On a Summer Night

by Gabriel D. Vidrine

  By the end of dinner, I had completely forgotten my previous depression. Things were looking up. I had friends in Ella and Nick, and even Lily. And now, Gavin, my crush, was paying attention to me. And he was actually nice, once he was away from Ryan.

  Dessert was fruit, and I muttered how I missed the cookies.

  “Can’t have them all the time,” Gavin said, and he nudged my shoulder.

  My heart sped up at the touch, and even though his hand had only brushed my shoulder, I imagined I could still feel his fingers there, a ghostly trace. My arm tingled.

  Ella was practically bouncing up and down in her seat, and I had to give her a look to calm her down, lest she give it away. I didn’t want Gavin to know I liked him.

  Two years ago, just as I was beginning to realize I was a boy, I had crushed on another boy really hard. I’d only just cut my hair and started dressing more like a boy. I hadn’t yet changed my name or even come out to anyone, but everyone knew something was up—that I was different. When I managed to gather my courage and ask him out, the boy had gotten offended and made a scene where he publicly begged me not to like him.

  It had been mortifying and devastating. That was one of the main reasons I wasn’t all that interested in finding love any time soon, especially not here. But I couldn’t help the crush.

  Besides, it was hard enough being trans, but add queer on top of it, and it made dating almost impossible.

  After dinner, we’d have Canteen, of course, which meant socializing and soda. I wasn’t interested in the soda, but Gavin seemed particularly enthusiastic, so I pulled up my own excitement in response. We went back up the mountain as soon as we were allowed.

  Cabin three, who had won the Clean Cabin Award, got to be in line first. But the three of us, Ella, Gavin, and I, were next. We got our sodas, and still Gavin stayed with us instead of going to hang out with the rest of cabin four.

  When we sat down on the stone wall outside the Lincoln Lodge, I had to ask, “So, what’s up with them?” The other cabin four boys were hanging out together, lounging on the rocks in front of cabin seven, and I waved my soda can in their direction. “Why aren’t you hanging out with them?”

  “Did you want me to?” Gavin asked.

  “No,” I said quickly, “I just wasn’t sure why you suddenly dropped them.” Why was I saying this? Did I want to drive him away?

  He shrugged, and I was relieved he didn’t take it personally. “I got tired of their crap. They’re not really nice, you know?” He nodded his head as Alex walked by, and the other group of boys got quiet and watched him walk past with amusement on their faces. Alex was ignoring them, but they laughed and made lewd gestures as he passed. “See? I just don’t think that’s cool.”

  “No, it’s not,” I agreed.

  “I thought you guys would be cooler, you know, since you like Pioneers so much.”

  Ella cut in, “Well, some of us.” She rolled her eyes and then winked, and we laughed. I stuck my tongue out at her.

  “Well, some of us have better taste,” I said. She pretended to be offended, and we all dissolved into giggles again.

  We hung out that night, laughing and getting to know one another. I flirted as best I could with Gavin but wasn’t very skilled at it and held back because I didn’t want to be too obvious. But I used any excuse to touch him, and he didn’t seem to mind. By the end of the evening, we were sitting close enough our legs almost touched. He didn’t move away.

  After my lonely shower that night, I went to bed, but it was hard to get to sleep. I kept thinking about the one time Gavin had touched my arm, about how close we’d been all night. And he was below me right now, lightly snoring. His closeness was so distracting, my feelings intensifying at the thought of how near he was. I eventually did go to sleep, the sound of Gavin breathing lulling me into my dreams.

  Chapter Three

  THE NEXT MORNING, after completing my assigned cabin chore (mopping after Alex had swept), Wade delivered me to the latrines to help out cabins two and seven. There was a lot of chuckling and whispering behind my back, but I ignored them. At least I was cleaning the boys’ bathroom and not the girls’. I tried to find some sort of silver lining in all this.

  What made everything even worse was that I couldn’t wear my binder. My ribs still ached, and my sternum hurt from the day before. I could hurt myself more if I wore it again. So I’d put on the baggiest shirt I had and hunched my shoulders, hoping that would be enough. The sports bra underneath was a size too small but still didn’t offer much in terms of concealment. It was better than nothing.

  My face still stung, too, but when I removed the bandage there wasn’t anything more than a regular scrape. Nothing bad, so I declined to go back to the nurse to have it checked out again. Wade seemed to think it was fine, too. Part of me wished it was worse, so maybe he’d punish Ryan more and let me off the hook. No such luck.

  At breakfast—waffles with fruit compote—Ella seemed a little faded around the edges. I asked if she was okay, and she threw her usual smile at me. But I could see in her eyes that she didn’t have her whole heart in it.

  “I’m fine,” she said when I opened my mouth to press. I closed it and didn’t pry, wondering if this still had something to do with Ryan.

  A pool party was announced for that night. Instead of afternoon activities, we would have an extended Quiet Time and then an early dinner to accommodate it. There would be even more food at the party.

  There was an air of excitement as we all trooped back up the mountain for our morning activities. By mutual agreement, Ella and I had decided against dodgeball again. I didn’t want to do anything physical without being able to wear a binder, and for fear that Ryan would be there to make it worse. Otherwise, I’d be too self-conscious and uncomfortable, and the sports bra could only do so much. So we signed up for friendship bracelets, as boring as it sounded.

  Surprisingly, so did Gavin.

  One of the female counselors was there to teach us how to knot the bright string into fun designs. I was hopeless at it, but Ella’s knots were tiny and perfect, and her bracelets more intricate than the counselor’s. She even showed us a few patterns the counselor didn’t know.

  Gavin was clumsy at it, but it gave me an excuse to touch his hands as I helped him knot. I wasn’t that much better, but Ella flat-out refused to help him, saying she was much too busy with her own bracelet. Her lips twitched from keeping back a knowing, triumphant smile.

  At one point, Gavin had managed to get the string wrapped around his hands so badly he couldn’t get them out without making a huge tangle.

  “Here, let me get it” I leaned over and grabbed both of his hands, sliding right up next to him. His leg and shoulder pressed against mine, and I could feel the heat building in my face. He was so close I could see the bright red lashes on his cheeks as he looked down at his hands. He had a super large, very dark freckle directly under his right eye, and it was adorable.

  I slid a hand down his arm and took the string from his fingers. He looked at me, and we were almost close enough to kiss. I think I stopped breathing when he smiled at me. “Like this?” he asked, as he slid his hand into mine.

  I froze, my heart hammering so hard I was afraid he’d be able to see it slamming against my ribs. “Yeah,” I gasped out. It sounded too breathy, too intimate, even to me. I hoped he didn’t notice. Or maybe I did want him to notice.

  Gavin pulled his hands away, and the moment was broken. He had untangled himself with a deft move, both from the string and from me. It had been too intimate, then. I had pushed too far, too fast.

  He stood up abruptly, and I hastily shifted over, as though what we had just done hadn’t meant anything to me.

  But there was a bright red flush creeping up his pale skin, drowning out his freckles one by one. “I, uh, gotta go,” he mumbled. He left quickly.

  Ella, oblivious to the awkwardness, giggled and reached over to squeeze my hand. “That went well?” she asked, with one raise
d eyebrow.

  “Maybe.” I took a deep breath to calm myself. He had seemed pretty embarrassed by it, though.

  I spent the rest of the morning agonizing over whether Gavin could be gay or bisexual. Had he distanced himself from Ryan because of his remark about Alex? Was he queer and didn’t like Ryan making fun of it? Or was he still not sure, and I had just opened his eyes with same-sex attraction?

  I also tried not to make it all about me. What if Gavin was straight, and he was picking up that I was assigned female at birth? I wanted him to like me as a boy, not as a girl.

  When we were alone, I badgered Ella about my appearance. “Am I still passing?” I asked her, flattening out my T-shirt and hoping my chest wasn’t too obvious. Without the binder, it seemed horrifyingly apparent I had breasts. They weren’t big, but they were impossible to miss in some of my clothing. The sports bra didn’t do much to hide the telltale lumps under my shirt.

  “You’re fine,” she told me, more than once.

  “Are you sure? You’re not just being nice?”

  Exasperated, she rolled her eyes. “You look like you always do, Casey. Like a boy. Now stop worrying! I think he does like you!”

  At lunch, it was announced that cabin eight had won the Clean Cabin Award, which was disappointing. I was hoping that if we won, Wade might get off my back. It was hard not to be happy for Ella, though, who cheered when it was announced. She did a cute, funny little dance in her seat and set us all to laughing.

  As we walked back up the mountain, I noticed Alex was hovering nearby. I nudged Ella and told her I was going to go talk to him. She nodded, seeming to understand that we wouldn’t want a crowd, and hurried to catch up to Lily, who was walking with her brother.

  “Hey,” I said as I approached Alex.

  He glanced at me and nodded. His face was neutral, but at least it wasn’t cold.

  “Are you looking forward to the pool party?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I guess.”

  “I don’t swim, so it’s kind of a bummer for me.”

  He looked at me in surprise, and it was the first genuine look I’d seen on his face. “You can’t swim?”

  I decided to go ahead and lie. There was no way I was getting into a pool, so it wouldn’t matter that I did know how—and was rather good at it. No one would ever know. “Nah, not really. I mean, I probably can, I just don’t like it.”

  He looked away and was silent for a few steps. Then he said, “I can’t swim, either.”

  “Hey, no problem. We can hang out together on the side if you want.”

  That got me a smile, and I was glad to see it. He had a nice smile, and it relaxed his whole face when he did it. “That would be great.”

  “Okay!”

  He didn’t say much else after that, but we’d gotten up the mountain by then. I needed to stop in the bathroom, and he went on to the cabin.

  The sports bra had been bugging me all morning, and I had to take it off. If I didn’t, I was sure a major dysphoria attack would happen. And those usually devolved into panic attacks, which I’d been prone to before I realized I was trans. I didn’t want to have a panic attack here, so off came the sports bra. I hated not having my binder on, but my ribs still hurt. The bra hadn’t helped them, though it wasn’t as bad as the binder.

  I put my shirt back on, stuffing my bra into a pocket, and hurried to the cabin for Quiet Time. I actually did sleep that time, since I hadn’t gotten much the night before.

  Wade had to wake me when the two hours were over. Since we still had a while before dinner, I went out to find Ella so we could hang out.

  But I couldn’t find her. Instead, I found Gavin reading a book in the Lincoln Lodge. It made me pause, as it was a series I’d made my way through ages ago but loved and would probably read again.

  “Is this your first time reading that?” I asked.

  He blinked up at me, smiled when he saw it was me, and said, “Yeah. Just found these recently.”

  “Aren’t they great?”

  He flipped the book over and examined the cover. It showed a mage fighting a dragon. “Yeah, I guess so. I mean, they’re not usually what I read.”

  “What do you usually like?” I loved fantasy; it was my favorite genre, no matter what people said about it.

  “Horror, really. But I’m kinda getting into fantasy because of Pioneers.”

  “Yeah, it will do that.”

  We chatted for a while, and then he asked, “What’s your family like?”

  “They’re great, actually.” I had to be careful here. My family was supportive, for the most part, but I couldn’t tell him why. “My mom’s nice, but my dad can be annoying sometimes.”

  “Something we have in common. My dad’s a prick.”

  “Oh, sorry,” I said.

  “Do you have any siblings?”

  “Nah, just me.”

  “Hunh, I wish. I have three sisters, and I can’t stand any of them.”

  “Sorry.” I was unsure what else to say and didn’t want to reveal too much about my family, not yet.

  The door opened and Alex came in. He looked around, a scowl on his face, and then left. We stared after him, wondering what that was about. Gavin laughed and said, “He’s a little strange.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “How so?”

  He seemed to sense the difference in attitude and shrugged nonchalantly. “He’s…just so quiet.”

  “Did you hear what Ryan said about him?”

  It was Gavin’s turn to frown at me. “Yeah, so?”

  “Nothing. Just wondering if that’s what you thought was weird about him.” It came out a little more hostile than I intended.

  “Oh! No, that’s not what I meant. I mean…no…that’s nothing. I mean, it’s okay.”

  I wondered if Gavin would have reacted that way if he was queer. Was he suddenly uncomfortable because he was straight, talking about how it was “okay” to be gay? Or was he worried that I thought he was gay?

  “Look,” I said, not wanting this to go further. “It’s almost time for dinner. I’m going to get changed.”

  Gavin didn’t say anything as I left, and I didn’t look back. I was pretty disappointed in him. I selfishly wanted him to be gay or bisexual, but it was more likely he was straight. Statistically speaking, he likely was. Or maybe I wanted to feel that way because I wasn’t sure I had a chance with him.

  I remembered the moment we had that morning and wondered what he thought about it. Had it made him uncomfortable, and was that why he’d reacted that way? Or had he liked it and didn’t know how to deal with it? Had he purposefully tangled himself in the string to get me close and then chickened out? Or had it just been all innocence on his part, and I was reading too much into it? There were so many possibilities, but there was no way I was going to ask him.

  Dating while queer was hard. If you outed yourself to someone by asking them out, thinking they might be queer, too, it was always possible they could take offense or even retaliate. They might be homophobic or closeted. And so I always had to be careful. Of course, there were dating apps meant for queer people, but there was no way I was getting on one of those before I was eighteen. I didn’t really want to anyway.

  It was close to the time for the party, so I headed back to the cabin. Gavin was there, and he ignored me as I came in.

  I didn’t have a bathing suit with me, but I did have a shirt I didn’t mind getting a little wet, should splashing occur. The shirt I was wearing was white, and it would be bad news should it get too wet.

  I grabbed the shirt from my trunk and went to the bathroom to change, since the cabin was full of the other boys getting into their swim trunks. I envied them for many reasons, and I tried not to think about any of them as I hastily changed and hurried back.

  We went down to dinner as usual, and it was spaghetti and meatballs, which was my absolute favorite dish. Gavin didn’t sit with us, and Ella whispered, “What’s wrong?” when we had a moment. Lily and Nick we
re distracted by a heated discussion about something cosplay-related, so for a minute, Ella and I could talk about Gavin.

  “I don’t know,” I said, “but I don’t think Gavin is queer.”

  Ella deflated. “I’m sorry, Casey. That’s too bad. Are you sure?”

  “No. But…well, it’s just the way he acted around Alex, is all.”

  “Alex?”

  “Ryan says he’s gay, but I don’t know if that’s true or not.” I sighed. “To be honest, I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  Life at school was so much easier. I knew exactly who was straight, who was gay, who was trans. There were two of us at school—a trans girl and me. Everyone kept trying to get us together, but we didn’t have anything in common other than being trans. Still, we were good friends, just as I was with a lot of the other LGTBQ kids. We tended to herd together for protection, even though most of my school was pretty friendly.

  We didn’t have time to go further with that discussion because Nick and Lily had stopped talking to each other, and we didn’t want to risk them listening in on our conversation. I didn’t need more people knowing about my crush. Not yet.

  After dinner, the counselors told us to go outside and wait, and they would take us to the pool. Apparently it was a different pool than the one we passed every day on the way to meals. They didn’t collect us by cabin, which was nice, so I was able to walk with Ella and talk some more. The adults led us through the streets of Ankley Springs, which was quaint in that it looked halfway between a colonial historical town and a Swedish village stuck on the side of a mountain.

  “I’m sorry you can’t swim with us,” Ella said. “I really wish you could just be you here.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I said. “It’s okay. There’s the whole rest of the summer to swim.” We even had a pool in our backyard, so I didn’t have to worry about wearing a bathing suit. I could put on a shirt and trunks and not even care about wearing a binder. It was the only swimming I got in these days.

  “So, about Alex,” Ella said, reminding me. “Have you talked to him?”