“So what’s the trans community saying now?” mumbles Gemma, reshaping her body around Ava’s. Gemma feels incredibly warm and peaceful, as if she is wrapped in something like grace.

“Age bullshit,” says Olive. “You know that stuff about ‘trans time’?”

“Oh,” says Gemma. “Like that whole thing about how our age is also how long we’ve been out or on hormones or whatever.”

“Yeah,” Olive says seriously. “I mean, it’s all true. Time’s weird for us. But also like: it’s so complicated. I’ve been a gay weirdo for over two decades. I’m not even sure I know what age means anymore.”

“The ‘trans community,’” Ava suddenly says gently. “I wish we didn’t use that term.”

“Oh?” says Gemma sleepily.

Ava hesitates. “Like what Olive said about age—I don’t know anymore what that word means. Way we use it, anyway. Seems like it means whatever someone wants it to mean that day. Like, I think of a community as a group of people who have to spend time around each other whether they want to or not. A job where you see the same twenty people every day? That’s a community. A town like this? It’s a community. Though I guess I haven’t done much to be part of it.”

“You’re saying”—this just occurs to Gemma, rising through her tiredness—“that we use ‘community’ to mean this dramatic thing, whether it’s nice or horrible, when it’s just this really mundane thing dictated by these mundane circumstances.”

“Maybe,” says Ava.

“It is weird when people talk like we’re one big group,” Olive said, frowning at her phone, talking as people do sometimes when they’ve just looked at their phone. “We’re as divided as society itself, right? By if you went to college. Class. Race. Religion.”

“Yeah,” says Ava. “It all makes me think, like, is ‘community’ even a thing at all? I guess it probably is, even if I can’t put my fingers around it. I just think, like: I have friends. A few close, dear friends who are also trans, and I can count them on one hand. They’ve altered the course of my life, and I might not be alive without them. That’s true, yes. But where that intersects with the idea of community, I don’t know. I’m not even saying it’s bad. I see fundraisers go by and I give money to people who need it and I don’t know them. Is that community? Probably. Is that good? I feel glad I can do it. But I still can’t help but think that term the ‘trans community’ can mean whatever I want it to mean in that moment. And that isn’t true about my friends.” Olive nods and raps her knuckles on the coffee table.

“That’s nice, Ava,” says Gemma.

Ava parts her lips for a very small, bare-teeth grin. “Get me a ‘them’ op-ed, stat.”

“Only if you do the next one about your baeddel tattoo.”

“Ha!”

“It’s funny, though,” says Gemma. “You said a town like this was a community. But when I was growing up, I could tell you every way from Sunday who wouldn’t talk to who. And I could drill down for you and tell you who hated who and who’d be there for who. This is maybe like Olive’s point, I guess. Anything you want to call a community, there’s fractures all the way down, no matter how small. Isn’t there?”