If I Was Your Girl

by Meredith Russo

I’d had the strength to be normal, I thought, or at least the strength to die, then everyone would have been happy.

“You’re beautiful.” I blinked in surprise. No boy had ever told me that before.

But my lips were still warm from the kiss, and I felt more alive than I ever had. Happier than any medication had ever made me.

Sometimes it didn’t feel like God walked with me anymore.

Transitioning had reawakened it a little, but it was hard to place too much hope in a God so many people said hated me.

God wanted me to live, and this was the only way I knew how to survive, so this was what God wanted. This was what I wanted. I had chosen to live, and it seemed like, finally, I was doing just that.

Homophobes think about gay sex all the time because they wanna have it. They insist being gay is a choice because every single day they have to choose not to have the kind of sex they want. Homophobes are super gay.”

like you more than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s just—there are things that are really hard to say.”

thought about how every person could hold two truths inside of them, how impossible it felt sometimes to have your insides and outsides aligned.

“You can have anything,” she said, “once you admit you deserve it.”

Kids constantly grow and change, and every time you blink they turn into something different and the kid you thought you had is just a memory.”

“I think I might be allergic or something. I feel kinda strange … sort of floaty and light-headed.” “You ain’t sick, hon,” Mom said. She kissed my cheek and hugged me so tight I thought I might break a rib. “That’s joy.”

“But that’s what being young is, really. I think I’ve been so afraid for you all this time that I forgot that.”

“I was always a girl, always,” I said, my eyes burning. “See you around, Grant.” I turned and started to walk away but he grabbed my shoulder.