Archive of Our Own

For as long as I could remember, Jean had been my best friend, but I was never sure if I was his best friend.

Today, like most days, he’d come over after school to hang out. He only lived a few blocks away, which meant even before we both got our licenses and stopped asking our parents permission to do stuff, we had always been able to see each other. Granted, he’d only been living here since freshmen year, and we hadn’t actually had to wait very long to get licenses.

Right now, he was sitting in my bean-bag chair on my floor playing his DS while I read. I always thought it was nice that we could be comfortable, existing near each other without interfering with the other’s thoughts. Of course we spent most days actually doing something together, watching a movie, playing on my PS4, going for walks at night and tossing Jean the football so that he could kick it. I often wondered if this would be what marriage was like, two people just enjoying the other’s presence.

Not that I was marrying Jean, but.

Anyway.

There was something off about him today that I couldn’t place. Several times I had set my book down, attempted to ask him, and thought better of it. If I wasn’t imagining things, I thought he was doing something similar. He was frequently distracted from his games by whatever was on his mind, as he daydreamed, staring out my window at the snow falling.

Jean told me everything, as far as I knew. He might have had more friends at school than I did, he might not have had as much time for me as his football buddies during football season, and yeah, he might have been ten times more popular than I was, but Jean told me everything. I told him everything. That made us best friends, didn’t it?

“Marco?” he asked, turning the volume down on his game.

I placed my book down, held my breath, and tried not to look far too interested in what he was about to say.

“Hmm?” I asked, lacing my fingers over my stomach. His fingers were fiddling with the carpet threads. One hand ran through his blond undercut. He was looking down, away from me. Either he was embarrassed or nervous or both. And that made me embarrassed and nervous too. My heart was already fluttering. I always hoped that he was keeping one thing from me.

I always hoped that he was keeping the same secret I was, and that one day he would tell me. If Jean was keeping that secret from me, well then, I could hardly blame him, could I?

“What do you do when uh…” he started.

Jean never said anything important fast. Since I’d met him, I could never tell if he had trouble finding the words or if he always knew the words and only feared what people would think of what he was saying.

“How do you handle it when, you know, the guys at school give you shit?”

My brows furrowed. I held in my sigh. This time, I knew the reason he had hesitated to speak was because this subject was touchy between us. Not just because in general I didn’t like talking about being bullied, but because Jean was friends with a lot of the guys doing the bullying. He had never bullied me, and he had never pretended not to be my friend but…he’d never defended me either.

We’d fought about it before, always coming to some meaningless conclusion that he couldn’t stop them if he tried. He had to be part of the team, that sort of thing. Football players always had to get along, apparently.

Finally, I shrugged. “Usually I try to ignore it. I mean, it’s not like I don’t know I’m chubby. Getting shit for it is nothing new. It’s getting pretty old, actually.”

Jean winced. “Not that.”

At least he knew better than to tell me I wasn’t chubby. Most people said something along those lines when I acknowledged my weight. What I hated about this was that they assumed I needed reassurance for it. They assumed that being chubby bothered me, like it bothered them, and so they tried to make me “feel better” about something that I didn’t feel bad about to begin with. What I really “felt bad” about was, how much it mattered to them that I wasn’t skinny. It shouldn’t have to matter, but it always did.

With Jean at least, he was honest. He didn’t lie to me about it, but he also didn’t try to make me feel better about it. He was the only person I’d ever met who had never tried to do anything about my weight. Part of me wondered if it had even occurred to him that I could be insecure about it. I liked that about him. Considering it probably never occurred to him that a skinny person was insecure about being skinny either, that meant he thought of me the same way he thought of anyone else.

“Well, if not that…then, what?” I asked.

“You know…” he said, “How do you handle it when people call you a faggot and stuff?”

Unsure how to respond, I controlled my expression and considered whether or not to tell him the truth.

I could lie; that’d be easier. I could tell him that I didn’t care, or that I ignored it, or that I was used to it the same way I was with my weight.

But no matter how much I wished that was the case, being made fun of for being gay – even though no one had any way of knowing about me – was a different story altogether. “I…I suck it up. I just…just try to look like it doesn’t bother me until they’re gone. Then…then, okay, then I come home and cry.”

Jean’s eyes met mine. “Really?”

I nodded.

“Because…you think there’s something wrong with it? Like, you know, being gay? That’s why you don’t like it, right…”

My heart was throbbing in my throat now. In the four years I’d known him, we’d skirted around this subject. From what I could tell, Jean didn’t have a problem with gay people, or I wouldn’t hang out with him, obviously. Still, he clearly didn’t want anyone to know he didn’t have a problem with gay people. He neither defended them, nor bullied them. It was the same way he treated me.

“I don’t like it because…” My eyes shut. A drop of sweat slid down the nape of my neck. I was so terrified it was like I’d just woken up from a nightmare. “Because they think something’s wrong with it. They – they think there’s something wrong with me.”

Jean nodded. He knew what I was saying, he had to. His eyes were wide. He too, looked terrified. Had he always known about me? Was this only the confirmation, or was this an abrupt realization?

“So you uh…never, you know…”

“What?” I asked.

“Like being with a girl, that’d gross you out?”

I rested my head against the headboard of my bed. I hugged my knees to my chest. My hands were shaking.

“It’s not that I think girls are…gross. It’s more like…it just wouldn’t feel right to be with one, that’s all. I could be with one but it’d never…it’d always feel wrong.”

“No, I mean…not like dating.”

“Like what then?”

Jean sighed. His fingers combed through his hair again. I prayed our relationship wouldn’t change now that he knew. Gay or not, I knew my boundaries. Hitting on Jean, or making a move, or anything like that was out of the question and I knew that. If he was going to respect my sexuality, well then of course I’d respect his.

Right when I was about to reassure him that nothing would change, he spoke up again.

“Like, have sex with a girl. You couldn’t do it?”

“Why does it matter?” I asked. “Look, Jean, I’m not – Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I want to have sex with you. This doesn’t have to change anything. You don’t have to feel weird around me.”

“Just answer, Marco,” he said. “Please?”

The way he said “please” made me feel sick. Was this really so important that he was willing to swallow his bad case of I-don’t-care-about-anything-because-I’m-too-good-for-it attitude? He never got like this. I had known my being gay might bother him, but he looked like he was about to throw up. He looked desperate.

My eyes stung.

“I wouldn’t want to, no.”

“And you don’t think you’d like it, like, at all ?”

“Why? Why does it matter, Jean? God…if you have a problem with me being gay just say so.” My voice sounded stronger than my self-esteem was. I felt like there was a hole in my stomach tearing deeper and deeper. It hurt, so much, to hear him like this.

“No! No, no, no that’s not it, I swear,” he stammered, putting his hands up in defense, “I – I don’t care if you’re gay, Marco. I just…I don’t know. I don’t care. I don’t.”

“Really? Because it kind of seems like you do.” The hurt in my voice was clear this time. My eyes were rimming with tears.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

I didn’t respond.

“I should go.”

I didn’t say anything this time either.

He stood up from where he was sitting. He hesitated, probably waiting for me to ask him to stay. When I didn’t, he dropped his chin and ducked out of my room.

He didn’t even realize he’d left his DS on my floor.

…

A week passed without us speaking. It was the longest I’d ever gone without talking to him.

When he wasn’t around, his friends would walk up to me, Sasha and her boyfriend Connie. Usually it was before lunch, and we were all standing at our lockers waiting for the worst of the lunch rush to dwindle so the line wouldn’t be so long.

They gave me shit for being gay, gave both Sasha and me shit for being chubby, and Connie shit for being short since that was the only thing they could find wrong with him, apparently. They liked to say crude things to Sasha in broken Spanish too, since she was Puerta Rican.

She was pretty good at looking unamused by them, but once they were gone she was down the rest of the day.

Connie was especially good at making an ass of himself trying to defend her. He’d yell stuff like, “That’s not even how you pronounce it!” This remark, paired with his scrawny flailing limbs and jumpy stride, only made them laugh.

I knew, of course, that their pronunciation of the word wasn’t what bothered her.

When Connie went to class and we were on our way to lunch together, she told me, “I’m just glad he sticks up for me, ya’ know? That’s something.”

I wanted to tell her it was everything. She had everything with Connie that I’d never have with Jean. Everything.

But I couldn’t tell her this, because she didn’t know about me either.

…

On Monday, the following week, something had changed. Jean wasn’t in school. Not only that, but no one bothered me or Sasha. I saw a few of the guys that usually bothered us moping around. They all looked like they were pissed, which was surprising given they’d won the last game of their season the previous Friday. One of them had a black eye, another had a swollen lip.

I couldn’t understand how they could get injuries like that on the field. For a moment I considered if the reason Jean wasn’t here was because he was in rough shape too, but Jean was the kicker. It was even less like likely that he’d have those injuries.

Tuesday, when Jean still wasn’t at school, I decided to just ask one of his friends. I could call his cell, of course, and maybe I would. But I still didn’t know if he wanted to talk to me. Besides, I didn’t think I could stand to wait eight more hours until I got home to call him.

I tapped a tall blond one on the shoulder as he was pulling books out of his locker. He spun around to face me, and when he realized who I was his head whipped around to make sure no one saw him with me.

“What do you want?” His face wasn’t bruised. Regardless, he looked like he hadn’t slept in a week. His hair was greasy. By the smell of his breath, I assumed he’d forgotten to brush this morning. Maybe he’d woken up late, or something.

“I was wondering if you knew why Jean hasn’t been in school.”

He laughed, and shook his head, but not like he thought it was funny. More like he thought someone was fucking with him. More like he didn’t have the time to care about what I had to say.

Then he faced me again. “Why do you care?”

“I’m his friend.”

“Don’t you mean boyfriend?”

At first I thought he was just giving me the usual treatment. They’d accused me of being Jean’s boyfriend more than once. Jean never denied it, but he always rolled his eyes and told them how stupid they sounded.

But, this time, it was almost as if he was asking me seriously. I didn’t think he was just giving me shit.

A pang of fear washed through me and I started to drown in the panic that Jean had told them about me. The hallway was so cramped in that moment. People brushed past me and bumped into me like they couldn’t even see me. The kid, Thomas I thought, was looking at me like he was wondering if I was going to pass out. Breathing was so hard I thought I just might, and I prayed I wouldn’t.

“What?” I choked.

“Look, I don’t think you should be hanging out with Jean anymore.”

He was talking to me like I was an actual person now. Jean must not have told him. But then, what could it be?

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I – I don’t know. You don’t want to get involved with it.” His eyes were flitting around. No one was paying any attention to him, but by the way he was acting it was like he thought the whole school had been bugged with microphones.

“With it? I don’t understand. Why isn’t he in school?”

“Look, I don’t know, okay?! He – Jean, or whatever I – it’s probably just that time of the month,” he spit.

Before I could ask why the hell he’d say that about his teammate, the bell had rung and he had taken off down the hall.

…

I didn’t call Jean when I got home. For most the night, I just lay in my bed wondering what he could have done to make his teammates act like that. Clearly, he hadn’t told them about me. But something must have made them upset enough to cast him out. Something had made Thomas upset enough to call Jean a girl.

There was a knock at my door. I sat up in my bed, flicked on my bedside lamp and told the person to step in.

Ymir, my older sister, peeked through. Since she’d gone to college she wasn’t home much, but her Christmas break had started earlier than mine and she was staying with our parents and me for a few weeks. Her college was in Arizona, and she came home with even darker skin and even more freckles than she had when she’d left. She and I didn’t look very much alike, other than the skin and freckles. I got my dad’s face, but my mom’s dark, thick hair that I needed to relax and trim every month. She got my mom’s face, with my dad’s hazel eyes and thin, curly, brown hair. All she had to do with her hair was straighten it.

She was nearly as tall as me. While I ended up chubby, she was as strong and defined as marble from years of hockey. She looked like she could get hit by a truck and the truck would need to be taken in for repairs. My mom liked to comment on how she ended up with two perfect kids, all except our metabolisms got mixed up. She hated that Ymir was so “manly” and she hated that I was “so…soft,” she’d say.

“Mom wants to know if you’re gonna eat dinner or not,” she said.

“Yeah, I’ll be out in a bit.”

Ymir stood in the doorway, her eyes looking me up and down. “Don’t wanna eat around ‘em?”

I smiled. Right before Christmas, it was always hardest for me to be around my family. All my aunts and uncles and cousins visited, and they all asked me about my life expecting something more to be going on than sitting in my room reading. My dad always bragged about how good my grades were and how well I’d do in college and how I’d obviously end up with a high-paying job one day and I’d make my wife very happy. My relatives were always asking when I’d get a girlfriend. If they weren’t, then they were telling me I’d get a girlfriend as soon as I lost some weight. One of my aunt’s was convinced I still had baby fat, and that by the time I turned eighteen it would all just melt away.

Ymir went through a lot of the same shit. Not about being fat, but about not trying to “settle down” and how maybe if she wore some makeup she’d “meet a nice guy”. The only thing I looked forward to each year was going shopping with Ymir and her girlfriend at the Mall of America. While Ymir and Christa had mentioned my weight in the past, it was usually the type of underhanded comment I didn’t mind as much. Stuff like “you’ll find someone who likes you the way you are.” That sort of thing. Ymir and Christa were also the only two people in my life who would accept the gay thing, since they were, you know, gay.

I hadn’t told either of them yet. At first, it was because I wasn’t always sure. Or, maybe I always was, but didn’t want to be so sure. Recently the reasons I haven’t told her were because I didn’t want to come out to her over the phone, and…maybe it was silly…but the first person I wanted to come out to was Jean.

“Marco? Are you okay?” Ymir asked, reminding me where I was and what was happening.

“It’s not that I don’t want to eat around them,” I said. At the moment, I didn’t even have an appetite.

“Then what’s up?”

She strode into my room with her stalky walk and crossed arms and permanent, flat expression. She always looked a little annoyed, but I could tell the difference between concern and being actually annoyed.

“Close the door,” I said.

She did so without looking away from me. She was so concerned she was actually starting to look concerned. She looked like my mom and that didn’t make this easier.

“What’s going on?”

“Ymir,” I started. My voice left me and what came out of me was nothing more than a whisper. “I’m gay.”

She squinted at me like I was a math problem. She arched an eyebrow. “Did you…think…your lesbian…sister…would, like, care, or something?”

I snorted and shook my head. “Shut up. I knew you wouldn’t care. It’s just…I’ve never said it – I’ve only said it once. It’s not easy to say.”

“Well, this isn’t easy for me either. I owe Christa a hundred bucks,” she responded, sighing dramatically and flopping down on my bed. It rocked the bedframe. My mattress buckled. She weighed more than me, and the bed sunk enough for me to have to adjust the way I was sitting.

“Why?”

“I bet you weren’t gay. She bet you were.”

I gaped at her for like a minute before I could think of a response. “She knew?”

“She didn’t know. She…suspected. I’m not sure what tipped her off though.”

We were quiet for a second. My parents were walking around downstairs. My mom and dad were talking, about what I didn’t know. Their murmurs echoed up through the vents in my floor. The TV was turned on, so they must have finished eating. My mom hated when the TV was on during dinner. My dad hated to not have the TV on.

“So…” Ymir started. The way she said it I could tell she had expected me to say more. Maybe tell her my version of the trapped-in-the-closet story. Maybe she was ready for a strong brother-sister moment, bonding in our gayness. I didn’t know. When she continued, I knew it wasn’t about that. Ymir knew me too well – better than myself, given I hadn’t realized this – to not realize that I had decided to tell her tonight for a reason. “So…who’s the guy, Marco? Who’s got you fucked up?”

“You remember Jean?”

At that, she sat up in the bed. She studied my expression for a few moments. She remembered him, then. “You got a thing for your best friend?”

I rubbed the back of my neck, too embarrassed to admit just how bad I had it for him. “I came out to him a week ago.”

Her eyebrows rose. She leaned toward me on the bed. She looked like she’d just tasted something awful. I thought she probably knew where I was going with this, or at the very least that this story never went anywhere good. The I-have-a-crush-on-my-straight-best-friend story never had a happy ending. “What’d he say?”

“He said he was fine with it but…he didn’t, you know, act like he was fine with it. He hasn’t talked to me in over a week.”

Ymir nodded, letting out a shaky breath as she did so. “Knew I didn’t like that kid.”

“Hey!” I blurted, nudging her with my elbow. “He’s my best friend, okay?”

“Is he though? If he can’t even…I’m just saying Marco, you need to stand up for yourself. If he’s your best friend, he’ll act like it. And best friends don’t give a shit if you’re gay.”

I hesitated before replying. “I guess you’re right…”

“Isn’t he the one that, like, never stands up for you? Or talks to you at school?”

She must have seen how hurt I was, because she shut her mouth after that. I knew she had more to say about him, but she held back for me. I was hugging my pillow to my chest and staring out the window. It was too dark to see much besides a naked tree’s limbs trembling in the December breeze.

“If he’s not going to stand up for you, than you have to do it yourself,” she said under her breath. “You deserve better than that. I know you aren’t a pushover. I’ve never seen you take anyone else’s shit like you take his. It’s not right.”

“I know,” I told her. “I’ll talk to him.”

My body felt cold. Exposed to Ymir’s judgmental stare. Even if I wanted to be strong like her, I was scared of losing Jean and she could see that. When I started to cry she didn’t say anything. Just kept me company until my face had dried and I could walk out into the kitchen to eat, pretending everything was okay in front of my parents.

…

The walk to Jean’s house took days in my mind. I could have driven, but I didn’t want to get there even earlier. My stomach was twisting. Even thinking about talking to Jean made me feel like I had to throw up. The winter air rushing into my lungs and the snow sinking into my skin had calmed me, had settled the churning in my gut. Each shaky breath I let out turned into fog, wafting above my head.

Jean’s house was smaller than mine, just a one-story rambler. He and his mom lived there alone. Jean’s truck was parked outside the garage, specked with fallen snow that wouldn’t stick.

I walked up his driveway leaving footprints on the pavement. Standing on his front porch, I inhaled, hesitated, and then rang the doorbell.

A moment later, Jean’s mom opened the door. She was a short woman, with sandy blond hair like Jean’s. Her eyes were hazel, like his, but unlike Jean’s they were always tired. Jean’s were always exhausted. I couldn’t explain the difference. But in any case, the two of them would look very much alike if Jean smiled anywhere near as often as she did.

“Hey, Ms. Kirschtein.” I smiled, trying not to look like I was about to step inside and confront her son about being a huge asshole to me.

She smiled back, her eyes pinching into half-moons as she did. Her smile didn’t look the way it normally did today. Sadness weighed down the corners of her lips. “So you’ve heard?”

“What?” I asked, “Heard what?”

Her eyes widened and then she bit her lip, like she was unsure how to break something to me gently. “He’s been waiting for you,” she said.

She stepped out of the way and I didn’t even thank her before I passed her in the entryway and headed down the hallway toward Jean’s bedroom. His door was closed. Without knocking, I swung the door open and stepped inside. He was laying in his bed covered by a thick comforter. Only tufts of his blond hair stuck out.

Closing the door behind me, I tip-toed over to his bed. My weight easing on to the edge of his mattress startled him awake, and he shot up in bed. It took him a moment to register that it was me on the edge of his bed. His expression went from alarmed to worried to guilty in a matter of a few seconds.

On my way over, I had contemplated a dozen different ways to start the conversation with Jean that we had been destined to have since we became friends four years ago. I had considered starting with asking him if he had any idea how much it hurt me that he never defended me. Maybe I’d start with asking him why his football friends were more important than me. Or if he was embarrassed to be my friend.

By the time I’d reached his house, I had decided to start with the present. Start with whether or not he could be friends with me if I was gay.

Now that he was just a few inches away, I didn’t know where to start. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe. I just wanted to hold him.

Jean’s lip was swollen. He had a black eye. He had stitches on his forehead and earlobe. He saw me staring at him, and he pulled the covers down further. His arm was in a sling. His collarbone on his right side was bruised with shades of deep purples.

“Jean…” I choked, “What happened?”

“I wanted to tell you,” he said. “I wanted to tell you last time I saw you but…”

“What, Jean?” My hands were trembling. I reached for his face and tilted his chin back and forth. Without thinking I brushed my fingertips over his cheek, under his eye, over his lip. He closed his eyes and let me. “Who did this to you?”

He shrugged. “The guys did.”

“The football team?”

He nodded. “Some of them.”

“Why?”

“I uh…I’ll explain.” He shifted in bed so that his legs swung off the edge. With his left arm – the one not in the sling – he ran his fingers through his hair. He sighed. “I’ve – I’ve wanted to tell you for so long, I just didn’t know how.”

“Tell me what?” My chest ached. He looked so fragile like this, so thin. Nothing like the athletic, confident kicker that had been at my house sitting on my floor just two weeks ago. “Tell me what Jean?”

“Look…I was born uh, a little off. I don’t know if it’s my head or my – my body or what. Maybe it’s both…but something got mixed up. And I wasn’t born the way I was supposed to be.” His eyes were on his feet as his toes curled into the carpeting. With his free hand, he gripped on to the bed sheet. Even as he spoke, he looked perplexed by his own words, as if he wasn’t choosing to say the words himself. He always, always struggled with words.

“You’re not making any sense,” I responded.

“I was…Marco, I was born a girl. I – I mean, not actually a girl, but… with a girl’s body or what everyone uh…thought was a girl’s body.”

My brow furrowed. I looked him up and down. Jean was tall. Not as tall as me, but nonetheless, tall. Five foot nine at least. I’d seen him without a shirt, he was as flat-chested as any guy I knew. In the mornings he’d stayed over at my house, he had grown stubble. We’d shaved together. His voice was low, low enough that I didn’t even think a girl trying to sound like a boy could make her voice go that low. And even if Jean was just the kicker, if he were a girl, he wouldn’t even be allowed on the team.

I was in love with him. I couldn’t love girls. I’d tried.

“Jean,” I murmured, “You…you’re still not making sense. I don’t know what you mean.”

Jean reached for my hand. He gripped it. I gripped back. Then he tugged it upward toward his face, but didn’t quite make it. He pressed my palm flat against his throat.

“Something missing?” he asked.

I swallowed, sliding my palm along his neck looking for what I knew was missing. How had I never noticed it was missing? “Your Adam’s apple…it’s –”

“I don’t have one,” he whispered. “I don’t have something else that most guys have either.”

I shook my head. I tore my hand away from him. I scooted away from him on the bed. “What – what happened to you? Why are you, you know, like this?”

Jean winced. “I’m trans. I uh – look, it’s never going to make sense to you. But I’m a guy, I’ve always been one I just…It’s just harder for me. Your body did it on it’s own, okay? Mine needed help. Mine needed hormone blockers and testosterone injections and moving from a different state and my parents’ divorce and – and constantly hiding this from you, Marco. I – it’s been so hard. You have no idea. You have no idea what I’ve been through to get here.”

We were quiet for a long time. Every nerve in my body felt molten, hot, raging. My body was trembling, I could hardly sit still. My chest felt like it had been filled with helium. My fingers clutched on to his bed as if I might float away.

I couldn’t make sense of what he was telling me. I didn’t understand. I knew he was a guy, of course I knew. But I didn’t understand how he was a guy if he didn’t have…if he wasn’t like me.

But my confusion didn’t matter as much as my rage did. He wasn’t like me, and he had never told me.

He had lied to me.

“I can’t believe you – you made me hate myself for being gay when you – when you –”

I couldn’t even finish my sentence.

Jean leaned toward me, reaching for my hand with his good arm. I pulled away from him. I stood. My legs felt so weak I had to hang on to the foot of his bed to steady my balance.

“Don’t you get it, Marco?” he asked. “I never cared if you were gay! I didn’t want you to hate yourself – I’d never… I just – I knew that if you liked guys then you’d never…”

“I’d never what?” I spit.

“Then you’d never like me.”

I froze where I stood and faced him. In the years that I had known him, he’d never let himself look this vulnerable and it hurt. I thought I hated his cockiness, his self-entitlement, his inability to accept losing or being anything less than the absolute best. I thought I hated seeing him with his friends, shoving each other in the halls and bragging about who did what over the weekend. I had hated that he always acted like he didn’t care, like nothing affected him. Not his parents’ divorce or crashing his jeep two years ago or missing a field goal that lost the game for them or getting in a fight with me.

Now I realized more than ever before why Jean had to pretend.

Because when he didn’t pretend, and he let himself care, and he let himself be hurt, and he let himself be fragile and vulnerable and weak…

He thought it made him a girl.

I understood why it mattered to him that I’d never sleep with a girl.

Jean was staring at me with bloodshot eyes and a quivering lip waiting for my response. But I didn’t know how to respond, I didn’t know what I was feeling. I knew I would never look at him and see a girl, but at the same time I didn’t know if I would ever feel the same about him. He wasn’t who I thought he was, and not just because he was…this. Born a girl, or whatever it was.

It was because he’d lied to me. No – not that he lied to me, exactly. He’d kept something from me. I had thought that we didn’t keep anything from each other. Hell, I had thought that Jean didn’t keep anything from anyone.

Jean wasn’t a liar. He’d told me so when I met him, and he’d proved it countless times ever since.

When he’d told me the reason he wouldn’t teach me to kick a football was because he knew I wouldn’t be good at it. When I was upset, he’d told me it was because he was a shit teacher and he’d only get frustrated with me.

When he’d snuck out a couple years back to go to a party and the morning after – even though he’d gotten away with it and his mom had had no idea he was gone – he’d told his mom where he’d been and what he’d been up to. He was grounded for two weeks.

When he’d had it bad for a girl in his math class he’d told her. He didn’t ask her out. Just told her she had pretty hair and that he liked her, even though I’d seen how embarrassed and flustered he got in his blush and his inability to look her in the eyes. She never liked him back and told him the moment he confessed to her. He never said anything about it to her again, but it didn’t matter to him as much as it had mattered to tell her the truth.

And when I first met him at fourteen years old, and my skin hadn’t thickened and I hadn’t learned not to care what people thought of me yet, I had admitted to Jean that I hated being chubby. And instead of telling me I wasn’t chubby or that I could lose weight or that some lucky girl out there would love me for my personality, Jean had said, “So what if you’re fat?”

And I had said, “People hate me for it.”

“People are always going to hate you for being something.”

“They don’t hate you,” I said.

Jean had shrugged. “They will.”

But I hadn’t understood then either.

“Marco?” Jean asked. “Say something. Please, God, say something.”

I had so much to say. I didn’t say any of it. I told him, “I should go.”

He didn’t say anything. I pretended not to hear him sob as I shut his bedroom door behind me. I walked home in the snow, embracing the feeling of going numb in the cold.

…

I didn’t sleep that night. For hours, I lay in bed with my hands behind my head and my eyes on my ceiling fan. The sun set and my room was cloaked in darkness. Jean hadn’t called or texted me, but I wasn’t surprised. He hadn’t the last two weeks either. I wondered if it was because he didn’t care if I spoke to him or because he didn’t want to care.

The churning in my gut that used to be nerves had morphed into guilt. It felt wrong to leave him hanging. He had to have been terrified to tell me after what the football team had done to him. I was his best friend. Or at least, I had wanted to be his best friend. He was definitely mine. This wasn’t how I was supposed to treat him.

At his house, I had felt betrayed. But, really, why had I felt that way? What gave me the right?

In four years I hadn’t told him I was gay, after all. I’d kept a secret too. And if Jean had come out to me without me confronting him, would I have been upset with him for keeping it? I didn’t think I would. I thought it wouldn’t have bothered me at all if he’d come out to me when I had come –

That was what it was. That was the reason I felt anger rushing through me and pushing at the tips of my fingertips, just begging me to throw, crush or break something.

I wasn’t upset because he was trans.

I was upset because he’d shared a part of himself that he’d never shared with anyone, with the football team first, and not me. Even though I hadn’t even told my lesbian sister I was gay before I told him. Even though I would have never told anyone anything before I told him.

I wasn’t his best friend.

…

More days passed. Jean came back to school, but he wasn’t like he used to be. He was alone at his locker. Once in a while, someone from the football team would walk past him and shove him into a locker like they did me. But instead of saying, “If you weren’t such a wide-load…” or “Move it, faggot,” he got, “Oh, excuse me ma’am, didn’t see you there,” and “Oh, shit! It was an accident – I’d never hurt a girl.”

Jean kept his head low, walking directly toward his classes without saying a word. He carried his backpack with one hand instead of wearing it on his back, because of his sling.

At lunch, he sat at a table with a couple other people he clearly didn’t know. They didn’t bother him, he didn’t bother them.

In the one class we shared he was silent. Not that he’d been much for participation before, but when the teacher called on him he had no smart-ass response for them or complaint about how pointless the class was anyway. He just stared at the teacher, waited for her to realize she was wasting her time, and pick someone else.

It hurt so much to see him like that.

In the hall, Sasha pulled her auburn hair up into a pony-tail. She tightened it while looking into the tiny mirror she had hung up in her locker. Her eyes weren’t looking at herself for long. They pin-pointed Jean in the reflection at his locker behind her. “What’s up with him? Aren’t you guys, like, kinda friends or something?”

“Yeah,” I responded, speaking low and trying not to look Jean’s way. “We were.”

“What happened? He looks like shit.”

“Has Connie ever kept something from you?”

“What, like, hogging the popcorn at a movie? He does that. A lot.” Her eyes narrowed as if Connie would telepathically be able to sense her glare.

I sighed. “No. I mean like a secret.”

Sasha’s eyebrows shot up, and she pursed her lips as she leaned against her locker door until it slammed shut. “Well, I’m sure he has. But I don’t think of it as…keeping something from me.”

“It doesn’t bother you that he could be hiding something big?” In the corner of my eye, Jean walked past. His hands were tucked into his pockets. He looked like he was having trouble carrying his backpack like that. I wanted to offer to carry it for him.

“Well, it would bother me that he feels like he couldn’t tell me. Not that he actually didn’t tell me. He’s supposed to trust me and if he can’t tell me something then…”

I nodded, considering what she said. If Jean didn’t tell me he was trans because he felt like he couldn’t, then that wasn’t really his fault. It was the same reason I couldn’t tell him I was gay. I had feared for so long that if I told him I was gay he wouldn’t be my friend anymore, and not being his friend was so much worse than not being his boyfriend.

Had it been the same for him? With everything else I had on my mind, I’d hardly had room to consider that Jean had been worried that I wouldn’t like him. Jean Kirschtein, had worried that I, Marco Bodt, wouldn’t like him.

“Really, though. You should talk to him. Whatever you two got going… it’s killing him, you can see it.” She was chewing gum – she practically always was in class – and she blew up a bubble. It popped against her face. Her serious expression didn’t even falter.

I nodded at her as I watched him drag his feet through the crowds of students.

…

It was Sunday morning and I knew where Jean would be. He had a thing about Sunday mornings. His mom went to church, which he refused to go to. It was the only real argument I’d ever seen them have about anything. So on Sunday mornings while she got ready and went to church, Jean would head to his truck and drive somewhere that morning. During the football season, he usually parked his truck in the football field parking lot. During the summer, he’d drive to the nearest beach. On days like today, when it was just warm enough and dreary enough that it could rain, he stayed in his garage. When I arrived at his house, I banged my fist against the garage door. A moment later the garage door groaned to life as it was lifted. I ducked under, and Jean closed the door again.

In the rafters above, a single lightbulb glowed, illuminating the bed of Jean’s truck. He had a blanket spread in the back. A couple of his couch’s throw pillows were thrown in there too. Normally, when he was sitting in the bed of his truck he had his DS with him. Today, there were a couple of books. Neither of them looked like they’d been touched.

“Hey,” he said, as he hoisted himself up onto the bumper of his truck and into the bed. “What do you want?”

Jean had a couple heaters plugged into nearby outlets, making the cramped garage warm enough to take my coat off. I tossed it into the passenger seat. Then I climbed into the bed with Jean. He was wearing a hoodie that was too big for him. I recognized it as one I’d given to him sophomore year. My family members always bought me Christmas presents that were a size or so too small. I never knew if they were trying to be polite or if they were actually pretending I’d fit in a medium.

“I brought your DS,” I said, as I tugged it out of my pocket. He took it from my hand.

“Thanks. That all you need?”

I bit my lip. “Do you want me to go?”

“I didn’t ask you to leave last time.”

“Right.” I sighed. Rubbed the back of my neck. Fidgeted where I sat. Jean stared at me, waiting for me to say something. The truth was, most issues we’d had in our friendship started because of something he did and only ended when he apologized or…apologized in his own way. I wasn’t used to this.

He smirked. “If you have a problem with me being trans just say so.”

I blushed hearing my own words thrown back at me. “I don’t have a problem with you being trans. I wish you would have told me, is all.”

“Told you what? That I don’t have a dick? That doesn’t seem like the type of thing you should have to tell people,” he spit. “You never looked at me and told me you did have one. Why should I have to tell you I don’t?”

Jean wasn’t looking at me. I got the sense that he wasn’t just talking to me. Maybe he was still talking to the football team, or his dad, or the whole world, I didn’t know.

“Okay, I guess what I mean is…I wish you would have told me first. You know, I came out to you first. You were the first person I’ve ever told I’m gay. And I just, I always put you first. Always. Because you’re my best friend. But I feel like you put me second. Before now, I could put up with you always choosing the team over me. But this time it hurt because it’s such a big part of who you are and –”

“I don’t want it to be a big part of who I am,” he interrupted. “I’m not like you, Marco. You said the reason it bothers you when people give you shit about being gay is because they think there’s something wrong with you. But that’s not how it is for me. It would bother me because I think there’s something wrong with being trans. And it wouldn’t matter if the whole world was okay with it and no one thought anything of it, because it – it still bothers me that I’m not like you. It’s always going to bother me.”

I was quiet. Hearing him talk about himself in such a negative way was so shocking that I couldn’t even make myself blink let alone think of something to say. I cleared my throat. A few unstable heartbeats passed before I decided to try to speak anyway. “I didn’t realize that was why you asked me about them giving me shit.”

Jean blushed and ran his fingers through his hair. He clenched his jaw. “You never had to come out to me. I knew you were gay. Don’t ask me how…I could just tell. All this time, I thought the reason you’d never told me you’re gay is because you thought there was something wrong with it, just like I thought there was something wrong with being trans. You know, I thought we were alike. But then you…you told me it wasn’t like that. You’re okay with being who you are. I wanted to be like that too.”

“Jean…there’s nothing wrong with who you are,” I whispered. He shrugged. Taking the risk that he’d be upset, I inched closer to him in the bed of his truck. He stayed put. As far as I could tell, he wasn’t uncomfortable being closer to me.

He didn’t respond to me when he spoke again. “I hate being trans. That’s why I’ve done everything I can to hide it.”

Before I could think better of it, I asked, “Then why’d you tell the football team?”

Jean’s eyes met mine. “It was the last game of my senior year, Marco. Before now, I couldn’t have come out if I wanted to because I would have been kicked off the team. The principle knows I’m trans, but my coach didn’t. The team didn’t. Even if I was technically allowed to play, I wouldn’t have ever made it on the team. Or I would have always been benched. But it was our last game, and I knew that I’d never be playing again. I’m not going to be accepted on a college team.”

It broke my heart hearing him say this. Football meant the world to Jean. It was all he’d ever wanted to do. It was the only reason he got decent grades. It was the only reason he got up early on Saturdays. Or that he avoided getting detention at all costs. Or that he spent his mornings before school in the gym. Or that he spent so many hours in his backyard practicing kicking the ball.

“Because of football, I’ve lived through almost all four of my high school years hiding who I am. I’ve been thinking about coming out for a long time. So that at least one of my high school semesters, I wouldn’t have to hide. Just because I don’t like being trans doesn’t mean I don’t want to like it. And so I asked you how you deal with it, and I realized how confident you are or – or proud, or whatever, and I wanted to be like you too. I wanted to tell you first, I did. But I couldn’t, so I told the football team.”

My eyebrows furrowed as I listened to him speak. Jean was fiddling with the frayed tears in his jeans like he had my carpeting when I first came out to him. My hand balled into a fist so that I wouldn’t reach out to hold his hand.

“What do you mean you couldn’t tell me?” I asked.

Jean smiled, this time like he was miserable. He had so many smiles, but even they were always used to hiding how he really felt. “I couldn’t tell you because I liked you. And I didn’t know if you’d hate me. That’s why I could tell the team. After football season was over this year…I didn’t care anymore if they hated me.”

My breath hitched in my throat and this time I reached for his hand. It was more for my own comfort than his, but he clutched on to it. He stared, waiting for my response. I opened with my mouth and my mind grappled with me, telling me to say something but again I couldn’t.

“I wasn’t ever putting the team first, Marco. I was putting football first. And I know I shouldn’t have but –”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I shouldn’t have expected you to. I know how important it was to you.”

More than anything, I wished he didn’t have to quit. I wouldn’t be jealous of it this time.

“It’s not just that, though. I was so afraid of getting kicked off the team that I let them treat my best friend like shit.”

My eyebrows shot up and I turned to face him. It jolted his body and he winced. He glanced at his sling. I almost forgot about it. I bit my lip, hoping he could see in my face that I was sorry.

He smiled. This time it looked sincere. “I know you think I didn’t care when they picked on you, but I hated it. I thought about it all the time. But I was too much of a coward to stand up for you. I was too afraid that they’d treat me the same way.”

My eyes watered and I wiped them away. I hated that I cried so easily, but I couldn’t help it. Here I had thought that Jean and I might not be friends anymore, that he didn’t want or care if we were friends anymore and…he was saying everything I had wanted to hear for so, so long. It was almost too much.

“It’s not gonna be like that anymore,” he said under his breath, reaching for my hand again as if he thought he’d made me upset. “I won’t let them give you shit.”

At the moment I was too overwhelmed to articulate all that I was feeling. I huffed out a laugh that sounded something like a sob and shook my head. My eyes teared up again. “You – you have no idea how – how much that means to me.”

Jean smiled again. “So, are we good? Please tell me we’re good, Marco, ‘cause I can’t – can’t handle you being mad at me anymore.”

I snorted. “We’re good, Jean. We’re – we’re more than good.”

I wiped my face, sighing in relief and grinning. When I faced Jean though, I could tell by the way his eyebrows knitted and his jaw clenched he had something else on his mind.

He took my hand in his once more. I squeezed, reassuring him that whatever he was thinking, we’d still be fine. I’d be fine. I wasn’t angry anymore.

“So, it, uh, doesn’t bother you how I…”

Like always, I waited for him to find the words. To take the leap of faith that I wouldn’t hate him for it.

“How I feel about you. You know now. So, how do you feel about –”

Before he could answer I laughed. He looked hurt, and I just shook my head. “Oh, Jean,” I breathed, and then I tilted his chin up so that I could kiss him.

He kissed me back. We curled into each other. His hand slid around the nape of my neck, pulling me closer. My hands threaded through his hair. I sighed into the kiss, feeling how tender and warm and soft he was. He made the universe shush with that kiss. Made everything in the world that rushed, slow down. I felt like our first kiss was a landmark in time that would long be remembered by an existence so much greater than the two of us. Or maybe, it was just us, and the kiss was simply that memorable.

When I pulled away from him, he let out a nervous chuckle and smiled. His hand caressed my face and he trailed his fingertips along my cheek. It tingled.

“You like me too?” he breathed.

“How can you not see that?”

He blushed. “I mean…are you sure you like me? I’m not the man you thought I was.”

I shook my head. “Yes you are.”

“But...I’m not – are you – we can’t –”

I chuckled at his stammering and took a moment to brush his bangs out of his eyes. I held his hand. His fingers were so pale and dainty in comparison to my own large, brown hand. I’d always loved his hands. Always thought about what they’d feel like touching my body, touching me everywhere.

“I don’t care,” I told him. “You’re not a girl. I’ve never seen you as a girl. That hasn’t changed.”

“But what if you want to – and I’m not saying we have to – fuck, God. Nothing I say is coming out right.”

“Are you asking me if I’ll like having sex with you?”

Jean’s face reddened and he couldn’t look at me. It was the same look he’d had when he’d told that girl he liked her. I grinned, eating up every moment of his embarrassment.

“No, I’m not fucking – shut up. You know – you know why it matters, okay. I gotta know that you aren’t going to, like, be grossed out if we…”

I leaned in so that I could kiss him again. He tilted his head back at first, groaning because I was trying to distract him and it was working. He kissed back, and kept kissing back, until we were clinging to each other and panting through the kissing. Jean moaned and a shudder rattled my spine.

Gasping, I yanked myself away from him. “It’s not going to be a problem.”

I nodded toward my lap and Jean looked down. His eyes widened in understanding as he noticed how kissing him had affected me.

He smiled, but it was saddened. He looked at his own lap which revealed nothing, of course. Looking at Jean, it was hard for me to believe his body wasn’t exactly like my own. But I knew now what I hadn’t known when he first told me he was trans, and that was that I didn’t mind. Not one bit.

By looking at Jean’s face, I knew the same wasn’t true for him.

“Is it going to be a problem for you?”

Jean shrugged. “Like I said, I’m still learning to accept it.”

“Do you think I could help?” It wasn’t meant to sound sexual, but given that my breath was still quick and my heart hadn’t settled, it had sounded that way. Jean’s eyes glazed over, and then in a blur we had climbed out of the truck, darted out of the garage and into his bedroom. Jean barely managed to shut the door behind him before he was kissing me again.

We ended up on his bed. I kissed all the bruises that were fading on his face, the cut on his forehead that had been stitched up, his black eye, and the cut on his lip.

Carefully, we removed his sweatshirt together. He couldn’t take off his sling, and his whole body was still sore from the beating. His shoulders were broad and his chest was flat and sculpted. His abs crunched underneath skin that was dusted with hair. The only evidence that his body was different than mine was that his hips were just a little wider than what I was used to seeing on a man. It didn’t matter. He was so sexy. I kissed every bit of him in sight.

At first, I didn’t want to take my own shirt off, but Jean told me he wanted to see me, so I did. Even if I was okay with my body, I never expected anybody else to be, especially not Jean.

But he was, just like he always had been. The moment my shirt was off he was touching me the way I’d touched him.

“I love your freckles,” he whispered, as his fingers traced the ones that scattered across my shoulders. A rush of heat and sparks was left behind by each one of his fingers. Goosebumps rose.

Eventually his fingers reached the stretch marks on my stomach. They were a lighter shade of brown than my skin, almost tan. Some purple. He traced those too. He said, “I have them on my hips.”

“You do?” I asked.

He nodded. He unzipped his jeans and tugged down his boxers and pants just enough to show me a few long, white, jagged lines. “I got my period when I was nine. I, uh, started developing pretty early. Hips got wider.”

His voice was choppy. He refused to look at me as he spoke. I knew how hard it was for him to admit this to me. Honestly, it was hard to even hear. To comprehend. Jean getting a period? It sounded ridiculous, but of course he had. I should have thought of that sooner.

“I can’t imagine,” I rasped. “Do you still get a, uh…”

He shook his head. “Not anymore. Only had to deal with it for a couple years.”

“So, why don’t you have, like, you know, uh…breasts?”

Jean snorted as he lay back in the bed beside me. His good arm looped behind his head. The one in the sling rested against his chest.

“Started hormone blockers when I was eleven. If I had waited much longer to take them I would have needed top surgery. My mom…she never questioned me. Not like my dad. And as soon as he left, she took me to a doctor. Everything was taken care of before it even happened.”

“Wow,” I breathed. “That’s really brave.”

“Yeah,” Jean said, smiling. “That’s my mom for you.”

“I meant you,” I told him.

He rolled over, wincing because of his sling again, to face me. He brushed his fingers through the buzzed part of my undercut. It prickled, but it felt nice.

The blinds in his room were drawn. Everything was cast in a shadow, but his eyes gleamed. He leaned in and kissed me again.

He didn’t stop at my lips. He kissed me everywhere like I had him. It felt so nice, unlike any other sensation I’d ever experienced. His lips kissed me and I felt the ghost of each one leftover on my skin.

Neither of us took it further, I knew he wasn’t ready. To tell the truth, I wasn’t sure I was either. But I knew the time would come that we would be ready, and when it did his body would be the farthest thing from a problem. He made it clear mine wouldn’t be either the longer he touched me.

When the front door of his house slammed, we both tugged on our shirts.

“Should we tell her about us?” I asked.

Jean smiled. “I’ve never had to hide from her.”

…

The next morning, after I had woken up and gotten dressed for school Jean called to let me know he was coming to pick me up. I spent the next twenty minutes combing my hair and picking at my teeth with a tooth pick. My cologne was probably a little too thick. My hands kept trying to smooth out the wrinkles in my shirt.

Once downstairs, I kept peering out the window through the curtains. Both my parents were at work, so I didn’t have to worry about them wondering why their son was making an ass of himself.

Ymir laughed from where she sat on the couch. “It’s just Jean.”

“I know,” I responded. I was being ridiculous.

“It’s not even a date,” she reminded me.

“I know. It’s just –”

“He’s still your best friend.” Her eyes were on the TV as she reached for the remote. Even while flicking through the channels, she looked annoyed. Maybe that was just her face.

But when Jean’s truck pulled up we both jumped and turned to look out the window. Ymir rolled her eyes at my excitement, but a tiny smile gave her away. She cared after all.

“It’s just he’s my boyfriend now too,” I continued, shoving my feet into my boots without lacing them.

“That’s how it’s supposed to be!” she called to me, as I darted out the door, with my backpack slung over one shoulder.

My feet left tracks in the snow through the yard. I swung Jean’s truck door open and slid in besides him. He smiled, shyly, as he reached for my hand. I kissed him. My lips were chilled by the crisp air and Jean’s lips melted right against mine. The heat blasted from the vents. The car was almost homey because of it. I didn’t want to leave it. I wanted to park somewhere and spend the day kissing Jean and not going to school.

“Ready?” Jean asked when I pulled away.

I nodded.

He drove us to school anyway. Once he found a parking spot, we jumped out of the truck and stared at our high school together. We had one semester left before going to college. One semester to be our true selves, and leaving high school behind with a different memory of it remaining.

Jean’s fingers, trembling, reached for mine. They intertwined. Together we walked into our school, through the halls, toward my locker. People stared. Some whispered. Others snickered. Football players passed and jeered at Jean, calling him names. But most of them halted mid-step, staring at him. Their jaws dropped.

He cringed. His fist balled, putting tension on his sling. But he didn’t say anything, didn’t even look their way. We kept our gazes straight ahead.

At my locker, Sasha and Connie were waiting for me like they did every morning. Their eyes lit when they saw the two of us, but not the same way others in the hall had. My friends were scandalized, sure, but without even asking me for an explanation I knew they were happy for us.

“This is Jean, guys,” I said, even though they both knew him. Everyone did. Jean smiled, although it looked like it had taken him some effort. His body was a little stiff. “Jean, that’s Connie. That’s Sash.” I pointed at each.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m, uh, Marco’s boyfriend.”

My heart swelled three sizes at his words.

Sasha winked obviously at me and gave me a thumbs-up. “You have my boyfriend stamp of approval.”

“Yeah, he ain’t bad.” Connie examined Jean, nodding.

I covered my face in embarrassment. Jean looked too flustered to react.

Connie squinted at him. “Who beat you up?”

“The football team,” Jean responded.

Connie’s eyes bulged. “All of them? What the hell for?”

Jean shook his head. “Not all of them.” Then he looked at me, as if to make sure I hadn’t stranded him there. I gripped on to his hand, anchoring him at my side, to reassure him. He faced Connie again. “They beat me up for being trans.”

“For being what?” Connie asked.

“Oh!” Sasha chirped. A few heads nearby turned. She made a guilty expression. “Sorry,” she whispered. “You’d never know by looking at you.”

“Uh…thanks,” Jean said, although he didn’t look like he cared to hear this. Personally, it bothered me because they cared more that he was trans than that he got beat up for being trans. I didn't say anything about it though, because I'd done the same thing when Jean had told me he got beat up for it. Sasha and Connie didn't know better, but they would. Just like I did now.

“I don’t get it,” Connie said.

Jean inhaled, as if to brace himself. He glanced around. All the nearby students had gotten bored with our entrance. They were now on to chattering with their friends and dropping books into their backpacks. Jean exhaled. He explained, “I was assigned female at birth.”

This time, Connie wore an incredulous expression. He looked Jean up and down a number of times, as indiscreetly as possible, of course. I sighed. I should have called them about this last night. They couldn’t be relied on to be polite for anything.

“Are you sure?” Connie asked.

Jean snorted. Sasha slapped him. “Connie!”

“What!” he hissed. Then, looking back at Jean, he blurted, “Well uh, good fucking job fucking manning the fuck up.”

By now Jean was actually laughing and shaking his head. When the two of them left us to go to their class, Connie still asking Sasha a dozen questions as if she was the expert on it, Jean pulled me in by my waist. The bell rang. He ignored it.

“That was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be,” he said.

“I know.” Maybe they’d known I was gay all along too. They didn’t seem nearly surprised enough that Jean was my boyfriend.

“I hid for nothing."

I smiled at him. I was elated, happier than I’d ever been in my life. “Now you don’t have to.”

And Jean kissed me deeply, as if the whole world might see, and he wouldn’t even notice them.