Ivan looked flushed, despondent, like he’d vanished from his body.

Asher’s anus tingled, soggy and embarrassed. He pulled up his sweatpants. “I didn’t mean to write about you that way. Like, as girly or whatever. I wasn’t serious.”

Ivan’s head cocked on his slender neck. “Yes, you were.”

Asher’s shoulders went leaden. He shrugged.

Ivan’s face was slack now, relaxed. “It’s okay, man,” he said. But it wasn’t.

The book club never met again. Asher never saw Ivan again, intentionally. Once, though, a year or so later, Asher was crossing the liberal arts quad at Emory, when, several hundred feet away, Ivan emerged from his department, heading on quick feet in the opposite direction. Instead of his normal clothes, he wore high-waisted girls’ pants that hugged his thighs, a cropped sweater, and a soft pink shawl. His hair was still short, his gait still boyish.

Asher hurried to catch up, pushing past undergraduates cameled by backpacks, skirting a table offering lollypops on behalf of mental illness. If he could glimpse Ivan’s face, he’d understand who Ivan was now. But after circling a clump of girls lodged in a group hug, the quad cleared. Ivan was gone.

In the years that follow, still in the same apartment, adjuncting now, Asher wonders whether it matters if Ivan also transitioned, whether Asher’s terrible thoughts were justified because he spotted a quality in Ivan that was already there. But that’s no excuse for how he acted. He’d wrestled with his assumptions and lost.

Now sometimes he soothes himself, alone in his apartment, swirling Ivan’s gravel in the mug. He tastes it, sometimes, as punishment, as though Ivan could see him rolling the debris across his tongue, forcing the sharp grit against the enamel of his molars. Like Ivan would care anyway. The gesture is childish. By now enough time has passed that he’s sucked all the dirt off, and the gravel is as clean as salt.

Ooh, the Suburbs

Ooh, the Suburbs

AS SOON AS HEIDI ARRIVED AT KIM’S CONDO, SHE suggested they go meet LisaParsonsTwo, Kim’s online crush. Usually Kim was the rule-breaker, the wild girl whose mom let her do whatever, but Heidi had obsessed over LisaParsonsTwo since Kim had told her about their messages last week. Kim’s mom was out for the evening, so Heidi had invited herself to sleep over.

“You don’t want hot dogs?” Kim brandished the package. She’d let it sit out way too long—the protective ice had dissolved and the meat was pale and clammy. Kim pinched a puckered end and winked.

Heidi slit her eyes. “What’s wrong with you? She’s your crush. Of course you want to go.” Heidi would fluff Kim back up to her normal self, that cool, slouchy tomboy. “And you never cook.”

“I thought it was a nice night to stay in and enjoy dogs. I have mayonnaise.”