The comments are mostly gentle and encouraging, which honestly softens me a little, but it doesn’t matter because it’s everywhere. Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. There are even a few reaction videos on Snapchat, Twitter, and YouTube. And all it took was thirty minutes before Kyle realized what he’d done and deleted his public post.

I haven’t gone globally viral or anything like that, but there’s no doubt that nearly every soul in this town has seen the video.

Mostly people are just laughing. But some of it is vitriol. Pure hate.

If my son dressed like this, I’d disown his ass.

I’m sorry, y’all, but this just goes against nature. God created this boy to be a boy.

What a perv.

Y’all can laugh all you want, but this boy must be possessed by demons.

In my day, boys didn’t have time to wear skirts. They were busy providing.

Downfall of society, ladies and gents.

Some are even worse than that.

My phone rings.

My dad. Of course this would have made its way to him and my mom.

I think about sending him to voice mail, but that will only make things worse.

“Hello?”

“Son?” Dad’s normally booming voice is soft around the edges. He clears his throat. “I, uh, your sister called your mother and me. Said some kind of video of you is making the rounds. You, uh, dressed in a . . . dress.”

“I was in drag, Dad.”

“Drag. Right. Like on your show, right? Anyone giving you a hard time?”

My chest tightens at the concern in his voice. “Just the usual suspects.”

“You know, your mother and I would be happy to go up to the school and have a—”

“I think I’d rather take the day off.”

I can hear my mom whisper something in the background and after a second, Dad says, “Of course. That’s fine. Your mom wants to know if she can do anything.”

“Gimme that phone,” I hear her say.

“Baby?”

“Hi, Mom.”

“You know we love you just the way you are, right?”

I can practically hear my dad nodding dutifully in the background. “Yup.”

“And I haven’t seen this video yet, but if you—” Her voice catches. “If there’s something you’re not telling us about your gender i-identity or, uh, expression.” She stumbles over those last few words.

“Mom,” I say before she can go any further. “Thank you for being, like, basically the wokest middle-aged woman in Clover City, but I just really like drag and was messing around a little. The video got into the wrong hands and now everyone’s seen it. That’s it. But if I ever have any big gender revelations, you’ll be my first call.”

She sniffs. “Okay, good. That’s good to hear.”