.
This is tagged to the contest, but is obviously disqualified. The contest theme is just on my mind, for some reason. Pleased be warned that while suicide is not depicted in the story, it is central to it.

—Emma

The knot in my stomach grew harder, and I had to force myself not to crush Chrissy’s hand. Coach Blanchard — compact, energetic, foul-mouthed coach Blanchard — was shuffling across the frozen grass to take the microphone. I’d never thought of him as old before. Suddenly, he looked like he belonged in a skilled nursing facility.

The sky was cloudless, but the late December sun, low on the southern horizon, provided light without warmth. Even at nine in the morning, Mr. Blanchard’s shadow stretched far behind him, long and strangely thin.

“I, ah . . .” He cleared his throat, looked at the Salks, and tried again. “I’m so sorry. I can’t begin to tell you how much. Summer was . . . .” Again he choked up, and tears began to leak from his eyes. “She was the bravest, most determined person I’ve ever met.”

Mrs. Allen, who taught algebra and calculus, touched his arm and offered him a bottled water.

With a nod of thanks, he tried to get a few swallows down. His Adam’s apple leapt up and down spasmodically.

I couldn’t look away.

Returning his focus to Summer’s parents, he managed to continue, sounding a bit stronger. “When I met her — back when the administration was still trying to decide the best way to deal with your request — she showed up for the first day of P.E., all suited up. Pink nylon shorts, ribbed white tank top. All regulation — for a girl.”

That got some smiles through the tears.

I hadn’t been there, but I could picture it. That was Summer, all right.

“I was . . . well. Rob, Judy, you know how bad I was.” His eyes pleaded for forgiveness that had been given a long time ago. Looking around, he barked, “If the rest of you don’t know, you can probably guess.”

Knowing looks, a few lopsided smiles. Some chuckles. People could definitely guess; Blanchard was a legend.

“And she just hears me out, looking all serious, until I finish up by yelling at her to get suited up properly. Then she says, ‘I’m sorry, coach, I won’t do that. But I’ll do any exercises you want, as long as you want.’”

I shook my head. Saying something like that to a coach — ANY coach — is like wearing a bow tie in a biker bar.

“You can guess the rest, too,” he rasped. “Laps. Push-ups. Jumping jacks. Wall sitting. I’d give her a task, then get the rest of the clow — ahh, students — organized doing whatever they were supposed to be doing. And when I turned back, she was still doing whatever I’d set her to do. And . . . she didn’t just half-ass her way through the exercises. She put her heart in them. No jogging around the track, she fff — she sprinted. Perfect push-ups, like watching a piston engine.”

He choked up again, and drank more water. “I couldn’t take it anymore. I told her to just go join the guys. After what she’d done, nobody gave her any . . . ah. Any trouble. Todd Thatcher was in that class, and even he was impressed.”

He wiped his streaming eyes. “And that was Summer. From the day I met her, to the day I put that MVP ribbon around her neck last year for the job she did at second base. She outworked everyone, outthought everyone, and helped every player get better. Alway, always, gave a hundred percent— a hundred fifty percent! — for the team. I never saw a team like that. Not in twenty-eight years of coaching. Never. I —”

He couldn’t keep it in anymore. “Fuck!!! I didn’t think anything could stop that girl!”

Dean Smith, the principal, pulled Mr. Blanchard away gently and led him back to be with the rest of the faculty crowd, saying something so quietly only the two of them could hear it.

Summer had revered Coach Blanchard. She told Chrissy and me stories about how he’d take the summers to follow the Orioles, sometimes driving a couple hundred miles to catch a game. Despite their record, year after year, he stayed optimistic that the “Boys of Summer'' would pull it off. A line from one of Dad’s collection of old fantasy books shook me as I watched him take that long, slow walk. He would count winters, now.

Summer’s aunt had already spoken, for herself and for Summer’s parents. Gordon Frazier, the Captain of last year’s championship baseball team, had spoken, too.

I was up next.

Chrissy squeezed my hand. “Go on, girl. For her.”

I made my way up to the microphone, my notes clutched in my right hand, feeling unsteady on the crunchy hard grass in my platform shoes. I thought, Should have worn flats, followed immediately by, She wouldn’t have.

I tried to stand straight at the podium, like Summer had when she faced down the bigots at that school board meeting. My name is Summer Salk, and I’m trans. I’m not a pervert, I’m not a predator, and I’m not contagious. What are you afraid of? I wanted to hold my head high and keep my voice steady. I wanted, so very much, to make her proud. Even though she’d never see it.

“Summer was my hero. When she asked Chrissy and me if we wanted to start an LGBTQ+ group, I said ‘no.’ I didn’t want to make waves. And . . . .” I looked down at my notes, even though I knew what I’d written.

TERF.

I was so ashamed of what I’d been. I remembered her, sitting across from us at the picnic table under the big oak tree, listening to me explaining how “girls” needed their own space. I’d finally gotten to a place where I realized I didn’t need any fucking dudes in my life, that Chrissy and I could be everything for each other, and here was this . . . .

This girl. But I didn’t see it. Not that day, anyway, and not for a long while. Summer looked like a guy in a dress. Tall, broad shoulders, strong chin. . . . Thin — seriously thin — but all wiry muscle. A guy. That’s all I could see.

She just heard me out, listened to my explanations, said she was so sorry for everything I’d been through, and how of course she understood. She was completely sincere, and I told her I hoped we could be friends.

But I hadn’t meant it.

I felt Chrissy’s eyes on me as I stood there in the cold December wind, fumbling for words. Summer would have understood if I didn’t say anything about all that. If I glossed over who I’d been, four years ago. But I owed her more than that, and I owed Chrissy more, too.

“I couldn’t see her. All I could see was her big, male body. I didn’t let myself see who she was inside. What Chrissy and I had . . . . I thought, you know, everyone accepts us now. People like us get married. Raise kids. We don’t need . . . .”

I looked at Dan Baxter’s moms, standing over by the mound of black soil with some of the baseball dads, and stopped. I could see it in their faces — the understanding of what I had been about to say, combined with the knowledge that it was wrong. I shook my head sharply; I knew that — now.

“I didn’t want people to think of me as ‘LGBTQ’ or whatever. I didn’t want to be in anyone’s face. I just wanted to be ‘normal.’” I swallowed, wishing I’d thought to bring a water, too. “I stayed away. I’d see her in the halls, or at lunch, and I’d look the other way. Wave, if she saw I saw her. You know.”

I hoped they’d get it, all those people, standing there in winter coats that still stank of mothballs. The teachers would know . . . they’d have seen it a million times. The people my age, yeah. They knew those dance moves. I didn’t want to have to spell it out.

“So Chrissy and I go to Homecoming sophomore year, ‘cuz we’re a ‘normal’ couple and that’s what normies do. Summer’s there. I don’t know if someone was with her or if she just came by herself. It never bothered her. Or . . . maybe it did. I don’t know. But she never let it stop her. Anyhow, she was there in a long blue dress, all sparkly, heels, looking as good as she could. She seemed happy, talking with different groups. Ballplayers, I guess, mostly.”

My eyes locked with Chrissy’s as I got to the next part, sharing the bitter memory. Mandy Temple breaking in and dancing with me, Chrissy taking a restroom break and walking into the trap they’d set for her — Mandy and Annalise Cantrell and Stephanie Turner. The bucket of foul-smelling green whatever they were going to pitch over the stall when she sat to do her business.

“Some girls were gonna hurt Chrissy in the restroom when I wasn’t there. Their idea of ‘fun.’ Turns out Summer’d been watching them. When they followed Chrissy into the bathroom, all smirking and giggling, she went in right behind them. It, umm. It got physical. But two of them combined couldn’t take Summer. And they never got a chance to touch Chrissy.”

I was having trouble holding back the tears as I remembered how shaken Chrissy had been. Summer was suspended along with Annalise and Stephanie, which was completely unfair. Especially since Mandy got off Scott free; I knew she was in on it but couldn’t prove anything. Summer, of course, had just accepted her punishment and apologized to the team for having to miss a week.

But Annalise’s parents had pitched a fit. When Smith refused to expel Summer for “savaging” their daughter, they went to the school board and demanded that it eliminate the “threat” posed by transwomen using women’s restrooms.

“There was a lot of trouble after that. The school, then the school board. I guess everyone knows all about that. But what I remember is when Chrissy and I went to see Summer after school. To thank her, you know? And she just smiled, like she does . . . did.” Fuck! “And she said, ‘It was Chrissy this time, but it could have been me. Probably will be, next time. We’ve got to have each other’s backs.’”

“I was afraid to ask if she still wanted to be friends. After how I’d been, she should have told me to . . . Well. You know. And she had the whole baseball team and all. But she wasn’t ever like that. When I invited her to hang out, maybe go to the mall with us . . . I think it’s the only time I ever saw Summer cry.”

She’d tried to look away, to keep it to herself. The moment she’d surrendered was burned in my brain. The small shrug of her shoulders as she turned back to face me. Allowing me to witness a bit of everything she worked so hard to hide. I would never forget the pain in her eyes . . . the sunlight on her golden hair . . . the lift of her chin and the quiet, tremulous intensity of her voice as she’d said, “God, yes. I’d really, really like that.”

“That’s when I realized how much it must have hurt, the way I’d been icing her at school. Why it mattered to her. Yeah, she was a star athlete, but she wanted so much to just be able to be herself. To be a girl.”

I choked up at that, but forced myself to power through it, even though my voice sounded hollow. I’d been crying for days; I felt like I might never stop. “She was the best friend, ever. Whatever we were doing together — shopping, studying, walking around the Mall, watching Netflix at home, or talking — she was funny, and fun, and kind. She loved to dance, even though it’s probably the only physical activity where she was awkward. She’d just keep at it, smiling and laughing the whole time.”

I worked on this part so hard, and I couldn’t get it right. Couldn’t find words to describe the relationship Chrissy and I had forged with Summer. Couldn’t capture the magic of her laughter, the warmth of her eyes, or the gentleness, the tenderness, of her embrace on a tough day. Her passion for baseball — she’d even converted Chrissy! — and her knowledge of every place you could get a bite to eat at 3:00 a.m. when we’d all snuck out together. She could be goofy or serious, and she’d say things I’d wake up in the middle of the night a week later, still thinking about.

How do you explain all that to strangers? The team would know. Maybe the teachers; she’d been a good student and participated actively without ever being obnoxious. But everyone else — the baseball parents, the friends of her parents, the people from her parents’ synagogue, the neighbors? Was there anything I could say, that would give them a clue about what we’d had together for the past three years? I’d tried my best, but I couldn’t find the words.

“I knew . . . we knew . . . she had her own demons. She’d kind of disappear for a couple days, but then she’d always be fine. And she’d be like, ‘some days, fighting the dragon takes it out of me.’ Dysphoria was always ‘the dragon,’ but she didn’t want to talk about it. She . . . was like me, I guess. She really just wanted to be normal.”

I was seriously starting to lose it now, but I pulled myself together for her. One more time. “When I heard what happened, I couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t imagine it. And it hurt so much that I hadn’t been there for her, the way she’d always been there for me and Chrissy. She was so strong, I’d never understood just how bad it was for her.”

The note she had left had been pure Summer. Mom, Dad, I love you so much. Every day I fought it. When I couldn’t fight for myself anymore, I fought for you, and Coach, Bets and Chrissy and all my friends. I fought as hard as I could, but I had to win every day. Every time. The dragon only had to win once. I’m so very sorry.

I forced myself to look at her shattered parents — two people who loved her more than the whole world, and had never been anything less than supportive. Their faces asked the same “why” we’d all been asking. It’s not that we didn’t know the statistics. But Summer?

I tried to open myself to their pain, which even dwarfed what I was feeling. “Your daughter was the most amazing person I’ve ever met. I know she fought like hell to keep from hurting you, and she — God, she could fight! I will never, ever stop missing her.”

There. I made it all the way through. Just like you would have done it. Why the fuck aren’t you here to see? To see what you’ve helped me become?

There were additional prayers in Hebrew. One by one, we took reversed shovels and put icy, winter earth over the plain pine box in the ground. I couldn’t imagine it containing someone so full of life as Summer had always been. She’s not in there. That’s not her. Not in a box . . . in the ground!

It was done. Chrissy and I walked back to our car, arm-in-arm.

“It kills me, seeing her mom and dad.” Chrissy’s voice was as shredded as mine. “Summer had them, she had friends, she had the team. I just don’t get it!”

We’d gone around and around on it, ever since we got the news. Ever since we had to accept it had actually happened. That we would never see Summer again. She had been loved, accepted. Admired. Sure, there’d been haters, like those assholes on the school board. Maybe someone had said something, or done something, to trigger her. But I didn’t buy it. She’d never cared what they thought.

“I think it’s just what she always told us,” I said slowly. “It wasn’t what anyone else thought. It was what she thought. Having to deal with a body that just screamed ‘male’ at her, every single fucking day . . . I think it just tore her apart.”

“The dragon?”

“Yeah. That.”

“But . . . I mean, it’s 2023! She was doing HRT. There’s surgery . . . .” Her protest kind of faded out.

“She’d never have been passable,” I said gently. “You know that.”

“Who cares? Shit, Bets, tell me why that matters!”

“It shouldn’t. But . . . I guess it mattered to her.”

We drove aimlessly past places that had so many memories. The high school and the park, the slice pizza shop with the best pepperoni. The salon where the girls had fussed over Summer when we did our mani-pedi days and made her giggle. Neither of us said anything. On the other side of the bridge, Chrissy found a parking spot and said, “C’mon.”

I knew where we were going. We’d come here with Summer a couple of times; her grandfather’s name was on that gleaming black granite wall. Jonathan Salk. February 3, 1969. Her father had been born ten weeks later, when the Tidal Basin was pink with cherry blossoms and the forsythia were bright as the sun at noon. Summer’s grandmother had told her the story; she’d said, “If we remember them, it’s like they’re still with us.”

With us. Here, where they should be. Not in a box . . . not in the ground.

We walked down the path, and to our right the wall loomed higher and higher. A mass of names, one after another after another. How many, I wondered, are remembered at all?

We found his name, but I couldn’t recall the prayer Summer had offered, the last time we were here, all together, on a warm day when the long vacation months stretched before us. Just a name, on a list of almost sixty thousand names. In the arctic air, each name seemed to stand out, sharp and harsh, distinct.

After a while we walked on. Ahead of us, a very different monument stood against the deep blue sky. We’d gone there together, too, jogging lightly up the marble steps. Chrissy in shorts, me in sweats, Summer in one of those sundresses she always loved to wear. I felt an urge to go again, almost like a pilgrimage. The old man on the stone seat. Somehow, the sculpture captured eyes that had seen too much death.

Chrissy understood without my having to say anything. She always understood me. The trip up the stairs felt harder this time, like we were pulling a sled of memories behind us. Then we were in the big chamber and Lincoln towered over us, white and solid and somber.

My eyes were drawn to the wall, where his most powerful words were preserved. It is for us the living, rather, to be here dedicated . . . the unfinished work . . . the great task remaining before us . . . .

“There it is, Chrissy.”

“Yeah?”

“‘That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.’ That’s how I feel, too.”

“Summer didn’t die in battle, Bets.”

“Didn’t she?”

She thought about that and gave me a squeeze. “Maybe she did.”

“I just wish she hadn’t felt like she had to fight it alone. The people whose names are on the Wall . . . or the people Lincoln was talking about . . . at least they had each other. Maybe a cause; I don’t know. Summer was just trying to survive.”

We stood together in the quiet, reading the words again. Finally Chrissy said, “So, how do you do it? How do you give some sort of meaning to something this . . . awful?”

“I don’t know. But I promise you this. I’m gonna figure it out.”

“New year’s resolution?”

“Yeah. Real one, this time.”

“Right there with you, girl.”

I pulled her close, taking comfort from her warmth, her solidness, the clean smell of her soft brown hair. “I know,” I whispered. “That makes all the difference.”

The end.

For information about my other stories, please check out my author's page.