, you know?”

  “It’s fine. I don’t need wrapping paper, either.”

  Jamie sat down beside her on the couch, hesitated, and then handed the bag over.

  It wasn’t one present but three. The first was a flat box with a silver photo frame inside. Curious, she turned it over. It was a double four by six frame, hinged along the horizontal edge, and inside—

  “No way,” she said, laughing as she found herself staring into her teenage self’s eyes. The photo on the left was of the two of them at the beach ten years ago almost to the day, arms around each other’s shoulders, smiles wide and untroubled. They had been so young, hadn’t they?

  On the right side of the frame was a more recent shot she didn’t remember being taken, from the night in May their teams met for the first time. They were seated on the bench at the brew-pub they’d gone to in downtown Portland afterward, shoulders pressed together, heads turned toward each other, smiling dreamily. It was a stunning shot—the definition of heart eyes.

  “Ellie?” she asked.

  “Yep. I was moaning about not having a good enough picture and she was all, ‘Hey, I might have something on my phone.’ The asshat.”

  “Total asshat,” Emma agreed. “What was that beach called?”

  “Stinson.”

  “That’s right.” She skimmed her fingers over their younger faces. They hadn’t changed all that much, and yet, that day felt like it had happened to two entirely different people.

  The second gift was a notebook full of coupons. Upon closer examination, Emma realized Jamie must have created them in one of the many photo software programs on her laptop because they contained their names and other personal details. She leafed through the bound notebook, each page sporting a different entry. There were massage coupons, date night coupons that let Emma pick the restaurant, movie coupons that gave her the power to choose the movie—even if Jamie objected, according to the fine print. There were even a couple of coupons that let Emma skip her turn to drive to Portland and make Jamie come to Seattle instead.

  “I love it,” she declared, wiggling her eyebrows somewhat wickedly.

  “Crap,” Jamie said. “I’ve created a monster, haven’t I?”

  “Muahaha! You have no idea.”

  Emma reached through tissue paper for the last item in the bag. And then she stopped as her eyes fell on the cover of a book she had long since given up for lost. “You kept it,” she breathed.

  “Meg did, actually. She found it in her room last week. I thought you might like it back.”

  Emma set the book on her lap and traced its well-worn cover. The Mountains of California by John Muir—her father’s favorite book. She opened it and, sure enough, there was his sloped, impatient handwriting: “Emma ~ May you one day share our family’s love of the mountains with children of your own. Much love, Dad.”

  She blinked back the inevitable tears. “Thank you. I love everything.”

  “You’re welcome,” Jamie said, and kissed her sweetly. “I love you.”

  “I love you too. Merry Christmas, Jamie.”

  “Merry Christmas, Emma.”

  The day went on outside the condo, but they stayed where they were, mugs in hand, legs touching under a fleece blanket that bore the Sounders logo. Despite her earlier inclination, Emma ended up telling Jamie what her mother had said about peer groups and their influence, and Jamie seemed better able to listen this time.

  “That does make sense,” she admitted, rubbing her thumb over the faded UNC decal on her mug. “Even I can see it over the massive chip on my shoulder.”

  “You don’t have—” Emma started, but then she stopped as Jamie gazed at her. Because, yeah, she sort of did. “That reminds me. Can I ask you something?”

  “Fire away.”

  “You said earlier that you love soccer because it doesn’t matter how you feel on the inside. Does that mean you feel different on the inside? Like, are you…?”

  “Trans?” Jamie supplied. “Yeah, I fall under the umbrella. But I don’t feel like a man trapped in a woman’s body. I’m actually lucky because I love my body. It’s been good to me with soccer and everything else. I think I feel more like an androgynous person living as a woman, if that makes sense.”

  Emma thought hard, trying to grasp the difference.

  “Okay, apparently that doesn’t make sense to you,” Jamie said, half-smiling.

  “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to offend you.”

  “Babe, it takes a lot more than that to offend me.” As Emma squinted and tilted her head sideways, Jamie amended, “Usually. On non-cold, non-early mornings. Anyway, have you ever heard of the genderbread person?”

  Emma hadn’t, so Jamie found a PDF on Google and they spent the next few minutes discussing the differences between gender identity, sexual attraction, gender expression, and biological sex. As they talked, Emma discovered that she didn’t know nearly as much as she’d thought she did going into this conversation. The diagram helped immensely, and she downloaded it onto her phone for future reference.

  The fact that Jamie considered herself genderqueer—a blend of both male and female rather than one or the other—wasn’t news. But until now, Emma hadn’t fully understood what that identity meant to her.

  “A few of my friends in college would have preferred to have been born biologically male,” Jamie told her, “but I’m glad I was born female. Being a man is way more risky.”

  Emma frowned. “How can you say that? What about France?”

  “It’s because of France I’m saying that. I would rather be a rape survivor than a potential rapist, Emma. That may sound harsh, but I had a friend at Stanford who transitioned, and he said testosterone should be registered as a chemical weapon because it basically produces weaponized human beings.”

  That sounded about right, Emma thought, picturing various comments she’d observed or fielded herself on social media platforms where misogyny ran rampant. But the Internet wasn’t the only or ev
en the main place where women were vulnerable. Look at Jamie. Look at the girls and women all over the world harassed and assaulted on a daily basis, some of whom were targeted for rape as part of “official military strategy.” Weaponized humans, indeed.

  “Can I ask you something?” Jamie added.

  “Of course.”

  “Did Sam identify as genderqueer?”

  For the second time in as many days, that was not the question Emma had been expecting. “Not when we were together. But she never really liked the word queer. The kids in her neighborhood on Long Island used to play a game called Smear the Queer, and she said she could never quite get that connotation out of her head.”

  “That would be difficult to forget.” She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was quieter. “So what really happened with you two, anyway?”

  Emma took a sip of her long cold coffee. Temperature wasn’t everything. The beverage still tasted good, still gave her that slight, pleasant jolt of energy. In Boston, where summers were hot and humid, she used to drink her body weight each week in iced coffee. Or so Sam had always said.

  “The World Cup happened,” she told Jamie. “There was so much scrutiny, and I was on the road even more than usual. Sam finally decided it wasn’t what she wanted.”

  This was the official story Emma had developed after Sam’s exit, and it was accurate as far as it went. Only a few people—Dani, Maddie, a handful of others—knew it wasn’t the entire story. Jamie wasn’t one of those people. But right now, she was looking at Emma as if she might be.

  “That’s it?” she asked. “She left because you were away too much?”

  As she hesitated, Emma was struck by the sense that they had been here before. Not this exact situation, but close. Except that when they were kids, Emma had lied by omission to protect herself. Now she was doing it to protect Jamie. Either way, it was not the brightest thing she’d ever done. She needed to tell her the truth. She wanted to tell her. Just, not yet. Jamie still had occasional bad days, still suffered from PTSD triggers and probably, she’d admitted to Emma, always would. But for the most part, she had moved past the assault. For the most part, she was a happy, healthy human being. Emma couldn’t bear to be the person who might set her back. For now, she wanted that specific set of emotional luggage to remain packed away as long as it possibly could.