Can Dreams Come True?…Part 7

I’m still trying to figure things out.

How he is, how that must feel.

I sort of get it but.

He’s a girl that’s never been a girl but she…he’s not transgendered?

Okay one thing’s pretty clear and that Ryan seems way, way more together than me.

It’s actually kind of nice in that way.

I lean back in the chair I’m in and sort of hug myself and think and I’m still doing that when he comes back and he looks at me.

“Josie? You okay?”

“Yeah…usually no but I mean I guess…I’m surprised though.”

“That I’m…?”

“Yeah, I’m trying to get my head around it.”

“Sorry.”

He’s sitting on the couch and now that I can see him without the baggy shirt yeah he has boobs. But he’s still a he.

“No, you don’t have to be sorry but…you say you’re not trans and that you’re female but you’re a guy…I don’t get how that works?”

He smiles a little. “It’s like this…I was born a girl and I went through all the motions all through highschool to fit in and be this sort of kind of alpha female. I was doing that so I would fit in with the other girls except it wasn’t remotely who I was inside.”

“That kind of fits being trans.”

“I know but I don’t feel the need to change my body.”

“So you’re a butch lesbian?”

“No…not that either. I ended up trying being a lesbian and that was after I had a complete asshole like breakdown when one of my so called…well that’s what I thought then…Kate was one of my super girlie friends, she was just as deep into denial as I was apparently and after her first year in university she comes back and she had come out of the closet as a lesbian. That wigged me out so much that I had a total bitch fit over it and wigged out over it and actually went all bigot and anti-gay and stuff.”

“You?”

“I was in a lot of denial and after a year of it I ended up losing a lot of friends over it and I took off and moved away to Montreal to go to university there. That’s where I stayed with my sort of cousin.”

“Sort of cousin?”

“Toni was his grand niece.” Ryan gestures around the apartment. “She was always at our place whenever her family came down home so I took her up on her offer.”

“Okay and you changed your mind when?”

“There was a car accident in my second year. Toni and I were hit by a drunk driver and there was snow and slush and we were pushed into traffic and she was killed.”

I swallow and I…should I get up and hug him?

“I was in the hospital and there was all this stuff going on and that’s when Toni was actually Anthony and she was trans…I had never really ever put it together not even living together.”

“You never seen each other naked?”

“Actually no. That and losing her pushed me right over the edge into a nervous breakdown. I’d been such a hateful bigot around her because of who I really am I snapped.”

“How bad?”

“Suicide watch for a couple of weeks then a lot of therapy until I got to admit to being really me.”

“So how’d you deal?”

“I had been moved home and my parents weren’t exactly thrilled with me especially mu mother and my sisters when I purged my life of the lies and stuff.”

“Purged like dressing and stuff?”

“Actually a lot like your end of things. Women’s clothes that I actually hated and never felt comfortable in and the make up and all of that stuff and I even cut off all of my hair.”

“So your folks thought you were gay…I mean lesbian?”

“Yeah and it didn’t go over well so I moved out and I went to Halifax and met up and apologized with Kate and I’ve been trying to find myself since then.”

“So can I ask?’

“Ask what?” …… Ryan grins at me. “Sure.”

“So what are you into…like as a partner?”

“People, I’m really not into labels…and I mean that I’ve done the lesbian thing and I’m too much a guy and I’ve tried being the trans-man and that hasn’t worked either because with the gay guys that I was with as a trans-guy I was too female for them still.

“Still?”

“Oh apparently I’m too straight man to be campy-gay and I’m still too much of a girl because I like feminine things.”

“Huh?”

“I like feminine things I just don’t like them for me.”

I’m sort of lost and I can get though why this might be a problem for Ryan and someone that he was with in that whole gay man kind of thing.

“Huh?”

“Okay say we’re out and I see a really nice outfit in the store and it’s sexy and girl and stuff I will fan-girl over it but I would want to see it on you because I would never feel comfortable in it.”

“Oh wow that’s just….”

“That’s just exactly why me and labels don’t mix.”

I look at him and I relax.

“Okay…I think that I can deal.”

“Good because I was really hoping that we were still friends after this coming out.”

I am honestly shocked enough that I have some tears come.

“Josie?”

(Sniffle.) “Still friends?” I’m kind of in shock and it comes out like this questioning whine.

Ryan gets up and he comes over and he actually steps over the arm of the chair and he slips down behind me with a very guyesque thump and then his arms are wrapped around me.

“Yes still friends.”

“But…but…I didn’t know we were friends to start with…” I know I’m whining.

He hugs me a little tighter. “Yeah we’re friends.”

“But…but…” But I’m not worth it it’s the very first thought in my head because I had friends…I had them before I started to transition and before I hit that wall…and…I’m to hard to be around.

I’m not worth the pain I bring.

It’s Ryan squeezing me even tighter and rocking us a little from side to side that sort of brings me out of it and my face is wet and I’ve been crying…actually sobbing because my chest sort of hurts in that way it does when you cry too hard or have like a coughing fit.

He didn’t even say anything he is just hanging onto to me so hard and so strong that it kind of feels like somehow he just kept me from flying apart at the seams.

It’s another ten minutes of sniffling and breathing before I can move enough to look over my shoulder at him and he looks me in the eyes and there’s no fake smile, there’s no judging there is just this calm kind light there because he gets it.

He’s fallen apart and been broken.

I have never had someone look at me without judging or blame and hug me and hold me through it in my life before.

I move enough to sit sideways in his arms and let my head fall on his chest.

(Sniffle.) “Can we not do the wash right now and just sit here for awhile.”

“Absolutely.”

(Sniffle.) “Thanks Ryan.”

“You want to lay down on the couch with me?”

“Can we?”

“Yeah, I actually recommend it.”

I get to move and he moves with me and he waddles me over to the TV and stuff and he puts in a DVD and then he kills the lights and we settle together on the couch and it’s so strange he gets comfy and then pulls me close and I get comfy and I can actually feel my left butt cheek sort of resting in the valley of his pubic mound and his breast sort of in my back but it’s…

He still feels like a guy, he still act’s and sort of just moves….carries himself like that and holds me like one.

If my heart wasn’t feeling so messed up than I might just be aroused…more than I am…which yeah that means I am a little.

We just lie there together and he turns on one of those fireplace log burning DVD’s.

Being held and no judging and someone that gets it and is still talking to me….

It feels like.

It feels like I’ve been tossed off my boat that was my life and that finally someone has their hand out and holding onto mine and keeping the waves from swamping me and keeping the undertow from dragging me down.

I can breathe.