When he was gone, Tristan and Esmé looked at each other and smirked. Tristan hit the pen again and then passed it to Esmé.

“Didn’t think I’d run into him here,” Esmé said.

“I’m shocked he didn’t call us dolls,” Tristan said.

“He loves that word,” Esmé agreed. “It helps him feel like he has a chance with us.”

“It really completes the picture,” Tristan said. “You know, with the way he dresses, and the voice.”

“The voice?” I said pointedly. I felt suddenly protective of him. They hadn’t given me back my weed pen yet for what I decided was too long.

“Yeah, you know,” Tristan said. “The like, Humphrey Bogart impression. It’s worse when he’s drunk. I find it especially funny because he sounds like a gay little Muppet, so it only sort of works.”

“It works on someone,” Tristan said. “Straight girls,” she added dismissively.

“I mean, like, hypothetically, if I were a trans guy,” Esmé said, “I would have so many different gender expressions to choose from. And that was the one he went with.”

“Oh my god. Are we being mean?” Tristan said.

“He’s an abusive shithead, I don’t care,” Esmé said.

“Yeah,” Tristan agreed. “How’ve you been, V?” Tristan said.

I reached out and snatched the weed pen from her hand as she was in the middle of making some stupid hand gesture with it, and then I went back inside without saying anything.

The word abusive had completed the picture for me — that was what justified the gross, transphobic way they felt empowered to talk about him. Was it possible they were thinking about me, that those girls believed they were saying all that on my behalf? I didn’t really know where that story had ended up in the endless game of telephone that the “trans community” played with other people’s lives.

The other possibility, that those girls knew something I didn’t, and that he had caused some hurt somewhere outside of the people in this room, was significantly worse. I didn’t think he was capable of physically harming someone; this would inevitably be something murkier. I suddenly remembered the crass way he had talked about his ex-girlfriend earlier that night. Was it that? Had he been hiding details, subtly shifting the emphasis around? If I asked him about it more pointedly, and I would have to, he would have some countervailing story that partially exonerated him. And it would be true, or at least a version of the truth. That was the worst part. If he hurt someone else in the way he hurt me, it would require time to sort through. God knows I had to sort through it. I’d have to weigh the evidence, and then I’d have to take sides, because queers always make you take sides.