“Someone’s in there,” I say, nodding toward the door.
Eli nods. He doesn’t look at the bathroom or at me. His eyes stay fixed on the floor.
“I talked to them,” he says, so softly it takes me a second to understand.
“Really?” I ask. He looks up, his eyes meeting mine. “Your parents?”
Eli nods.
“How did it go?”
He shakes his head and drops his eyes. His lower lip quivers.
“Oh, God. I’m sorry, Eli.”
He shakes his head again. “My mom didn’t say very much, but my dad—well, it wasn’t good. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know if they’ll let me stay here, and I don’t know if they’ll let me come home.”
I let out a low string of swears. “Have you talked to the others? Derek?”
He shakes his head again. “I’m too embarrassed.”
“Don’t be. They’ll totally understand. They’ll want to help.”
“There’s no way to help.” Eli meets my eyes again. “I don’t want anyone else getting involved. I’m not ready to talk about it with my roommates. I don’t want them looking at me with sad eyes every single minute of my life. Promise you won’t tell anyone?”
I feel completely lost. If I can’t ask Derek how to deal with this, what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to tell him?
“I promise,” I say, since it seems so important to him. “And, look, your parents were probably just shocked. I bet they’ll calm down and start to see things rationally after some time has gone by.”
Eli’s staring at the floor again. “Maybe.”
“Whatever they say, you’re still awesome,” I say. “We know how awesome you are. Who cares what they think?”
A tiny ghost of a smile flickers over Eli’s face. It’s gone again just as fast.
“And I wanted to tell you before, but I think it’s incredibly brave of you to decide to start taking T, especially when you’re living so far from home,” I say. “I don’t know if I’d ever have the nerve.”
“You will,” Eli says. Behind us, the bathroom door opens and a blond girl comes out. I force down the thought of Gretchen. “Trust me. You will.”
I motion for Eli to go into the bathroom ahead of me. I didn’t even need to go in the first place.
But I stay there in that hallway by myself, staring at the blank space on the wall that Eli just left.
My life feels like a giant stack of 5000-piece jigsaw puzzles. I can’t imagine how I’ll ever solve even one, let alone all the others.
Eli’s only two years older than me. He’s already started T and come out to his parents. I can’t imagine doing even one of those. I can’t even imagine how I’m going to make it through one weekend of being a guy.
But I’m desperate to find out.
*
I have to sit in the London airport for two hours, waiting for Audrey’s plane to arrive. Something about a suspicious package at Dulles.
I try to study while I wait, but it takes most of my concentration just to stay away from the Starbucks cart. I desperately need caffeine. If I had coffee, though, I’d have to pee, and I can’t go into a public bathroom at the airport. I doubt there are gender-neutral bathrooms here. If I went into the women’s bathroom, I’d look out of place. If I went into the men’s, I’d feel out of place.
Consciously making an effort to present as male is way more work than I expected. I had to examine all my clothes as I packed, making sure my pants (trousers, they call them trousers here) fastened the right way, that nothing had any tiny lace accents or flowers on the hems (I couldn’t believe I hadn’t already expurgated all that stuff from my wardrobe, but I’m bad at throwing things away), and that there are no pleats on the fronts of my button-down shirts. Most of my clothes already look generically male, or at least androgynous, but you have to be extra careful if you really want to pass. I also ordered a couple of new binders two weeks ago from a store Derek told me about. They cost ninety dollars each, but they were worth it, and hey, it was all going on Mom’s credit card.
Audrey’s flight is delayed yet again. I give in and buy a mocha. When I finally meet my sister outside customs, I’m already getting fidgety.
“That took forever!” Audrey says. “The customs dude was flirting with me, which I figure has to be a good thing, right? Except, oh, my God, he made me tell him my whole life story. Anyway, hi! It’s good to see you. Or am I even supposed to see you? Are you like a stealth agent?”
Audrey knows I’m a guy for the weekend. I sent her a long message about it. She replied with one line: S’cool. Laters.
“You can see me,” I tell her. “I’m not invisible.”
“Okay, good. Where’s the bathroom? I have to pee so bad!” Audrey looks around the customs area. “Hey, what about you? Are you going in the men’s bathroom?”
“No,” I whisper, because Audrey’s practically shouting. “I’ll wait and go at the hotel.”
“What, you’re just going to hold it?”