By F.M. Tow

There’s something about stubble that has always bothered me. The man on the other side of the subway car is running his fingers across his unshaven cheek and I wince a little and avert my eyes. 

My fleeing gaze meets Nora’s and she asks me what’s wrong. Her earnest concern hides under an expression of fake concern. I start cracking the knuckles of my right hand and dismiss her worries with a coy smile. The subway stops on 86th. 

We’re headed to Sunset Park for a Saturday-afternoon stroll; my idea, so of course I’m uneasy. Nora sports wide-leg jeans and my greenish sweater. It looks much better on her. I run my fingers across my cheek to triple-check its smoothness and I let out a breath I’d forgotten I was holding. The subway stops on 59th and I am glad to leave the unshaven man behind. 

We wait for the D train, standing almost against the subway wall. We adopted this habit quietly a few weeks ago, after a man was pushed onto the tracks. I’ve always been good at maintaining unspoken status quos. Nora shows me an Instagram Reel and giggles, and I offer her a low chuckle. I smooth back my hair and remember it is shorter than it used to be. “I liked my hair longer,” I blurt out. 

“Hey, you look really handsome with it short, I promise,” she replies. 

I try to crack my knuckles but it hasn’t been long enough since the last time so nothing happens. An unshaven man walks by. I tell Nora some story about my kooky Latin professor and catch myself putting a little too much intonation into the ends of my most amusing sentences. Luckily, the D train arrives.

Half an hour later we get off at 36th and grab $7 smoothies. Nora takes a selfie and shows it to me. She is waifish, delicate, in her baggy clothes, and I’m toned in a small white t-shirt. She slides her phone back into her bag and it occurs to me I forgot to look at our faces. 

We keep walking towards Sunset Park. I hold her hand and seem to swallow it with mine. I am six inches taller than Nora and every time I turn to face her I have to tilt my head downwards a little. A couple walks by us suddenly, a couple who look much like we probably will in a decade or so. Older-me smiles at real-me and I feel a little ashamed of myself. And disappointed. 

We get to the park. A group of elderly Asian women perform calisthenics to the beat of foreign pop music. Nora translates some of the lyrics for me: the same vapid stuff we make here, more or less. We sit atop a sloping hill that overlooks the East River and the Financial District and Jersey City even. 

Nora sits cross-legged and I realize so am I. I switch to sticking my legs out in front of me. They stretch past our plaid blanket and conquer the surrounding grasses. “You’re not like any other guy I know, Nathan,” she says, her cadence suggesting a prelude. “Yeah?” is all I say in return. I crack my knuckles. My throat feels a little raw inside. “Yeah.” 

She takes a deep breath, about to say something. My eyes water. I try to keep it in, but when I go to wipe the tear from my cheek, my fingertips graze against faint stubble, and I start to sob.

F.M. Tow is a debut author and uneasy young person who tends towards anonymity. This is their first publication, a short story about the experience of discomfort with the physical characteristics of one’s sex assigned at birth.