Chapter 6
BOXING
Lina drove a pickup truck, a fact their mother had bemoaned.
Oscar hadn’t been around for the fallout; he’d left home long before his sister ever got her license.
But Lina had texted him about it and then she’d come to pick him up in the vehicle their mother had called obscene and manly, as though the clutch would pump Oscar’s sister full of testosterone and turn her into the wayward child their mother never spoke of.
The blue-grey vehicle suited her. Lina was slight and pretty, blonde hair brushing her waist, pretty blue eyes on a doll-like face—the daughter their mother had always wanted.
She wore skirts and pink cable-knit sweaters, flat running shoes that showed off her ankles, and that stupid promise ring Ryan had given her when they’d started dating at fifteen.
Oscar liked that she drove this beast of a car.
Maybe it didn’t match her style, but it matched her personality.
Because Lina was also loud, guffawing at every joke, cussing every other sentence, running like Wile E.
Coyote was chasing her every time she stepped foot on a track.
Barely visible behind the wheel, she made her presence known by honking her horn and flipping off every man who dared presume she wasn’t capable of driving the damn thing. It all made Oscar rather proud.
But maybe not as proud as sitting in the passenger’s seat, watching their town roll away and the trees come into view as they drove to the big city, the truck bed weighed down by the boxes Lina had packed over the previous two months.
It was a little early to move into the dorms, but she’d found a part-time job that would keep her going throughout the year, and they’d asked her to start in the summer. She’d emailed the university with a list of benefits and reasons, and they’d let her move in weeks ahead of first semester.
This was where Oscar came in.
Lina had texted him the moment the residential office said yes, asking whether he’d like to help her move in.
Texting back and forth with Aaron hadn’t given Oscar the courage to ask him out again after their coffee-date-morning-after breakfast, and he’d snatched the opportunity for a distraction.
It had been a little over two weeks since he’d last seen him—two painfully long weeks.
But at least it would just be the two of them. Ryan had scheduled a practice test for police academy that he couldn’t move.
Fuck you, Ryan, Oscar thought now as he listened to his sister rambling about how she wished her boyfriend was here, too.
Oscar had never liked that prick, not as a person and certainly not for his sister.
He’d never actually done anything wrong, especially not to Lina, but something about him rubbed Oscar the wrong way.
“So, you’re all good now? Recovered and everything?” Lina asked, chewing on her lower lip. Her smile was a small pretty thing, like her, but Oscar could read the guilt that crossed her eyes.
“It’s not your fault I didn’t tell you before, Leen,” he said, casting her a sidelong glance. “You know how I am with these things.”
“Yeah, but I could have cooked for you more after I found out.” Lina scratched her head. “I feel bad. I should have come over.”
“I wouldn’t have liked it. I wanted to be alone.” Oscar shrugged. “And it’s fine. I’m doing so well. I can even lift my arms and all sorts of crazy shit.”
Lina laughed. She looked so much like their mother, but when she smiled and her eyes crinkled, she turned into Papa for a second, reminding Oscar of before-death.
“Good. Lots of boxes to carry.”
Lina parked the truck just outside the front doors, another benefit to being the only student about to move in. She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket, even though Oscar was certain she’d learned her personal pin code by heart. Lina had always been meticulous.
It explained the arguments after Papa had died, those last two years he’d lived at home. When he’d finally come out, the words boy and trans and Oscar spilling from his mouth like foam after being trapped in his chest so long, his mother had slapped him.
She’d never touched him like that before.
“Have some respect,” she’d said, still in her dress from Papa’s funeral.
“I do,” Oscar had replied, adjusting his suit jacket. “Papa taught me to be honest.”
“He would be ashamed of you.”
“No. He would be ashamed of you,” Oscar had said.
That was when she’d hit him. Lina had sat there in the kitchen, eleven years old, face streaked with tears, quietly watching another one of their arguments. A plain old Wednesday.
“How dare y—” his mother had started to say.
“He would be.” Lina’s small voice had cut into the tension and had them both whipping their heads to the side.
“What did you say?” Their mother had taken a step towards the kitchen table.
“If you touch her, I will stab you, Mom,” Oscar had said. “I will stab you, and we’ll bury you next to Papa.”
Oscar hated himself a little for meaning it. But if his mother had touched Lina, he probably would have done it. Not that his mother would have. Her hands were still shaking from slapping him. So many years later, Oscar believed this was her only regret with him, that she had been sorry.
One decent truth about his mother.
After that, Lina had stood behind him for every raging battle, spitting out facts and statistics, learning all about the science of being transgender, fighting their mother on every point long after Oscar locked himself in his room to cry and scream and say fuck enough times to piss his mother off even worse and rile her up.
Oscar no longer needed Lina to teach his mother about being trans, but he was sure she still did it sometimes. He hated that he’d left her behind, but Lina was fine. Their mother had always liked her better; she was an easier child. And besides, Lina could hold her own in any argument.
“Home sweet home, I guess,” she said, coming to a stop in front of a door on the first floor. She jingled the keys they’d given her, already decorated with an orange ball of fluff, and unlocked the door.
“It’s bigger than I thought it would be,” Oscar said, eyeing the room.
“Yeah,” Lina replied. “I’m claiming that one.” She jerked her head at the bed opposite the door. “Shall we begin?”
“Yeah,” Oscar replied, cracking his fingers. “Let’s.”
Oscar felt good about himself. He’d carried in so many boxes for his sister, and heavier ones too—boxes full of books and eyeshadow palettes and decorations.
He’d carried one of her suitcases up the stairs.
It felt good to be able to do these things again.
It felt good to be useful. Most of all, it felt good to witness Lina’s smile as she eyed the room they’d transformed.
Lina was smoothing the soft orange blanket she’d spread at the foot of her freshly made bed, while Oscar fixed ivy leaves and twinkling lights to the nails he’d hammered into the wall.
Underneath them, pinned into the plaster, were Polaroids constellating Lina’s life.
Oscar smiled at a younger Grandma with her arms around his sister, Papa making cake with flour all over Lina’s nose, Lina with their mother before a school dance, Lina with her friends, Lina with Ryan.
Okay, maybe Oscar didn’t smile at that one.
There was one of the two of them from a year before.
Oscar’s hair had been shorter then, his T-shirts baggier, his lungs and ribs crushed by his binder.
“Is it okay if I pin this one?” Lina asked, handing him a final picture.
Oscar took it, smiling down at the photo.
Tears welled up in his eyes. Papa sat between them, arms around their shoulders.
Lina was five, eyes crossed at the camera.
Oscar was seven. His mother hadn’t taken any pictures of him that year, not after he’d cut off all his hair.
They were on Grandma’s couch. Oscar was in overalls and a T-shirt. He remembered Grandpa taking the photo.
“Yeah. It was the first time I felt like me, that summer.” Oscar picked a pin from the box, a green one, and found a spot on Lina’s wall. “Leen…” He turned to look at her, found her eyes trained on him, watery, mouth stretched into a difficult smile weighed by the burden of his truth.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to bring it up,” Lina murmured.
“Hey…” Oscar approached her, wrapping his hands around her arms, squeezing lightly.
“No matter how many times I wished I was born different, I would never ever in a million years trade the childhood I shared with you. I would never trade what we had with Papa.” Oscar wouldn’t mention his mother because this was A Moment, and he didn’t want to lace it with lies.
“I love being your brother, and I hated being a girl, but I will never hate having been your sister.”
A time before, Oscar would have vomited just thinking the words.
Lina shook her head.
“You were always my brother,” she said. A soft laugh hammered through the tension. “I mean, look at that picture, Oscar. You were always a fucking boy.”
“Yeah, fair enough.” Oscar shrugged. “I’m proud of you, Leen. It’s no joke, that scholarship you got.”
“I mean, running was one way to get away from Mom.” Lina laughed again.
“Come on. You don’t hate her like that.” Oscar narrowed his eyes.
He knew Lina spoke like she couldn’t stand her for his benefit. But for the most part, they got along okay. And as much as he disliked his mother, Oscar was glad Lina didn’t have to swallow her vitriol the way he had.
“Okay.” Lina rolled her eyes. “Shall I order a pizza while you get the last couple of boxes? It’s just a couple of books and some running shoes left.”
Oscar opened his mouth to ask for extra cheese, but the door creaked open as a booted foot nudged through.
“No need. Everything’s here.” Ryan tilted his head, beaming from behind a tower of boxes, the final three, stacked on top of each other like it was nothing.
“You’re here!” Lina squealed as Ryan bent to put them down.
He wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her, pressing what sounded like a very sloppy kiss to her mouth. Oscar didn’t look. He didn’t feel like dry heaving on Lina’s carpet.
“Hi there,” Ryan said as he put her down.
“Hey,” Oscar mumbled, tracing lines over Lina’s desk.
“Look, Ry. Do you like the decorations?” Lina asked, taking him by the hand and leading him to the picture wall.
She showed off the jewelry drawers Oscar had set up and the mirror she’d decorated with individual bulbs, and Ryan followed and nodded, saying, “yes, babe. Cool, babe. Ah, amazing, babe.” His blond hair was combed and parted to the side.
Oscar imagined the ass already believed himself a police officer, even though he hadn’t even entered the Academy yet.
He’d started tucking in his shirts and wearing belts and shaving his puny mustache every morning.
Lina dropped to sit on the edge of her bed, taking Ryan’s hands in hers.
“It’s such a surprise. I didn’t think you’d show up,” she said.
“Course I did. I wanted to help.”
Oscar had to stifle his scoff. Help? Oscar and Lina had put together an entire room. It had taken them more than four hours to get everything together. And now this goof had just waltzed in carrying three boxes and pretending like he’d ever been useful for a minute in his entire life.
“And you did. You have. Carrying all those boxes all at once. Oscar and I had to keep going back and forth. It took us hours.” She laughed, eyes crinkling again.
“Well, of course you did, babe. You two never should have been carrying things. That’s a man’s job.”
Lina’s face fell at the same time that Oscar’s heart splintered in his chest. Fine, he’d never liked Ryan, not even for a second, but this was new. His sister’s eyes slid across to his. Ryan could have drenched her in boiling water, and she wouldn’t have looked as scalded as she did just then.
If Oscar didn’t know how much Lina loved Ryan, he would have punched his teeth out.
Instead, Oscar turned on his heel and left. And even when he heard Lina’s shoes hitting the hallway floor as she chased him, calling out for him to wait, he didn’t look back.
If he had, he wouldn’t have been able to see her through the film of his tears.