My fingertips are going cold where I’m clutching the bottom of the box, and I don’t know what happened. I know, of course, I was there, but I don’t understand. I was so sure I had more runway between don’t call my girlfriend a whore and we’ll talk again when you apologize. Or maybe I was further along on the runway than I thought, for the crimes of sheltering Reid and defending Sadie and still talking to Elliott. For not coming to Christmas. For not settling and not reproducing and never being sorry enough for any of it.
Seems like it should take more, though, for your own parents to stop talking to you, or maybe this is all much more and much worse than I thought because—how can you do something so wrong that your own parents won’t pick up the phone?
They haven’t spoken to Reid since they learned he’d come out and they haven’t talked to Elliott for much longer than that, but that’s because my parents are assholes. I thought I’d threaded that needle just enough to stay on everyone’s good side, enough that I can be there for everyone who needs me, but—fuck. Fuck, now I can’t even do that, I can’t—
“He gone?” Reid asks, floating half into the doorway like a jeans-and-hoodie-wearing specter. He’s got his hands shoved into the hoodie pocket and dark hair just long enough to get into his eyes, and he looks at the closed front door like there’s a leopard behind it. Reid’s short for a man, and he always will be, and right now his face is still more delicate and angular than mine, like it’s always been. It took a year, but this summer he’s finally got an appointment at the gender clinic in Richmond to start hormone therapy. I already took the day off work so I can drive him; Richmond is an all-day trip from Sprucevale. It’s another thing I won’t be able to tell my parents, because my parents won’t talk to me.
“Matt, I mean,” Reid clarifies, frowning, and I realize I haven’t answered. I clear my throat.
“Yeah, coast is clear,” I say, but he keeps frowning.
“What’d he want?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re holding a box.”
He’s right. I am. “Uh,” I start. Fuck me, I can’t even think. “Mom and Dad are cleaning out the attic, I guess.”
Reid stands up a little straighter, eyes narrowing, but he’s silent. I’m silent. The house is silent. Possibly, the world is silent.
“You okay?” he finally asks, at least a year later. “You look—” he pulls a hand out of his hoodie pocket and waves it in my direction.
Of all people, Reid would understand. Of all people, Reid would never blame me. He might even know the right thing to say.
“I’m good,” I say, and head for the stairs, box still in my hands. “Just Matt.”
“Ugh,” he agrees, and disappears.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
ANDI
I head up Gideon’s driveway with my backpack over my shoulder, ninety-nine percent sure I’m welcome. Why wouldn’t I be? He’s my boyfriend. I’m his girlfriend, a fact that he’s made hilariously clear to several hopeful matchmakers. We like seeing each other and he’s been explicitly clear that my presence is always welcome—just come over whenever, quit asking like you think it’s an imposition—so, what the hell, final one percent?
I knock on his door because he hates the doorbell and tell myself that just because he’s been quieter via text and a bit monosyllabic doesn’t mean I’m being too much and I need to back off or something. He’s been working a lot. He said so.
It takes Gideon so long to answer the door that I almost knock again. The way the look on his face goes from thunderous to relieved when he sees me is… weird.
“Surprise!” I say, holding my arms out like a muppet, and finally, I get a smile. “School board postponed their meeting again.”
“Hi,” he says, and looks so quietly pleased that I forget what I was all in my head about. He lets me in and we kiss hello, chaste and then a little deeper until I’m chasing his mouth when he pulls away. “Reid,” he mutters, tilting his head toward the living room.
“Reid’s seen it before,” I point out. “Didn’t he grow up with farm animals?”
“One, no,” Gideon says, and then ghosts his hand to my face and gives me another sweet, thorough kiss. “And two, the only farm animals we ever had were chickens, and that’s not a flattering comparison.”
I laugh, lean in, kiss him. We’re practically whispering. His beard is very soft and I like it.
“Is there a farm animal that would be a flattering comparison?” I ask, and something occurs to me. “Ooh, like stallions.”
“They don’t tend to be very generous lovers.”
“Really? I thought that’s exactly what they were known for.”
Now he’s blushing and glancing at the living room again, like Reid’s never heard a sex joke in his life.
“It’s one thing to be…” Gideon makes a gesture that probably means hung like a horse. “It’s another to be good at it.”
“So which animals are good in bed? I read somewhere that pig orgasms last half an hour.”
“Not because pigs are good lovers,” he says, his hand making its way down to my waist. “That’s also more of an urban legend than anything. Sometimes, in the right conditions, some types of pigs will mate for that amount of time—”
“THAT’S ANDI, RIGHT?” an invisible Reid calls.
“Yeah!” I call back, then give Gideon one more quick kiss. “Tell me all the details about how pigs fuck later.”
He closes his eyes, briefly, which is probably the correct reaction. I head toward the kitchen, where something smells good. From the next room, I can hear Reid saying, “Quit it, jeez,” so I poke my head in.
“Don’t poke me,” he’s saying as he looks up. He’s cross-legged on the couch, in jeans and an oversized hoodie, and Dolly has one paw on his leg and one raised in the air, almost touching his chest. Reid’s got one hand free and one holding a giant, floppy Norton Anthology of American Literature with a creased cover, frayed edges, and a bright yellow USED sticker on the spine. “Oh. Hey.”
“Hi,” I say. “Uh, you guys okay?”
In answer, Dolly maintains eye contact with me and pushes her paw into Reid’s chest. He grumbles.
“Fine,” he says, and then, “Just get in my lap or whatever, god, quit it with the weird mind games.”
“Just pet her,” I say.
Reid gives me a look as though I’ve suggested something unforgivable.
“That’s just what she wants me to do,” he mutters. “Then she’ll think she can get on me, and do that weird purr-nuzzle where she kind of bites my hand, and when she gets really happy and starts kneading. Her claws are so fucking huge, you don’t even know. Oh! Hey! GIDEON!”
Dolly’s claws come out at the sudden volume increase, and Reid inhales sharply.
“Yeah?”
“We got mail. It’s from Elliott. You should read it.”
“Oh, is it his save the date?”