Even as a young child, I never found myself wishing for a sibling. I liked being the center of attention, the apple of my parents’ eye. Of course, all that changed the moment I came out to them. I remember sitting them both down on the tacky tan couches in the family room, the coffee table acting as a valley between us. My mother started sobbing, her face in her hands, her brown hair escaping from the messy bun she used to keep it out of her face while cleaning. My father had taken to yelling to express his emotions surrounding the situation, though I don't really remember what he said. It was a hazy memory at best, one I thought was more akin to a blurry nightmare, but I know he said all the stereotypical things. I was wrong, it was a phase, I was just doing this to spite them, where did they go wrong, all that good stuff.
And while the stiff, brown fabric of those couches hadn’t changed, I had. As the uninhabited house seemed to close in around me, I found myself wishing I didn't have to do this alone. All my grandparents were gone by the time I was 15, and what little extended family I had was scattered across the country, many of them a complete mystery to me. We only saw each other at weddings and funerals. In fact, not a single one had bothered to reach out after my parents' accident. Which meant I was left to take care of everything myself. Maybe if I had a sibling, I wouldn't have had to. They could have handled it, and I could have stayed in the Bay Area, where I was safe, and had built a family that actually cared about me.
Alas, I was not so lucky.
I leaned back against the plush pillows of the couch, staring at the textured white ceiling. At least the house was in better shape than I thought, although it could use a good cleaning. After all, it hadn't seen the careful touch of my mother’s dusting rags in several weeks. It could use some modernizing, given that many of the appliances were older than me, and the house hadn't seen much updating since the late 80s when my parents bought it.
The wooden end tables on either side of me displayed various photographs of us in my youth. A toothy, crooked smile of a young girl with long, stringy brunette hair sat front and center in every photo, almost as if she was taunting me. Even after all these years, my parents couldn’t give her up. I knew they couldn’t, and that was why I left, but it didn’t make the reality sting any less.
Somehow, the last conversation I had with my parents stung even more knowing that they were gone. I never tried to contact them in the eight years I was away, but they didn’t contact me either. Of course, I had changed my number when I switched to my own phone plan, and I had abandoned all my old social media accounts in favor of new ones, with my correct name and pronouns.
I thought my parents would at least curse my name, and tell the tale of my transgressions far and wide to ruin any chances I had of finding any kind of community out here, but it seemed they didn’t even do that. Instead, they spent eight years continuing to pretend they had a daughter. Who knows what story they cooked up to explain my absence, but that was just something I was going to have to discover in my time restoring the house.
Before I could get too into my sadness, my phone lept to life in my pocket. I pulled out my old, cracked iPhone 8 and softened at the contact. Even from hundreds of miles away, somehow Onyx always knew exactly when to call.
I answered. “Hey, sorry, I meant to call right when I got here, but I was accosted by a neighbor.”
“You better be sorry!” My roommate’s voice was strangely comforting, despite how they were screaming into the receiver. I knew they weren’t actually angry, it was obvious in their playful tone. ‘I was worried sick! I thought maybe the civilians of Chestnut had already picked up their pitchforks and chased you away screaming anti-trans slurs.”
I rolled my eyes. “Nothing so theatric.” I settled back into the couch and folded my free arm over my chest. “Actually, so far I haven’t been recognized. I guess my parents never told anyone I came out.”
Onyx was silent for a moment. “Oh. Ouch. I’m sorry, man,” Their tone changed significantly, the playfulness from before fading away.
There was a crackling silence I didn’t know how to fill. The quiet washed over me, prickling my arms and causing a buzzing in my chest. I lasted a few moments before the overwhelming need to talk overtook my brain. “House isn’t as bad as I expected. So far everything is really well kept, although I haven’t had the balls to go look in the bedrooms. It needs some cleaning, but it’s been empty for a few weeks now, so I expected that. Needs some new paint, a few updates, maybe a little remodeling to make it more appealing on the market-”
“Liam, dude, take a breath,” Onyx mercilessly cut me off before I could talk myself into oblivion. “As much as I love listening to you talk shop, I don’t think that’s the most pressing issue. Are you ok?”
I shifted in my seat. “I… I’m fine. It’s… complicated, and I don’t know how to process everything, but I’m fine.”
Onyx hummed, though it crackled with static on the line. A nice little perk of my old, decaying speakers. “Run into anyone interesting yet?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’ve been in town for, like, five minutes.”
I could practically imagine Onyx wiggling their thick, bleached eyebrows at me. “Oh? So you haven’t gone to visit ol’ Duncan?”
I couldn’t fight back the groan that erupted from deep in my throat. “I should have known--No, visiting the childhood best friend that I had an intense will-they-won’t-they relationship with, whose heart I likely shattered when I left is not high on my priority list, Onyx.”
“The childhood friend you were super into who you never really got over because there was no closure, thus preventing you from keeping a single serious relationship for eight years? Yeah, that one. I’m surprised you aren’t melting in his arms already.”
“Okay, one, I don’t even know if he’s into guys. Two, I haven’t even talked to him in eight years, he doesn’t know anything about my transition and I never came out to him. And three, I never told him I was leaving before I left town, changed my number, and abandoned all other methods of contact. Somehow, I don’t think he wants to see me.”
“Don’t sell yourself short! Your epic love story slash reunion is only just beginning!” Onyx practically sang.
“I regret telling you about him.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, fighting back old memories. The little dimpling of his pale cheeks when he smiled down at me. How he would pull me close, wrap me in his favorite flannel whenever I was cold. The way my heart would skip when I saw him, or when his touch lingered, or when he smiled at me. Us, laughing as children, playing in the backyard of this very house.
Old memories, sour with age and guilt.
A knock at the door pulled me out of my thoughts, and away from my conversation with Onyx. “Aw, shit, someone’s at the door.”
Onyx clicked their tongue. “Damn, cutting my teasing short. Well, whatever, I’m running out of daylight and Raylee is supposed to be here soon to help touch up my dye.”
“Don’t color our bathtub pink again. I would very much like to get our deposit back on that apartment on the off chance we ever get out of there.”
“I make no promises. Talk to you later, Liam!”
And with that, they hung up.
Which meant I had no choice but to face whatever horror was waiting for me on the other side of my parent’s front door.
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