Almost Perfect

  “Are we through here?”

  Dr. McGregor smiled and led me through another door. It was an airy room, painted light green, with bright, wire-mesh windows and many plastic plants. Games, puzzles, and books were stacked on various tables. Overhead, a TV watched us with a blank blue face.

  Sage sat slumped on a couch staring at her hands. She was wearing sweatpants, a sweater, and slippers. Those might have been men’s clothes, but it didn’t matter; she still looked like a girl. An ID bracelet was strapped around her wrist. Her face was turned away.

  “I’ll let you two talk,” said the doctor. “And remember …” She pointed to an overhead security camera, then left.

  Sage didn’t acknowledge me, just kind of sat there. Jesus, they hadn’t drugged her, had they? I sat down on the same couch, a cushion away.

  “Sage?”

  She didn’t look up. “You shouldn’t have come, Logan.”

  “How could I not have come?” That sounded too defensive, like I was doing her a favor by being there.

  Sage looked up at me, and I cringed before I could stop myself. My face had almost totally healed. Hers had gotten much worse. Her left eye, nose, and lip had all swollen together, melting the side of her face into some kind of grotesque clown mask. Her braces had been removed, and there was a gap where a tooth had been. What would that maniac have done if Sage hadn’t pretended to be unconscious? That guy might have killed her.

  “Pretty nasty, huh?” said Sage.

  “You look fine.”

  “Liar.” There was just a hint of a smile in that voice.

  “You look terrible.”

  “That’s better.” I couldn’t tell if she was grinning or if that was just the way her face had swelled.

  “Sage, I …”

  “Don’t.” There was something very final in the way she said that. “Don’t apologize, don’t say you’re sorry, don’t ask me what you can do. My family’s been giving me that bullshit all week.”

  “But …”

  She sighed. “Let me make it easier for you. You used me, and that makes you a prick. You wouldn’t stand up for me, and that makes you a wimp. After everything you promised, you still thought of Logan first.”

  So much for her wanting to get back together. She turned and faced me again, and she really was smiling this time.

  “But I don’t hate you. I don’t really like you, but I can’t actually hate you, either.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  She cut me off. “I swear, Logan, you give me a whiny apology, and I’ll get you thrown out of here.”

  My thoughts regrouped. “How are they treating you?”

  Sage rubbed her side. “It’s kind of a weird place. They lobotomized some guy last week, and then this big Indian threw a sink through a window and escaped.”

  “I’m pretty sure that was a movie.”

  “Okay, the food stinks and everyone keeps wanting to talk about my feelings.”

  I tapped my fingers on the arm of the couch. There was a question I had to ask to put my mind at ease. “Sage, your father said you … threatened to hurt yourself. Did you mean that?”

  Sage leaned her head back, grimaced in pain, then slouched forward. “I’m not going to kill myself. I wouldn’t hurt Tammi like that. Or my mom. Or you, I guess. But sometimes I do want to die.”

  “You’re too wonderful to die.” It slipped out before I could stop myself, and it was dangerously close to what the doctor had warned me about. But I kept talking. “Sage, I’ve never met anyone like you before. You’re too bizarre, too tacky, too ridiculous for words.” That didn’t sound right. “I mean, I just really enjoy you. You’re fun and loud and …”

  Sage almost laughed. “I can see why you’re not on the debate team. But thank you, Logan. You know, you always made me feel normal. I suppose we should have stayed friends. I guess I just wanted us to be more.”

  “That’s what I wanted too.” And then, when I got what I wanted, I ran away.

  Sage seemed to straighten up. “I guess I’m not the first girl who got fucked over by some asshole.” She looked at me with false contempt. “And I’m not the first girl who got her teeth knocked out by some psycho. When I decided I wanted to be a girl, I forgot that I’d be inheriting a whole new set of problems.”

  She sounded hopeful that she was going to put everything behind her.

  “How long will you have to stay here?”

  “Not long. Maybe two more weeks. My folks are working it out with the school so that I can make up my work and still graduate.”

  I’d been worried about that. “I’ll visit you again. Every day, if you want.” Then I could spend the summer proving to her that I was worthy of her friendship. That if she gave me another chance, I wouldn’t let her down.

  Sage wouldn’t meet my eye. “No, Logan. We won’t ever see each other again.”

  She said it matter-of-factly, like she was dropping a class or something. I hoped she was joking.

  “What?”

  She turned until I was facing her back. “You heard me.”

  “Why? We’ll be at Mizzou together. I know I’ve used up my asshole points, but don’t tell me you don’t want to be friends anymore! Is that what you really want?”

  “Keep your voice down or they’ll kick you out.” Sage stared up at the blank TV screen for a moment, her hand gently touching her bruised cheek. “Logan, I’m not going to Mizzou. I’m going to take a year off and go to school … somewhere else.”

  “Somewhere else? What for?”

  Sage just looked past me, running her tongue along her damaged smile.

  I was ready to start climbing the walls like a resident. “Sage, if you want me out of your life, fine. Get a restraining order. I won’t go within fifty feet of you. You don’t have to talk to me again. But would it really be so horrifying to live in the same city as me? Mizzou’s huge. We’d probably never run into each other.”

  I was yelling, hyperventilating. I waited for Dr. McGregor to come in, but she didn’t.

  “Are you through, Logan?”

  I caught my breath. “Yeah.”

  “I don’t want to go to Mizzou because I don’t want you to see me as a man.”

  I blinked in confusion. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  And then it hit me.

  “Sage? Jesus Christ, you’re not thinking about … living as a guy, are you?” After all the fighting, the misery, the struggle to become a girl, she wasn’t going to give that all up. She couldn’t.

  Sage pulled her knees up to her chin but still wouldn’t look at me. “I can’t do it, Logan. I could live with a father who hates me, and a society that treats me like a damn joke, and a body that’s too tall and too muscular … but when that guy started pounding me, and calling me a fag, and kicking me in the crotch …” She stopped talking for a bit, then continued, almost whispering.

  “I realized that I’m never going to be a woman. Even if I have the surgery, I’ll be faking it. I’ll always be a boy to my family, and I’ll live the next sixty years wondering if my secret will get out. I just can’t take it anymore. I tried and I failed, so I’m quitting. I wish we could stay friends, but after what we did together, we couldn’t face each other man to man.”

  Had Sage had some kind of breakdown? “You’ve lost your mind!”

  “That’s what they tell me.”

  “You know what I mean. Sage, you’re not a guy! You’re a chick! Things are bad now, but in a few months …”

  She swiveled slowly until we sat face to face. I flinched. I’d never seen anyone look so dejected, so beaten. “It’s always been bad. I smiled for the world, but I’ve been dead on the inside. Ever since I first tried to be a girl, I’ve felt like I was drowning, like I had to swim with all my might just to live, day to day! I have to get out of the water, Logan. I’ll go under for good, otherwise.”

  I stood up. This wasn’t right. It had never occurred to me she’d do this. I somehow knew that if
I said the wrong thing now, then I’d never see Sage again. “You think you’ll be happy as a man?”

  “I’m not happy now.”

  “You’ll be miserable as a guy. You’d hate yourself. Is that what you want, to wake up twenty years from now and realize you pissed away your only chance at happiness?”

  That struck a nerve. “I think you should leave, Logan.”

  I didn’t budge. “Don’t do it, Sage! You’ll regret it. Can you really deny that you’re a girl? Look me in the eye and say you’re a man. Do it!”

  “Dr. McGregor!” she called. The therapist must have been waiting right outside, because she burst in, along with a different guard.

  “Sir, you need to leave.” His tone left no room for argument.

  I didn’t have much time. “Sage, just think about this. Think about what we shared. Tell me that wasn’t wonderful. I fucked it up, but tell me that you didn’t enjoy it!”

  Sage buried her face in her lap, sobbing quietly.

  “Sir!” snapped the guard, not at all friendly.

  “Don’t let a couple of jerks ruin your life.”

  The guard grabbed my shoulder, but I pulled away. Big mistake. He had me in a half nelson almost instantly. I was being dragged to the door. Sage didn’t look at me.

  “Sage! Just think about it! Please!”

  I was through the door. It slammed in my face. The guard let me loose.

  I couldn’t bear to stand there and be chastised by Dr. McGregor. I sprinted down the hall. Then, to my humiliation, the door to the lobby wouldn’t open. I had to wait while the guard unlocked it.

  Mom looked upset when she saw me bolt through the lobby and out the front door.

  “You have to sign out!” the receptionist yelled after me. I jumped into the car. Mom joined me soon after.

  “Logan?”

  I wanted to tell her I was fine. I wanted to tell her to drive, that it was none of her business, to leave me alone. But I just started crying. I couldn’t stop. Mom held me and stroked my hair, and I bawled harder than I had since elementary school. I cried so hard I felt like I’d puke. I cried until I was exhausted. It was only when I collapsed in a daze against the door that Mom drove off.

  chapter thirty-six

  BERNAL C. HENDERSCHMITT

  1890–1920

  Remember friend as you pass by

  You are now as once was I

  Now I lie in a cold, cold bed

  And so shall you, when you are dead

  IF I KEPT HANGING OUT in this cemetery, they’d probably talk about having me put away. I wasn’t sure what time it was, though the moon had traveled halfway across the sky. Mom hadn’t said a word as we drove home, but I couldn’t follow her back inside. I felt like I’d suffocate in that trailer. I had to be alone. I leaned against a tree and stared at Bernal’s tombstone. Was he urging me to seize the day, or was he just pissy about being dead?

  So Sage was going to change her sex. Again. Go back to being the boy she once was. The very thought hurt my soul. I couldn’t describe it. I felt like Sage was on death row, like they were strapping her into the electric chair, and only I had the evidence to free her, but I didn’t know what to do.

  This was worse than Brenda cheating on me. Worse than when I found out Sage’s secret. Worse than when Laura found out Sage’s secret.

  Why did it bother me so much? Maybe it was the thought that in a year, Sage would be a hulking, burly man, and that I’d have to live with the fact that I let a macho guy like that give me pleasure.

  No, that wasn’t it. For one thing, Sage would never be macho. She’d turn into a swishy guy, one who’d set off gaydar alarms at fifty feet. Sage couldn’t pull off the man thing. And then there were the hormones. I didn’t know how they worked, but taking estrogen during puberty probably had some lasting effects.

  I hated the idea that I’d never see Sage again. She was my buddy, my friend, the first girl to touch me naked. I didn’t want her last mental image to be me screaming as the nuthouse staff dragged me away.

  But I’d never expected to talk to Sage again after I dumped her. I’d been willing to pay that price. What had changed my mind?

  Dew was forming on my pants. The mosquitoes were torturing me. Still, I could not make myself get up.

  I was upset because I thought Sage was making a huge mistake. That’s all there was to it. Sage made such a great girl. She’d told me herself, she was miserable as a boy. But now she felt she had to go back. Had to run away from all she’d accomplished. Because of one bully. One guy who hurt her. Sage, the girl Sage, was going to die. I couldn’t bear the thought.

  And there was nothing I could do to make everything right.

  That week, I tried to convince myself that things really weren’t black and hopeless. Sage had just suffered the worst week of her life. That’s why she was so determined to give up everything she’d achieved. But people say things all the time they don’t really mean. That was one lesson I learned from Brenda.

  I decided not to contact Sage for a week or so. Let her do some thinking, talk things over with her doctor and her family. Then, after she’d had a while to reflect, I’d ask Tammi to tell Sage that I really wanted to see her again. I didn’t think Sage would refuse me, not after everything that happened this semester.

  I’d tell her if she didn’t want to be friends, it would be my loss, not hers. But I had to make sure that she wasn’t going to kill off the girl I’d almost allowed myself to love. Sage would see things my way. She had to.

  I lasted six days before I broke down and called the hospital. To my surprise, whoever answered the phone informed me that Sage was no longer a patient there.

  This was great news! She’d been released early! That must mean her mental condition had improved. Maybe she’d even come back to school. I eagerly dialed her home number. Tammi answered.

  “Tammi? The hospital said Sage isn’t there anymore. Did she come home?”

  The long pause told me I’d been too optimistic. “Logan, I need to talk to you in person. Can I come see you?”

  I immediately went back to depressed mode. People never want to tell you news face to face unless it’s bad. “Yeah, come on over.”

  Mom was in her bedroom. I knocked.

  “Hey, Mom, feel like going for a drive?”

  She smiled. We hadn’t discussed things since the day at the hospital. Maybe she thought I was going to open up to her.

  “Okay. Should we pack a snack?”

  “Oh, um. I mean, do you feel like a drive? Sage’s sister is coming over.”

  Mom opened her mouth, then paused. She hadn’t asked me why Sage was in the hospital or what had gone on between us. Lord, did she ever want to. She never suspected the truth was worse than anything she’d imagined.

  “Okay, Logan.”

  Mom grabbed her jacket and left the trailer. When I heard her car start, I went running out the door and leaned in through the car window. I had forgotten to tell her something.

  “Mom, thanks. Thanks for everything. Thanks for working so hard. Thanks for believing in me. Thanks … just thanks.” I was babbling.

  Mom smiled, and I think she blinked away a tear. “I love you too, Logan.” She drove off.

  Half an hour later, Tammi rode up on a bike. Wordlessly, I led her into my home.

  “This is a nice place, Logan.” She sat down. “Are those your track trophies?”

  “Tammi, c’mon.” No small talk, not now.

  She sighed. “Right. You want to know where Sage is.”

  “She’s not at your house?”

  Tammi looked at me with pity. “Logan, my family discussed things. And we all agreed that it would be best for Sage if she didn’t live around here anymore.”

  Why couldn’t Tammi just come out and answer me? “What do you mean?”

  “Mom and Sage have moved to another city. Dad and I will join them when the school year’s over.”

  I suddenly felt very alone. “Back to Joplin?”
br />   “No, out of state. Dad worked out a transfer.”

  “Another state? Where she doesn’t know anyone?”

  Tammi shrugged. “She doesn’t really know anyone here, except you.”

  I looked at Tammi in horror. “So she’s leaving to get away from me?”

  Sage’s sister looked at me with surprising anger. “Logan, for once in your life, think about someone else. There’s a psychopath in Columbia who tried to kill her. That’s twenty minutes from here. Do you think she wants to risk seeing him again?”

  I tore at my hair. In my mind, Sage’s attacker was a faceless slasher movie monster. I hadn’t really considered he was a real-life guy who Sage might run into again and again. I might have even seen him at that party, maybe even talked to him.

  Tammi patted my knee. “Sage needs a fresh start. Mom’s rented an apartment, but we’ll buy a house as soon as we can sell our old one. …”

  We were getting off topic. “Tammi, Sage told me … she didn’t want to live as a woman anymore.”

  Tammi didn’t answer for a long while, then nodded.

  “She’s not still going to do that, is she?”

  “It’s her decision. Sage thinks she’ll be better off as a man.”

  For the first time in my life, I understood what a panic attack was. “You’ll try to talk her out of it, won’t you? You told her she’s making a huge mistake, right?”

  Tammi shook her head. “Sage has to do what she thinks is best.”

  I jumped up. “Listen to yourself! Sage tried to commit suicide because she thought she couldn’t live as a woman.”

  Her sister didn’t blink. “And someone tried to beat her to death because she did live as a woman.”

  “That won’t happen again!”

  Tammi folded her arms. “You don’t know that. Look, Sage’s life is her own—not mine, not yours. The best thing anyone can do is let her figure this out for herself. The rest of us have our own reasons for wanting Sage to be a girl or a boy. Especially you.”

  I was on the verge of hyperventilating. “Can I call her? Or write to her? Where did she move?”