“Hey, Julia,” Maria said, kissing his neck then whispering into his ear. “You okay?”
“Don’t call me that,” Julian said, his voice a low groan.
“Okay, sorry.” She smiled up at him again, trying to move beyond the sudden faux pas.
But the resolve Julian had been working toward was fractured. No, no. It’s been so good. I want it to stay this way. He tried to forget and keep kissing her, but his birth name was like someone breaking the fourth wall. What he knew before came crashing down, and suddenly, Maria’s hands on his waist, reaching up toward his ribs, was no longer exciting. It was worrying. When her fingers brushed against his nipples, the pleasure was tinged with anxiety. And as she slipped her hands underneath and cupped his breasts, Julian cracked. My breasts. She’s touching my breasts. He placed a hand over hers and moved it away.
“What? Did I do something wrong?”
Yes, Julian thought. But it wasn’t her fault. He bit his lip, wanting to kiss her but not knowing how to start it up again. He had been a fool to let it go this far. He untangled their bodies from one another and shifted down the other side of the bed, leaning with his back against the bedroom wall. Maria sat up, pulling her shirt down. Her eyebrows were furrowed deeply.
“What the hell just happened?” she asked, voice thin and angry. “What did I do?”
“Nothing, nothing. I’m sorry. I just….” Julian ran a hand through his hair. “I shouldn’t have done that. I—”
“Yes you should! You were so into it, Julia. You were so there, and we were having fun. Don’t feel guilty! It was so good, and now I’m worked up.”
“I’m sorry. I just….”
“Is it because we’re gay? You’re gay? Honey, it’s fine. Half the girls at school are gay if they just really admit it and think about it. I won’t tell anyone. I don’t kiss and tell.”
“Ugh,” Julian said. It’s not because we’re gay. It’s because this is straight and you don’t even know. “No, I can’t. I don’t want to.”
“Is it because it’s your first?”
Julian paused; he wanted to say yes, but that was only a half-truth. His silence for a moment let her know enough.
“That doesn’t matter,” she said. “We can figure it out. Sex is really awkward the first time, but you get used to it. Like riding a bike. It’s fine! I still like you. Always have.”
“No, it’s not that. I like you, but not like this.”
Maria’s face twisted. The lines under her eyes grew deep, and she pressed her mouth together as if she’d burst.
Then, she did.
“Fuck you. What do you mean, not like this? Is my house not good enough for you?”
“Oh. No, no, no.” Julian held up his hands as if to brace himself from her words. “No, it has nothing to do with your house.”
“Then what? What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing!”
“Everyone likes me,” she stated again. “That’s half the point. That’s why this is so hard.”
“What?”
“Liking you. You like no one, it seems. You’re too into yourself.”
Julian sighed. He didn’t know what to say to that, mostly because it was true. He had stopped something that was so good, that was so much fun, all because she couldn’t see him as a guy. And you didn’t even tell her! You’re depending on her being a mind reader. Just because someone wants you doesn’t mean they understand you. He ran a hand through his hair, feeling the quiet embrace of her anger. He was about to open his mouth to apologize again, when Maria flopped down on the bed.
“Why does this always happen to me?”
“What?”
“This. Rejection. When I want something, it’s always taken away. And when I don’t want something, it’s always there and annoying.”
She blinked, and Julian saw tears gather in the corners of her eyes. He shuffled closer to her on the bed, reaching out a tentative hand to her shoulder. She let him touch her, soothe her, and eventually, when Julian thought her sadness had passed, he tried again.
“Maria. I’m trans.”
“What?”
“Transgender. It means I’m really a guy. Everyone sees a girl, but I feel like a guy. I am one. I want to be called Julian.”
Maria sat up, leaning against the bedpost. “Are you just saying this so you don’t have to like me?”
“No, not at all. I like you a lot. A lot. But I need you to like me as a guy.”
“Ugh,” she said, sighing hard. “I hate guys. I hate them all. They’re just all effing jerks.”
Julian sighed. “I hate guys too. So much because I want to be them so badly, and yet it seems so impossible.”
She furrowed her brows as she processed this, making Julian ball his hands. The seconds passed between them, until she finally rolled her eyes.
“I get that… I think. I just…. Why would you want to be like that? All guys are dicks.”
Julian laughed. “Maybe, but if it matters, I probably won’t ever have a dick.”
“What?”
“The surgery for that is too expensive. And looks really painful. A lot of trans guys transition without getting that surgery.”
“Wow. Well. That’s just….” She trailed off, running her hands through her hair. “I know I’m being insensitive and shit, but that’s so damn weird.”
“I know. Trust me. I’ve read it all in the comments page on YouTube. I know what the world thinks. But I just… want to be a guy. I was never a woman. Except that now my body is doing all this stuff, and I just don’t know what to do with it.”
“You still like women?”
“Yes,” Julian said. “But only as a guy.”
“Do you like guys too?”
Julian considered this. “Maybe.”
“Aiden?”
Julian nodded. “But I don’t like him anymore. Maybe when I was a kid, but there’s no point in liking him.”
“Why not?”
“Because he left.”
“Guys always leave. They always hurt people,” Maria said. She grabbed a pillow from her bed and folded it across her middle. “And hey, look. You’re already off to a great start.”
Julian blinked back at the sudden words. Maria was hurt—hurt by more than just him; he had to realize that. He thought of all the mean things he had seen written on bathroom walls in the girls’ stall, the fact that Maria had to have a heavy screening process in order to even make friends. He thought of her family, her lack of a brother and a father. Everything that she had been thrown meant that men were colored in negative spaces, distant relations, and awful attention. Julian didn’t want to be like that. He was hurt and affronted that Maria would even think he’d be like that group of men, but also relieved that she was now considering him a guy.
Was this the price of it all? Would he have to give up Maria’s trust and start from square one all over again? Julian swallowed hard, his throat suddenly hurting. He didn’t want to do that. He didn’t want to leave Maria by the wayside. He liked her too, too much for all of this to happen.
When she started to shudder, he realized she was crying. “Hey, hey,” Julian said, shifting closer. He placed a hand on her shoulder the way he had before. He tried not to make it seem sexual. He tried to temper his desire for her and tried to protect her instead.
“I’m not fucking you.”
“I wouldn’t want you to,” Julian said, taken aback by the declaration. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
Maria didn’t say anything, but she didn’t push him away either. When Julian realized how quiet the room was, he glanced over at the computer.
“Can I put on music again?”
Slowly, Maria nodded. Julian got up from the bed and touched the laptop mouse to make the screen come out of sleep mode. When he found the entire album of Gish on her computer—and realized it had been played many times before today—he smiled. She already knew the answer to her question about music, but she had asked him anyw
ay. He selected the first song, then sat down on the bed again.
Maria still had the pillow folded against herself, but she was a lot stronger than before. She even smiled when she recognized the song.
“Can I put my arm around you?” Julian asked.
She nodded. So he did, waiting until the next song before he even attempted to speak. “I don’t want to hurt you. That was never my intention. But I don’t want to keep going on like this either.”
“As a woman?”
“Yeah,” Julian said. “I can’t live that way.”
They were silent for a long time. Both of their minds seemed to be going a mile a minute in the quiet that followed. Julian replayed what had just happened on the bed, his mouth on her body, and he fought the feeling of doing it again. He fought the feeling of trying to rewrite it all from the start, only picturing himself as a man with a beard and a real dick. Julian’s hormones surged inside of him, but he shook it off. He rubbed his hand up and down Maria’s back. When “Daydream” came on again, she spoke.
“Who else knows? You know, about this?”
“About being Julian? Josie does.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, she kind of pulled it out of me. After the first gift exchange when I got bodywash. I told her why I was upset.”
“Ah,” Maria said, as if she were putting pieces together in her mind. “How did she take it?”
“Good. She understood.”
“Of course she did. Girl has probably read as much as you. No wonder she started to call you J, though. Huh. Is Josie all?”
“I kind of told Mr. Singer. But not really.”
“What do you mean not really? There’s really no halfway with this.”
“Right. Well, I just told him to call me J too. Like Josie’s been doing. It’s better than hearing my full name all the time.”
“Really? It’s just a name, though.”
“But if someone started to call you Molly, you’d get upset, right?”
“Right. Right.” Maria’s eyes widened, and she let out a sigh. “Oh, crap. I’m sorry I kept calling you Julia.”
“It’s okay. You get it now. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you until now.”
Maria shrugged. She turned her body toward Julian, resting a head on his shoulder. “Who else do you want to know? Should the guys in the group start calling you J too?”
“I… I don’t know,” he said. “I guess that’d be good. But I’m still coming out as trans, though. I just wanted to tell three people first.”
“Why three?”
“Because that way, I know it’s a real thing. Not just a fluke.”
Maria smiled, as if recognizing her own rule spoken back to her. When she reached up and kissed Julian’s cheek, he was surprised.
“Thanks for telling me, then. Does it mean I’m important?”
“Yes,” Julian said, completely genuine. “Very.”
“But Aiden is important too, isn’t he?”
Julian’s jaw tightened. He didn’t say anything for a long time, but Maria seemed content to wait. Julian put his free hand over his chest; he ached under his own touch. He was like the hollowed-out body of a guitar then, one that had been smashed without thinking and hadn’t been replaced. The confusing dream of Aiden came back into his mind, persistent like the kiss Aiden gave him and like free time at the end of summer. They had never talked about their kiss after it happened. They also never repeated it. The loss of that moment hit him like a wave.
“God,” Julian hissed. “I miss Aiden. So much.”
He expected another outburst from Maria, but she was quiet, calm. He looked up at her, and she smiled weakly at him.
“Do you love him?”
“Yes, of course. I grew up with him.”
“No, do you love him love him?”
“I don’t think I could have.”
“Why not?”
“Well, Aiden’s not gay. And….” Julian paused, realizing what he felt for Aiden hadn’t been sex or even romance, but a deep longing to be just like him. A need for understanding. If someone could accept Julian as he was, then he thought there’d never be a need for love. They’d have the ultimate connection, and nothing could surpass it. But the real world didn’t work that way. “I love Aiden as a friend. As only a friend. But even then, I don’t think we could even talk again until he knew I wasn’t Julia anymore.”
“And you can’t tell him? Even in something like a Facebook message or a text?”
Julian flinched, remembering the ways in which Aiden was chased off Facebook and had to change his phone. “I can’t contact him. It’s too hard.”
Maria nodded, considering this quietly. “But you still like me, right?”
“Yes,” Julian said, feeling as if he had expressed it already for the ninetieth time. “I do.”
“Good. Because I still like you. As….”
“Julian,” he said, filling in the blank. “Call me Julian, please.”
“Julian,” she repeated. “I like it. It’s close, but not quite.”
“That’s what I was going for.”
Julian tried to smile but was met with Maria’s mouth. She kissed him quietly, their lips brushing but not opening up. When they did open, their tongues touching was thrilling mostly because it was still new. She pulled away from the kiss first, resting her head against his neck. He wrapped his arms around her more, holding her body against his as the CD played on.
“So are you my boyfriend now?” she asked.
“Sure,” Julian said. His heart thudded again, this time for the better. “I think I’d like that.”
Chapter Seventeen
TWO AND a half, Julian noted. Two and a half people now knew who he was and were calling him by his name. Though the last confession had not gone exactly how he had envisioned, it wasn’t bad. It was good, even. After he and Maria had made out a bit more, no longer going as far, they had finished their homework together. She had smiled up at him as he left, and things were going to be okay between them.
And now I’m someone’s boyfriend! That was something completely shocking and wonderful in and of itself. He could barely stop smiling his entire way home, listening to Gish on repeat as he did. He was so close he could taste it. Then as he ran his tongue over his mouth, he realized that was Maria’s lip gloss. Which was still pretty good, he figured.
When Julian arrived home, the hallway was covered in red and green garlands, a mixture of holly and evergreen littering the railing up and down the stairs. Christmas music was playing—the classics like Tchaikovsky and not anything like “Frosty the Snowman.” As Julian shucked off his shoes and jacket, he spotted the Christmas tree in the center of the living room, already half-decorated. On a low branch was one of his first Christmas ornaments. Inside a frame that listed his birth year—2001—was a small photo of Julian as a baby. To his relief, he looked relatively neutral. All babies kind of looked the same and were often confused for one another. Though that usually seemed to anger parents, now Julian reveled in the fact that, at least as a kid, he could pass. Just as he touched the edge of the ornament, his mother emerged from the kitchen.
“Hey, hey.” She waved, wearing a green apron over her typical work clothing. Warm smells came from where she stood. “How’s it going?”
“Great,” Julian said, not fighting his smile. “I like what you’ve done with the house. I didn’t think you’d like to decorate so soon.”
Sarah shrugged. “I had time. And Christmas is less than two weeks away. So I figured I should at least try and cash in on the Christmas cheer.”
Julian paused. He hadn’t looked at a calendar in ages but suddenly remembered the second Secret Santa date was coming up soon. He still needed to buy something for Davis and maybe get another present ready ahead of time, since the final party would creep up right away.
“You want to help me finish the tree tonight?” Sarah asked, cutting into his thoughts.
“Oh. Um. Maybe later? I actually hav
e a lot of homework to do.”
“Really?” Sarah raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were studying this afternoon. That’s what your message said, anyway.”
“I was. But. You know. Final projects and such. They’re always bigger.” Julian shifted on his toes, his backpack suddenly heavier than he remembered. He had charged his phone while at Maria’s, but his message had been vague at best. Studying. Back before dinner. Bye. Since his parents didn’t really care about much, so long as he got good grades, Julian figured he’d be fine. But there was a tense expression on his mother’s face. He spotted another pile of cookies next to the Christmas decorations and realized she had been cleaning and rearranging, not because of the holiday season, but because she was anxious. Julian felt his good mood unravel, slowly but surely.
“You want to be a little more specific there?”
“Um. I just have a lot to do. You know that Secret Santa thing I’ve been doing, right? Well, I have a present to get.”
“You need me to take you shopping?”
“No, no. It’s another guy gift. Probably better for dad. Where is he, anyway?”
“It’s Thursday, so he’s at a meeting.”
“Oh. Well. Are we having dinner late, then? If so, I’m going to go upstairs and….”
“Julia. Your English teacher called. Mr. Singer?”
Julian stopped in his tracks, unsure how to proceed. Oh no. What if he figured out the trans stuff? That J really meant something else….
“I’m sorry,” he said looking down. Blush bloomed across his cheeks. “I should have told you sooner. In fact, I do have some interesting news.”
“Hey, don’t worry. It’s just a phone. You clearly got it back since you texted me. Mr. Singer just said he has to call when there are behavior disruptions. Or something.” Sarah shrugged, then combed some hair over her ear. “I figure that school doesn’t actually know a real problem when they see it, especially given what your dad told me about Aiden. So what? It’s a phone. Just hide it better next time, okay?”
The Santa Hoax Page 15
