Page 5 of Outside the Lines
"Me too."
He put one leg over the other and his long fingers crossed over the top of his knee. I saw a tan line and my gut tightened. "Are you married?" I asked him before he could say anything else. It wasn't my business or my place to ask him such a personal question, but I couldn't help myself. Six years since I'd left here, and I hadn't known anything about his life. That wouldn't do. I wanted to know everything.
He touched the finger, unable to look away, and rubbed his thumb over the line. "I was. Been about four months now."
I was supposed to feel sorry for his marriage ending, but I couldn't make myself feel that emotion right then. "Why did it end?" Also not my business, but in for a penny and all.
He didn't seem surprised by my question. "He cheated. I left." Alex shrugged a little, and I looked away from his hand to see if there was any sadness in his brown eyes. There wasn't.
"You aren't sad."
Alex shook his head. "And you're still good at reading emotions. I bet that comes in handy working with kids."
Fine, if he wanted to change the conversation away from his marriage, I'd let him.
"You let your hair grow. It looks nice."
His compliment made me smile, and I nodded as I forced myself to sit back and put my hands on either arm of the chair instead of playing with my hair. It'd been to my shoulders when he'd found me. Now it was nearly down to my butt. It was a pain to take care of most days, but I liked it.
"And you're wearing a suit too. Nice change from the jeans and sweatshirts you wore around here." Alex looked down at his own clothing, a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, the usual fare for Trinity House.
I nodded. "The pants are men's, but the shirt isn't." I don't know why I told him that, and that unknown had me fidgeting. They were just a pair of nice black slacks and a dark purple button down shirt. "I like looking nice." Again, another thing he didn't need to know.
"It shows. I'm glad you're taking care of yourself. And the makeup is a nice touch too. Do you always wear it?"
No one but the people here knew me before I went to college. To the people at college, I'd always been Trin Matherson. I wondered what I looked like to Alex, what he saw when he looked at me. I wasn't normally self-conscious, and my lack of a defined gender box bothered some people. I knew this. But it had never been an issue for me. So why was I so intent on getting Alex's approval? I didn't like that feeling at all.
"Sometimes," I answered vaguely. I took a breath, forcing myself to calm down. He'd been a friend. I could treat him like one. "I like wearing it. I have a friend, Andy, that says with my pale complexion and freakishly light hair, I can pull off a lot of different looks. Andy likes playing with my make up."
"It's not freakish," Alex was quick to say.
That made me smile. Alex would come to my defense, even from myself. "Thanks."
"Are you seeing someone?"
I hadn't expected him to bring the conversation back to our personal lives, but if he was interested, I was willing to talk. "I'm not. I had something going on junior year, but nothing since then, and even that didn't last too long."
"Why not?"
I considered him for a moment, wondering if this was counselor Alex I was talking to or just someone that I had once known by that name. I decided that he was asking me as a friend.,
"He was..." I drummed my fingers on the arm of the chair. "He had an idea of what he wanted in a relationship, and I didn't fit into that formula. I wasn't willing to change for him."
"Nor should you have to."
There was a hint of near anger in his voice, and I tilted my head to the side as I let my mind linger on that knowledge. I'd always been good at reading people from their words and their bodies, and Alex was easier to read than most. "Thanks," I said again. "It's hard finding someone that appreciates, even if they don't actually understand, what it means to not fit into a box. I'm bi, which bothers some people already. But I guess they have a hard time dating someone that can be masculine one day and completely feminine the next."
"Or a mix of the two extremes," he offered.
I gave him a tight smile. "To some, heels and jeans would have been a mix decades ago. Now heels and jeans are sexy."
"The world is evolving. Sometimes it just takes a while."
I smiled. I didn't think of myself as either gender, or any of the others either. I wasn't sure if I'd ever told him that, but maybe he'd been able to take a relatively good stab at it on his own. Men and women didn't generally have to announce to other people what they were, and I didn't see how I had to be any different. What was between my legs was my business, and since I'd never had a relationship where anyone else had the chance to find out, I didn't see that changing anytime soon.
"It's really great to see you again," Alex told me.
I nodded. "I wanted to tell you something," I said.
