He says it so casually, like it’s no big deal. Like I might not even hear it.
But I hear it.
“You’ve seen my life,” I say. “Tell me a way you think this can work.”
“We’ll find a way.”
“That’s not an answer,” I point out. “It’s a hope.”
“Hope’s gotten us this far. Not answers.”
“Good point.” I sip my coffee. “I know this is weird, but…I keep wondering. Are you really not a boy or a girl? I mean, when you were in my body, did you feel more…at home than you would in the body of a boy?”
“I’m just me,” he (she?) says. “I always feel at home and I never feel at home. That’s just the way it is.”
I don’t know why this isn’t enough for me—but it’s not. “And when you’re kissing someone?” I press.
“Same thing.”
“And during sex?”
“Is Dylan blushing? Right now, is he blushing?”
Bright red. “Yeah.”
“Good. Because I know I am.”
I don’t know why the word sex would make him blush so much. But then I realize why, and I blurt out, “You’ve never had—?”
He sputters. “It wouldn’t be fair of me to—”
“Never!”
He’s as red as a strawberry now. “I am so glad you find this funny,” he says.
“Sorry.”
“There was this one girl.”
Aha! “Really?”
“Yeah. Yesterday. When I was in your body. Don’t you remember? I think you might have gotten her pregnant.”
“That’s not funny!”
“I only have eyes for you,” he says. And the way he says it isn’t funny at all. Or teasing. Or careless.
Sincerity. I think that’s the word for this. For meaning something so much that it can’t be anything other than what it is.
I’m not used to it.
“A—” I start. I have to tell him. I have to keep us in the world of reality. And in the world of reality, we cannot be together.
“Not now,” he interrupts. “Let’s stay on the nice note.”
The nice note. That rings its own note within me. And that note is, momentarily, louder than reality.
“Okay,” I say. “I can do that.”