My stomach won’t stop doing somersaults. Hasn’t stopped since she asked me to come to her place. The last two classes of the day were absolute torture and I could barely concentrate.
Fortunately, Sinéad already went home earlier, so at least she can’t offer to take me. I hate the thought of having such a conversation in a place where I can’t immediately leave. Granted, her room probably isn’t much better, but definitely better than a car.
I’ve spent almost the entire time since she asked me to come thinking about how I’m supposed to approach this. Do I ask her to keep it a secret? Do I try to bribe her? Or do I try to gaslight her that she’s seeing things and I’m not trans? But at this point, aren’t the signs pretty clear?
They’ve got to be.
Feeling vaguely sick, I leave the bus and walk down the street to Sinéad’s house. I’ve only been here once before, but it’s easy to recognize: they have a beautifully kept bush of roses snaking up a wooden grid to the left of the door. The smell carries all the way to the fence.
As I approach the door, I wonder what her motives could be. Why would she even care about forcing me to out myself? Obviously, she’s been pretty into the idea of crossdressing me from the start, she did come up with it, after all, but there’s no way she’s a chaser, right? I remember having read stories about such people when I was younger, trying to get into the pants of unsuspecting closeted trans girls. The idea of being reduced to what I perceive as wrong about myself always seemed extremely uncomfortable to me, so I never made it very far into the stories. Could I put up with something like that for the last weeks of school, just to make it out? At this point, what does it matter?
But then, isn’t Sinéad supposed to be in love with Drew?
I cringe as I ring the bell and wait for Sinéad to open the door. The internet really fucked me up, didn’t it? I shouldn’t have thoughts like these about a person I know. It’s objectifying and sexualizing and disgusting and what if she just wants to help me figure myself out? How is she supposed to know that I’m just waiting to get away from here so I can finally be the person I’ve been hiding for four years now?
The door opens, and I flinch slightly.
“Hi, there!” Sinéad says brightly, seemingly unaware of my reaction to the appearance fo her. Once again, she’s holding two smoothie bottles and hands me one once I’ve taken off my shoes.
“So… what did you want to talk about?” I ask, unable to stop myself, even though I don’t expect she will tell me in the entryway with possibly her parents within earshot.
As expected, her expression fades, and she jerks her head towards the stairs. “Let’s go upstairs.”
In spite of the cool drink in my hands and the air-conditioned house, I’m sweaty and my mouth is dry. I try to swallow the knot in my throat as we ascend the stairs, but it won’t go away.
In her room, Sinéad sits on her bed, gesturing for me to take the desk chair. She has crossed her legs, and her fingers are knotted together in her lap.
It feels strange, closing the door behind me and taking a seat across from her. Like I’m walking right into a trap. I cross my legs as well, to keep my knees from bouncing, and clasp my hands in my lap.
“So?” I ask, my voice thin.
Sinead cocks her head, then licks her lips. When she finally starts speaking, she barely meets my eyes, only glancing up for moments at a time every few words. “I was wondering if you could help me get together with Drew.”
It’s like my thoughts trip at the sound of her words, get tangled up in themselves and crash to the ground in a messy heap. “What?” I ask, dumbfounded.
She gives me a surprised look. “I have a massive crush on the guy, didn’t you know? I thought everybody but him knew by now.”
“Oh yeah, I know.” Of course I do. It’s impossible to overlook, although Drew manages anyway. Somehow.
She tilts her head, her eyes watching me. “Why did you react like that, then?”
I stare at my fingers as I scratch my right ankle. “I didn’t think this was what you’d wanna talk about.”
“What would I wanna talk about then?”
I stiffen involuntarily. “Oh, uhm, nothing. Forget it.” Trying to focus on the topic at hand, I draw my eyebrows together and I consider her. “Why would you need my help for that, though?”
“Uhm, hello? You’ve seen how aggressively I flirt with the guy, haven’t you? He still has no idea! And the others tried to help me, but it’s like he’s immune. And you’re his best friend, right? So I thought maybe you’d know something to… make him notice me. Like, I don’t wanna lie to him or anything, just… give him a push in the right direction, if you know what I mean.”
My stomach jumps, even though this shouldn’t come as a surprise at all. Of course, I know what she means. Drew’s being a huge idiot about not noticing her advances. There’s no other way about it. If he knew and didn’t like her, he’d just tell her, very gently.
“Oh, uhm… yeah, I guess I could help with that?” It seems strange, the idea that I of all people should help Drew find a girlfriend. But I’m in a great position to do so, aren’t I? There’s nobody who knows him better. And maybe having somebody to love will be good to distract him from me once I disappear?
I give a decisive nod, as if to reaffirm to myself that this is a good idea. “Yeah, I’m sure there’s something. You could…” What? Do sports? Get good at swimming over the next week so you’ll be able to train together? She could join him for training, even if she isn’t that good, but that doesn’t seem very special. If he already hasn’t noticed her touching him all the time and laughing loudest at his jokes. No, we need something deeper than that. Something like—
“Poetry!” I exclaim.
“What?” Sinéad asks, raising her eyebrows.
“He loves poetry. You could start writing poetry — I’m sure he would notice that!”
“He mentioned,” she says slowly, leaning back onto her hands to stretch out her legs before tucking them underneath herself sideways. “But poetry is not something you can just get good at.”
I give a rigorous shake of my head. “It is! That’s the neat thing. If you don’t care about rhyme or metre, from a technical standpoint, writing poetry isn’t hard at all. Sure, language might be difficult, but you’ve got great vocabulary, so that’s a non-issue anyway. It’s just about… having something to say and being willing to say it.”
Her expression of doubt doesn’t budge. “Do you write poetry?”
I wave my hand through the air vaguely. “I dabble.”
“Could you show me something?” she asks, leaning forward.
I freeze. I really shouldn’t show her my notebook. What if she mentions to Drew that I wrote a poem about Sunshine? There’s no way he’d miss that, not even him.
“I don’t have anything with me,” I lie. “But I could write something on the spot?”
“Okay!” she says, suddenly energetic. “Do you need a pen and paper?”
“I’ve got my school stuff right here,” I say with a grin. “But what you could do is give me a topic you want me to write about.”
While I retrieve my notepad and a pen from my school bag, Sinéad leans back and stares at the ceiling, humming thoughtfully.
Once I’m sitting straight again, ready to write, she snaps her fingers. “What about your eternal love for Drew?”
My heart skips a beat. “Excuse me?”
But by the time I finish speaking, the gleeful sparkle has already set her eyes alight, and I know that she’s just joking.
“Hm… do you want something personal or something random? Which makes it easier to write?”
“Usually personal,” I say slowly, fully aware that I don’t really want to share anything too personal.
“Couldn’t you try to write from my perspective? Like, a love poem or something.”
“I’m not going to write your poems for you,” I say immediately. What I don’t say is that there are too many bad movies about this. Where a person asks another person for help getting a guy but then the other person falls—
I shake my head. “Okay, what about that party at the barn?”
“Oh yeah, that sounds like a good idea!”
“Okay.” I click the pen open and stare at the notepad on my legs. “So, lemme try to explain my thought process. I jumped, right? It was my first party ever. It was super summery. It was the start of me making… friends, I guess.”
“I stand at the edge, but I’m not scared.
This is not freefall, it is flight.
Not an end, but a beginning.
A promise of laughter and sunshine
That makes you weightless.
I spread my arms and close my eyes
And feel the joy of
S u m m e r .”
Sitting back, I scrutinize my handiwork. “Hmmmm the start reads a little much like suicide? Might wanna change that—”
“I think it’s cool!” Sinéad interrupts me. “It’s misleading for a few lines and then gets decisively positive. It really captures this…” she snaps her fingers, like she can’t find the word, “summery vibe! It’s really cool. Write another!”
She claps her hands like an excited child.
I stifle laughter. “What would you like it to be about?”
“Stargazing!” comes the immediate reply.
So I start writing.
“The wind in the blades of grass
Sings my lullaby.
The cool smell of the night cradles me like a lover
As the stars put on a spectacle.
It’s like they speak to me, chant my name,
Encouraging me
To reach for them.”
“HOW?” Sinéad squeals. “On the spot? Like, how do you just write that down?”
I give a little shrug. “I’ve been doing this for years. But I think you’ll find it’s a lot easier than you think when you have something you need to write about.”
I pull my chair closer. “Okay, your turn now. What do you want to write about?”
She pulls a face. “Drew?”
“Okay! What do you feel about him? What does his presence feel like to you?”
She hugs her arms around her chest absently. “He feels safe. He feels like… warmth. Like summer. Like—”
“Sunshine,” I whisper. I hadn’t meant to say it.
I glance up and meet Sinéad’s eyes, and I know she’s heard. She has gone perfectly still, her eyes caught on me like a thread on splintered wood. A hint of a frown creases her brow.
I am suspended in anticipation. Weightless.
At a snap, Sinéad comes back to live. “Exactly!” she exclaims. “Like sunshine. A smile that lights up any room.”
If she notices the little jerk in my left hand, she doesn’t show it.
“I’m sure you can do something with that,” I say, haltingly. I don’t like the idea of somebody using the same imagery and metaphors as me, but it’s not like they’re trademarked. More to the point, it’s not like Drew is mine.
She gives a humming sound as she pinches her lower lip thoughtfully. Then she mumbles, her eyes not quite focused, “You are wild days at the lake and nights in the fields…”
I lean forward, expecting more, but she hesitates, glancing up at me.
“You make this look so easy,” she complains. “Where do I go from here?”
I readjust myself. “What makes the nights special?”
She shrugs. “Only happened once, but we laughed so much. And still, it was a quiet feeling. Cozy.”
“So say that.”
“… And nights in the fields, when we watch the stars and laugh, where only… we can hear?”
“Good!”
“No!” she insists, furrowing her brow.
“Maybe it’s not just you who hears?”
“Who then?”
“Nature? The night?”
“The wind!” she says, her excitement returned. “And owls?”
“Sure!” I say, nodding my approval.
“And after that?”
“You could make it seasonal? Like, right now you have summer, but what about the other seasons? Maybe he’s not just summer.”
It takes some time, guiding her through her first poem. I try to ask only broad questions to inspire her, but that makes the process a lot more arduous. But even within the space of a single poem, she improves to the point where she comes up with the last few lines on her own.
“You are wild days at the lake
And nights in the fields,
When we watch the stars and laugh
Where only the wind and owls will hear.
You are the falling of leaves that sends my heart cascading,
The burning hearth and a hot chocolate
When I’m cold.
You are the first flower of the year
And the smell of rain.
Your smile is evergreen
And still you manage to reinvent it
Every season.”
I clap my hands as she lowers the notepad and gives me a crooked grin.
“My brain is fried,” Sinéad sighs, getting to her feet. “Let’s get something to eat and maybe continue in the kitchen.”
She leads me downstairs and into the kitchen where she immediately starts throwing together another smoothie.
“You really love those, don’t you?”
“Making smoothies is my love language.” She sings it like it’s a jingle.
“It’s a great love language,” I assure her.
“While I’m busy, can you write more poems?” she asks, giving me puppy eyes. “It’s, like, so inspiring.”
“Uhm, okay? What topic?”
“Sunshine,” she beams.
Again, tension that jolts up my spine like electricity.
“Sunshine?”
“You know… the sun? It shines?” she asks, exaggerating her expression as she speaks.
I try my best to play over the shock. This was bound to come up again, wasn’t it?
“Okay,” I say with a dry mouth and start writing.
Or try to, anyway. It’s like my brain refuses to write about sunshine in a way that does not refer to Drew somehow.
Sunshine… sunshine, sunshine, sunshine… I click my pen open and shut.
“Having trouble?” Sinéad asks, cutting up a mango.
I shake my head, as if to get rid of the writer’s block.
“Shouldn’t this be easier?” she adds, curiously, when I still don’t start writing.
“I mean, we already established that Drew is Sunshine, didn’t we?”
“I guess?” I ask meekly.
As she starts the smoothie maker and the whirring makes it impossible to hold a conversation, I finally start writing. Because fuck it, it’s not like she knows the poems and even if, she literally just told me to write about sunshine as Drew. It’s not like that’ll give anything away.
When Sinéad is done with the drinks, we head outside and sit in the shade of the tree in her backyard as I finish writing, and then I read the poem to her.
“Without sunshine, I would never leave my room.
Without sunshine, I wouldn’t talk to people
Or make friends or go to parties.
Sunshine is the reason I stopped hiding.
Sunshine is the reason I love summer.”
“I love that,” Sinéad says, relaxed.
I yawn, setting down the notepad and taking a sip of the smoothie. It’s still wonderfully warm, even though it’s starting to get later into the evening. We’ve still got a few hours of light and even beyond that, the night will be warm.
I nuzzle further into the lawn chair, taking another sip. This is comfortable, isn’t it? This… hanging out with a good friend, writing poetry, helping her bag my best friend, lounging in the sun…
“Max?” Sinéad asks, and I nod absently.
“Yes?”
“You’re Sunshine Girl, aren’t you?”