Both Can Be True

Dedication
To my animal-loving, creative, funny, musical, label-defying wild child: I love you with my whole entire heart, plus my auxiliary heart.


Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
1. Normcore
2. Dog Smuggler
3. Klutzy Nincompoop
4. Nothing to Lose
5. Crossed Fingers
6. Impress the Girl
7. One Step at a Time
8. The Shape of a Snore
9. Punk and Pricey Diapers
10. Hazel Surprise
11. Boy Skirt Girl Punk
12. Closed for Business
13. Dude Mode: Activate
14. Bodily Function
15. Bargain
16. Chewbarka’s Person
17. Fold It Up, Shove It Down
18. Happy Fun Sunshine Time
19. Sneet Snart
20. What If?
21. Confession
22. Just for Now
23. The Gatorade Kid
24. We Need to Talk
25. Hump Day
26. Heads on a Platter
27. Halfway Through the Crossfade
28. Doofy Floof
29. Old Soul
30. Human Too
31. Remix
32. Both Can Be True
33. Liberated
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher


1
Normcore
Ash
I can’t put it off any longer: It’s pick a gender or pee myself.
My best friend, Griffey, crashes out of the end-of-day crowd and bumps into me so hard I nearly pop. “Oof! Didn’t see you there torturing yourself over a toilet choice!” He adjusts his wire-frame glasses and grins at me. “It’s just peeing. It doesn’t have to be an existential crisis.”
“For you it doesn’t.” He’s 100 percent dude at all times. Lucky him.
“Isn’t that bathroom the main reason you moved to this district? Just use it, for Pete’s sake.” He nods at the pictureless door with the word NEUTRAL between the bathroom entrance with the girl symbol and the one with the guy symbol.
I shift my stance like it will help. “My mom moved us to this district. She doesn’t have to worry about getting called a freak when she takes a leak.” Or about being misgendered forever for using the “wrong” bathroom or peeing in the “wrong” position or—
“You need moral support? I’ll go in the neutral too.”
“That’d be weird. I think it’s a single.”
Griffey huffs a sigh, but he hasn’t thought this through as obsessively as I have. If I go in GIRLS, I’ll be “Ashley” forever to everyone in this jam-packed hallway who sees me, and if I go in BOYS, I’ll be “Asher” forever. Either one means I can never go in the other one no matter what. I made two resolutions when I started at this school two weeks ago: I’d avoid the whole dumb conundrum of feeling weird about bathrooms by never peeing at school, and I’d always let people assume I’m an Ashley. People think it’s cute for a girl to be a tomboy. But an Asher in a dress is a freak. So it’s safer to let people guess Ash is short for Ashley.
But the girl mode I’ve been in for a couple months has started to shift back toward guy. This morning on the bus, I was trying to write down a melody I heard in a dream last night, and the light, airy feeling of it kept wiggling away. My awake mind ran off with the dream-sounds, changing them to a song with power and energy and a fast beat, and I realized I’m headed for that in-between state I hate. I’ve been tied up in knots over it all day and now I’m about to pop, so I gotta pick and picking is the worst—
“Ash, your eyes are turning yellow. You’re gonna burst if you don’t let it out.”
I lean forward against the building pressure. “Why are bathrooms split by boys and girls? It makes way more sense to do pee versus poop—”
“Oh my god, go.” Griffey shoves me toward the bathrooms.
I stumble toward NEUTRAL because it’s closest, but then of course, of course, Daniel Sanders steps out of the middle-school herd of hormonally hijacked humans and stops at the fountain. I freeze in the river of kids and stare, distracted from my bladder by the spectacle of him: sad, dreamy Daniel. Daniel with the Hair and Eyes. Daniel who in our photography class on Friday shared a smile with me when our teacher made a Led Zeppelin joke no one else got. Daniel who probably thinks I’m Ashley-as-in-girl, not Asher-as-in-boy, definitely one or the other but not both or neither. Daniel who’ll be surprised if I pick the wrong bathroom or go in the NEUTRAL. Daniel who Griffey says kissed smart-gorgeous-graceful Fiona Jones at a party in June, so he’s definitely, probably only into feminine girls like her—
Daniel who’s making eye contact and smiling at me.
Something takes over—instinct, pointless crush, the threat of total humiliation if I don’t make it to a toilet in two seconds. I veer away from NEUTRAL and duck into GIRLS, trip into a stall, undo my belt, pee and weep in frustration and relief.
Griffey makes a ba-gawk sound when I come out of the bathroom. Daniel’s gone, thank the lord/dang it, and the hallway is leaking kids like my ancient beagle, Booper, oozes smells. “How about let’s not make a thing of it,” I tell Griff.
“I’m not making a thing. I’m just glad we won’t be late to Rainbow Alliance because of your pee crisis.”
I follow him down the hall. It sucks that I was just forced by my full bladder into declaring to Daniel that a part-time truth is a full-time one. I’ve been wearing boot-cut jeans and band T-shirts and Converse every day, trying to look as neutral as possible. The kids in my overstuffed classes are wrapped up in their own dramas and seem too busy to notice me, which I am 100 percent fine with. We’re all in the same boat, paddling through the chaos of seventh grade. Except everyone else’s oar is pink or blue and mine’s purple with glittery flecks of angsty confusion on it. “I just don’t want to make a declaration by peeing,” I say. “Why can’t I be plain Ash?”
“Plain Ash? Please.” Griff dodges a frantic boy careening toward the front doors. “I hoped when you said you were moving here that you’d be you out loud.” He plucks at my Imagine Dragons T-shirt. “Instead you’re boring me to death with this normcore Walmart crap.”
“Did you get the spiky