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Diego turned around until they were facing each other. Frankie couldn’t help but glance down at his chest. “Shit man, like… your lungs? Or… your heart?” Was Diego really sick? No wonder he hadn’t been in class. Frankie couldn’t even imagine having such a serious surgery. His mom’s back surgery had been relatively easy, with minimal scarring and pretty much no damage to soft tissue, and it had still taken her months to recover.
“No, Franklin, I had surgery on mychest,” Diego said, emphasizing the last word with an uncomfortable looking shoulder roll.
Frankie blinked at him, not even commenting on Diego’s insistent use of his full name.
Diego sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. He tried again. “I had surgery on mytophalf.”
He had surgery on his top half? His… top… surgery… Frankie’s brain and mouth caught on to what Diego was saying at different times. His brain thought,Wow, that must have been so hard for him to admit. But his mouth said, “So, if you have two pride flags, why don’t you ever come to Rainbow Club meetings?”
Diego’s mouth fell open and he gaped for a moment. Frankie tried to backtrack, and naturally, made it worse by word vomiting all over Diego.
“I mean ‘cause, you know, you said you were queer, and then corrected it, which I’m now sort of assuming means you’ve always been into men but identified as queer before, and then after your transition you identify as gay–and you’re trans, so there’s that flag, and then everyone can rep the rainbow flag, especially the new progress pride flag with the pink and blue, so in essence you have three whole flags which–wow, that must make pride fun–hey! You should join the pride planning committee! We have three other transgender members and one nonbinary person on the committee. Maybe you know them?”
Frankie was relieved by the “what the fuck, why are you so stupid” face Diego was making because at least that one was familiar. It wasn’t full of the earlier vulnerability that Frankie didn’t know how to handle.
“I’m sorry… did I just come out to you, and the first thing you ask is do I know the other trans people you know?”
Frankie bit his lip. A burning heat worked its way across his cheeks. “Uhm… I think technically my first question was why don’t you come to Rainbow Club, and the second was if you want to join the pride committee. Then the third question was—”
“Stupid?”
Frankie ducked his head in embarrassment. “Uh, yeah… pretty stupid… sorry.”
Diego let out a soft huff, but when Frankie glanced up at him through his lashes, Diego’s expression was almost affectionate.
“Well… thank you for being so understanding and… welcoming,” Diego said. “I’ve never come to the meetings because they’re during one of my evening classes. Unfortunately, most clubs on campus are more geared towards undergrad schedules which end by 6:00 p.m. Almost all grad classes except the Entrepreneur class are at night.”
Damn, Frankie had never thought of that. How incrediblynon-inclusive. “I’ll change that,” Frankie said. Diego looked taken aback. “I mean, I’m not the president, so I can’t just decree anything, but I know the president and once I mention this to her I’m sure she’ll… well, probably feel super bad about how accidentally exclusionary we’ve been acting, and then change the times of the meetings. What time works best for you?”
Diego was staring at him like he had two heads. “I… am usually freer on weekends. I know that’s not usually when clubs have meetings—”
“Done. Maybe Saturday afternoon? Oh wait… that won’t work because of Shabbat. Okay, maybe Sunday afternoon? Late enough so anyone who went to church services will be able to attend.”
“Are you Jewish?” Diego asked abruptly with a sort of thoughtless air. It was very un-Diego-like.
“Nah, but again, we try to be inclusive. So, we have to be cautious of Friday nights for Mosque as well. Now that I’m saying all this out loud, I think people go to Baha’i temple every nineteen days for their feast, so we’ll have to watch out for that, and some Buddhist temples do their Uposatha day of rest on weekends… but I think the observation follows the lunar calendar in some way. I have to be honest, I’m a little less familiar with that one. I’ll have to look it up when I get home. Then I’ll tell Dalia.”
Diego was giving him the dazed, sort of surprised look again. Was he feeling okay?
“Oh shit, the professor said you’ve been having a bad go of it… are you alright? Is everything healing okay?” His mom had gotten an infection in her surgery site, and the doctors had been worried it could get into her spinal column. Frankie wasn’t as familiar with top surgery – was there a huge risk for infection as well?
Diego grimaced and walked slowly around the couch, presumably to sit down. Frankie followed close behind in case he needed any help… which he didn’t, so when Diego sat down, he was practically face to face with Frankie’s crotch. Diego looked up at him through his long lashes, somehow incredibly endearing and patronizing at the same time.
Frankie allowed himself a moment to catalog Diego’s features. He suddenly understood why Diego’s beard was sort of patchy as if it was slowly establishing its domain and thickness on Diego’s face. Frankie forced himself not to look down to note the fullness of Diego’s hips and thighs. Two of the members of the pride committee were trans-feminine and talked openly about their hard jawlines, thinner hips, and smaller butts. The one trans-masculine guy on the committee didn’t have any complaints about his body. In fact, he often bragged about his big butt, although, he did sometimes joke with the women about detaching his boobs to give to them.
Frankie knew enough about gender, trans, cis and otherwise to know that not everyone felt the same, but he imagined this surgery would be a huge relief for Diego. Why then did he look like he was still carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders?
“I’m… alright,” Diego finally said. “Everything was healing fine until a few days ago when I spiked a fever. Looks like one of the incisions is infected and the swelling could mess up the way the scars heal and… I don’t know. Never mind. You obviously didn’t come here to listen to this, or to have me burden you by coming out, so… I apologize.”
Diego’s back was slowly stiffening as he spoke and by the time he was done, his spine was ramrod straight as if he was perched on the edge of a hard chair and not sitting on his own surprisingly comfy looking sofa.
Frankie sat down next to Diego and, against his better judgment, placed a gentle hand on Diego’s arm. Diego didn’t flinch this time, but he did stare critically down at his hand. “Coming out is never a burden, Diego. It’s your story and your identity to share. Thank you for sharing it with me. Truly. I know it shouldn’t, but… it does help me get to know you and where you’re coming from just a little bit better.”
“Discussing medical procedures feels rather like an overshare,” Diego said looking away from Frankie.
“I mean… if you start using words like drainage or crusty–which trust me, my mom said all that and worse after her surgery–I might have to ask you to stop, but only because I have a weak stomach, not because you’re a burden. My mom’s surgical site got infected too, and once she knew she was safe, she spent weeks freaking out about the aesthetics of the scar and hers was this tiny little thing on her back that no one would literallyeversee. For you, I imagine there’s a lot more tied into the cosmetics and how the scars end up looking. I can’t even begin to fathom how stressful that must be. I’m sorry that’s happening.”
Diego bit his lip and his eyes went a little glassy. “I… yeah that’s… definitely part of it. It’s stupid, I know, but… it is, in essence, an aesthetics-based procedure and to get this far just to have my health threatened and… I knew there was always a risk of getting keloids and messed up scars but… now it’s pretty much a guarantee and I just—” Diego’s voice broke, and he pulled his arm out of Frankie’s grasp to press his fingers into the corners of his eyes. Though his eyes remained dry, the expression on his face was pained.
