Count to five. Deep breaths. If I yelled at her, she wouldn’t learn. Getting angry would only close the door, preventing her from listening. And despite all her flaws, despite the horrible things happening under her roof and inside her church, I still wanted to see the good in her. To reach out to the part of her that was open to understanding me. “Sometimes I’m a boy. Other times, I’m Alexis.”
“But you’re not a boy. You’re my beautiful niece.”
I gave a tight-lipped smile, like she was trying to tug a scream from me. My mouth tasted like copper. “I’ll see you later. There’s something I need to do.”
“No.” She shook her head. “If you go out that door like that, when you come back, your things will be packed. I’ll call your mom. You’ll be going back.”
I opened my mouth to speak but then closed it. So this is what people felt when their families disowned them. Without a word, I continued out the door and down the steps.
Why did it hurt so much? Being around someone who hated people like me wasn’t healthy. The environment was toxic from day one, but I hoped. I’d hoped so damn hard. And I guess I didn’t think she actually would kick me out. After a couple weeks, shouldn’t she have realized she still liked me? That I was the same soul even if sometimes I was a boy and sometimes I was a girl?
I felt unbearably sad, but I didn’t have time to cry.
On the bright side, the tears that threatened to fall made my contacts moist and comfortable without sliding down my cheeks.
I could do this. I knew I could do this and focus on what was happening and what I needed to do, and not why she hated me.
And did that even matter if I woke up today feeling like no one?
My ribs could cave in over my breaking heart, the hurt rushing downhill like an avalanche, but there wasn’t enough time to grieve. There wasn’t enough time for anything except fixing this mess.
I kept my head low as I shuffled along, constantly glancing at my phone for directions to the address Deacon Jameson had given me. After cutting through the woods near the church and going past the lake, I finally arrived at a small duplex. I knocked on the door and waited.
There was a small scuffle before the door swung open. I stared at the guy before me in a George Michael T-shirt and loose sweatpants. In the background, a Gregorian chant cover of “Join Me” by H.I.M. played.
“Deacon Jameson?” I practically gawked. He was barely recognizable. Every other time I’d seen him, he’d been dressed properly in his cassock or a black suit, hair meticulously combed, freshly shaven.
“You’re early, Aleks,” he said wearily. That gave me pause. Did he recognize me immediately because I didn’t look like someone else, or was it because he knew I was coming?
“No. I’m not,” I said gently. “Did you oversleep?”
“I . . .” He glanced at his watch. “Oh. I guess I did.” He gestured for me to come in as he walked through. “You know how to make coffee?”
“On it,” I said. I moved to the kitchenette and rummaged. There was clutter everywhere, dirty dishes stacked in the sink with a few tiny fruit flies. Empty bottles of beer everywhere. I found a battered coffee maker and started to fill the grounds in. By the time I poured in water then hit the power button, I’d noticed that “Join Me” was on repeat. I wondered how a song could sound so beautiful when it talked about dying for love, Romeo and Juliet style.
I stepped back—then immediately turned my head away. He hadn’t fully closed the door as he changed, like he was spaced out, or maybe too hungover. And something stirred in me because I could see exactly what Dima saw in the deacon. He must have worked out and dieted like mad and had the best genetics on the planet for a body like that.
When he came back out, wearing black pants and black clerical shirt, tab collar in hand, I said, “Didn’t know you wore anything that wasn’t all . . . uh. Priestly?”
“You mean the shirt?” he asked as he attached the priest’s collar.
“Not just any a shirt,” I countered as I walked back to the sink. “George Michael was such a pioneer for LGBTQ+ rights—”
“I don’t need a history lesson. I know who he is.”
Ouch. “Uh, right. Okay.” I turned on the sink faucet and squirted dish soap onto a sponge. “We should talk about music sometime,” I said, offering my olive branch even though I was rambling. “I mean, not now because, well. Everything. But I was going to tell you I really like the Gregorian chant covers. They’re good. Dima said you’d make ones from songs he liked. I heard you’re a great singer and musician. Something about guitar and lute because you’re extra?”
While I chattered, Deacon Jameson crossed to the coffee maker, and pulled out two mugs. Clearly, he wasn’t in the mood for small talk. Considering everything, I didn’t blame him.
“You remember the plan?” he asked, filling one mug and handing it to me.
“I’ve got it,” I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt. I couldn’t screw this up. I owed Deacon Jameson. If I wanted to honor Raziel’s ideals of helping others, I couldn’t exclude him. Not now. “You sure you’re up for this?”
“No,” he said honestly. “I don’t think I’m sure of anything anymore.”
I felt for him. He was hurting, badly, and it was at least partly because of me. I straightened my collar a little. “How much time do we have?”
He glanced at his watch as he sipped coffee from his own mug. “Any time now.”
“Right. Okay.” I paused. “You know you’ve been looping this song since I got here, right?”
“Oh,” he said distractedly, moving across the apartment and turning off his MP3 player. “Shouldn’t have this on anyway.”
“When this is all over, let’s listen together. You know, all of us. You, me, Sister Bernadette, Dima. We can be nice and let him have a woodblock to play.”
“Sure,” he said in a way that suggested he wasn’t interested. Although it stung, I accepted it. He wasn’t my friend. He didn’t owe me that.
I walked toward his couch, turning my back to sit on it when I caught him staring at me. I paused, mid-sit. “Is this where Michael . . . ?” I stood upright quickly, brushing off the back of my khakis. My heart pounded way too fast and my binder suddenly felt too snug.
“I prayed for him,” he said quietly. “It didn’t help. Drank until I passed out. That didn’t help either.”
I cradled my coffee mug. One sip: it was bitter. So bitter. I brought it back to the sink and poured it out. “Sorry. I should have said I’m not really a coffee person,” I lied.
“Dima hates my coffee, too,” Deacon Jameson said. I faced him. He was smiling, but the smile was so, so sad. “He always was on me to get a new coffee maker. A French press or something. I told him I needed to be humble. He said coffee was nothing to be humble about and that he’d buy me one for my birthday with his money from work. I told him to save it up for school, but Dima does whatever he wants to do. It’s admirable. One can only aspire to have that much confidence.”
“You really love him,” I murmured.