“It’s just been an insane day. I’m wiped.” That part isn’t a lie. I’m probably going to crash as soon as I get home.
“No, yeah. I—I get it.” They don’t sound like they get it at all. They sound disappointed.
I keep talking to Korie the entire drive home. When I walk into my apartment, I slump on the couch, missing them like crazy.
“Hey, Kor?”
They hum.
“Can I ask you something?”
Korie shifts on the other end, and I imagine them stretching out on the couch. “Yeah.”
“Did you always know you wanted to be a radiology tech?”
“That’s—what?” They laugh in surprise. “Where did that come from?”
I chuckle and scrub my face, sighing deep. “I don’t know. Rough day at work, I guess. It’s making me rethink my life choices.”
“Ah, Holden. Don’t do that. You love the gym. We all have hard days.”
“I know. It’s the kids. They’re exhausting.”
“You say that every summer.”
“Because it’s true. They’re energy vampires.”
They laugh.
Reaching over my head, I tug my shirt off and toss it to the floor. “Tell me, though. I want to know. When did you know that’s what you wanted to be?”
Korie is quiet for a moment. “Mom took me to work with her when I was… I don’t know, maybe eight or nine? I saw how the machines worked, and how the doctors could make entire diagnoses from a single picture. And it just fascinated me. I fell in love with it right away.” They shift again, voice lowering. “I think radiology school actually helped me understand myself too, weirdly enough.”
I rub my chest. “What do you mean?”
“It helped me see how we’re all the same inside. I mean, sure, we’re different obviously—biologically. But there’s so much of us that’s the same. And there’s so much of who we are that we’re taught too—how we’re expected to present ourselves.” Their voice lowers. “But not everyone fits the boxes we’re given. Some of us live outside them.”
Korie had loved radiology school. They talked about it so much that I felt like I could pass their classes before it was over. But I never realized how it brought them clarity in their own journey too.
“That’s a good way to look at it,” I say. “Can I ask you something else?”
Korie waits.
“You don’t need to answer, but I’ve always wondered why you never went on hormones. You talked about it a few times, but then you never did.”
Korie makes a soft sound. “HRT, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
They’re quiet for a moment before saying, “You’ve never asked me that before.”
“I wasn’t sure if you’d want me to.”
Korie hums, as if pleased. “You can always ask me about this, Holden. I’d want you to.”
I roll to my side, waiting.
“I did consider HRT, but ultimately, it never felt right. I’ve drifted between male and female so many times, I didn’t want to change my body in a way that might only fit one part of me. I need something that can move with me, not lock me into one place.”
