If I Was Your Girl (24 page)

The conversation didn't improve much when Dad joined us, but that was okay. We finished the meal in silence and Mom started to clear away the dishes. Dad got up to help but I touched his forearm to get his attention.

“Actually,” I said, “could we go for a walk? Rain's been gone for a few hours.…”

“Yeah?” Dad said.

“I just thought,” I said, “there's a baseball diamond they keep lit at night.” Dad stood there, holding a stack of plates, blinking slowly. “We could, you know, play catch … if you still want to.”

“Oh,” Dad said. He put the plates down and thought for a moment. “You're sure?”

“I'm sure,” I said.

“I'd like that,” Dad said.

Mom was more than happy to keep us out of the kitchen, since she had her own arcane way of loading the dishwasher that nobody could ever get quite right. The gloves and ball were in an old box, unused and dusty after more than a decade. The squelching and slipping as our boots worked their way through the wet leaves and muck made me glad my ankle had almost completely healed. Dad was silent for the entire walk, staring from the sky to me and back again.

“Something on your mind?” he said.

“A lot.”

“That's understandable.” Dad shoved his hands in his pockets and stared up at the streetlamps.

We arrived at the baseball diamond, the mist making the light from the floodlights weak and pale. He stood where the batter would stand and I stood on the pitcher's mound, mitt on my left hand and ball in my right.

“Why do I have to wear the mitt on my left hand?” I said. “Wouldn't it be easier to catch with my right?”

“Sure,” Dad said, “but can you throw with your left?”

“Oh,” I said, nodding. I hauled back, cocked my arm, and threw the baseball to him as hard as I could. It sailed over him and a few feet to the left, clanking into the chain link fence protecting the bleachers. “Oops! Sorry.”

I saw him smiling as he jogged back into position and couldn't help laughing.

“What's so funny?” he said, tossing the ball in the air absentmindedly.

“Nothing,” I said. “It's just sometimes I wonder what my past self would think if she saw me, and I wondered what our past selves would think if they saw us right now.” He thought about it for a moment, his smile widening more and more, until we both snorted and the laughter popped out of us. We carried on like that for a little while, him throwing, me failing to catch, me throwing so wildly that he had to duck out of the way or run halfway across the field to retrieve the ball.

“So when your mother and me talked before you came to live with me,” Dad said, finally breaking the silence, “she told me your therapist said you were real fragile after what happened last summer, at the mall. I wouldn't—” he started and faltered. “If anything like that ever happened now…”

“Oh,” I said, shrugging. “I think maybe I'm stronger than that now.”

Dad nodded, the relief plain on his face. “I think maybe you're right.”

“Yeah?”

“The girl who moved in with me wouldn't have been okay after that homecoming dustup.” I nodded, thinking of the shocked faces of my classmates in the dim light of the gymnasium, the twisting in my gut when Grant said
It's not true, right?
, the horror of racing away from Parker in the darkened woods. “Dustup” seemed like an understatement.

“I guess not,” I said.

“I've just been thinking,” Dad said. “You know I went in the navy after high school, don't you?” I nodded and threw the ball so it rolled between his legs. “I thought I was tough. A lot of guys thought they were even tougher.” He threw the ball. I yelped, closed my eyes, and by some miracle actually caught it. “I don't think we held a candle to you.”

“I'm not brave,” I said, smiling despite myself. “Bravery implies I had a choice. I'm just me, you know?” I threw the ball into the palm of my glove over and over while I spoke, staring at the floodlight until blotches danced in my eyes. I had sent my application in to NYU, and in a few months I would find out whether I got in. I imagined falling off the face of the earth again, drifting out of Layla, Anna, and Chloe's lives, being mostly forgotten by my classmates except as an occasional story trotted out at parties. Grant was gone, which hurt but was also kind of a relief—he was one less complication when it came time to pack my things and head up north. Everything about that plan was fine except for one thing: I didn't want to disappear anymore.

I looked up at my father. “What if I told you I wanted to go back to Lambertville?” I saw him staring at me. Was his face white from the chill, or from fear? “Would that be a brave thing to do, or would it be stupid?”

“Both?” Dad said, running a hand over his moist hair and blowing out a long breath. “But that's what being young is, really. I think I've been so afraid for you all this time that I forgot that.”

“Since I moved in, you mean?” I said, throwing the ball so that he only had to jump a little bit to catch it.

“Oh no,” he said, “longer than that. Since you were just a baby.”

“I thought you were embarrassed of me.”

“I was,” he said, chewing his lip. “I pray the Lord forgives me one day but I was. More than that, though, so much more than that, I was terrified for you.” I looked down and flexed my glove. “I had to drink just to let your mother teach you how to walk; I kept seeing visions of you falling and cracking your head open.”

“I think I get that from you,” I said, smiling. He chuckled darkly.

“I couldn't stand the idea of you hurting. I couldn't stand the idea of anything taking away your happiness.” He shrugged and sighed. “But everything that made you happy, from the way you wanted to walk to the toys you wanted to the way you wanted to dress … it put you in danger. So what could I do?”

“You ran away,” I said.

“I ran away.” He walked over to me, taking his glove off and slipping it under his armpit. “Or I let you run away and chose not to follow. Either way…” He put his hands on my shoulders and looked me straight in the eye. “You
are
brave,” he said. “You get
that
from your mother.” He removed his hands and stared off at the dark, empty park. “After homecoming, when you walked in that door—I was furious. So mad I felt like I could kill someone. Mad at you, mad at myself, mad at whoever had done that to you. But then when you were gone and I was all alone in that apartment, thinking about everything you went through … I wanted another chance to get it right.” He took a deep breath and looked back at me. “I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you want to come back to Lambertville, well, I'd be real happy to have my daughter back.”

I nodded, a lump in my throat. I had been waiting my whole life for my father to want me, for him to want his daughter. I blinked back tears, but this time, they were tears of joy.

We walked back to the house, a different kind of silence falling between us. I caught his eye and he put his arm around my shoulder, pulling me in close. When we got to the house he opened the trash-can lid and tossed the baseball mitts inside.

“Bye, Andrew,” I said softly.

“Bye, son,” Dad agreed, as we went inside.

 

APRIL, TWO YEARS AGO

“Hardy?” the nurse said. “Andrew Hardy?”

I stood and took a few steps toward the door. The horrible twisting in my gut that normally accompanied the sound of that name was barely present. I was too excited about what was about to happen.

“Andr— Amanda?” Mom said. I turned and saw her standing with her hands clasped, a look on her face like she was afraid this was the last time she would ever see me. “Do you want me to come with you?”

“No, thank you,” I said. I hugged her and backed away again. “I think I need to do this by myself.”

I turned back to the nurse and followed her into a bright, white hallway. She had me stand on a scale and clucked reproachfully when she saw how underweight I was. Then she had me sit on the paper-covered exam bed and took my blood pressure, which was normal, and asked me the usual questions. Did I have any allergies? No. What medications was I taking? Wellbutrin and Lexapro. Did I have any ongoing medical problems? Not really.

“So what brings you to us today?” the nurse said finally.

“My therapist referred me,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. I hesitated in saying the rest. “I have, um, gender identity disorder. I'm … I'm transgender.” I tore absentmindedly at the paper seat cover and took a deep breath. “I need to start hormones.”

“Okie dokie,” the nurse said, scribbling one last note before smiling and closing my file. “You just sit tight and Dr. Howard will be with you shortly.”

I fell back on the bed, stared at the ceiling, and crossed my hands over my heart. It was really happening. It was really, finally happening. I wasn't going to grow hair on my chest and back. My voice wasn't going to deepen any more than the little bit it already had. My shoulders weren't going to widen. My jaw and forehead weren't going to bulge. I was never going to grow a beard. All because of this moment. I heard the door open and sat up to see an older man with a thick beard and bald head examining my chart.

“Afternoon, Andrew,” he said, putting down the chart and holding out his hand. I shook it and he smiled. “I'm Dr. Howard. How are you doing today?”

“Good,” I said, and I felt a sudden, unprecedented surge of courage. “But I would prefer it if you called me Amanda, sir.”

“I see,” Dr. Howard said, still smiling. “No problem, Amanda. Let me just make a note of that in your chart.” He made the note quickly. “Let them know at the desk if anyone gives you any problems about that in the future.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I've looked at your chart and gone through the notes your therapist sent us,” Dr. Howard said, “and this all seems pretty straightforward. We'll start you on one hundred milligrams of spironolactone to block your testosterone and two milligrams of estradiol to replace it with estrogen. We're starting at a low dose at first because you're going to have some mood instability and the estradiol can be hard on your liver. I like to ease in so we can observe you and make sure things don't get out of hand. We'll bring you in for a blood test in about a month and stay in touch with your therapist and see how we want to proceed from there.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“There is one other thing I want to go over before I write this prescription though,” he said. “Your therapist doesn't seem to have any doubts, and I don't doubt his skill at his job, but I would be remiss if I didn't make sure you understand a few things.”

“Okay,” I said, my throat feeling suddenly dry. I was so close, and some small, scared part of me screamed that he was about to take it all away.

“Not to be crude, but you are going to grow breasts,” Dr. Howard continued. “They'll shrink if you ever change your mind and go off the hormones, but they'll never completely go away unless you get reconstructive surgery.” I nodded. “And more importantly, you're going to be sterile within a few weeks of starting the spironolactone. It
might
be reversible if you stop the hormones within your first year, but after that point the effect is almost completely permanent.”

“I understand,” I said, looking down at my hands.

“All right then,” he said, pulling out a prescription pad and scribbling on it. “Stop by the front desk to take care of your copay and make your next appointment, and I'll see you back here in a month. Good to meet you, Amanda.”

“You too,” I said, feeling like I was walking through a dream as I made my way back to the lobby.

*   *   *

Later that night, after the moon had risen and Mom had long since gone to sleep, I took my bottle of estradiol and a can of Diet Coke into the backyard. The grass was cool and wet between my toes, and the frogs and crickets were singing softer than usual. I fell back in the grass and stared up at the faintly glowing crescent moon. Its points were facing to the right, which meant it was just emerging from the darkness of the new moon.

I opened the pill bottle, fished one out, and held it above me. The tiny blue oval felt dry and powdery on my wet fingers. God, it was so small, only a third the size of my pinky nail, and yet it was everything. Breasts and sterility were irreversible side effects, but I knew I was never going back.

It was going to be hard. I was going to have to pretend to be a boy for a little while longer. No matter how much I tried to hide it, classmates and family members were going to notice my body change. The bullying would probably be worse than ever, but somehow, now, I felt like I could handle it. I felt like, as Amanda, I could face things that would have kept me cowering in bed before.

I closed my eyes, placed the pill on my tongue, and washed it down with a sweet, bubbling sip of soda. Then I lay my head back down, closed my eyes, and bathed in moonlight, letting myself dream of how good life could be every now and then.

 

33

The girls picked me up outside Dad's apartment for the first day of my second semester in Lambertville. I settled into the left rear seat, next to Chloe, same as always, and in the quiet moment before we would hurriedly catch up with one another I breathed and marveled at how normal everything felt. The world had ended, and yet the world was still here.

“The prodigal daughter returns!” Layla said, beaming at me in the rearview.

“It's good to be back,” I told them honestly. “I missed you guys.” I hesitated for a moment, then asked what I'd been afraid to ask. I leaned forward so my head was between the two front seats and looked at Anna. I couldn't help noticing she was having a hard time looking at me. “Are we okay?”