Page 15 of Outside the Lines
He squinted. "You know we're not… I mean, not that I wouldn't, but…"
Laughing, I held up my hand to stop him. "No worries. Really. And I do know. You're like a puppy to me." And I meant that in the nicest way possible.
"You're a cat." He was laughing now too. I didn't mind being compared to a cat at all. I thought they were beautiful creatures.
I liked hanging out with Andy just like this. He knew my biological sex and he never slipped up and called me by it. Finding someone to respect my pronouns shouldn't have seemed like something close to a miracle, but that was why I had decided to get a trans roommate in the beginning. I had figured that if anyone knew how to respect someone's pronouns and name then it was someone like Andy. And I'd been right. He was great to live with, usually, and I was happy that he was out on his own and living on his terms.
"When do you think you'll see Alex again?"
I shrugged. I hadn't really thought about it too much, other than just knowing that I wanted to see him again at all. "Soon. He makes me feel good. When I was a teenager, my definition of safe was how I felt when I was around Alex. He could somehow manage to make everything perfect, even if it was just for a few minutes. When I was in Trinity House, one of my favorite things was coming downstairs on the nights he was working, and we'd have hot chocolate together in the middle of the night and sometimes we talked, but most of the time he read whatever book he was into at the time, and I just sat there quietly existing. I think I fell in love with him a bit back then during those nights."
"You sound like you're still in love with him now."
I wasn't completely sure, but I knew that there was something. "I think now might be a good time for us, if Alex is willing too."
Andy sighed dreamily. "Hollywood should make a movie about you two. Kid with a rough past taken in by kind man, and they reconnect and live happily ever after."
"I don't know about all that." Though I did like that he thought the concept of happily ever after was possible.
"Will you try on the clothes you like out of the box tonight? If there is anything?"
I was tired, but I could also see how much this would mean to him. "Sure. Is it in your room?"
He nodded. "Go ahead in. I know you're weird about it. Wish you weren't."
I got up and headed into his bedroom. Being weird, as he put it, was a pretty mild way of putting how I felt about entering other peoples' spaces, even when I had their permission. Andy valued privacy too, though to a lesser degree than I did; he valued physical intimacy a lot less than I did. He was pan and liked being with a lot of different people. I was terrified of being completely exposed, body and soul, to someone else. He didn't have a problem having sex because no one knew his soul, including me, and I was probably closer to him than anyone.
I kept his door open so he could see what I was doing, and I touched nothing but the box that was open at the foot of his bed. Andy's mom had sent him the usual; skirts, dresses, rhinestone studded jeans to show off his curves, and a few cute scarves. If I sent him a box, it would be filled with dark, baggy jeans, shirts with anime characters on them, and a couple baseball caps. And probably some binders, too.
His mom had sent him a few maxi skirts. I loved the feel of them. How I could slip one on and look like I put some effort into going out without actually doing much more than putting on a pair of sweats. Andy's mom had sent him three, and although they would hang a bit on me, I knew I could make them work. She had sent a yellow one, a purple one with white stripes, and a black one. I could make them all look good with a pair of cute sandals.
"It's all super girly shit, isn't it?" Andy called out. Maybe I was taking a long time as I looked at the three skirts and kept bringing them up to me. They were all plenty long and would go down to the floor.
I came out of his room with the skirts in my arms, holding them up. "I like these three."
He just shrugged. "They'll look good on you. I don't get how you can make girl clothes look masculine though. Not skirts of course, but like a shirt."
I hung the skirts up in my closet while I thought about what he was saying. I didn't think about clothes like that too often. Clothes were meant for certain body types, but that didn't mean a whole lot to me.
"I think about more how I feel in them rather than how they are, I guess." I sat down next to him and explained further. "Clothes don't actually have genders. They're not made to. They're just clothes. A skirt is only for women because people say it is. But a skirt is sort of like a kilt, and kilts are for men generally. And jeans used to be only for men, but now I see more women in jeans than in dresses and skirts. Clothes only have male and female labels put on them because of society."
"I wonder if that works for people too. Like if nobody had ever put labels on us, would we still have put them on ourselves."
I pulled my feet under myself. "I think people will always try to compare themselves to each other. Biological sex is just one of those things. Like skin color. People want to gain power and lower others, and the obvious physical attributes are easy ways of doing that."
Andy shook his head. "You're really bleak. You know that though, don't you?"
"I'm a realist." I'd been through too much in this world not to be. "Thanks for the skirts."
"You're welcome."
I leaned back on the couch with him and we continued watching TV for a few more hours.
*~*~*
The next day at work, I had five individual counseling sessions, two groups to oversee, and a counselors meeting. It wasn't the busiest day I'd ever had at the group practice, but it wasn't exactly light either. I liked being there, and I was learning a lot, but part of me wanted to be in a high school counseling session instead. I enjoyed working with kids. I tried to be the kind of counselor I would have wanted to see, both before and after leaving home.
Maybe in some ways I'd tried to emulate Alex and what he'd taught me, even when he hadn't been meaning to. Back then, he'd had a way about him. He was clearly out of his element with us sometimes, and we did overrun him more than once, but he'd always remained calm. He'd never yelled at us or even looked frustrated. Even when we were at our worst. He was practically a saint.
