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The first thought Jay had when he saw Matt the day they met was "This kid doesn't give a shit about what anyone sees him doing". His future best friend was hauling a bike over the railing of a bridge in the forest by his house, an area with enough foot traffic that someone walking by was an inevitability rather than a possibility.
When Jay had asked what he was doing, this kid acted like the answer was obvious - "I don't know. I'm just fucking tossing bikes in the river, bro."
And Jay thought, fuck. This kid is cool. Then he thought - Oh. He thinks I'm a boy.
Jay was not a boy. At least, no one had told him he was a boy before. Or they had, a few times, but his mom had corrected them quickly. Sure, he hated dresses and skirts and he'd begged his mom for years to cut his hair shorter than shoulder length, but that didn't change what he was. Besides, that was something lots of girls felt.
Then, just as easily and casually, Matt asked him to join his band. It felt like his voice got caught in his throat when he went to respond.
For some strange reason, he wanted to keep this illusion up for a bit longer. A little bit longer in this version of reality where he was a boy. Too nervous and his pitch would jump and give him away.
He smacked the stick in his hands against the bars of the bridge, sending splinters of wood into the river to join the trashed bikes. One more hit and he felt calm enough to manage a definitive "Yes".
"Have you ever seen a naked girl?" Matt asked him later that day, as he rode a freshly stolen bike into a nearby rock.
I've been a naked girl, Jay thought.
"No." He said instead.
"Come on, Bird!" Matt groaned, and for a moment Jay thought he'd finally realized he wasn’t actually a boy, until he pointed out the stupid "Go Bird Go" sweatshirt his mom had bought him.
Then Matt told him to make up a nickname for him. And before he could open his mouth, he heard his mom's voice in his head, lecturing him about the importance of always calling people by their proper name. It was the first time he told Matt no.
"Fuck your mom!" Matt immediately shouted in response.
"What?"
"Fuck your mom!" He repeated, louder now. "Your mom tell you to wear those stupid headphones too?"
"She- she says I have sensitive hearing." Jay admitted quietly, though saying it out loud made him feel like a fucking retard.
Matt lunged forward, and though Jay tried to fend him off, he managed to snag them from his head. The headphones went flying, shattering on a river rock. It landed alongside the other things Matt had taken and trashed.
There was only a beat of quiet before Matt screamed triumphantly. It was so completely stupid, and it grates against his newly exposed ears uncomfortably. But for some reason, it made him smile.
They stayed up late in the forest, far past when the sun set. He knew his mom would be furious when he got home, but for some reason, being with Matt, he didn't quite care. Tens of plans were created sitting on a log by a fire Matt had showed him how to start with dry leaves, twigs and some matches he'd stolen.
Everything had seemed possible that night. Their first day as Nirvanna the Band. His first day as Jay.
He would have followed Matt to the ends of the Earth.
That was the first time Jay had ever considered not listening to his Mom. The first of many nights that he had stayed out late, sneaking around and exploring the boundaries of his and Matt’s shared potential.
Later, when he did sneak back in, far after dark, he felt consumed by guilt. His mom had fallen asleep in a chair in the living room waiting for him, and he couldn't even say how long it was she yelled at him when she awoke.
The version of what he told her wasn't quite a lie, but it wasn't the truth either. He knew if he told her plainly that he'd made a new friend who'd said she was a dumbass bitch and smashed his headphones, he wouldn't have a chance of seeing Matt again. So instead he mumbled out that he'd lost the headphones and lost track of time.
His mom bought him a new pair the next day, shaking him awake to go to the store in the morning for it. The new pair was presented with a lecture about how much they cost, how important guarding his hearing was, how hearing loss was permanent and every other distressing detail she'd given when he was given the first pair.
Matt trashed that pair about a day later. He lied about that one too. Then kept lying as every subsequent pair got trashed. He hated the lectures, and he hated how guilty they made him feel, but he hated the idea of not seeing Matt again more.
A few more sets, and eventually his mom gave up. And it astonished him. Just a little pushing from Matt and he had been given a little more slack on the leash from his mom. All because of Matt.
And Jay thought to himself - he has to keep hanging out with this guy.
Since Jay was 9, he'd started insisting on buying graphic tees from the boy's section. He told his mom it was because the girl's section didn't have shirts for the games he liked. And that was the truth, at least the first time he saw a shirt with the Legend of Zelda emblem on it as they were walking to the girl's section.
It wasn't until he tried it on that he saw the way it draped over his frame. That boxy outline it created was easier for him to stomach than the femme cut shirts his mom picked up for him. Those had made his curves obvious.
This, when he looked in the mirror, was him.
Naturally, his mom hated when he wore them. Matt, however, seemed delighted whenever they both found themselves in similarly nerdy attire. That was enough to convince him they were okay to wear well into high school.
When he was in middle school, before he even realized he was trans, he tried asking his mom if he could go by the name she'd almost chosen for him. The one she'd planned to use if he'd been a boy. He liked how masculine it sounds. Something about it felt like it fit him. His mom, however, seemed offended even by his asking of the question.
"That's not what I named you." She'd told him, looking at him like he'd said he was disowning the family name itself. "You know, if I had changed my name, I know my mom would have been very hurt by that. A name's like a gift your parent gives you. You can't throw that away, Robin."
Sometimes when Matt uses his name he still feels a sting of guilt.
"You should start wearing makeup." His mom says to him one morning in high school just before he was about to step out the door. "You need it."
The way she says it makes it sound like it's not an insult, but rather delicately placed advice. She says it in the same way you would tell someone they had a piece of food in their teeth or a smear of condiment on their face. Just. Something simple to fix.
She dragged him to a Sephora, and he was given foundation, concealer, mascara and blush. The one thing he put up a fight on was lipstick, but he was eventually worn down enough to agree to tinted lip balm. He wasn’t quite sure how to use any of it, and the way he looked when he put them on made him feel like a pig someone had dressed up. Wearing it had him feel more like someone appropriating something foreign to him than an actual woman.
It did, at least, make his mom stop commenting on how he looked in the morning, except to point out when he didn't properly blend the foundation into his face. She'd hold him in place then, rubbing her palm hard into his cheekbones until it blended into his skin.
Whenever he would meet up with Matt after school, he would find time to duck into a bathroom beforehand. He kept makeup wipes stashed in his backpack, which he would use to scrub at his face until it was half-raw and he felt like himself again.
Once he missed a bit of mascara, and Matt, seeming to think it was natural, teased him for how 'girly' his eyelashes look when they met to play games at his house. He tried to laugh at it, poorly probably, because Matt strangely dropped the subject a few moments later.
When Matt got up to change the 64 cartridge, he escaped to the bathroom. He rubbed at his eyes with a makeup wipe until he looked in the mirror to find he'd burst a blood vessel.
Matt never mentioned it. They just went back to playing games.
The day he noticed his boobs were coming in was the worst of his life. He would take a thousand more failed Rivoli plans over having to relive it.
He was a late bloomer. By high school, he had convinced himself that he was somehow spared the throes of puberty, and how happy had he been to think that. But oh how happy had his mom been when she found out that wasn't the case. She dragged him out bra shopping that same day.
“How lucky are you!” She would tell him in the following months., “You have bigger boobs than me! You know, so many people would kill to have that size.”
By summer he was piling on layers of clothes when around Matt, even on days when they were trapezing around town and the heat made him think he may faint. He learned he has to carry water around on days like those, slugging it down whenever he began to feel stars dance at the edges of his vision.
In Ontario, the medical age of consent is 16, and Jay took full advantage of that fact the moment he was able to. There's a Planned Parenthood in Toronto, just a block away from the Royal Ontario Museum. He had his first appointment there twelve days after his sixteenth birthday.
The experience was more intimidating than he expected. There was a camera by the front door he had to hold his ID up to before he was allowed to even step foot into the building. After reciting his appointment confirmation number and his birthdate, there was at last a buzz as the door unlocked to him.
Someone was sitting at a desk just inside, who he waved nervously to when he stepped in.
"Hi. Name?" The person asked him, and Jay noted the deeper register of their voice.
It was the kind of voice Jay wishes he could have, more resonant and certain than his current squeakiness. When they looked up at him, he saw their makeup was more precise and practiced than anything he would ever care to learn to do. He spotted a she/her pronoun tag on their lapel, and Jay suddenly felt a warmth towards her. She was like him.
"Um. I- I booked my appointment under Jay McCarrol, but-" this was a medical appointment. That wasn't his real name."Uh- my legal name is Robin McCarrol."
"I love the name Jay." She told him, pushing some papers across the desk for him to sign. "Do you have a guest that will be coming?"
He shook his head, and it was in that moment that he realized he wished he could have Matt here with him. That would, however, mean coming out to him first.
It had been almost six years since he'd met Matt at that point and he'd managed to keep up the 'ruse' of being a normal boy successfully thus far. This was easier to accomplish by the simple fact that they both attended different schools and thus his friend had never heard his 'real' name. For that same reason, he had kept Matt at arms length from both his family and any friend from his school.
Life with Matt felt like an escape in that way. He could dream about being a famous musician and he could be a normal teenage boy when they hung out. If he could protect against any chance of shattering that illusion, he would take it.
And if he could help it, Matt would never need to know.
He took a seat in the far corner of the room, one out of a row of identical cheap chairs, to fill out his forms. The waiting room was largely empty, one benefit of his early morning appointment that was now feeling unnerving to him.
When he finished scribbling the answers in, he deposited the paperwork back at the desk. It was correct, or at least it was to the best of his knowledge. There were a few things, like family medical history he wasn't quite sure about, but he wasn't eager to ask his mom and be faced with questions about why he needed to know such information.
With nothing left to busy himself with, he started to flip through pamphlets on the table beside him. One, conveniently enough for him, was marked as a Testosterone info sheet. He skimmed through the list of side effects and timelines. The idea of finally deepening his voice alone had him excited.
"Jay McCarrol." A man in a lab coat poking his head out the door called out.
It was the first time it was said by someone other than Matt, and that both startled and excited him. He shot to his feet, blurting out an awkward 'That's me!' before he half-ran across the room.
The nurse led him to a back room, where they spent a few minutes pricking his finger to test hemoglobin. He grit his teeth through it all until they asked him about his reasons for wanting to get onto testosterone.
He started talking, and words began tumbling out before he could think them through. About the day Matt thought he was a boy and the way he slowly realized he liked being seen that way. About the first time he pulled on a boy's t-shirt and felt like he could see a boy in the mirror. About the way he'd wanted to be called Jay before he could even elaborate why.
It was the only time he'd ever said any of this out loud, and he couldn’t seem to stop himself now. He talked about how badly he'd wanted to get short hair for years, the way makeup made him feel uncomfortable but he wore it anyways, and the way he would chop his boobs off if he could. The doctor was the first person who he ever told about the inescapable desire he felt to be a boy the moment he realized such a thing was possible.
That day he walked out of Planned Parenthood Toronto with a 150 mg, 3 month prescription of testosterone.
For a while, he used sports bras a few sizes too tight, because risking his ribs feels easier to him than letting Matt notice he has boobs to hide. When he turned 18, he used a website he found online to get a binder shipped to himself for free. One form proving his need and lack of funds was all it took.
He had to guard the front door of his house for a few days to make sure he could snag the package before his mom could, but it was all worth it.
When he tried it on, he found himself looking in the mirror at every angle. He kept running his hands over his chest just to feel how flat it was. Carrying armloads of shirts into the bathroom, he spent a few hours that night seeing how each of them fit him. It felt closer to how Matt saw him.
It was how he'd like to see himself.
He stopped wearing makeup sometime in college, when he was starting to be around his mom less and less. Her voice wasn't embedded in his head that same way as before. It was around then that his style graduated from baggy t-shirts to collared shirts and suit jackets.
Girls started to flirt with him when he hung out with Matt at bars, and it soon got to a point where it stopped taking him by complete surprise. That's when he finally stopped feeling like an ugly girl or a teenage boy and instead like a handsome young man. At least on his good days.
And fuck. It felt good.
The last few months of living at home after college were exhausting. He struggled on the binder before he would go to see Matt, then struggle to peel it off before going home. It was a relief when he finally moved in with his bandmate
He kept his binders stashed under his bed in their first apartment, wearing one in any shared living space and only peeling it off when he was safely locked behind a door. There was just one time Matt found a sports bra he dropped in the bathroom, and instead of clocking the truth, he instead grew infuriated at Jay for bringing 'some random slut' over to their apartment without letting him know.
Jay apologized and told him he'd let him know the next time he had a girl over. He stayed more vigilant from then on.
His voice deepened and his mom never batted an eye. Once when he was 25, with a stubbly beard, and he was still getting carded, he joked that he must look like a teenage boy. His mom just shook her head and told him "No one thinks you're a teenage boy!", and he only just managed to stop himself from saying that everyone other than her thought he was a teenage boy.
Once, when Jay was quoting Matt as he was relaying a story to his Mom, he slipped up and forgot to change his name back. The look his mom gave him was one of pure hurt.
"He knows your real name, doesn't he, honey?" She asked him quietly.
Jay assured her, that yes, of course Matt knew his real name. It was a lie, one he had no intention of making the truth any time soon, but he knew it was also the only correct answer to that question.
Sometimes he was kept up at night, tossing and turning, wondering if Jared had seen. The man had the ability to disappear into the back of a room or lurk just outside it. He could stick to the shadows when he wanted to get a shot, and many times now Jay’s seen footage he never even realized was being shot.
Did he know? Was Jared just sitting on this footage? If they ever do- when they do get famous, was he going to make his millions selling proof that Jay McCarrol wasn’t a real man to TMZ?
In all their years together, Matt still hadn’t noticed. Had never said a thing. And it felt good, to have someone who had only ever seen him as a man.
A few years into living with Matt, he grew tired of tailoring himself to be a hint more feminine when he would go to see his Mom. He knew Matt's parents would cover rent for them ad infinitum, and that he was at least safe from ending up on the streets at this point.
Strangely, it was probably a mixture of Halloween and Christmas that pushed him over the edge. Regardless of if they were both incidents of Matt fucking with him, in the way that always happened with Matt, it pushed him into realizations he didn't intend to have. The one-two punch of remembering the fact of death and being pushed into standing up for himself somehow led him to setting up a dinner reservation with his mother.
Matt whined and begged to come with him, as he always did when Jay went somewhere without him, but he managed to fend him off. It helped that he'd said enough about his mom over the years that Matt was already certain he didn't like her. That said, it was likely the fact that he was meeting his mom instead of some girl that could 'steal' him away from his bandmate that was what really solidified his ability to leave without much fuss.
He got to the restaurant long before his mom, his nerves overcompensating for his fear of angering her by being late. The waitress got him sat at a table, his back against the wall. Somehow, it helped to be able to see his mom coming. Leaving himself exposed, and the idea of not having a few moments of watching her approach to prepare himself, made him feel queasy.
The restaurant felt fancier than anything he'd bring Matt to, and even in his dress shirt he felt out of place. He tapped his fingers against the table, trying to concentrate on ideas of medleys for the band.
This conversation would be so much easier if he wasn't holding his own here. He wished Matt could have made a whole plan for him. A 'Coming Out' plan that would somehow convince his mom he wasn't ruining his life or mutilating his body.
Just having his friend sitting next to him would help. Someone on his team.
He sipped at the water the waitress brought him, deciding it probably would be wrong to drag anyone into this with him. Though, he supposed, he had done precisely that to their poor waiter and the people sitting around them. He hoped the modern pop they were playing over the restaurant's speakers would mask the worst of it.
Two waters in and he finally spotted his mom being guided over by the hostess. His heart was thundering in his chest as he watched her approach, but he fixed a grin onto his face.
"Hi, sweetie!" His mom greeted him, and what hurt the worst was that he could tell the smile she gave him was genuine.
He stood to greet her, and she pulled him into a brief but tight hug. When she let go, she rubbed his shoulders, looking him over.
"I see you've been working out!" She squeaked out happily, and he nodded agreeably in response.
They picked up their menus, chatting over options for a few minutes. One comment about the healthier choice of rice and somehow Jay found himself ordering a brown rice bowl with only veggies. It at least got his Mom to look at him approvingly, which was probably the last time he was going to see that expression for a while.
"Do you remember that trip we took to Niagra Falls?" His mom said with a laugh as they're waiting for their food to arrive, and he already knew the exact trajectory this comment was going to take. "You were still a little girl and we brought you to the Rainforest Cafe. And- you and your sensitive hearing - you hated it. You were crying every time the thunder went off. People were looking at us the whole time!"
Jay started drumming his fingers against the table, trying to nod again and laugh when he was expected to.
"The next day - you remember we slept in that one really nice hotel so we didn't have to drive back that night? " His mom added , waiting for him to agree before she continued. "You said 'Don't make me go back to that crazy monkey place, Mama!"
Jay let out a huff of air, hoping it sounded enough like a laugh for this story he'd heard a thousand times over already.
"Uh, mom?" He tried, surprised to find that his voice was wobbling. He knew that this particular anecdote was over and he wasn't eager to wait for her to start another. "Do you remember in- uh, in high school, when my voice started deepening, right?"
"Lots of women have a deep voice, sweetie." His mom told him gently. "I've heard though, there's voice practice you can do if you want to get a higher pitched voice. I heard this NPR episode about it - here, I'll send it to you."
She pulled out her phone, tapping away and he took his second chance.
"My facial hair. You- you've noticed my facial hair." Jay tried, because he somehow couldn't get himself to say the words 'I'm a man' to his mom.
"Oh, dear, I told you to talk to an endocrinologist." His Mom said, cupping his face and running her thumb over his stubbly beard. "You can laser that off, you know. You'd look much better if you did."
"I like my beard, Mom." He snapped and all at once the dam he'd been struggling against this entire conversation finally burst. He was crying, trying not to and failing. "I- I like being a guy, Mom."
"You're not a guy." She told him, so firmly and simply that it seemed to cut through him.
"I- you don't have to see me- you don't have to see me as a guy!" He managed, though his voice kept cracking. "You don't have to see me as one, but- but my friends- I- my friends are going to treat me like a guy. And- and call me Jay."
"Jay?" His mom spat out, like it was a swear instead of a name he'd used for years. "You're still having people call you Jay?"
"I never stopped." He admitted before he could stop himself.
"I'm never going to see you as anything but my daughter." His mom told him, and Jay seemed compelled to nod in return.
He felt numb. He felt like he was being clawed from the inside out. He felt… he felt like he was nine years old again and all he wanted to do was please his mom and follow every one of her little rules.
"You should know you're being very selfish." His mom said firmly, and Jay felt acutely like the ungrateful daughter she often accused him of being. "God. I can't believe you've been ruining your body like this. You know that's going to affect your health, right? Your job prospects? Your ability to travel?"
"Yes." He said hollowly, trying to focus on wiping his face clean of tears.
"Oh, sweetheart. Why can't you just be a masculine woman?" His mom asked him, and the break in her voice hurt. "You know, it's safer to be a woman than to be- be this!"
"I like-"
"It doesn't matter what you like, Robin!" His mom snapped, and he saw other guests turning towards them in his periphery. "What matters is your future. Being smart. Being safe. This! This isn't safe! This is you building your life around some- some fantasy!"
"It's not- it's not a fantasy, Mom." He choked out, and his efforts wiping his face of snot and tears were quickly becoming pointless as this conversation went on.
"You need to grow up, Robin." His mom told him, flatly.
There was a lull, as the waiter approached cautiously with their entrees. They ate in silence for a few moments, each trying bites of each other's food. Then, his mom was the first to speak.
"What else have you been doing recently, Robin?" His mom asked evenly, dropping the name in a way that felt akin to a punch to the gut.
"Um. We- uh. Matt and I volunteered to help a kid at a hospital." Jay said, another of his many half-truths. "He, uh, he had diabetes and we brought him to Canada's Wonderland for a day."
"Oh, that's very good of you, sweetie." His mom said approvingly, leaning forward to touch his face again. "You really need to shave this."
"Right." He grunted out, twiddling with his fork.
"Have you done anything else recently, sweetheart?"
"Back from your gay little dinner with your mom?" Matt said, already standing at the white board when he got back home.
Jay just nodded, going to his seat at the piano bench. His hands took over for him automatically, playing as Matt started to talk.
The funny thing was, his mom did think he was gay. In the way lesbians were gay. It was because he was 'butch'. If he was a woman - which she still thought he was. Somehow - If he was a woman, he would look like a lesbian. Because straight women didn't really look like this.
He thought that was the only reason she didn't bat an eye when he said he was moving in with a guy. Didn't ever think for a moment they might even be dating. It was the one time her transphobia was actually useful, to some degree. He appreciated the lack of intense questioning he knew she would be doing if she had any suspicion he was sleeping with a man.
It would not be a joy to have to explain to her that no, he was not going to get pregnant. That he was not as much as a fucking dumbass as she seemed to think he was, that he actually had some direction in this life of his with Matt and fuck if he cared how often she mentioned that she told her friends he has no job. As if this band wasn't-
"Jay! Hey, Jay!"
He became aware of Matt waving a hand in front of his face.
"You're, uh, playing the piano kind of loud, man." Matt told him. "Kind of think you can't really hear the plan. The one that's actually gonna get us the Rivoli gig. Can you, uh, actually start giving a shit?"
"Right. Right."
Matt turned back to the board and took a breath.
"Uh- hey, Matt?" He spat out, before Matt had a chance to speak. "Uh. Just. I have something I need to tell you."
Matt frowned at that, expression turning cautious.
"Uh. I'm trans."
"You're what?" Matt asked, brow furrowing.
"I was, uh, born a girl?" He tried.
"Oh. Man." Matt breathed out, laughing. "I thought you were going to tell me something serious, like- like you were leaving the band or something."
He turned back to the board, underlining the plan name again.
"So! We say this is our service animal. And- and then when it causes a disturbance we-"
"Wait- Matt." Jay cut in, unable to leave the topic alone. "Did you not get what I was saying?"
"Yes, yes, Jay, you're a fucking tranny. Can we please get back to the plan? Do you want me to throw a fucking coming out party for you or something? Let's do that after we figure this out."
"I-uh" Jay stammered out.
"Dude, shut up!" Matt snapped, "This is a fucking brilliant plan if you would just listen."
"Alright, alright." Jay said concedingly, putting his hands up in mock surrender.
"Okay- so. Listen to this." Matt began again, as Jay started an accompaniment on piano.
He danced his fingers over the keys, only really half-listening. What a waste of over two decades of worrying, he thought. It felt embarrassing now, for him to have even brought it up. Like it was important. Or would have changed things.
Really, if he had only thought for more than a second, he should have realized it was stupid to have expected this information to make things different. There were two things he knew for certain.
No matter how manly he got, his mom would only ever see him as a girl. But Matt. Matt would only ever see him as a guy.
But that’s not what was important. The important thing was that his mom would be eating her words once they got that Rivoli gig. He and Matt would make sure of that.