"I'm not sure makeup would help me anyway. I think it would just make me feel more-- broken."

"I'm sorry. I wish I knew what to do to help."

"...you use my name. That helps more than you think it does. 

And I don't think I can give you anything more helpful than that, sorry Lev." 

"...When we get out of here if you want you can come live with me in New York and wear makeup whenever you want."

Sasha gives his best attempt at a smile. 

"You're sweet." 

Oh no, that didn't help at all. 

Hugs?

"...I'm bad at being a guy," Lev says all in a rush. "I'm fat and ugly and my body doesn't do any of the things I want it to do and guys are supposed to-- like sports and physical things and being outside and taking risks and I can't, I can't do any of that. And they're supposed to be brave and I'm terrified all the time, and they're not supposed to cry and I do, and they're supposed to want to kiss girls and I don't, and they're not supposed to like kids and I love kids. I want to be a robot because robots don't have to have bodies and robots don't have to be genders, all robots have to do is spend all day thinking about math."

It is the longest speech Lev has given so far about any topic other than math. 

"...yeah. I know that feeling. If I were, I don't know, a galaxy, people wouldn't call me 'he.'" 

"I could just not call you 'he' anyway," Asher points out, "that seems like a pretty easy thing to do."

"It's not even being called 'he', I don't think I'd mind being a guy if I weren't so bad at it. If I were, I don't know, the rabbi's son in the shtetl it would be fine."

"I don't know how to — ask? But whenever Christine started talking about how we're men yesterday I wanted to curl up in a hole and never leave it, and I keep noticing how my hair's short and it just feels wrong, there's nothing wrong with this hair or this body or those words or that name but they're not mine and everyone thinks they're mine and it's the worst thing." 

He is maybe a little bit clinging to Asher. 

That's okay, Asher can be clung to. 

"If it would make you feel less sad I can call you 'she'?"

"...it wouldn't fix it, I don't think. And obviously it could only be when we were alone. 

But I think it would help." 

Lev adds another item to the list of things he should really report to the camp director.

"Okay." Asher flops gracefully on his stomach. "This is Sasha, she's a girl."

The smile is real, now. 

"I — keep going back and forth about names. But that does help." 

"I can call you a new name too."

"Sasha's fine, I just. Wonder, sometimes." 

"About what you'd have been called if you were born a girl?"

Sasha nods. 

"Or what I'd choose if I woke up a girl tomorrow." 

"What would you pick?"

"Like I said, I go back and forth. The nice thing about Sasha is that I wouldn't have to change it, but if I was going to change it — sometimes I like Raine." 

"Those are pretty."

"Thank you." 

"I think your thing is different from my thing. You want to be a girl, I just want to not be a failure."