“Why not?” I said, straightening my back and facing her again.
“He said he could deal with me being … the way I am, but that he wanted a family one day and, since I couldn’t provide that, it felt like we were going nowhere.”
“Ouch,” I said, my stomach churning as I imagined a grown-up Grant saying the same thing to me.
“Whatever,” Virginia said. “It is what it is. How are things with your guy?”
“Good,” I said, rubbing my arm. “We kind of had our first fight, but we got over it, and things have been great ever since.”
“Aww,” she said.
I looked up at her and took a deep breath. “Do you think I should tell him?”
“Hell no!” she said, arching an eyebrow and leaning away from me. “Why would you do that?”
“I don’t know,” I said, scrunching my nose and sighing. “I feel like maybe he should know who I am…”
“You don’t owe it to him if that’s what you’re thinking,” she said. “You’re a girl, you’ve always been a girl, you won the genetic lottery when it comes to passing, and he’ll never ever have to know unless he sees your birth certificate for some reason.”
“Or wants to get married or start a family,” I said, jabbing my straw at the ice clattering in my now-empty cup. “But that’s not why.”
“First of all, you’re only eighteen,” Virginia said, her cheek full of fried potatoes. She poked her fork at me for emphasis. “You’re supposed to be having real fun for the first time in your life, not dreaming of settling down with Mr. Right.”
“Whatever!” I said, flipping my hair and sticking my tongue out at her. “I like him a lot … I think I might love him.” I chose to ignore Virginia rolling her eyes. “And it obviously isn’t everything, but being … being the way I am has been a huge part of my life. It’s easy to act like my past never happened, but it feels like I’ve put up this wall around my heart.”
“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?”