“They hurt you,” she said, softer this time.
Fredric closed his eyes against the pain he didn’t want to feel. “It’s who they are—and it took me far too long to realize that there was no changing them. That if I wanted things to be different, I was the one who had to go.”
“I’m sorry.” She laid her hand on his arm and squeezed. “You have us though.”
He smiled again and then gave her a little nudge forward. “It seems like I do.”
She didn’t say anything else until they got to the door, Fredric feeling the steps with his cane before she remembered to warn him, and he made it inside the foyer without incident. The place sounded full—it lacked echoes, and the air was warm, and it had the sort of musty smell of plaster and paint. The floor under his feet was tile, smoother than the one in his own house, and after a few steps his cane caught on the edge of a rug.
“Teddy set up the table outside by the pool,” Agatha said as she turned the corner. Fredric instantly knew they were in a kitchen—the smell of food rich in the air. He heard something bubbling in a pot and something sizzling behind an oven door. “We can eat inside if you want, but we have a lanai, and it keeps most of the bugs out.”
Fredric waved her on, and they moved through a small door and onto something that felt like a pool deck. He could hear the trickle of a water feature, and he smelled the burning scent of chlorine.
“Ted,” Agatha said, and a chair moved, and then Fredric felt a second presence. “This is Fredric.”
“Nickname?” Ted asked. His voice was light, raspy, and Fredric liked it instantly. He stuck out his hand, and a rough palm grasped his.
“Just Fredric,” he offered, mostly because he had Freddie, but it was used whenever Jacqueline was being cruel and condescending, and he would rather go the rest of his life never hearing it again.
“Sweet. We have a little table over here.” Fredric’s hand was transferred to Ted’s arm, and it only took a moment for him to settle into a mesh chair with a little bounce to it. He folded his cane, then let his fingers explore the top of the table—hard like tile and textured—and then a glass and a plate. “This must be super fucking awkward for you. Considering we’ve never met.”
Fredric raised his brows. “Oh, not at all. This was a god-send. I’ve never really lived alone, and I thought I was losing it a little bit in that house. Agatha warned me off the neighbors, though.”
Ted made a soft noise, something that sounded like sympathy—but maybe it was pity. Not that he didn’t deserve it at least a little bit. His story was pathetic. “It’s not so bad here. Agatha gets more annoyed with them than I do, but I’ve also been dealing with people like that for a long time.”
“The ones who stare?” Fredric asked.
“And whisper. And sometimes shout. They want to pray for your soul while also making sure you spend time hating yourself.”
Fredric felt a small pang of understanding—it wasn’t the same, but it was similar enough. The moments he’d been stopped on the street and prayed over were few and far between. But he didn’t need sight to know that people stared and whispered and pointed. He’d just chosen to stop giving a shit what they thought, and that day had finally allowed him to breathe a bit more freely than he had before.
“You get it,” Ted said after a long pause, and very much like Agatha, it didn’t quite sound like a question or a statement. “Do you want a beer?”
“God, yes,” Fredric answered him and grinned. He heard Ted rise, heard the sound of a fridge door opening and closing. Two caps hit a metal bucket with a soft plink, then a cold glass bottle touched the back of his fingers, and he closed his hand around it.
“We don’t drink a lot, but Agatha likes to pick up bottles from the local breweries. This one’s supposed to be kiwi, but…I don’t taste it.”
Fredric took a sip and held back a grimace because no, it wasn’t kiwi. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t something he’d choose. “Right now, if it’s alcohol, I’ll take it.”
Ted chuckled. “I’ll drink to that. It’s always a little easier when you’re in a strange place.”
“It’s not really so different,” Fredric admitted. “My world was…small, but it was a lot like this. People looking down their noses if you had a single hair out of place, but it could all be eclipsed by those zeroes and commas in your bank account.”
Ted let out a small sigh. “Except when it doesn’t.”
“I suppose not,” Fredric said quietly. “My family would like you—but not for the reasons you should be liked. They’ve thrown lavish gay weddings and marched in every pride parade, and like to talk about how they vote against their own financial interests because they love their sons.” He bit the inside of his cheek and felt his eyes sting a little because god, he hated them. “But it’s all bullshit.”
“Bullshit gets stuff done,” Ted argued, and Fredric didn’t have it in him to get into the small bits and pieces that made up the whole. The bits and pieces that bled him dry over long years of tiny cuts. “Even when it hurts.”
“It does, but the pain…” he stopped and turned his face away, taking a long drink.
“Personal experience?” Ted asked, and Fredric felt a sort of white-hot desire to unburden himself, even if this man didn’t deserve the chaos that had been his life.
“My son ran away,” he said. “He escaped all the bullshit the family put him through. He met a man, fell in love, got swept off his feet, and taken straight to Paris.”
“Literally?”
Fredric smiled again. “Literally. I don’t know if they’ll ever get married, but I don’t think they’ll ever really spend more than a day apart if they can help it. For him, the bullshit wasn’t worth anything it had accomplished.”
“That’s fair,” Ted said with a small sigh. “My family can be…performative. A big show of support, but I know what they say behind my back. My mom’s had more than her share of breakdowns about how she just wants me to be happy—and she thinks that not being trans would be easier. I stopped trying to make her get it, because she just doesn’t have the ability. I love her, but…”
Fredric nodded. “I know what you mean.” He wondered for a moment what it might have been like for him, if he’d had the opportunity to come out. His parents had never commented either way, but he had also gotten a girl pregnant at seventeen. They died long before he had the chance to live as himself, and he would probably always wonder if that was a blessing or not.
A moment later, his thoughts were interrupted when he heard Agatha make her way out, followed by the scent of food. She set down two heavy dishes, and Fredric straightened up a little, though he didn’t set his beer down.
“Can I serve?” Agatha said. “The dishes are really hot.”
Fredric bristled a little, but conceding a little pride to escape a blister was worth it. He waved his hand, and he heard her add something to his plate. “Smells wonderful.”
“I threw meat and vegetables together in a pan,” she said, her chair creaking as she sat. “And I cooked some rice. It’s nothing fancy, but it tastes good to me.”