Page 14 of Outside the Lines
I rolled my eyes. "Yes." I was still smiling as I walked away to go get changed. He was making kissing noises after me. I closed my bedroom door tightly behind myself as I went into my room. Sometimes it got stuck. I trusted Andy not to ever come into my room without my permission; it made me feel better to do it. I felt safer with the physical barriers around me.
I stripped out of the nice clothes I'd been wearing and grabbed a pair of lounge pants that were a few sizes too big for me, a tank top, and some fuzzy socks. Once I was dressed again more comfortably, I came out of my bedroom to find Andy sitting on the couch with his shirt off and his boobs all out on display. I shrugged it off. I'd seen Andy naked before, because he often walked around with little to nothing on, and his nudity didn't bother me. I was odd about mine, and I definitely couldn't have been that carefree around him like he was with me.
When I'd met him, he'd been trying so hard to measure up to some ridiculous standard of beauty that didn't really exist. He wanted to be built like Thor but he had a body like a heavier Drew Barrymore. That dichotomy had led to him overeating and then hating himself even more. Sometimes I thought he was still jealous about how thin I was since he was still overweight, but he wasn't hating himself as much anymore.
"Cheese and crackers?" I asked him as I went over to the fridge to find out what we had that might pass as dinner.
"Alex didn't feed you?"
I didn't come out of the fridge to answer him. "I sort of cut the date short."
Andy got off the couch and came over to me. "What'd he do? He didn't hurt you at all, did he?"
I shook my head. "No. I gave him an opportunity to dig into my past and he didn't take it. He didn't even try. I don't know what to do with that."
Andy opened the freezer door above my head. "This is not a crackers kind of issue. This calls for ice cream. Get up and come eat with me."
"You sure?" The ice cream was his, for those rare occasions when he was feeling good enough about himself to indulge a little and not feel guilty.
"Yeah. I ran half a mile today. I sucked at it and nearly fell on my face twice, but I did it. That binder you got me really helped too."
I got off the floor where I'd been kneeling and joined him on the couch. "That's great." I couldn't run worth a damn either. I didn't even own running shoes I didn't like exercising one little bit.
He put his feet in my lap. "When do I get to meet this Alex guy?"
I shrugged. "Not a clue. Do you want to? Would it be weird having him over here? This really is our space, and I want to respect that. You don't bring your people back here, and I never have either." Snow, his cat, made herself known as she came out of Andy's bedroom to come lay across the back of the couch. I generally ignored her. She didn't really like people that much anyway.
Andy was quiet for a long time, and I was as well. We'd never had a hard rule about bringing people back to our place, but we'd always avoided it out of respect for each other. In some ways, I liked that. This was another place he'd be allowed in. Another layer that I wouldn't have between us. I'd grown up with my barriers, and Alex had been allowed past a few of them. But he was still nowhere close to being allowed into the inner circle. Andy wasn't even there, and I had no reason to keep him out either. It was just a matter of self-preservation and self-protection at all costs. It had been like that, ever since I was a child.
"What if we started out slowly?" Andy suggested. "Having dinner together, maybe a movie too, but not spending the night the first time he comes over?"
"Sure. I think that would be fine." With Alex, and how much I already cared about him, I knew it would be so easy to fall far too quickly into something I couldn't handle right away. I'd been ready to be his at eighteen. I wasn't any different now. As much as I tried to be, and could pretend to be if I really wanted, Alex was still a man I had no defenses against.
"I got a box from my mom today. The usual. It's got a ton of girl clothes in it she wants me to wear someday when I realize that being me is just one huge mistake. Please give them to your little rascals."
I smiled at him, even as I wanted to go call his mom up and yell at her. If she was willing to spend even five minutes with him, I was sure that she would be able to see just how happy he was now that he was Andy.
"Do you mind if I take something if there's anything in there that might work for me?" He'd let me have the clothes his mom had sent him in the past, and they'd been some really cute wrap skirts that were perfect for the summer, but I never wanted to assume that me taking his clothes and using them on myself was always going to be okay.
"Of course you can. She spends so much on sending me boxes of clothes each month. I really wish she'd stop. And they're all name brand new stuff with the tags still on them. I'm shopping at Goodwill, and she's going to Abercrombie for stuff I'm just going to give away. I've told her that too."
I laid my head on his shoulder. "I know you have. You could sell the clothes, you know. Make a little extra cash. Or you could return them to the store and act like you lost the receipt."
He laughed. "I've thought about it. I absolutely have. But a big part of me feels like if I got anything out of these clothes it would be wrong. Like she would be winning in a way. I'd rather that they just go to someone else. Or a few someones. It's better than just trashing them. And if you didn't want them, I would just donate them."
I smiled at him and sat back up. "I know you would. And my kids will really appreciate it. Whatever they don't want I'll take to the trans place. Okay?"
"Yeah. Put her idiocy to good use." He bumped my shoulder.
"That's the spirit."
He went quiet after that and I let him. We ate the ice cream, and I thought about what I would do to help him if he was one of my kids. I didn't do that often, since I tried not to analyze the people I cared about most, but when I looked at Andy, it was hard not to want to help him in some way. He was barely nineteen, and he was struggling even when he pretended that he wasn't. It was hard for me to watch him go through having a mom like his, someone who absolutely refused to see her son for who he was, and not want to do something to help him.
"You're a really good friend," I told him.
Andy smirked at me and took some more ice cream. "That's nice. What's got you so mushy? Thinking about Alex?"
Maybe a little, but he wasn't who I was focused on right then. "No, actually I was thinking about you."
