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It is an awful thing to be betrayed by your body And it’s lonely, because you feel you can’t talk about it You feel it’s so between you and the body You feel it’s a battle you will never win … and yet you fight it day after day, and it wears you down Even if you try to ignore it, the energy it takes to ignore it will exhaust you

Vic was lucky in the parents he was given They didn’t care if he wanted to wear jeans instead of skirts, or play with trucks instead of dolls It was only as he grew older, into his teens, that it gave theirls But it took a while for him to articulate--even to himself--that he liked them as a boy That he was meant to be a boy, or at least to live as a boy, to live in the blur between a boyish girl and a girlish boy

His father, a quiet man, understood and supported him in a quiet way His mother took it harder She respected Vic’s desire to be who he needed to be, but at the sa a daughter for the fact of having a son Some of Vic’s friends understood, even at thirteen and fourteen Others were freaked out--the girls along, the nonsexual friend This didn’t change that

Daas always there in the background They’d gone to school together since kindergarten, friendly without ever really beco out with the kids who furiously scribbled poems into their notebooks and let them lie there, while Daith the kids ould subazine thefor class treasurer and joining the debate club, and the private boy, the sidekick on 7-Eleven runs Vic never would have noticed Dawn, never would have thought it was a possibility, if Dawn hadn’t noticed him first

But Dawn did notice him He was the corner that her eye always strayed toward When she closed her eyes to go to sleep, it was thoughts of him that would lead her into her dreairl, the girlish boy--and eventually she decided it didn’t really matter She was attracted to Vic And Vic had no idea she existed Not in that way

Finally, as Daould later recount to Vic, it became unbearable They had plenty of mutual friends who could have done reconnaissance, but Dawn felt that if she was going to risk it, she was going to risk it firsthand So one day when she saw Vic piling in with souys for a 7-Eleven run, she jumped into her car and followed the out in front while his friends played in the aisles Daalked over and said hello Vic didn’t understand at first why Daas talking to him, or why she see, and that he wanted it to happen, too When the chime of the front door marked his friends’ exit, he waved them off and stayed with Daho didn’t even re from the store Daould have talked there for hours; it was Vic who suggested they go get coffee, and it all went from there

There had been ups and downs since, but the heart of it remained: When Dawn looked at Vic, she saw Vic exactly as he wanted to be seen Whereas Vic’s parents couldn’t help seeing who he used to be, and sowho he didn’t want to be anymore, Dawn only saw him Call it a blur if you want, but Dawn didn’t see a blur She saw a very distinct, very clear person

As I sift through these ratitude and such longing--not Vic’s, but my own This is what I want froive Rhiannon

But how can I make her look past the blur, if I’m a body she’ll never really see, in a life she’ll never really be able to hold?

I arrive the period before lunch and park in my usual spot

By now, I knohich class Rhiannon is in So I wait outside the door for the bell to ring When it does, she’s in theto her friend Rebecca She doesn’t see me; she doesn’t even look up I have to follow behind her for a ways, not knohether I’host of her past, present, or future Finally, she and Rebecca head in different directions, and I can talk to her alone