Page 6 of My Vows Are Sealed

Ugh. Seriously? Did Ethan’s parents know what a jerk he was outside of church? Or what kind of people he hung out with, for that matter?

“Hey, honey, come sit over here,” I heard from the other direction.

I turned to find…I wasn’t quite sure if it was a boy or a girl sitting at a desk on the far side of the room. This kid had long, dark hair, a better makeup job than most of the girls I knew could pull off, and was wearing a tight-fitting baby doll tee and tight, sparkly jeans that flared at the bottom with heeled boots. But their features looked a little more masculine, especially their jawline. And their voice seemed a little too deep to be a girl’s voice, although I could have been mistaken.

“It’s okay. I promise we don’t bite…hard,” the kid said.

“Ashton Washburn! Behave!” the dark-haired girl next to them chuckled, playfully smacking them as she smiled at me. “I promise, we really don’t bite. You can come sit with us.”

I snorted uncomfortably as I went to sit at a desk in the next row over from the two of them.

“I’m Kate,” the girl said. “Kate Frye.”

“And, as you just heard, I’m Ashton,” the other person – whose gender I still couldn’t figure out – supplied.

“I’m Darla. Jones. Nice to meet you,” I mumbled.

“Are you really a preacher’s kid?” Ashton asked.

“Yeah,” I mumbled. “My dad’s the pastor at First Baptist.”

“How come we didn’t see you in school last year?” Kate asked.

“I went to St. Bishop’s until last year. But my mom went on disability and we couldn’t afford it anymore,” I blurted out without even thinking.

Geez, share my whole life story, why didn’t I?

“That sucks. What’d she go on disability for?”

“Um, she has multiple sclerosis,” I explained. “It’s getting worse, and it’s hard for her to work. She used to be a nurse in the ER.”

“Aw,” Ashton said sympathetically. “My grandma has MS. It sucks watching someone you love go through that.”

“Of course Miss Goody Two-Shoes is sitting with thegays,” I heard Ethan sneer. “Wonder how Daddy’s going to feel about that.”

Ashton rolled their eyes and looked over at Ethan. “I’d have to actually be male to be gay, but whatever.”

“If you’re not a dude, then how come you used the same locker room as me last year?” he taunted.

Ashton groaned and looked back at him. “Because of small-minded conservative parents like yours. Physical hardware dictates where I have to get changed for P.E., but that doesn’t mean it’s how I feel.”

“If you’ve got a dick, then you’re a dude,” Ethan’s friend, whose name I didn’t know – or really care about, since he was a douchebag – said.

“Oh, I’m more of a man than you’ll ever be, but I’m also more of a woman than you’ll ever get,” Ashton scoffed, flipping their hair over their shoulder and turning back to me and Kate.

“Oh, my God, Ash. That was priceless,” Kate giggled.

Okay, now I was more lost than before. Did that mean Ashton was transsexual? Not that I really cared, because Ashton and Kate were the only people other than Heather who had actually been nice to me since I got here, but I just wanted to know. I didn’t want to offend either of them, but I also didn’t want to be the idiot who just blurted the indelicate question out.

“You’re confused,” Ashton said. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact.

“Yeah, I am,” I admitted.

“My birth certificate says ‘male’ on it, but I don’t identify as maleorfemale. I’m sort of neither, but both. I prefer to go by ‘they,’ not ‘he.’ And I’m bi and still wondering when Kate’s going to come to her senses and realize she’s madly in love with me.”

Kate turned bright red and buried her head in her hands, groaning. “Remind me why I’m friends with you again?”

“Because you love me,” he – I mean they – teased, winking at her and blowing her a kiss.

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