POV Lucas

I had been waiting for years for my life to fall apart. I had to spend every single bit of energy to keep everything in such an unstable balance, and in the end, my world had collapsed in less than ten minutes.

Something touched my hand, and for a terrifying moment, I thought it was my mother. But then the fingers delicately slipped into mine, and I admitted to myself that my mother would never hold me like that.

I lowered my eyes to Jeremy. He had a determined look.

"You don't have to be here," he said calmly.

But where else should I be? I realized I didn't have a place in the world anymore. It was strange, and liberating, and terrifying.

"I'll get your things. Andy, Drake, and Rue have already left, they'll be waiting for you."

Just the mention of Andy made me flinch. I had pushed him. I had made him cry. And he was my brother.

Sister.

Sibling.

"I'm a real asshole."

"You're not. But if you were, you'd be in good company." Jey smiled, squeezed my hand, and then let me go.

He stayed by my side as I mustered the courage to look at my mother. She was standing next to the couch. She looked angry.

"Don't you have anything to say?" I don't know why I asked. Whatever she could have said wouldn't have justified anything.

But in any case, my mother decided not to answer, and I erased her from my life.

I descended the stairs of the building in a kind of trance. I would never walk those stairs again.

I reached the street and saw Rue and Andy sitting on the swings in the distance. Drake, however, had waited for me next to the door.

"I'm sorry about your mother," he said with a strange tone. Then he punched me in the stomach, doubling me over in pain.

I held onto my guts with a groan of pain. "OW, why?"

"You made Andy cry. How could you think he was lying?"

I straightened up slowly, rubbing where it hurt. "It was easier to believe it wasn't true." I looked down at my feet. "I'm sorry."

"You don't have to say that to me."

I nodded, even though I dreaded what I had to do.

I put my hands in the pockets of my hoodie and started walking. The streetlamp in the park illuminated the girls with a warm glow.

Andy was curled up on one of the swings.

Rue didn't linger. She stroked Andy's head and walked away without saying anything.

My brother lifted his tear-filled eyes. "I'm sorry. I swear I didn't come here with the intention of destroying your family."

I sat on the other swing. For a while, all I did was stare into nothingness. I often did that when I came there. That's how I had made friends with the cats. If you stay still long enough to seem dead, animals will come to investigate.

"I know. And I'm the one who should apologize. I've been a real asshole. And if you haven't called the police yet just to do me a favor, know that you don't have to. I don't care what happens to her."

Andy let go of one of the chains to reach under his jacket and pull out his necklace. He chewed on the end of the pendant with a frown.

"I don't intend to call the police. I don't care what happens to her either, but... I would risk getting other people in trouble if I attracted police attention to this matter."

"Oh." I replied when I realized he wasn't going to explain further.

Suddenly, everything seemed so surreal. Andy was there next to me, and he was my brother. I had always wanted a brother. My life would have been so different.

"Brother, or sister?"

Andy kept staring into nothingness, the tip of the pendant near his mouth. His lips curved into a tiny smile. "It's the same. Whatever you prefer."

A low purr announced the arrival of Sailor Moon. The cat with a spot on her forehead trotted towards me with her belly swaying with each step.

I lowered my hand, and the cat's head bumped against my fingers.

"I... I don't know why she did it."

"I don't care anymore." Andy replied coldly, but I felt like he wasn't telling the whole truth.

"Maybe it has something to do with my father. I mean, our... well, my mother always told me he left when I was two, and you're two years younger than me, maybe the two things are connected."

"Lucas. Seriously. I don't care."

"It's just that I can't understand why someone would throw away one child and keep the other."

Andy sighed. He looked very tired. For a panic moment, I thought he was shaken by how I said "throw away a child".

"In truth, I know... why."

I straightened up, ignoring the cat at my feet. I realized his shoulders had risen to his ears only when he started to relax and let them fall.

"You know?"

"Well, I don't know for sure, and maybe the real reason I came here was that I wanted to believe there was another explanation."

His fingers played with the beads of the necklace. He was still staring straight ahead. Our friends were far away, huddled together. Jeremy had arrived too, holding my old school backpack, packed to bursting.

I waited in silence. I felt like he needed time.

"I am..." he stopped. He turned his head and looked me in the eyes. "Intersex. Do you know what that means?"

"Uh..."

"It means born with physical characteristics of both sexes. It's not about gender identity; it's just a... body thing. Often it's not visible, for example, someone is born female, with all the aesthetic attributes of a female, but they have XY chromosomes and no uterus. Sometimes it's more, let's say... obvious. If the genitals are... well, ambiguous, it's already evident at birth."

The realization of what he was saying hit me like a train. I knew my mother must have had a reason for doing what she did, but being faced with a concrete possibility made me feel sick.

"Oh," I simply said. Then I realized how it might sound and quickly corrected myself. "Not because of the intersex thing, I mean... my mother. Ours. I can't believe she did something like that. And for such a stupid reason."

Andy shrugged and put on a fake smile. "I've had years to come to terms with it, even though I never really wanted to accept this possibility."

It seemed absurd. Inconceivable. But deep down, I knew my mother. I knew she would never accept a child like Andy. She had unyielding ideas about what a man should be and what a woman should be.

Our relationship had become unbearable since I told her I was pansexual. I thought it was just a phase. That sooner or later she would see everything I was doing for her and love me again.

It was never going to happen, right? If she had the heart to abandon her own newborn to cold and hunger, I couldn't believe she ever felt true love for me.

Maybe she had kept me around like a pet. And when I came out, she didn't throw me out just because I was the only reason she could pay for groceries and rent.

"Lucas?"

"I'm okay." I replied quickly, before I got the insane idea of crying. "This isn't about me."

"It's about both of us." He reached out and offered me his open palm. He smiled at me.

I took his hand. It was smaller than mine.

"Um..." His gaze darted from one side of the park to the other. Our group was approaching. "Could you not tell Drake that thing about being intersex?"

I tightened my grip and forced him to look at me. "Andy. Drake's an idiot, but he's not that kind of idiot."

He gave me a pitying look. "I know, I know. But don't tell him, okay?"

"I wouldn't have told him anyway. It's none of my business. Just know that you're wasting your energy being afraid. Drake adores you, don't you know?"

The first genuine smile of the evening crossed his face.

He knew.