Excerpt from The Aspens Quaked Their Whispers in the Wind

This is a selection from a longer piece published in the print journal, Jarnal, vol. 4, Nov 2025. Only after I came as a trans man at age 39 could I grasp my decades-long queer longing. The full story is a series of vignettes like this one, leapfrogging through the years between discrete incidents of queer desire—and denial.

If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.

George Orwell, 1984.

The last time I see Angel, I’m sweating in the July sun on the grounds of a Mormon church. Dozens of other tired 15- and 16-year-old girls snatch their belongings from the belly of the bus.

In the chaos, I stand rigid as a queen’s guard over my three days’ worth of gear, suffused with the aftersmell of campfires. I watch Angel weave among the duffels, pillows, sleeping bags, and those asthmatic foam mats which fashion a momentary maze.

She says, “Found you.” I release a breath. She smiles, her blonde, unwashed hair falling past pale blue eyes. I mirror her smile. She drops her stuff next to mine, then swipes stray locks and tucks them behind her ear. I track each movement.

We turn to search for our rides and watch our cabinmates exchange their promises to keep in touch and their gushy goodbyes. Angel and I share a smirk: what girls.

“I definitely want to stay friends with you,” she says, tilting close, her breath puffing into my ear. Her interlocked fingers twist and strain. Or are those mine?

When we met during cabin intros, she scared me a little: her black hoodie, the tough stance and tight nods, and were those four or five piercings in her left ear? How did we go from strangers to giggling over the grapes that had gone a little fizzy, leaning in, our long, blonde hair falling into one curtain? To tapping and passing in the Cup Game at the picnic table, pressed together, our shoulders and thighs melded?

Trotting dusty trails two by two, Angel amassed my secrets. I gabbed about my school crush, Nathan, and the rustic ring he gifted me. Shaped from a horseshoe nail, the ring derived from his summer pilgrimage to Nauvoo, Illinois—a Mormon holy land on the Mississippi. When I’d learned the ring’s nickname and origin, prairie diamond, an Oregon Trail era substitute for a proper engagement ring, my torso had surged with a fresh thrill. I toted the ring around months after Nathan’s affections had waned. Prattling on about my undying love, I conjured the trinket from my pocket, showed Angel, then slipped it onto my ring finger.

That hot morning on the church grounds, I spot Dad in our green minivan. Angel asks for my number. She grabs my hand and writes her number on my palm. Or is that a moment my memory formed? We live ten minutes apart along the I-15 corridor, but attend different high schools; borders bifurcate the suburban sprawl.

“I for sure want to see you again,” she says.

A nasty chemical sensation flashes from my chest to every extremity. A guillotine slices the air between us. My face burns—not from the sun. My legs crave to sprint but are encased in concrete.

“You coming?” Dad’s voice pierces through the standstill. I can’t muster words. Bobbing my head like a boxer dodging under a jab, I collect my things and trail after Dad.

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A week later, Angel phones—just the once. She says something about getting together. The spiral cord stretches to the kitchen. I stand motionless in the dark hallway. I don’t remember what I say. What does she hear in my voice: Apathy? Loathing? Fear?

I think about the third night of camp, when we snuck out under the moonlit pines to leave our sigils in drying cement. We knelt on the uneven ground, and I twirled the head of Nathan’s ring palmward to achieve the deepest imprint. Pushing my left fist down to apply extra pressure onto my right starfished hand, I felt Angel’s fingertips stretch to mine within a hair’s breadth. I peeked up at her. She gazed back, the moon reflecting in her eyes. I didn’t breathe. The silence passed between us. The aspens quaked their whispers in the wind.