Max was born in The Netherlands, but moved to Texas before he started elementary school. Max is currently a junior in high school, and came out as transgender at a young age. Max works with Gendercool, an organization empowering trans and non-binary youth to tell their stories and inform the world about who they are, not what they are. He was featured in an ABC special called “Our America: Who I’m Meant To Be” which received a GLAAD media Award. Max is a storyteller, and aspires to study English and Creative Writing at the University of Galway in Ireland. He is also an athlete and a musician. Max competed in gymnastics and Taekwondo and quickly moved to bouldering after earning his black belt. He is first chair cello in his school’s orchestra, and, in his spare time, Max enjoys hanging out with his 4 cats: Little Caca, Puppy, Jeffery, And Queen Madam Secretary of The Interior (or Peaches).
In two days, me, William and Swadi are going to start our junior year of high school, and we’re headed to the bridge again.
It’s nearly midnight in the last few minutes of summer and our bones are holding each other together like the frame of a little church. We pile up in Swadi’s old junker and take off into the night. I take my usual seat in the back, Will’s up front, and Swadi’s driving the thing. All the windows are down and the young Texas moon saddles itself to our bodies in the heat. Some beautiful song is playing and it tangles all our hair in red, sweating and soft talking into each other’s ears, listening to corridors of birds violently lullabying from trees that hang into us beneath the moonrise. Our bone-white bodies flicker in the heat, taking off like a shotgun and splitting through the trees. Their fingertips, confessing red all over the place, are reaching up for the stoplights, praying to God to make them change faster. I know we’ve all gotta let go sooner rather than later, though, because at twelve o’clock, we’ll be dancing, and two years later, in three different places.
The bridge is this old thing. It’s all lousy looking, if you want to know the truth. I mean, there’s nothing special about it. Seriously. But when you’re out there in the prairie, knowing that you’re about to drive down it with your best friends, and you see it from that distance, it’s really something. I mean, when you’re looking at it through the open window, you feel like there’s enough time to build cities from the dirt up or maybe even die happy or something. I don’t know. All I know is that we’ve been driving down it ever since one of us got our license. I have a recurring dream just like this of running away and finding them both on that bridge somewhere. I kneel into their hands and watch them breathe. I see the moon splitting down their backs and it’s all golden and wide open and everything. Their hair squirms in the breeze like angels, and each night, I hallucinate their bodies beside me. Even when we are right here next to each other, I miss them and it’s terrible.
I know you can probably already tell just by the fact that I’m even writing this, but time apart from them has planted this longing inside of me that I don’t think is a weed that will ever stop growing. It will always be there, but my God, it grows the most spectacular flowers. I’ve dedicated my hands to this terrible grief just by knowing them— one where I am just perpetually holding their bodies that aren’t there. Most nights, I can feel their empty bodies grumbling like a bird cage. But it can never really contain them too well because they aren’t full of birds—they’re full of angels. Especially my best friend, William.
I’ve known that Will kid for nearly thirteen years. It’s crazy as hell to think about. I mean, I’ve known him for longer than I haven’t known him and now we’re both sixteen and he’s sitting right in front of me, yelling at the houses as we drive by them. Montessori school was rotting between my teeth when I first met him in that kindergarten classroom. He was all blue eyed and red all over. We’d met before then. I knew we did the moment we laid eyes on each other. It was—I don’t want to say love at first sight— but familiarity. Like, oh, it’s you: it’s always going to be you.
Having a friendship with them both— Will and Swadi, I mean— is like a religion. It’s terrifying; biblical— intense, arrogant, risky, and unconcerned with the way of the world. It’s easy as hell, too. It’s like breathing.
Our friendship has always been a witnessing of another’s slow drip of miseries. There are, of course, these terrific bouts of boredom and the occasional triumph, but it’s really a privilege to be present for another person’s most dismal moments, and knowing that in return, you can be dismal around them, too. I know you’d like him a whole lot. It’s not hard to love someone like William. Even if it was, I know I’d still try. Having a friendship with them both— Will and Swadi, I mean— is like a religion. It’s terrifying; biblical— intense, arrogant, risky, and unconcerned with the way of the world. It’s easy as hell, too. It’s like breathing.
Anyway, we’re just about at the bridge now and I can see it out in the distance through the trees. I swear to God the moon is on steroids or something tonight. There’s no clouds and our little college town of cowboys is tucked behind somewhere we can all forget. Variables of tenderness start to awake in these moments leading up to the bridge: the way dawn must feel as she breaks and breaks and keeps breaking into daylight again and again; liminal spaces; holy women; the soft darkness of our mouths.
I can really see it now. It’s standing right there in all its glory and Swadi’s about to drive down it as fast as he can. Will’s reaching for the radio to turn up this beautiful song about being really in love for the very first time, and he starts to stand up out of the sunroof. I stick my whole body out the window, too, just to get a good look at him up there. And there he is. His beauty that night is almost a resemblance of Jesus— his arms spread wide like a cross but they can’t nail him down; his love confessing; his divinity. We’re all smiling like idiots, too. But maybe Jesus also smiled for a brief moment— thought he could do better or something.
As I watched the streetlights crash onto everyone’s faces, I thought about the moment I first met William. And how his missing teeth looked. And how, the longer we live, the more deeply we learn that love is mirroring and magnifying each other’s light. It’s very delicate work. Gentle work. Sometimes, it can even be life-saving work when those moments of shame and fear block our own light from the view. But then there is still the clear-eyed loving person to beam it back at us. And in our best moments, we can only hope that we are that person for them in return.
And in this moment, while I’m looking at him up here, I swear I’m not different. I think I’m a part of something greater than myself. And I think it’s him.
Anyway, like I said, me, Will, and Swadi are all starting our junior year of high school in a few days, and we’re down at the bridge again. I’m standing up out of the window and we’re all listening to some beautiful song together. Will’s standing up out of the sunroof of Swadi’s car, and I’m just looking at him there. We almost believe that we can start again, just like how it was. But it’s this really intense feeling that rushes to our hearts. And it’s love. And it’s hope. And it’s unendurable, unendurable, unendurable, yet, we endure. And in this moment, while I’m looking at him up here, I swear I’m not different. I think I’m a part of something greater than myself. And I think it’s him.
