I’m disgusting.
I don’t deserve him.
I stay there, on the cold tile, trembling and naked, until there’s nothing left but silence, shame, and the hollow ache of knowing I’ve lost him.
Nate
I’m all alone with the silence, and the smell of coffee too early in the morning.
I gave up trying to sleep a long time ago. The Christmas tree is still on, warm colors filling an empty living room, tainted by last night, while I’m on the couch staring down at my mama’s locket.
The one I was supposed to give to Iris.
I can’t stop going over our conversation, every word, every tear that fell down her face. The way she backed away from me and wouldn’t let me touch her, like she thought I’d hurt her.
Hell, I think maybe I did.
She told me she’s transgender.
Those words keep echoing in my mind, over and over, and I can’t make them mean something different. Iris was born a boy.
I can’t get the image of her face when she told me that out of my head. Terrified, ashamed, like she was telling me something awful.
And it ain’t like I reacted in any way to make her think differently.
I asked her.
God.
I bury my head in my hands with a groan. I asked Iris, the woman I love, who was already upset, if she had a dick.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
Why would I think I had the right to ask her that?
It was god damn disrespectful, bringing up her body like that when we haven’t even slept together. If anybody else said what I said to her last night, I’d knock their lights out. And I went on and did it like I wasn’t raised to think before I speak.
After that, she shut down. I could see it. I broke her heart.
When she left, I googled shit on my phone, feeling like the world’s most clueless asshole. What does transgender mean? Are trans women really women? Am I gay if I date a trans woman?
Typing those words felt like a betrayal. She wanted me to understand, to accept her.
The worst part is, I have no idea what I’m supposed to do from here.
Part of me is angry, ‘cause how could she not tell me? She’s my girlfriend. I told her I saw myself marrying her, and she’s been keeping this from me the entire time.
But my mind always circles back to how scared she looked. How she wouldn’t go out with me at the start of the school year. How she apologized for dating me.
Maybe she didn’t think she could tell me.
It feels like I should care about all this, that I should see her different now, but I don’t. No matter how hard I try not to, I still love her as much as I did before she told me.
But I don’t know if that’s enough.
I don’t know if, when things get down to it, I’ll be able to—
How would it even work between us? I try to pictureit, even though that’s the last thing I should be doing right now. Me and her, in bed, but all I can see is Iris underneath me, face screwed up in pleasure, and the rest of it—
