Page 9 of You Weren’t Meant to Be Human
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 the mid-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 gorgeous in 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?”
Crane closes his eyes.
If Birdie has one flaw—and sure, she has a few, she’s nervous to a fault and insecure and a bit of a pushover—but if she has one, it’s that she’s obvious.
Stay. You don’t have to go back.
He can’t blame her for trying. As far as either of them knows, Crane is an old classmate who moved to a small town for a shit job and a shittier boyfriend.
They’ve seen the bruises, read between the lines, asked questions he wasn’t sharp enough to catch the true meaning behind.
They’re following the handbook. What to do when your friend is in an abusive relationship; what to do when your friend is in a cult.
Bullet point number one: no matter what they’re going through, don’t let them go through it alone.
If they’re pushier than the handbook says they should be, it’s only because they’re scared for him.
And yes. Sometimes Crane wakes up on their pullout couch and thinks about not going back.
Sometimes he opens Aspen’s yearbook and finds the picture of him and his parents on freshman orientation night and he considers it: breaking his phone.
Dumping the car in a ditch. Hiding in this little townhouse for the rest of his life.
But.
This world was not made for ones like you.
Even if he survived defecting, even if this house would not be hunted and devoured for abetting it, it wouldn’t be worth it. Seventeen years as Sophie, as a person, out there? It broke him. Might have killed him if he’d messed up that night in the car, if he’d ever gotten what he’d prayed for.
The hive saved him. The hive gave him permission to cut his hair and change his name and shut the fuck up.
It’s the hive that gives him a reason to exist, and it’s the hive that puts a hand on the back of his neck and tells him what to do and god, god , please tell him what to do.
Please take all his higher thinking from him.
He doesn’t want it. Sometimes when he feeds the worms and the flies, he mouths thank you , because they’re the only things that have ever understood.
Nothing Birdie and Aspen do can change that.
Besides. If they knew everything he’s done, they’d hate him.
When Crane shakes his head, Birdie doesn’t seem surprised by the answer, but that doesn’t mean she likes it.
She stares off through the rickety back fence, where some kids are attempting a game of soccer.
They keep calling for breaks, sucking down water, lying in the grass under a tall, tall tree shriveling in the heat.
He is vaguely aware that he is using the both of them for their kindness. If he was a better person, he’d ghost them already.
For what it’s worth, the rest of the day is nice.
When it’s time for Luna’s nap, she insists Crane tucks her in, which works fine since he immediately falls asleep on the floor beside her.
Dinner is pasta, with sauce on the side because tomato sauce is a textural nightmare for half the table, and Luna picks the evening movie.
Crane can’t keep his eyes open. He realizes it’s over only when Aspen nudges him awake, motioning that it’s time to make up the couch.
Crane turns the tablet over and tries to decide whether he wants to say this.
“Can I sleep in your bed?”
The bed isn’t built for three people, but they make it work.
Crane curls up between them—Birdie on one side, Aspen on the other—and Birdie splays her warm hands across the tattoos under his shirt, the way she soothes her daughter on a bad day.
The two-headed lamb on his shoulder. The black line down his spine.
The clusters of snakes, roses, bugs across his hips and arms. The lines are thin and wobbly, but he likes it that way. He wants to get some on his hands soon.
Once this is done, he’ll reach out to that artist in Shepherdstown. Drop fifty dollars on a flash piece. That’d be nice.