“You know walls are there for a reason though, right?” she said as she gingerly wiped hot sauce off her fingers. “They keep things from falling apart.” I started to say something but she held up a hand. “That’s just my opinion. Do what you want with it.”
“That’s fair,” I said. I made a motion to the waitress that we were ready for the check. “How long are you in town?”
“However long I feel like, I guess,” Virginia said, shrugging with one shoulder as she rummaged for her wallet. “So what’s up for tonight? Should we call your friends?”
“Oh,” I said, my hand freezing between my phone and my face. I looked Virginia up and down and saw two separate people. One was the beautiful, statuesque angel who had been there to guide me through some of the hardest steps of my transition. The other was a woman with a jaw just a little too strong, forehead just a little too high, shoulders just a little too wide, and hands just a little too big. I felt like an ungrateful bitch for thinking like that at all, but a hateful little voice at the back of my head screamed that if my friends saw me with her, and if my friends figured out she was trans, then they might figure me out next.
“What?” Virginia said. She looked over her shoulder and then looked at me, her shoulders tightening as she bit her fingernail. Then, as I sat mute, her expression began to darken. “Oh,” she said finally. “Oh, I get it. Amanda, hey, don’t look so stricken. It’s okay if you don’t want me to meet your friends. You don’t have to worry about my feelings.”
“No!” I said, shaking my head and blinking. “I mean, yes. It’s complicated, but…” I trailed off, pain and confusion mingling in my chest. Virginia had meant so much to me for so long, and I wanted her to meet all the people who were beginning to mean a lot to me now.
A sudden thought occurred to me, and I slid my phone out from my pocket. “There is one person, actually,” I told her with a smile.
*
“So what do people do for fun around here?” Virginia asked as we pulled out of Bee’s driveway.
“Meth, mostly,” Bee said from the backseat. I craned my neck and saw her fishing for something in her bag. “Mind if I smoke?”
“I don’t know,” Virginia said. She reached up and poked at one of the torn, hanging strips of upholstery above her. “I’d hate if the smell messed up my car’s trade-in value.”
Bee’s sudden laughter catapulted her unlit cigarette into the front seat.
“I like her!” Bee said, leaning forward to grab her cigarette where it had landed in a cup holder. “What was your name again?”
“Virginia,” she said.
“And how do you guys know each other?”
“Virginia’s my trans mentor,” I replied.
Virginia raised an eyebrow. “What happened to being stealth?”
“She’s the only one I told,” I explained.
Virginia looked in the rearview mirror for a long time, then to the road, then back at me. She seemed to be evaluating something, but she didn’t say anything more.
“So where are you girls taking me?” Bee said as she ashed her cigarette out the window.
Virginia didn’t hesitate. “A gay bar in Chattanooga called Mirages,” she said, grinning in the rearview.
“Hell yeah!” Bee cried, slapping the back of the seat. “Are all your trans friends as badass as her?”
“Nope!” I said happily. “Virginia’s one in a million.”
As the interstate flew by outside the car, Virginia asking all the right questions and making Bee laugh, I smiled. She really was one in a million—she was the sister I never had, the watchful eye that had kept me safe, and I hated myself for ever thinking her anything but beautiful. I thought about how every person could hold two truths inside of them, how impossible it felt sometimes to have your insides and outsides aligned.
The conversation flowed as Bee and Virginia moved on to college plans, previous relationships, and tales of debauchery.
“I’m glad you guys like each other,” I said after a while, smiling. It had taken me a little while to figure out what I was feeling, but now I understood: it was the sense of two parts of me coming together. It felt honest.
“Sorry I’m being quiet,” I said. “I’m just … happy. This isn’t something I felt like I could ever have.”
Virginia smiled at me, warm and wise. “You can have anything,” she said, “once you admit you deserve it.”
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