That doesn’t make any sense. Maybe Derek doesn’t really know that much about relationships. I mean, Derek’s never been with anyone for more than six months. Except Nance, but that doesn’t count because Nance is...Nance.
“Gretchen and I’ve had differences of opinion before,” I explain. “We just don’t fight about them. Back in high school, if we disagreed about something, we’d talk about it and then laugh it off and not talk about it again. Now we’re still doing that. We’re just skipping the laughing part.”
“So maybe you and Gretchen are finally starting to be normal now,” they say. “Not the other way around.”
“It doesn’t feel that way at all. It feels like what’s happening now is...” I don’t know how to explain it. There’s just this weird feeling that crops up every time Gretchen and I talk. It’s like the tickle I always get in my throat right before a really bad cold comes on. “Like it’s not a good thing. At all.”
“Oh.” Derek frowns. “Well. That sucks. Anyway, you’ll figure it out. You guys are perfect together. Avoiding her isn’t going to help, though.”
I sigh. “Avoiding them is my only option.”
“Them?” Derek frowns. “Wait. Are you using they pronouns now?”
“I’m trying it out.” I shrug. “It’s hard to get used to.”
“Yeah, I tried it once and hated it. I think the new pronouns people have come up with, like ze and hir, are easier. Then it’s as if you’re just speaking a different language. Like you’re permanently in French class.”
“Yeah, maybe.” I shift. Talking about pronouns feels a little too...close. I still haven’t mentioned what I really wanted to ask Derek about. I’m not quite ready to go there. “So, how’s it going with Inez?”
Derek grins. “She’s awesome. Last night we went to see that musical theater version of The Bourne Identity they’re doing at the Agassiz, and we stayed up talking for four hours about whether it was ethical to sleep with a guy who had amnesia and didn’t remember what his type was.”
“It took you four hours to decide that?”
“Well, we hooked up, too.”
I laugh. “Are you two officially together now?”
Derek shrugs. “We’re taking it slow, you know? We’ll stay casual until we decide for sure if we definitely like each other enough to make it an actual commitment. We’ve got plenty of time.”
“Casual” is a foreign concept to me. I’ve only ever been in one relationship, and it’s been many things, but casual was never one of them.
Maybe you’re supposed to plan everything in advance with relationships, like Derek and Inez are doing. Maybe that’s why it’s been so strange lately between Gretchen and me. We didn’t do any planning. We met, we liked each other, we fell in love. Boom, boom, boom. Not a single bump along the way.
“I’ve been thinking,” I say. Suddenly my original topic seems much less scary than the route my mind just took. “You know how I’m doing that internship at Oxford this summer? I thought maybe while I’m there, I’ll try getting people to use male pronouns for me, just so I can see what that’s like. Do you think that’s, um, a good idea?”
Derek’s whole face changes, their grin spreading wide. “You mean you want to present as male for the whole summer?”
I fiddle with Eli’s stuffed lion. “Maybe?”
“That’s awesome!” Derek applauds, and I laugh. Then they abruptly stop clapping. “I mean. If that’s what you want to do.”
“Why? Do you think it would be weird?”
“Well, it’s always kind of weird, but it’s good weird. It’s, like, freeing. Like you get to stop living alone in your head all the time, because everybody else sees you the same way you see yourself.” Derek coughs. “I mean. If that’s what you want to do.”
It sounds incredible, the way Derek describes it. Except...
“Why do you keep saying that?” I ask. “About it being what I want to do?”
“Uh,” they say. “Well. I’ve been accused, in the past, of being too supportive when people are thinking about transitioning.”
“Accused?” I laugh again. “By whom?”
Derek nods toward the common room. “Some theorists who will remain nameless have suggested that Eli would’ve started taking T last year if I hadn’t scared him away with my overt enthusiasm. But to those theorists I say, why tiptoe into the water when a flaming cannonball is perfectly effective?”
“Right,” I say. Even though I’m not completely sure what Derek means with the cannonball metaphor.
“There are also those who would say I should’ve waited longer before scheduling top surgery,” Derek goes on. “Some might argue that just because I’ve been positive I wanted it since the first time I read about it, which was eight damn years ago, when I was in middle school, that I should still keep on waiting, just to make extra, extra sure.”
I shake my head. “Those people are lame.”
“Those people include certain individuals whom I’d trust with my life.”