My stomach flutters at the thought of standing in front of everyone and explaining my photo. I glance around table four. Fiona tugs at her right earlobe like she does when she’s nervous. Braden’s chewing a wad of gum like he’s trying to pulverize it with his teeth. The only one of us who doesn’t seem nervous is Ash.
My nerves ease off as kids take turns. Some of the photos are good—like one that shows a colorful pile of miscellaneous Legos next to an assembled Lego car arranged on a big green Lego board—but some are downright awful, like a picture of a bag of cheese puffs and a can of Coke on a cafeteria table. That kid obviously did his an hour ago.
Fiona is the first to be called at our table. She walks to the front of the room with her chin tilted up and her shoulders back. I recognize her debate persona taking over. She projects self-assurance as she tells us about her mom’s baptism gown and her own baptism candle on a swath of altar fabric, and about putting each object at the top intersections to show there’s more yet to be written to the story.
Braden goes next. His photo is a pair of torn-up leather gloves and a cracked motorcycle helmet on a street. “These were my mom’s,” he says in an abrupt tone. “She got killed last year by a dipwad driving drunk. Now we’re rich from the insurance but I’d rather have her than the money.” He hurries to his seat without waiting for Ms. Bernstein to ask him anything about it.
Ash gives his shoulder a quick squeeze. Braden seems like he’s trying not to cry. The room is full of awkward silence.
I stand up quickly. “I’ll go next.” I walk to the front while Ms. Bernstein opens my photo. I face the class and clear my throat. “The lock on the left is my bike lock. Without my bike, I couldn’t have saved a dog’s life. The lock of hair on the right is from the dog. The background is the floor of the tent I kept her in while I figured out how to get her to safety.” I look at Ash. “I had some help, and I’m proud of what we did, even though it was hard.”
“Very good,” Ms. Bernstein says. She glances at Braden, who’s looking down at a notebook and seems to have regained his composure. “Ash?”
I walk back to our table. My knees are shaky with relief that my turn is over. Ash and I brush our fingers together as we pass.
Ms. Bernstein displays Ash’s photo. It’s two drawings of figures like you’d see on a bathroom door sign, cut out and set on a plain white fabric. Half of each drawing is guy-shaped and half is girl-shaped, and there are different patterns inside each half. “These two drawings represent my gender and my love of music,” Ash says in a steady voice. “I have synesthesia, so when I hear sounds, I see shapes in my mind. I always categorized the shapes of music by male and female. Guy music to me was made of thick, angled shapes, and girl music was made of flowing lines. But I realized recently how limiting it is to categorize sounds, or anything else, as one thing or the other. So I drew what I used to think of as guy music and girl music inside these gendered symbols, and then I mixed them together. I wanted to show that being human comes first, and the parts that make up who you are—your gender, the music you like, what you wear, everything else—is secondary.”
For the first time all year, Ms. Bernstein looks impressed. “I’d say you accomplished your goal, Ash. Excellent work.” She calls someone at table five, but her eyes linger on Ash’s drawings for a moment before she flips to the next kid’s photo.
Ash sinks into the seat next to me. “Phew,” they say under their breath. “I was freaked out of my noodle up there.”
Fiona stifles a giggle. “You did so good.”
“Yeah, not bad,” Braden mutters, his face still aimed down at his notebook.
“Could you tell I rehearsed it like fifty times last night?” Ash whispers to me as the table five kid starts talking.
“Not at all,” I say quietly. “You were perfect.”
That smile.
Dinner at Ash’s apartment Friday evening is really good. It’s simple, burgers and baked potatoes and salad. But it’s fun to watch Ash and their mom constantly switch back and forth between arguing and trying to crack each other up. It’s like a sport. Bicker-joking.
After dinner, Ash pulls on a black hoodie with a picture of a wave on it and we walk Booper. The air is cool and fresh and crisp, and the sun is heading into a colorful sunset. Booper is the cutest little dude with his soft, floppy ears and his big front feet that turn outward and his tail that wags as he walks in the golden late-day light. “He looks so happy,” I say.
“He always does. I don’t know if he actually is or if it just seems like he is because of his whole . . . everything.” They wave their hands at Booper like they waved them at me back when they said I looked exhausted and offered to stay with Chewy overnight.
I smile. “Ever wish you were a dog?”
“Yeah. Seems way simpler.”
“No lie. Feel what you feel, take a nap, eat food, take a nap. Go for a walk. Take a nap.” Booper finds a Highly Interesting Smell by a tree and roots around in the dirt, chuffing and snuffing. We stop walking so he can have a good sniff. “I like that I can be myself with you,” I tell Ash. “You’ve never made me feel bad about being a basket case.”
“You’re not a basket case. You’re a person who feels really hard.”
“You know what I mean. How like . . . society
