In the Silences

by Rachel Gold

  Apocalypse and his mind-control powers had gone deep into Mom’s brain and I didn’t know how to get her free from that. Same with Brock, and Trina and Eve at school. Milo told me how to get that conditioning out of my own brain, but not what to do with friends and family under mind control.

  How do you tell people that a vast, disastrous, malevolent force they can’t even see has gotten into their brains and hidden itself there? If I told them to fight Apocalypse, they’d see me as a comic-book-reading nerd gone too far. But that’s exactly what I wanted to do: run to Mom, run through school yelling, “You have to fight him! He’s not on your side! He’s using you for his power, his survival, not yours!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Early October 2017

  The first Saturday of October I’d walked my dogs, done chores, and sat on my bed with Wolvie, reading, waiting for Aisha to text and say I should come over. Saturdays we still got to spend most of the day together.

  Wolvie furrowed her furry, black forehead, scrutinizing me from the foot of the bed. I had my Chemistry book in my lap and I could tell she was saying, We need to have a talk about your lap and how often I’m not in it these days.

  I slid the book to the side and patted my thighs. She wriggled her way up the bed, pushing her head and shoulders across my thighs. I rubbed her neck fur, turned sideways to see the book.

  “Sorry fuzz,” I told her. “Aisha gets priority in my lap these days.”

  She blew out a heavy sigh, half-groan at my ignorance: Bring Aisha over here and put me across two laps, that counts double.

  Laughing, I snagged my phone from my bedside table and texted Aisha to see if she wanted to come over.

  Can you come over here instead? she texted back. I’ve got a surprise.

  I wrote, Sure! Can I bring Wolvie? She’s being needy.

  Of course! Poor baby.

  I hollered down the stairs that I was going to Aisha’s, got Wolvie’s leash and went over. Her mom opened the door and stepped to the side with a wave toward the stairs.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Warren,” I said and pelted up the stairs to Aisha’s room. Pickles followed Wolvie, both dogs sniffing intently once I got into Aisha’s room.

  I put the baby gate across her door, to keep Wolvie from running around the house and knocking things over. Mrs. Warren had said I could bring Wolvie occasionally to hang out in Aisha’s room, but no way was she reorganizing her house to deal with a big dog.

  Aisha rose from her desk chair and stepped into the space behind her door, where her mom couldn’t see from the hall. I caught her waist and pulled her close, kissed her. She sighed and put her arms around me.

  She had her hair up. I touched the loose bits at the back of her neck, fingers playing with one tiny rebellious curl. My other hand was at the small of her back, thumb lipping over the top of her jeans, warm skin, so soft. I rubbed my cheek on hers and on the side of her neck. She laughed—parts of her neck got ticklish—and pushed at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I have something planned. If you want.”

  “Maybe?”

  She went back to her desk chair. She’d brought in a folding chair so there were two chairs at her desk.

  “Last summer, after you’d asked me to not say yes to dating anyone else…” Her eyes gleamed with the memory. “I wanted to know more about nonbinary people so I went to some meetings and met folks and they want to meet you. I can go do something downstairs if you want. Like if you have questions you wouldn’t ask in front of me.”

  “I don’t,” I said. “And I don’t want to meet new people without you.”

  “Okay cool.” She patted the seat next to her. “I didn’t know if you’d want this. I mean, sometimes when people are like ‘hey meet my other black friend’ it’s just the weirdest thing in the world, especially if it’s a party or something and we’re the only two black people there and it turns out we don’t have anything in common. But a few times it’s been great, like Zack and Curt. That wasn’t weird at all. Of course Zack’s woke enough not to be like ‘meet Curt, he’s black.’ Anyway, is it okay if I’m doing the whole meet-these-people thing?”

  “Can I answer that after I meet them?” I asked with a half grin. I’d been petting Wolvie since I sat down, but I told her to go lie down. She immediately stole Pickles’ dog bed next to Aisha’s desk, even though only her back half fit in it. Pickles snorted in disgust, hopped on the bed and made a nest in Aisha’s pillows.

  She laughed. “That’s fair. You’ll like them. I’m calling Cori first, then Royce.”

  She hit the video chat buttons on her laptop and I scooted close enough to be in the frame with her.

  The person who answered, Cori, had a heavy, grinning face, light-brown skin, orange hair piled up but also shaved on the sides. I guessed about five years older than me and Aisha, twentyish.

  “What is up, folks?” Cori asked, grin widening. “This your friend?”

  “Kaz meet Cori,” Aisha said.

  “Um, hi.”

  “Aisha would not stop talking about you,” Cori told me. “Do you know how many times I had to walk her through the whole ‘should I ask them out or wait for them to ask me’ process?”

  I was smiling so hard I felt like a massive dork. Cori had called me “them” for real. And it sounded so good. Aisha and Zack used it fluently, but everyone else in my life stumbled over my pronouns. And here a person I’d just met used “them” effortlessly for me. As if somewhere a whole world of strangers existed who’d say “they” and “them” like no big thing.

  It felt like being invited in to a place full of warmth and safety. It felt like joy. Like how the world felt when it was only me and Aisha, when her fingers laced with mine and she smiled and put her head on my shoulder.

  “Thanks,” I said, trying to keep my shit together. “I mean, assuming you gave good advice.”

  “Oh you know I did. Aisha, call Royce, they shouldn’t be missing this cuteness.”

  “Hang on,” Aisha said and clicked to add another person to the call.

  A second window opened on an angular face, blinking as if into bright light, a shock of short, straight, tousled black hair over brown skin. “Sec,” Royce said and went offscreen to the sound of much thumping and fumbling. “You know what time it is?”

  “It’s ten,” Cori said. “You’ve been up for hours.”

  “I was napping,” Royce replied. “Hey is that your person-friend? Scoot over so I can see.”

  Aisha scooted sideways and I moved more into the center of the frame, saying, “Hi, I’m Kaz.”

  “Yeah,” Royce said, long and slow. “I get it. Way to go, Minnesota.”

  I wasn’t sure if Royce was addressing the whole state or if that was going to be my nickname in this group.

  “Story time, please,” Cori said. “We heard everything about how cute you are but Aisha didn’t know when you realized you were into her, so I’m missing a significant plot thread in this whole fairytale.”

  “It’s not a fairytale,” Aisha grumbled.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s a comic book series.”

  She grabbed my hand and held it really tight and I wondered what she was scared about. These weren’t close friends of hers because she’d just met the two of them this summer. So if we didn’t all gel with each other, was that such a big deal?

  And then I got it: it wasn’t that she was afraid we wouldn’t gel—she was afraid we would. She was afraid I’d like Cori and Royce better than her. That I’d find people like me and I wouldn’t want to be with her.

  I squeezed her hand and snuck my other hand over so I could hold onto her with both. Just no way she wasn’t in the center of my life.

  “When did I know I was into A?” I asked, buying time because all I could think was: for forever.

  “You call her A? Where’s that from?”

  Aisha said, “When Kaz and I started eighth, on the home rooms list everyone’s name was initial and last name: we were K. A
dams and A. Warren and it seemed really funny at the time.”

  I picked up the story. “We were in super different homerooms because of the Adams/Warren thing. And you said something about how it was too bad they didn’t go by first name.”

  “And you said ‘A and K,’ maybe that’s our superteam name.”

  I rubbed her shoulder with mine—remembering how amazing I’d found her two years ago and even more so now—and went on with our tale. “You made a joke about how of course A and K was our team name, but then in Minnesota everyone would say Ay-isha instead of Eye-isha.”

  Aisha’s fingers tightened around mine, laughter in her voice as she said, “You made up a whole subplot about my character just trying to get people to say her name right and it cracked me up so much that I wanted you to call me ‘A.’”

  “Cori, you feel like you ate a pound of sugar that was so sweet?” Royce asked.

  “Sure do. Now, romance story, give.”

  “Don’t pressure them,” Royce said. “You know how it is when you’re young. Kaz might not have all their stuff sorted yet. Hard enough to figure out how to date, but if you’ve got to work out your whole gender on top of that.”

  “Do you two want to tell Kaz about yourselves?” Aisha suggested.

  Cori raised their eyebrows at the camera. Royce shrugged and said, “Sure, my turn, huh? I’m not the easy one.”

  “Oh, I’m easy?” Cori asked.

  Royce ignored that and went on talking. “I’m intersectional,” Royce said, drawing the word out so it had a lot of ironic syllables in the middle. “I’m adopted and before my parents got me it was not a good time. I did a lot of therapeutic stuff when I was way little. That was so good. I met all kinds of people with different brain types and thinking styles and I figured out that gender comes across to me like a pile of bullshit. I don’t get it. So I don’t do it.”

  “Seriously,” Cori said. “You take your eyes off Royce for a second and they’ll start using they/them pronouns for everyone.”

  “I have a chart,” Royce grumbled. “I know what’s important to other people. Don’t know why everyone wants to waste their time on all this.”

  “Because it’s fun,” Cori protested. “I don’t want everyone to be the same. I don’t want just people. I want all the wildness, the diversity, the variations. I met this demiguy I’m crushing on, he’s so fine, prettiest hands I’ve ever seen. Why would I want a world without that?”

  Royce grinned into the camera and gave us an epic eyeroll.

  “Shut up,” Cori said. “You like some people more than others.”

  “Yeah, I like smart, creative, funny. I just don’t get all wound up about that other stuff. Who’s this guy?” Royce asked.

  “You haven’t met him yet. Because you skipped out on the last meeting to play games.”

  “No regrets there. Tell Kaz your story before they realize how lame we are.”

  Every time one of them said “they” or “them” for me, a shiver went through me. Like Wolvie when she’s getting petted—that pure physical joy. I pressed my shoulder against Aisha’s.

  Cori said, “I was assigned girl but I don’t feel it. But I love femme stuff, so I kept trying to be a girl and it felt all wrong. You think it’s all the same thing, but it’s so not: being a girl or woman in our culture and being feminine. There’s so many cool ways to be feminine. But I’m big to start so my boobs were freakin’ huge. Hated that. It’s been so much better since the top surgery. I can wear dresses now.”

  “What?” I asked. “I mean, sorry to be kind of stupid about this but you like being feminine but hated your boobs but now you wear dresses?”

  Cori stood up, walked back from the camera and twirled, showing off their long, peach and purple dress. And they looked amazing. Their flat chest showed off their shoulders in the dress, the length of their body, their long legs, strong thighs, weighty hips and belly.

  I liked how the shape of Cori’s body made it so you couldn’t settle on a biology for them. I saw tall and shoulders, which could read “guy,” but also hips and big and soft, which could read “girl,” and in the end my brain couldn’t decide.

  “Oh,” I said. “People have to see you.”

  “They have to interact with me as a human. Plus my boobs never felt like part of my body.”

  “I have that sometimes,” I admitted. “Like they’re not even there and if something touches them it feels like static, like a signal’s getting disrupted in my head.”

  “That’s a cool way to describe it,” Cori said. “For me, I literally kept forgetting I had them. I’d run into stuff with them, drop everything on them, and be surprised every time. Like: what on earth are these? I never wanted anyone to touch them. And now my chest is my chest. It’s not a trans guy chest, it’s a femme person chest.”

  I brushed my hand across my chest, looking down at it. I don’t know if I’d want it to be flat always.

  “Binder?” Cori asked.

  “Yeah. But I wear bras too. Some days I can’t stand the feeling of a bra, but other days they’re like nothing, and sometimes they feel good. Like it changes, my boobs come and go. Is that weird?”

  “Oh no, sugar, it’s normal. Everybody’s feelings about their body and their presentation changes, just some people more than others. You should see me on my non-femme days. Hang on, I’ve got a pic.” Cori grabbed their mouse, peering at the screen and clicking. An image flashed up: a tall, light brown person with the same lopsided grin, hair back in a ponytail with a gray hat over it, soft sweater and baggy jeans. I’d definitely have read that person as a guy if I passed them on the street.

  “How do you describe yourself?” I asked.

  “Genderflux femme,” Cori said.

  “What’s genderflux?” I asked.

  “Genderflux femme means I’m more and less femme. I’m fluxing on the femme spectrum, more and less intense. But even when I go out looking like a guy, I’m not really a guy. I dress that way sometimes because it’s convenient, like if I’m running out to the store. Genderfluid is when you’re actually moving among different genders.”

  “Oh, that sounds pretty accurate,” I said. “My friend Zack said I’m probably genderfluid, but I keep thinking that means both at the same time. And for real I sometimes wake up as a boy and sometimes a girl and sometimes both.”

  “You’re the one who gets to say that. Sounds good to me, though. Royce, how are you identifying these days?”

  “Agender or nonbinary, depending on who’s asking,” Royce said. “More questions! What’s next?”

  I asked, “When I talk to the trans guys, they’re all super grossed out about getting a period, but I don’t really care. Does that mean I’m not trans enough?”

  Cori shrugged and said, “Definitely does not mean you’re not trans enough. People get periods all kinds of ways. I always thought of mine as kind of a tough werewolf thing.”

  “Oh my God, I have a shapeshifter thing too,” I said. “But getting my period makes me feel like an alien.”

  “How so?”

  “Like this is a thing my body does every month because my alien body isn’t completely adapted to Earth’s atmosphere. There’s a pressure differential and bleeding evens it out so I can live comfortably on Earth for another month.”

  “Oh,” Cori said, looked at Aisha, added, “Oh honey, you’ve got to keep this one.”

  “That is really cool,” Aisha said. “Can I have that too, even if I’m a girl?

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Was it always that way, from the start?” Cori asked, adding, “And there’s no right answer to that.”

  “I think so. Mine was no big deal,” I said. “I mean, I knew what periods were because Mom keeps her tampons out in the bathroom when she needs them and I’d asked some questions. But she’s way over the top about girl stuff, so when I saw the blood, I went to Milo—she’s my grandmom—and told her. She bought a few different kinds of pads and tampons so I could figure out what
I liked and that was it. I guess she told Mom not to get weird about it. I already felt like an alien a lot, so the period thing really worked into it. How’d you come into being a werewolf?”

  “The whole period thing was super embarrassing, partly because I’d been so into it before I got it. Most of my friends got it sooner than me, so I really wanted one. And then I got it and it was messy and not fun, and my mom told everyone. She told her hairdresser. I’m not even kidding. I think she told her mechanic. And maybe more than the period itself it was this whole ‘my daughter’s a woman’ thing. But, you know, we’re a family of awesome feminists so I tried to make it work. That’s when I read stuff about werewolf legends and some cool novels and I got the idea that the whole point of having a period was so I could turn into a wolf—be badass and angry if I want to be.”

  Having finished their story, Cory asked, “What about you Aisha? You want to tell a period story?”

  After a pause, Aisha said, “So…my dad.”

  “Oh no,” I blurted.

  “Ah yes. Mom was out of town. And he said ‘yoni’ and I simply could not.”

  “Baby,” Cori said with sympathy.

  “He wanted to do some kind of sweat lodge or other culturally appropriating badness, but I told him my cramps were terrible. As soon as Mom got home, I hid behind her. She had him back off and made sure I understood the mechanics. I’ll take talking to Mom about my endometrium any day over taking to Dad about…any of that yoni business.”

  “Endo-what? What even is that?” Cori asked.

  “Uterine lining,” Aisha said plainly. “Oh yeah, Mom went into this whole follicular, ovulation, luteal phase thing. She dispenses a lot of hormones. I know so much about periods it’s weird. I am definitely not going to be an OB-GYN.”

  “What’s the werewolf phase?” Cori asked, grinning.

  “Luteal,” Aisha said. “Or maybe Lunar.”

  “What haven’t we answered for you?” Cori asked me.

  “What to wear,” I said. “I mean, you look great in a dress or in pants, like just, in everything and I don’t know that I could do that, so how do I even go around in the world without everyone automatically treating me like a girl? There isn’t a set of clothes for nonbinary.”