Page 13 of You Weren't Meant to Be Human
“But you’ve told me yourself you’re verbal, you’re perfectly capable of typing, all that. Maybe—and I’m sorry, I’m going to sound like my therapist here—maybe you stopped talking because you felt like nobody listened, or because you struggled for so long to be understood that you said hey, screw this, you’re done, it’s everyone else’s turn to do the hard part. And I get that. Really.”
Aspen leans in, settles their elbows on their broad knees.
“But we’re meeting you halfway. We’ve put in the work, haven’t we? We’re worried about you. Sotype something.”
Crane’s fingers hover above the screen.
It takes him a moment—he keeps hitting the wrong keys, fumblingfor the backspace button—but eventually the program murmurs,“You know what I’m going to do.”
It’s not much, but it is confirmation of the worst-case scenario. The sort of crisis Aspen must’ve predicted would come around, no matter how many times Crane tried to deny it.
They’re going to use this, aren’t they?You couldn’t even tell your boyfriend; one more item to include in the list of myriad reasons why Crane needs to dump Levi and move away from Wash County. For his own safety.
God, they probably feel so vindicated right now.
Aspen immediately switches into problem-solving mode. “It won’t come to that. If you caught this early, which—” Their eyes flit to his stomach. Crane wants to curl up into a ball. “Which you probably did, it’ll just be a few pills. Undetectable in the blood, no different from a heavy period. And if it’s not early, then we’ll figure it out. I’ll make some calls, see if I can’t get you in somewhere tomorrow. Will tomorrow morning be too late?”
Tomorrow is fine. He can get the abortion and be back in Washville by evening. Nobody has to know.
On the other side of the open-concept first floor, Birdie walks Luna through frying up vegetarian sausage. Luna has Aspen’s eyes and a stranger’s blonde hair. Crane wonders if Aspen looks at their daughter and tries to convince themself that the blonde is Birdie’s, overwriting a terrible history with a better one.
In the harsh kitchen light, Birdie’s scar is a bright white line across the expanse of her chest.
The day is slow and soggy with brutal humidity. Crane had forgotten how hot it gets away from the mountains. By noon it’s hit themid-nineties, and the sun is bright enough to hurt; even on the most patriotic of holidays, because somehow it’s still the goddamn Fourth of July, the world grinds to a halt and huddles into the shade.
Aspen produces a pregnancy test from the spare bathroom. They’re kept under the sink and will continue to be kept there until the family saves up enough money for a hysterectomy or an orchiectomy, whichever insurance will approve first, because Birdie’s unmedicated anxiety swears vasectomies aren’t foolproof. Aspen insists that Crane take a test one more time. Rule out the possibility of a false positive. He acquiesces and it is immediately whisked away so he won’t have to subject himself to the result.
Still, considering that Aspen is on the phone pulling favors from friends they’ve made as a journalism assistant, Crane can make an educated guess.
In the meantime, Birdie slathers Luna in sunscreen and sets up a tiny pool on their cracked back porch.
“I could use another set of hands with her,” she says, “if you want to get your mind off things.”
So Crane sits by the kiddie pool under the creaky yard umbrella, hands in the water and playing with Luna’s pool toys more than she is. She keeps throwing waterlogged beanbags at him, and he keeps catching them. She’s a good talker for her age. He didn’t think kids could string together a sentence at three, but what does he know.
Around lunch, Birdie brings out peanut butter sandwiches and cucumbers. Crane doesn’t feel great, but he tries to eat anyway.
He takes the tablet from the table—slightly overheating from the ambient temperature—and changes the AAC app from voice-over to large-type before writing,I didn’t think you could get pregnant on testosterone, and flipping it around for Birdie to read.
She leans forward and nibbles on a cucumber spear. She’s gorgeousin her sundress and wide-brimmed hat, heart-shaped glasses perched on the edge of her nose. Reminds him of a kestrel.
“I didn’t think so either,” she admits. She probably got the same spiel of well-meaning semi-misinformation when she started hormones. It destroys your fertility for good, it’s borderline castration, there’s time to rethink this permanent mistake, etcetera, etcetera. Turns out, one of the first Google results upon attempting to verify that information is a big all-caps THE DOCTORS DON’T KNOW SHIT. Crane feels deeply stupid.
He types,Hell of a way to find out.
Birdie giggles, because she giggles when she’s uncomfortable. “Seriously.”
After lunch, and after Luna splashes Crane’s face and insists he’s playing with her squishy crab wrong, whatever that means, Aspen comes out to the tiny backyard with phone held aloft.
“Tomorrow,” they announce. “Nine in the morning. We’ll be on the road by six.”
Nine in the morning. Less than twenty-four hours and he’ll be in a doctor’s office getting this thing flushed out with a potent cocktail of chemicals and hormones. That means it’s practically over.
He bumps his head against Aspen’s thigh in thank-you. His hair leaves a wet spot on their shorts.
“I know,” Aspen says softly.
“Would you want to stay a second night?” Birdie asks. “Just in case something happens?”
