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  Kyle

  Day 1

  ‘Just got my first hormone injection!’ Rose texted me, and I just about cried. I managed not to, which was good, because I was in css, and the first rule of teaching is that the second you cry in front of your students is the second you lose all sembnce of authority. I drummed my fingers on my desk, counting down the minutes in every hour until the day was finally over so I could go home to my Rose.

  We’d yet to really discuss the whole ballroom dancing incident, and I guess in a way we didn’t need to. But at the same time, it was very much like there was an elephant holding our living room hostage. She’d taken to meeting me after work, all dressed up so we could take in dinner or a movie or something, and then when we got back, she took off her wig and her makeup and just went silent. Usually, but not always, holing up in her room and being gone when I got up the next day. It was baffling, vexing, consternating… And I couldn’t get enough of it. She was a challenge, and I’d never been able to back away from one of those.

  I got off work at 3 PM and drove through proverbial rings of fire on my way home. Fucking Boston traffic- you go through one red light and suddenly you’ve a pack of Mad Max goons chasing after you with with fming chain whips on cars that couldn’t have possibly been street-legal. It didn’t matter, though. I made my way home, and when I got upstairs, she was there waiting for me. And she was Rose.

  She wore that blue dress that drove me wild, her wig perfectly adjusted, her makeup highlighting all her soft, girly features, a pair of high heels on her feet. And she was… She was cooking for me! Holy fuck! She was stirring a pot of chili!

  The image of domestic bliss echoed inside my mind, and I tried my best to shake it away. It was too early to be thinking about something like that. We’d only just started… Doing whatever it was we were doing. Dating, for ck of a better word. Sure, we’d known each other for years, but we weren’t in love or anything. We weren’t there yet.

  But when she squealed and ran to me and threw herself into my arms and pnted her lips onto mine, it was hard not to wonder if we were on the way.

  Day 7

  “Are you gonna be okay while I’m gone?” she asked as I drove her to the airport that night. She was in O’Neil mode, in… boy-mode, as I understood it. Even that felt wrong. There was nothing boyish, nothing male, nothing masculine about her. Whenever I saw her pretending to be a guy at this point, it made me sad, because she looked like she was wearing a cheap Halloween costume. She looked fucking miserable.

  All I wanted was for her to be happy.

  Still, maybe a bit of distance wouldn’t kill us. We’d been spending practically every free moment together tely.

  I pulled over at the drop-off zone for Logan Airport. “I’ll survive. I’ll miss you, though.”

  “I’ll miss you too,” she said as she unbuckled her seatbelt.

  She moved to open the door, but before she could, I grabbed her shoulder and spun her around and kissed her right on the mouth. No tongue, nothing steamy, nothing fshy, just… Just a kiss. She didn’t exactly mind, though the slight flinch she gave before she melted into it indicated she hadn’t been expecting it.

  “What was that?” she said, not meeting my gaze.

  “You tell me,” I said.

  Day 8

  I woke up to an email from someone named Violetta, and as I gradually assembled my mind while hauling myself out of bed, I eventually recognized that as being the name of Rose’s boss. Who was also a trans woman, if I recalled correctly.

  Interesting.

  She wanted to meet with me, specifying that she had my email address because I was listed as Rose’s emergency contact. Which was also interesting- I had no idea that was the case. I’d always assumed she listed one of her sisters as that.

  And so, once I was off work that day, I found myself driving to Rose’s office building.

  I had no clue what Rose’s company did, and from the way she talked about it, I wasn’t sure she knew either. But that didn’t matter. I shrugged my shoulders as I stepped inside and was led to the appropriate elevator and given the appropriate floor to punch in.

  Waiting for me in a corner office was a devastatingly beautiful woman in her forties. A cocktail of lust and recognition saturated me as I drank in the sight of her: a bck jacket and hot pink blouse combination covered her massive bust, while her lower half was hugged by a bck pencil skirt while her hair was arranged into a French braid that showed off her sharp, angur cheekbones. You could cut gss on those things…

  “You must be Mr. Duggan,” she said as she closed the door to her office behind and sat down at her end of her desk. “Please, sit.”

  I did as I was told, even if the chair was far too small for me. “We’ve met once before, I think,” I said as I adjusted to the chair. Seriously, sometimes being huge was a pain in my giant ass- everything felt so damn small.

  “Have we?” she asked.

  “It was an office Christmas party, first year that Rose started working here,” I said. “Er- the first year that O’Neil-”

  “Rex, Mr. Duggan, I’m up to speed,” Violetta said with a gentle chuckle.

  “Okay, good.”

  “Now, please tell me more about this party where we met?”

  “Met is a strong word,” I said, scratching the back of my head. “Rose brought me because she had a plus one for the party and didn’t wanna go alone. She didn’t really know anyone here yet, so she pestered me into coming along, and we wound up pying a drinking game throughout the night to see who could pound back a greater variety of shots.”

  “This is beginning to sound familiar,” Violetta smiled. “You two wound up re-enacting a hockey fight you’d seen the previous night. Fake punching, obviously, but still, you put on quite the show. Hadn’t seen something that involved or eborate since I met my eventual husband at a professional wrestling match a year prior.”

  “Heh,” I said with a nervous ugh. “We were, uh, quite a handful back then.”

  “Just back then?”

  “Fair point. You, uh, seemed to find the whole thing pretty funny, though your boss didn’t seem to share your opinion.”

  “He did not, no,” Violetta said, wistful. “But honestly, I was grateful.”

  “Ayuh?”

  “That night was my big professional debut as a trans woman. I was terrified- quaking in my stilettos. You two silly goobers redirected a lot of the scrutiny away from me and onto yourselves, and I was able to make sure nothing was held against Rose on the grounds of her being less than a year out of school. At the time, my boss told me that perhaps my employees should keep more respectable company.”

  “And what do you think?” I said, leaning forward.

  She steepled her fingers together. “I think you make her happy. Happier than I’ve ever seen her. When she’s with you, and when she’s herself… Well, it reminds me of myself and my husband.”

  I gulped- God, the gremlin was rubbing off on me (yes, yes, I know, phrasing). “That’s… I mean… Look, Rose and I… We’re not ready for bels yet. She hasn’t even-”

  “Fully accepted herself? Believe me, I’m aware,” Violetta said, her smile suddenly sorrowful. “Sometimes I wonder if I was ever this stubborn, but I’m sure anyone who knew me when I was hatching would answer that in the affirmative. Actually, they might tell me I was worse.”

  “I’m sure you weren’t-”

  “Trust me, I was,” Violetta said. “Listen, Mr. Duggan-”

  “Kyle,” I said.

  “Kyle,” she said. “The reason I asked to meet you is because I care about Rose. She’s more than an employee to me. She’s… Well, a year ago, I would’ve said she was like the son I never had. But now…”

  “She’s more of a daughter?” I said.

  “Hit the nail on the head,” she said. “And I’ll admit… I always wanted a daughter.”

  “So that’s what this is, then? Sizing up your daughter’s new boyfriend?” I asked, half-joking.

  “Sharp as tack, this one is,” Violetta smirked, snapping her fingers while pointing at me.

  “Heh,” I said, “At least someone sees it.”

  Day 27

  I sat at the front of Bar Here, Aaron mixing cocktails before me, Rachel and Lisa sitting to my left while Boston delivered Edmonton a particurly humiliating defeat on the television screen above.

  Lisa was a tall, curvy, well-endowed bck woman in her early thirties, natural hair jutting out in bouncy curls and stopping at her shoulders. She wore diamond earrings and a pearl neckce along with a silky green blouse and bck scks while she nursed a bourbon on the rocks. Her wife was dressed far more casually in a silver tank top and ripped jeans, no makeup or jewelry as she hammered back straight up vodka. Carbs were Rachel’s natural enemy. Well, carbs and transphobes; she cimed she’d been inspired to start getting buff after she and Lisa got together, so she could defend her woman against a hostile world. No wonder we got along.

  “So, lemme get this straight,” Lisa said, her velvety contralto worthy of an opera singer intoning the words slowly and deliberately as she slid her long fingers over the rim of her gss. “She’s on hormones. She even jumped straight to injections. And she’s still insisting she’s not trans. Do I have that right?”

  “Yes,” I said before taking a long, slow sip of my whiskey.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, those are some serious brain worms,” Lisa said. She turned to her wife and asked, “Was I ever that bad?”

  “Yes,” Rachel said without hesitation.

  “Really-”

  “Yes, darling. You very much were,” Rachel said, putting a hand on Lisa’s cheek.

  “The brain worms are wriggling,” Lisa said.

  “Vivid description,” I said. “I just… God, I just wish she would admit it already.”

  “Why, so you can win your weird little mind game with her?” Rachel said.

  “No,” I said. “Well, yes, but-”

  “See, there’s your problem right there, Duggan,” Lisa said. “You’re trying to get her to do this for you. It won’t work if it’s for someone else.”

  “I know,” I said sheepishly,“But it’s not for me- it’s for her. I just hate seeing her in pain. God, it hurts like a motherfucker, watching her bloom and then wilt over and over again. Every time she insists she’s a guy, her face freaking contorts with actual, physical pain. Like she’s swallowing gravel or something. I’m pying this game because I want her to accept herself as she is, and because of how she is, the game feels like the only way to do that.”

  I knocked back the rest of my whiskey, letting it clear and cloud my mind simultaneously.

  “Another?” Aaron asked.

  “God, yes,” I said. Aaron topped me off, then I took another sip and savored the burn.

  “Delicious, even when it hurts. Just like Rose: beautiful, even with all her thorns. Hell, because of all her thorns.”

  “Yeah, that’s your st drink of the night, big guy,” Aaron said.

  “W-what? Why?” I asked.

  “You get maudlin when you drink whiskey,” Rachel said. “And extra pretentious. Which is impressive, because you’re already the world’s most pretentious man just as your default.”

  “That,” Aaron said, “Exactly that.”

  “How dare you?” I said. “I’m working css.”

  “That doesn’t preclude pretentiousness, I hate to tell you,” Rachel said.

  “Seriously, you got it bad,” Lisa said.

  “I do not,” I said. “I mean, I care about her, obviously. I’ll even admit I… I like her. It’s… I dunno, it’s a crush, I guess.”

  “This is way more than a crush,” Rachel said.

  “Agree to disagree,” I replied.

  “Disagree with your agree to disagree, because I’m right and you’re wrong,” Rachel ughed. “I’ve seen you with a crush. When you have one of those, you think you’re in love and get drunk on it. You rush into things. Just like with that bitch Sarah-”

  “Watch it,” I said.

  “She was a bitch,” Rachel said ftly. “Having met her, I will tell you point-bnk, she was a bitch.”

  “Agreed,” Lisa and Aaron said in tandem.

  “And it’s like that with every girl you’ve said you were in love with, when it was really just infatuation,” Rachel said. “But now, with Rose, you’re being careful and cautious. You’re taking your time. And you’re focused on what’s good for her, rather than your own fantasies.”

  I took another sip of whiskey. “Meaning what, exactly?”

  “Do you seriously need me to spell it out for you?” Rachel said. “You’re falling for her.”

  “That’s absurd,” I said. “We’ve been dating less than a month- if you can call what we’re doing dating.”

  “I’d call it a deeply bizarre mating dance, personally,” Lisa said, taking a careful, delicate sip of her drink. “But the fact that you’re doing all this… The fact that you seem to be enjoying it… It’s telling. It’s incredibly telling.”

  “I think you’re reading into it,” I said.

  “Look, Kyle,” Aaron said. “I’ve seen you bring a million girls to this bar. Rose is the only one you’ve brought here twice. Even seven years apart, that kinda thing sticks in a barkeep’s head.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I don’t know what to do here, people. I really don’t.”

  “The only thing you can do,” Lisa said, reaching over and putting a hand on my shoulder, “Is be there for her. Do you want that?”

  “Of course I do,” I said.

  That was when my phone rang, naturally. “Well speak of the devil,” Rachel said. “You gonna answer it, talk to your girlfriend?”

  “She’s not my-”

  “Not with that attitude,” Rachel said. “Maybe you should let Lisa answer for you, see if she can coax her out of the shell for you.”

  “I ain’t doing that,” Lisa said ftly.

  I finished off the remnants of my drink and then picked up the phone. “Hey, babe,” I said. Which, in retrospect, definitely torpedoed any cims of my not having it bad.

  She started crying immediately.

  “Hey, hey, it’s okay,” I said as I stood up and started walking towards the exit, Rachel calling after me about how I should let Lisa talk to her. I made it outside, letting the cold air take me as I leaned back against the brick wall next to the front entrance to Bar Here. “Sorry about the noise. Now. What’s going on?”

  “Just… Just the hormones are really messing with my head, Kyle,” Rose said.

  “In what regard?”

  “I’m crying all the time,” she said. “Like, I just see a baby on the street and I start crying. I’m not even sure why!”

  My heart skipped a damn beat. Christ Almighty, what was happening to me? “I mean… Do you like babies?”

  “Yeah, I mean, they’re adorable little people who are experiencing everything for the first time, not yet worn down by the bitter, exhausting grind of surviving in our harsh world. What’s not to love?”

  I ughed, because she took the words right out of my mouth. “Certainly a unique perspective.”

  “You disagree?”

  “No, actually, I love kids, for basically the same reason you just said,” I kept on chuckling, images running through my head. “I’ve… Honestly I’ve always wanted to be a dad.”

  “You… You’ll make a really great dad one day,” she said. The images kept on stampeding through me: a baby, held in O’Neil’s arms, swaddled in a bnket, her in my arms as I kept them both secure, like protecting them was my God-given mission in life; teaching a son to ride a bike, throw a football, shave, drive; his mother watching her boys with pride and joy in her eyes, every line the years added to her face making her more beautiful; Rose eagerly begging me for another baby, pleading with me to breed her-

  … Okay, let’s not think about that st one.

  “Thank you,” I choked out. “And, uh, I think you’ve got it in you to be a good mom.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Do you… Do really mean that?”

  “Rose, I know you. I know how much you care about the people in your life. I know how hard you’ll work for them. And I know how much warmth and love you have in you. Yeah, you’ll be a great mom.” I meant every word of it.

  She started crying again. Oh fuck. “Hey, hey, I’m here.”

  “I wish I wasn’t like this.”

  “I don’t,” I said.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because then you wouldn’t be you,” I said. After all, what was a rose without its thorns?

  Day 54

  I couldn’t sleep. I spent three hours lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. I tried reading, I tried watching something, I tried smoking a bowl, I tried masturbating while thinking about short redheaded girls, and I still couldn’t fucking sleep. I checked the clock on my phone- God, it was almost midnight. I had work in the morning. This was bad.

  I id in the center of my king-sized bed (a guy as big as me needs something like that) and looked to my left. Memories of that night in the hotel, after our dance, O’Neil curled up into me and acting as the little spoon. I’d never slept better than I had that night, not once in my entire life. I’d closed my eyes, and as soon as I opened them again, it was morning, and she was still there, in my arms.

  Goddammit. I needed to work off some steam.

  I started scrubbing the floors, working the swiffer against the hardwood, clearing away any trace of grime. The fact that this, our arrangement, was the only reason O’Neil and I were… That we…The only reason that she was my Rose was because of cleaning, because of my ck of it, and her desire not to have to do it- it was fucking ridiculous. She was ridiculous. I was ridiculous.

  And I couldn’t help but wonder as I did the floors: would this have happened inevitably? Rose was trans, and she would’ve been regardless of my presence in her life. But were it not for the cleaning, would she and I have started our little game?

  No, no that wasn’t the question that was really on my mind. What I was really wondering was something along the lines of ‘how long has she liked me?’

  I thought back to the night we first met, at that hockey game. We were both there alone, and our seats, by total coincidence, had been right next to each other. She’d cheered like a maniac every time her school scored, she sat on the literal edge of her seat during every power py, and when my team finally scored one, she’d looked over at me and brandished her fist while grinning that stupid, smug grin of hers.

  I’d ughed and brandished my fist right back, and we spent the whole game snarking back and forth at each other. It was so damn fun. I was supposed to bring a date with me, but she’d bailed at the st minute so she could ‘visit’ her ex boyfriend (no comment). I’d gone in expecting to be in a sour mood the whole night, especially with my team losing to objectively inferior opponents like Harvard. But then I’d met O’Neil, and my night had gotten a million times better. One thing led to another: we got a drink after the game, that first night at Bar Here, where we’d watched NHL highlights and shadow-boxed to the fights while pounding back vodka shots. We kept talking, found out we had a decent amount in common, swapped numbers, and… Just kept hanging out. Suddenly, she was in my life. Suddenly, my life felt empty when she wasn’t in it. And that meant every time she left, it was empty again.

  I looked and realized I’d been scrubbing the same six-inch patch of floor for five minutes. I sighed, then started moving onto the rest of the kitchen. The electric chimes of my phone sang out into the empty apartment, I ran over to it, relief and joy and purpose filling me up when I saw it was O’Neil. I’d started using that picture of her from our bar-crawl night as her contact image. I’d even changed her contact name to Briar Rose. The subtitle was still Gremlin, though. Had been for seven years, wasn’t changing anytime soon.

  “Hey,” I said.

  She was crying again. Had been doing that so damn much. Practically every night, she called, and she cried to me, and I soothed her. It wasn’t the same as her being here, but… At least I could hear her voice. At least I could do something for her. Even a big dumb ox like me had to be useful somehow.

  “You’re okay, babe,” I said. “You’re okay.”

  “Just… Just feel like a clown, performing all the time, making a fool of myself,” she said.

  “You’re not making a fool of yourself. Honestly, most of the stuff you’ve been doing sounds pretty awesome.”

  “You… You mean that?”

  “Rose, you set a state hydropning record on your first try. That’s fucking cool.”

  She giggled. There it was. My favorite fucking sound in the universe. “I guess it is kinda cool when you put it like that.”

  “Very much so.”

  “Still wish… Still wish everything wasn’t bringing me to tears constantly. It’s exhausting. And I’m making you pick up the pieces every night, clean up after me-”

  “I don’t really mind that part,” I said, leaning against the counter, looking at our home, scrubbed clean and sparkling. “I like taking care of you.”

  “Just wish I could do the same for you,” she said.

  I thought back once more to the night we met, when I’d been grumpy and annoyed and half-contempting going home early and smoking weed and masturbating, but she’d been there and her joy had been so infectious I couldn’t help but feel its warmth; I thought back to our first dance lesson, when I’d been compining about how I wasn’t good enough to hack it in college football anymore, feeling like my life was falling apart, like I was failing at the only thing I’d ever been good at, and she’d just brought me to that rooftop and showed me a way to be better, to live and to move and be more than I was; I thought back to that day at the coffee shop, with her ridiculous freaking decoy that had made me ugh harder than I had in ages.

  “You do take care of me, Briar Rose,” I said. “More than you realize.”

  Day 60

  “Yeah, I can’t get a hold of her, so I’m gonna need you to expin this one for me,” Ruth said, showing me a picture of Rose done up all femme, partying like crazy with some business dy.

  I sat in Ruth’s living room in a west-side townhouse amidst a deluge of domesticity. Her older two kids, both girls, ran around the warm, bright living room. The girls were both in their single digits, with the jet-bck hair they’d inherited from their father tumbling down their backs, one free-falling and the other in braids. The father in question, Nathan, a tall and slender fellow with olive skin and short bck hair threaded with gray along with a mostly-gray beard, was chasing them around the messy living room with their ballet slippers and tutus, while they kept on trying to dodge him by prancing about in separate directions. Ruth held baby Caleb close to her chest, while the little guy just stared at everything with wide, curious eyes.

  I sat on my hands as I said, “Uh, well, I talked to her about it st night-”

  “How often do you do that?” Ruth asked.

  “Every night. We just… Talk,” I said. “Sometimes she cries, other times she listens while I vent. She’s kinda… In a weird pce right now, because of the hormones-”

  “The what now?” Ruth asked.

  Shit. “Um… Nothing?”

  “Do not try to bullshit me, Duggan- I have milf powers, and that makes me a human lie detector!” Ruth snapped, pointing at me. The resembnce to Rose in that moment was slowly venturing into uncanny valley territory.

  “Language, Mommy!” the two little girls said in tandem as Nathan finally caught one of them and scooped her up like the giggling loony toon she was.

  “Sorry,” Ruth winced. Baby Caleb just smiled, and Nathan did the same. Like father, like son, as they say. “So, she’s on HRT now?”

  “You didn’t hear that from me,” I said. “Mostly because I really didn’t pn on telling you that-”

  “No, I get it,” Ruth sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I’ll feign surprise when she finally does tell me about it, in a hundred years or so. I’m mostly just worried about having to run interference.”

  “With whom?”

  “The rest of our family, especially with Mom,” Ruth said. “And Sarah, too- she’s basically Mom’s pdog at this point, it’s disgusting.”

  For a second, I pictured the Sarah I’d been dating before all this lunacy with O’Neil and I had started, but I pushed it out of my mind. “That bad, huh?”

  “She didn’t used to be,” Ruth grimaced. “But she took Dad’s death badly. Used to be she was a clone of Mom in looks but not personality. Now… Now it’s both. And she bmes herself for Rose… Well, being Rose. She was the one who first dressed her up, all those years ago.”

  “Oh, God,” I muttered.

  “Yeahhhh,” Ruth said as her husband finagled one of their daughters into her tutu. “Sarah and I… We don’t talk much anymore. She wasn’t crazy about me starting my own salon- she wanted us to go into the corporate sector, like her, like Mom, like Rose, like Mia and Veronica. Juniper and I are kinda the bck sheep for wanting to do our own thing.”

  “What does Juniper do?”

  “She’s a circus performer.”

  “... For serious?”

  “Very much for serious,” Ruth nodded. “Acrobat. Very talented.”

  “Huh,” I said.

  “Look, I’m just trying to protect Rose,” Ruth said. “I’ll love her no matter where she nds, but I can’t guarantee that the rest of the family will be like that.”

  “I understand completely,” I said. “Any older sibling worth their salt would do the same.”

  “Yeah. Says a lot about how much the others are worth, then,” she smiled sadly.

  I didn’t respond. I didn’t even know what to say to that. I couldn’t begin to comprehend the idea of not being willing to run barefoot over broken gss to protect your younger siblings. Selling them out to your parents, especially to one like Mama O’Neil… It was inconceivable.

  “So, back to my initial question: what’s with those photos?” Ruth asked.

  “She got into a crazy competition with a client and that’s how it ended,” I said. “She closed the deal, though. Always does. She’s wicked good at her job.”

  Ruth gave me a funny, knowing smile. “You sound like you’re proud of her.”

  “Of course I’m proud of her,” I said. “I’m always proud of her. She works harder than anyone I know, and she’ll move mountains to accomplish her goals. And she’s becoming who she always was, and it’s… It’s freaking beautiful, watching her do that.”

  “You love her, don’t you?”

  I flinched. There it was again. People kept saying that. Why did people keep saying that? “I don’t know if I’d go that far, but… I want to be with her. I want a real retionship with her. I wanna stand by her side and hold her hand while we walk into the next stage in our lives together.” I also wanted to make sweet, sweet love to her all night long, but somehow that detail didn’t seem appropriate for the present company (for several reasons).

  Tears welled up in Ruth’s eyes, streamed down her face. Her husband and kids all stopped horsing around and looked over at her. I couldn’t look away either. “Thank you. Just promise… Promise me that no matter what, you’ll take care of her.”

  “Always,” I said. “And I know she’ll do the same for me.”

  Day 70

  The road opened up before me as I cleared the state line into Maine. Night had fallen, and the sky was clear and lit up by a canopy of stars and a bright, full moon. Spring was finally here, warmth slowly finding its way into the air once more, sunset pushing further and further back into the day. Death metal bred on my speakers as I traversed the highway and turned off at the exit. Finally, the three hour drive came to a close, and my mother’s house outside of Portnd came into view.

  It was a simple, two story house painted white, a hundred yards from the nearest neighbor. Mom sat on the porch in a rocking chair, nursing a steaming mug of something that smelled like ginger tea while reading a well-loved copy of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Mom was a tall woman, even with the inches she’d lost to age. Over six feet with gray hair worn in a short pixie cut, cd in a red sundress with a bnket draped over her, she looked perfectly content.

  “Hey,” I called out as I parked in our dirt driveway and climbed out of the car.

  “Hey, kiddo,” Mom said with a gentle smile.

  “You didn’t have to wait up for me, I still have a key to the pce,” I said, stepping over cool, wet green grass and walking up three wooden steps onto the porch.

  “My son says he wants to talk, you bet your bottom dolr I’ll be there to talk when he gets in,” Mom said simply, putting a bookmark in her novel and closing it shut.

  “Well, thanks,” I said, taking a seat in the rocking chair next to hers.

  “Not a problem,” she said. “So, what’s on your mind? Figured it must be important for you to drive all the way up here for it.”

  “Well, there’s a girl.”

  “There always is,” she chuckled.

  “Yeah. But this one’s different. She’s fierce, and strong, and a little insane. Brilliant, but incapable of getting out of her own way. She’s stubborn, but she’s also the most determined person I’ve ever met. She’s bright and sunny when she’s out of her shell, but when she’s in it I just wanna keep her safe. And when I’m with her, I feel challenged and accepted at the same time. And every minute feels like an adventure. Does that make sense?”

  “It makes perfect sense,” she said, still smiling in that Mom-way. “It was how it was with your father. It’s how it is with your step-father.”

  “I… Where is Dave, anyhow?”

  “Sleeping,” Mom said. “I told him this was gonna have to be one of those mother-son talks, and he was fine with that. Now, this girl: what’s her name?”

  “Rose O’Neil,” I said.

  “O’Neil… Like your roommate? Are you dating his sister?” Mom said. She’d met O’Neil a handful of times when she was visiting me, a few dinners here, a few family gatherings there.

  “No. Um… She is my roommate.”

  Mom cocked an eyebrow. “You’re gonna need to eborate on that.”

  So I expined, sparring only the goriest of details (my mom didn’t need to know about the sheer number of times my kinda-sorta girlfriend had already seen me naked). And when it was over, she took a deep breath and said, “Wait right here, I need to get something from inside.”

  “Mom-”

  “Just a sec,” she said.

  She ducked into the house, leaving me twiddling my thumbs until she came back and shoved something into my hands.

  It was a diamond ring.

  I balked. “Mom, this is-”

  “The ring your father proposed to me with, yes.”

  “I can’t-”

  “I have no use for it anymore,” Mom said, her smile turning only a tiny bit sad. “Your father and I had our time together, but I have a new love in my life, and he put a new ring on my finger. And as my oldest child, it seems right for you to have this. It’s what your father would want.”

  “But Rose and I- our retionship isn’t… We’ve only been together a few months, and most of that has been long distance.”

  “Kyle, listen to me,” she said, still standing, putting a hand on my shoulder. “The way you talk about this one is different. A mother knows the difference between when her child is infatuated and when he’s in love.”

  “I’m not-”

  “Maybe not all the way yet, but you’re falling,” Mom said, sitting back down. “I can hear it in your voice and see it in your eyes. You’re falling hard.”

  I wanted to deny what she said, but… I couldn’t find the words.

  “And besides, I’ve met this girl. At least on her end, I can honestly say this was a long time coming,” Mom said.

  “You… You really think so?”

  “Oh yeah. Even before she was herself, she was hanging on your every word, ughing at every dumb joke you made, constantly grabbing you-”

  “She has always been grabby, yeah,” I said, scratching at my chin-stubble.

  “I’m not saying pop the question next time you see her. I can tell you want to take your time with this one. Let it bloom slowly and steadily. That’s what tells me it’s love, not infatuation. Just hold onto it. I think you’ll need it, sooner or ter.”

  I gulped, and I found tears in my eyes. “Thank you, Mom.”

  “Of course,” she said, leaning over and wrapping her arms around me for a long, warm, hug. “Now, I do need to get some sleep. You coming up?”

  “I… I need to clear my head, think about everything,” I said, still clutching the ring. “Gonna go for a walk.”

  “Sounds good. Remember to lock up when you get back.”

  And with that, my mother bade me good night and left me there on the porch. A few minutes of quiet contemption ter, I got up and started walking. Five blocks ter, I was on the beach, watching bck waves wash over the shore and feeling the cool seabreeze touch my skin and fiddle with my hair.

  My phone rang, and I picked it up already knowing who it was. Who it had to be.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey,” Rose answered back.

  “How’s it going?”

  “Uh… I’m doing a photoshoot tomorrow.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. God, I just can’t believe this is my life right now. What the hell even is all this? I shouldn’t be… I’m not even…”

  “Then why do it?” I asked. “Why not just…”

  “Why not just what?”

  I drew a deep breath. Time for the eight hundred billion dolr question, the one I’d been wondering about for the past month. “Can I just ask: are you avoiding me?”

  “No,” she said instantly. I mostly believed her. “I want to see you. I need to see you. But I… I’m not done yet. There’s more I need to do. I’m not ready yet.”

  “Not ready to see me?” I asked, wondering if I was ready to see her.

  “Not ready for how I’m probably going to react when I do see you,” she said in a tiny, terrified voice.

  “I don’t want you to be afraid of me, Rose.” It was the absolute st thing I wanted. A woman as amazing as her shouldn’t have to be afraid of anything, anyone, least of all the man who… Who…

  “I’m not afraid of you, I’m afraid of myself. I’m afraid of… Of what I feel for you? Does that make sense?” she asked.

  “It does. I wish it didn’t, but it does,” I sighed in time with a wave crashing against the shore. “It… It scares me a little bit, too. How much I feel for you. How quickly and how hard I’ve… I’ve…”

  I didn’t finish the sentence. But I wasn’t sure I had to.

  “It’s more than that, though,” she admitted. “You’re what I want to come back to, but there’s something else. Someone else who’s path I’m inevitably gonna have to cross. Who I’m inevitably gonna have to face.”

  I sighed again, another wave breaking against the sand. “Well, when you’re ready, I’m here to face it with you.” And I always will be.

  “Thank you,” Rose said. “You’re the best thing in my life, you know that?”

  “That’s good,” I said, looking down at the diamond ring. “Because you’re the best thing in mine too.”

  I looked out at the ocean, ring in my hand, Rose’s voice in my ear, as a possible future started to stretch out before me on the horizon. Church bells, family and friends, Rose in a white dress, me waiting for her at the altar, carrying her off to our home that night…

  I held it in my mind’s eye. I wanted to walk towards it.

  Day 92

  I waited at the airport, leaning against my car, sign in my hand, ring in my pocket. I’d kept it on my person continuously since my mom had given it to me. It was a precious thing, symbolizing the love that had brought me into this world, and the love I was starting to feel for Rose.

  There was no moon in the sky that night, no stars visible through the city’s miasma, but they weren’t necessary. The woman I saw walking towards me, cd in blue, red hair tumbling down her shoulders, lit up everything around her. She ran towards me and jumped into my arms, and when I held her, when I kissed her, that was when I knew I was taking the first step towards the future I’d seen that night on the beach.

  I was falling in love with Briar Rose. And soon, very soon, I would wake her up.