Chapter 2: Chapter 2: Coffee Date

After a few weeks of just forgetting about the whole thing, I was kind of bored on a Sunday and all my usual friends seemed to be busy. I decided to try texting Steve.

Hey, this is Matt, Zoe’s friend. We haven’t met but I think we both like vegetables and 3D printing.

Steve responded fairly quickly. Fuck yeah, dude! I love both those things. Plus all of Zoe’s friends I’ve met have been cool. We should hang out sometime!

I kind of wish he would stop calling me “dude”. I have a name.

Yeah, absolutely. You free at all in the next week or so?

Oh actually dude, a friend cancelled on me so I’m free all day today! You wanna get coffee or something? My treat, I just got promoted.

Well, that was a tempting offer. My bank account was looking pretty sad, especially with all the money I’d ended up spending on makeup paraphernalia and girls’ clothes.

Sure, which coffee place? I like the one on Central and Vista.

Oh no way me too? They have the best espresso and all the non-dairy milk. Plus the pastries are great

Well, it looked like Steve had taste in at least some things. I could take that as a good sign.

Sure, does meeting there at 2 pm work? That should give me an hour and a half to get ready.

Yeah! See you there :)

After I’d hung around outside the coffee shop until about 2:10, Steve finally arrived out of breath. Looking around at me and a few stragglers, he asked “Matt?”

“Yep. Nice to meet you.” We shook hands. It was way less weird than our last meeting.

I noticed Steve kind of squinting at me, trying to formulate a question. Finally, it seemed to pop into his head. “Oh, hey! Do you have a sister named Madeline?”

Well, fuck. I had approximately two options here: Option 1: Lie my ass off. That should take any suspicion off me in the short term, but I hardly wanted to end up in some sitcom-esque shenanigans pretending to be two different people. Option 2: Tell the--super awkward--truth.

Eventually, I decided to take a third option. “We definitely have the same parents.”

“Cool! Are you two twins or something? Wait, no, if you’re a boy and a girl you can’t be identical, unless you’re fraternal and just happen to look alike.”

For once, my habitual browsing of obscure corners of Wikipedia saved me. “Actually, there’s sort of “half-identical” twins, where two different sperm fertilize the same egg.”

“Whoa, I’ve never heard of that. That’s really cool.” I was starting to conclude this guy used the word “cool” a little too much.

“Anyway, you want to head inside? We can keep talking after we get our coffee.”

“Sure thing, dude. Just let me know what you want and I can order for both of us while you go grab a table, if that’s chill.”

“Yeah, sounds good.” Two-person tables were in notoriously short supply here, thanks to all the dates, tutoring, and one-one-one meetings that happened here.

After snagging a table--and valiantly defending it from a hipster-looking girl who glared at me--I idly swiped at my phone while waiting for Steve to return. After around ten minutes, he was back with two cups of coffee. He handed me one. “I think this one is yours. Oat milk latte, right?”

“Yeah.” I winced, accustomed to friends who’d make fun of me for getting a hipstery vegan option. Honestly, I just liked the taste, plus I’m mildly lactose intolerant.

“Rad. I’ve tried making my own at home, but it’s never quite the same. I think the next step might be growing my own oats.”

Well, this served as a great reminder that Steve was not like most of my guy friends. Honestly, he felt like a step up. It was nice to not have to constantly feel on edge defending my masculinity.

Steve

Matt seemed like a cool guy! As we chatted, it seemed like we had a lot of things in common. He played more video games and spent more time on the internet, while I spent more time gardening and cooking, but we both appreciated good food and making stuff with our hands.

He also really reminded me of Madeline. Obviously there were going to be some similarities, but they went further than I expected. They had similar builds, hair, faces--though Matt’s was a little more plain--and even voices, although Matt’s was louder and a little deeper. I had a similar reaction of wanting to hug him or ruffle his hair, but I held back the impulse. It would definitely weird him out, given that we had just met, and I was worried he might feel condescended. It wasn’t obvious sitting down, but I probably had at least a foot on him, and I didn’t want him to think I was treating him like a child. He definitely wasn’t a child--although short, and maybe a few years younger than me, he was clearly pretty smart and articulate.

After a brief lull in our conversation about different non-dairy milks, I asked, “What’s it like having a twin? I’ve always wondered what it would be like if I had one.”

Matt scratched the back of his head. “Uh… it’s good. I mean, we’re pretty close. We share a lot of stuff, just had the one room growing up, etc.”

“Oh, what kind of stuff do you share?”

“Game consoles, instruments, clothes, that kind of thing.”

“You share clothes with your sister?”

Matt

Fuck, now I sounded like a weirdo. Even though everything I said was technically sorta true, the whole point was to not out myself as a crossdresser.

Although surprisingly, he didn’t sound judgmental. He had asked the same question with the same mild, interested tone as the rest of our conversation. I shuddered, thinking how my male friend group would have pounced on a slip-up like that. Not that they’d be cruel, exactly, but they would have made fun of me for the rest of the day while assuming I had actually just misspoken.

“Yeah, she borrows my sweatshirts a lot. Says they’re warmer or something.” Phew, good thing I was such a great liar.

“Oh yeah, I can totally imagine her wearing a loose college hoodie or something. I mean, not that it would be that loose I guess, you two seem like you’re about the same size. I just meant--she seems like someone who likes to be cozy. Sort of a comfy cute aesthetic.”

I blinked. “You think she’s cute?”

“I mean, yeah. Admittedly I don’t know her super well, but I’d like to get to know her better. She seems really sweet, and I thought she could use some friends. I’m hoping Zoe and I can get her to come to game night. Oh, that reminds me, you should come too! Is it cool if I add you to the group chat? And Maddy too, if you have her number.”

Well, uh. He couldn’t really add both of us, unless I got “Maddy” a burner phone or something. And even then, how long could I really keep up the charade? It’s not like both of us could show up to game night. And this wasn’t fiction; in real life, someone was bound to figure it out.

I decided to play it safe. “You can add me, but you should probably ask Madeline herself. She’s kind of shy and might not like being added to a group unless she already knows everyone there.”

“Okay, makes sense. I’ll just add you for now, then. Do you know what a good way to reach out to Madeline is, so I can ask her? I couldn’t find her on Facebook or anything.”

“Yeah, she doesn’t really use social media much. I think she’s anxious about how people see her, so she avoids that kind of thing for mental health reasons.”

“Oh, I totally get that. I really just have Facebook so I can see the events that are happening, invite people to parties, and post pictures of my plants. That reminds me, do you want to see some plant pics?”

I chuckled. “Sure, I’d love to.”

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Steve

After showing Matt pictures of my tomato plants for a few minutes, I realized I had gotten off-topic. “Oh, right, do you have a number for Maddy or anything?”

Matt looked conflicted, staying silent for a moment before shaking his head. “Sorry, I don’t think she’d want me to give that out.”

Well, that was kind of a bummer. It seemed like this girl was unreachable. Once again, I worried about her isolating herself. If she didn’t have any social media and didn’t really go to events, what opportunity did she have to interact with people besides her brother?

Well, maybe her job involved a lot of interaction? “By the way, what does your sister do as a job?”

“Uh, she’s… not currently employed. She’s been doing some art commissions online, but not too much else besides that.”

“Oh, does she have an Insta or Twitter or something for art?” That seemed like social media to me, so I was a little confused. Maybe he just meant she avoided social media with people she knew in real life?

Matt

Fuck. The longer I kept this up, the more my story was falling apart. I guess this is why they say to keep lies simple: the more complicated they get, the harder it is to avoid any inconsistencies.

Fuck it, this guy seemed pretty nice and we were in a public place, so safety shouldn’t be an issue. Maybe I should just tell him. Poor guy seemed so let down by how hard it was to contact my “sister.”

I decided to test the waters a bit. “Steve, how much do you know about trans people?”

“Oh, I actually did a lot of research on this after a close friend came out as nonbinary! I know that people can have a gender, or an internal sense of gender, that doesn’t match with the gender usually associated with the sex they were assigned at birth. And sometimes it makes people happier to change their body or how they present to match how they feel inside! Also, trans rights are human rights.” He looked so proud of himself. And in fairness it was a much better answer than a lot of my friends would have given. I had this one friend--more of an ex-friend, really--who just thought the word “shemale” was the funniest thing in the world and called me a buzzkill when I asked him to stop. 

“So…” I leaned in closer, lowering my voice to a whisper. “What if I told you that my sister is trans?”

Steve thought for a moment, before his face lit up. “Oh, that makes a lot of sense! That’s awesome. She seems like a great girl, just a little low on confidence. I hope she can learn to really love herself like I’m sure other people love her.”

Steve

Everything made way more sense now! Of course Maddy wouldn’t want to deal with people she used to know using her deadname, so she stayed off Facebook. And she was probably so cautious about the company she kept, because unfortunately, the world could be a dangerous place for trans women. Plus, even though it was supposed to be illegal to discriminate, I knew that unfortunately plenty of employers didn’t want to hire trans people.. As I thought about the shit that she had to put up with, my heart ached for her.

Oh, and she and Matt were probably actually identical twins! I was kind of confused about the whole half-identical thing, but now I appreciated Matt’s efforts to not out his sister. That would explain why they looked so similar

Matt

Wow, that was not the reaction I was expecting. At best I had expected an awkward silence followed by a mildly interested “cool”. I really hadn’t met many people who were so straightforwardly positive about people transitioning. Steve even said trans rights!

Steve looked at me with sudden concern. “Whoa, Matt, are you okay?” I reached up and touched my face, realizing that big, fat, salty tears were rolling down my cheek.

Immediately, Steve was on the other side of the table, enveloping me in his strong arms and gently stroking my head. He pulled back for a moment and asked, “Is this okay?” I nodded mutely.

After holding me for a little longer, Steve straightened up and put his hand on my shoulder. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I started crying again. He was being so nice about everything, and I hated to destroy this idealized view of Madeline that he seemed to have. It was a way that I didn’t think anyone would ever see me, and I was about to throw that all away once he learned that I wasn’t a lovable trans girl, but just a gross crossdresser.

Steve cradled me again. “It’s okay, it’s okay. No pressure either way. Just know that I’m listening.”

I finally stopped crying long enough to sit up and realize that people at adjacent tables were staring. Suddenly embarrassed, I sat up and grabbed a napkin to wipe my eyes and blow my nose. “No, I… I think I need to say this.”

Steve

I had no idea what had Matt so stressed, but I was really worried. Was he afraid his sister would be angry at him for outing her?

I sat back down across from Matt, leaning forward to and keeping eye contact to show I was listening. Matt looked down at his lap and back up at me, before starting to talk.

“There--there is no Madeline.”

Huh? I mean, there definitely was. I had talked to her. “I don’t understand.”

“Wh-what I mean is, I’m Madeline.”

Well, I wasn’t expecting that.

Madeline

I looked up at Steve nervously. I flinched back as he started reaching across the table, only calming down when he rested his big hand on mine. It was warm.

After a brief pause, he started to talk. “I’m a little confused about the whole twin thing, but I think I understand. So this is actually the second time I’ve met you, right? The first time was at Zoe’s, when I was dropping off veggies.”

“Y-yeah, that’s right.”

“Okay. I just wanted to say: I’m really proud of you. You were obviously really nervous about this, and I know it takes a lot of bravery to come out. And I appreciate that you trust me enough to let me know about, well, you.”

God, he was always so nice. It was only gonna make this next part worse.

“I-I don’t think you quite understand. What I’m trying to say is--I’m not trans. I’m, uhh, god. A crossdresser. Zoe was helping me with my makeup.”

To my surprise, Steve’s hand didn’t move an inch. “That doesn’t change anything I was saying. I still think that you’re really brave, and I hope in the future you don’t feel like you have to hide parts of yourself. And I don’t know much about makeup, but I would say that Zoe did a great job! Although I’m sure the canvas really helped.”

He… didn’t hate me? Maybe he still didn’t understand. “Just to be really clear, I’m just a guy who wears girl’s clothes sometimes. I don’t know why--I mean, sometimes I get aroused from it, but a lot of other times it just feels kind of comforting. I know it’s weird, and I wish I was just trans because it would be a lot easier to explain to people and a lot more socially acceptable. Lots of people are okay with someone being a woman, but they’d probably say crossdressing should stay behind locked doors.”

“I don’t know if that’s true. I know my trans friend I mentioned experimented with crossdressing when they were younger. They said it helped them figure themselves out. And of course you’re valid no matter what you decide, but in general I don’t think there’s anything wrong with exploring things to figure out what makes you happy.”

Wow, I, uh--God, this guy really was too pure for this world. I was suddenly really glad that I had met him, but also felt like I didn’t deserve it.

“Oh, the invitation to game night is still open to both you and Madeline! I guess you’re both in the group chat now, just with a shared number.” He laughed. “Wait, sorry, I should check. When you’re, y’know, presenting as female, what name and pronouns do you want me to use? Madeline and she/her?”

I nodded tightly, before looking down and blushing. “I kinda--I kinda liked when you abbreviated it to ‘Maddy’ earlier?”

“Maddy it is!” Steve boomed. Raising his coffee cup in a grand gesture, he clinked it against mine. “A toast!” Suddenly, instead of a farmer, I was picturing him as a medieval king. Hmm, he’d probably look good with a beard.

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