You know diary, things could have gone downhill today (they kind of did but whatever), but like, I think I handled the situation okay. Maybe.

I know I was going to update you about my amazing date and everything… stuff happened in between though, and that date was put on hold for a good few days I guess. I’ve heard it helps people sometimes to write things down so that they can better understand them later. Part of me thinks that maybe I should do that because I’m still trying to process what went down.

I’m not upset, I’m just sad that I can’t do anything more for Alex. He broke down and cried in front of me. All I could do was hold his hand and tell him that I was here. But you know, it’s like, what does being here even mean? And I’m not just talking about what happened today, but generally.

I’m not a therapist. I’m not someone who specializes in what Alex is going through, so I always have this fear of doing things wrong. Even now, I’m not sure if I did okay. I mean, Alex said thanks, and he seemed happy… kind of.

What if he was just saying that?

Did I really make him happy?

I barely did anything.

I’m not the smartest person in the world, diary, so sometimes, I doubt myself and my people skills. God, Alex looked so sad—I don’t know if it’s because me being in love with him made him look more depressed than he really was in my eyes, but it was hard because seeing him this way made me feel really down too, and then I wished so hard that I could just take his pain and sew it into my skin so that he wouldn’t have to hold onto it anymore. (Geez, now that I’m rereading that phrase, it sounds kind of graphic but I just don’t know how else to put it, sorry, diary.)

Anyway… we had a long talk, Alex and me. A long. LONG. Talk.

It was weird, not because of the subject, but because we’re rarely this serious.

It’s hard to tell if Alex was avoiding the topic of his transition on purpose, yet for some reason, it was always put on a shelf and never brought up again between us after that one moment where he said he wasn’t sure, and that then maybe he wanted to, back in the arcade.

I guess I did ask a few times, but how much we hadn’t actually talked about it never occurred to me until we finally, actually talked about it.

By now, Alex was sitting next to me on his couch. He was doing this thing with his toe where he pinched the pillow and kind of dragged it upwards with his movement. The mood of the room was like in those movies where they put those dark looking filters and add stressful music to make everything more tense. In our case though… I doubt we needed the filter, or the music, for it to be stressful.

I wasn’t holding his hand anymore. Even though I wanted to put my arms around Alex, I couldn’t bring myself to do it or to ask, so I held back.

After a few seconds, my leg was jumpy, and I was jumpy. I decided to ask him if he wanted to talk about it instead. “Debatable,” Alex said. His toe had gone still by now, and I kind of missed it.

I tried again. “You know, I read stuff on the internet about this, and I mean… you told me things, too, of course. But like, if you want, we can go look for binders and stuff together. I don’t mind.”

Yeah, it was a clumsy approach, and it kind of sounded a lot better in my head and less awkward than it did once I spoke—I don’t know by what miracle this happened, but Alex finally said more than three words though. “I… I already tried that on my own,” his words were barely a whisper. I heard them anyway.

Not going to lie, at this point, I was confused. I remember reading very clearly on those forums that a lot of dudes like Alex seemed to worship the infamous binder I was seeing mentioned everywhere. “But you… You don’t wear one.”—it was more of a statement than a question; even though it was also partially a question, just that… I didn’t know how to phrase it.

Alex nodded. In this moment, I wished I was a snail. I could go back into my shell and maybe bring him along with me, so that we could just live away from everything forever.

“It hurts like hell,” Alex held his ribs as he said this and kind of cringed as his shoulders tensed. “Seriously,” he muttered. “I know it works for some people, but I couldn’t breathe. I tried different sizes, however… it was either inefficient, or it hurt too much. Plus…” He brought his knees to his chest. His head disappeared behind his elbows. “Can I… mention them?” His voice was ridiculously small, and I was thinking, Wow, David, please don’t make it awkward by making a weird joke.

“As much as you want.”

Yeah, that was kind of weird anyway, fuck.