Sweet Dreams-50…Tears Of My Childhood

Chapter 50

*Before…

Again…it’s awhile but that doesn’t matter, I lean my head against his where it’s on my shoulder and just whisper to him.

“Keep you eyes closed and just breathe okay hon…….just feel us…me holding you and you holding me and the smell of the trees, the lawns…feel the sunshine?”

He nods into my shoulder.

“Good…now just sort of picture all of that and she’s in there too…right there Alex…right there in the sunshine only she’s really smiling at you…like she used to and not because she’s bombed or high but she’s just good…she’s watching you and seeing the great guy she’s got and she’s just smiling hon…she’s just good…cause you’re good…it’s all she needs babe…it’s all she needs.”

He’s sobbing again into my shoulder but in there…muffled in there I can hear this faint little.

“I…I can see her.”

*Now…

Alex is holding me tight and it’s that I can almost feel things creak it’s that hard and it sort of hurts and it doesn’t all at the same time. I’m so used to being hurt and feeling things like this…not the hug and the way he’s holding me…no I’m used to the way that Alex is right now and that’s losing it and hanging onto me like I’m the only thing that he’s got to hold onto.

I’ve been there and he can hang onto me as hard as he needs to and I’ll never complain. He needs someone that has been there…that can be there too and dish out all the stuff that comes with being that messed up.

Honestly I love him.

And that’s why I’m here in a situation that I’d rather not actually be in.

Yeah…the things we do and the things we endure for the people that we love.

I rock him back and forth and he will occasionally reach out and finger brush his mom’s tombstone and it’s at least a half an hour before we’re sort of hitting the wall for tears and crying and stuff.

It doesn’t sound like a long time and it likely isn’t really but considering how Alex and even Adam’s been dealing with all of this it’s kind of a big deal. It’s probably released more stress and stuff in both of them that any of us save maybe a shrink would know.

I pull myself back far enough to look him in the face and use my thumbs and palms to wipe at his eyes for him.

“Hey…”

He gives me this tiny and sort of sheepish guy smile. “Hey…”

“Better?’

(Guy-sniffle.) “Hell no…”

“Good, this stuff’s meant to make you feel all screwed up.”

“Oh really…?”

“Definitely, I’m an expert on being fucked up.”

“No…” (Guy-Sniffle.) “You’re awesome.”

“Yeah I’m awesome alright…” I hold up my bandaged hands in front of him.

He takes them and he kisses them and the lets them go and takes his hands to either side of my face and he kisses me.

Nice and long and slow and the others sort of drift off and leave us there alone for awhile. I really like this stuff as much as I sort of want to claim to be this tough girl it’s really something that I need.

I never had something like Alex in my life before y’know and I more than know that it’s supremely messed up that I’m this close to him and living with him given how much a mess that I am and that he is too.

I mean in the real world we should have like started as friends or something and then slowly worked to this kind of thing.

But…

Honestly this is something I don’t get and I don’t want to get. If I start tearing things apart looking at all the reasons why we’re together and analysing the crap out of it I just…it’d just screw things up really.

Guys, people even from Alex’s world do not fall for people like me.

But here we are.

The best I’ve got is Alex is the guy with the experience and I’m the young girl that’s never dated before that’s fallen for her first guy.

I don’t want this to be wrong.

I want this to be something real.

Even if it’s crazy.

Technically I’d likely qualify for that too.

I break the kiss and he looks at me. “You okay?”

“Hell no.” and we’re sort of smiling at each other.

God I like this the fact that it’s true.

We are two very screwed up people and the thing is we’re kind of honest with each other and ourselves with it too.

I stand and brush stuff off me and I take his hand and pull him up to his feet. Okay if there was any proof that I’m actually supposed to be a girl physically besides the obvious medical stuff this is a pretty good indication. I’m maybe a buck-ten and he’s nearly two fifty all big football player muscle and it takes me planting both my feet and leaning way back to get enough force to budge him.

Honestly he does move himself to help me do it because if he was dead weight it’d never happen unless I brought the car over and took a rope and pulled him.

And it’s actually kind of cool that it’s that way now.

I think I like being the girl.

I mean I am the girl being both intersexed and being trans. I know people might say that if I’m one I’m not the other but I had made my choice to transition before I found out about the other stuff with the doctors.

But I was never sort of raised as one despite the fact I was this kind of cross-dressing punker kid. In fact I have a whole lot of former life programming in my head that I’m still dealing with.

Cliff…the stepshit was and is a skinhead.

A real dyed in the wool prison gang member of the whole Aryan Brotherhood and despite being abused and treated like garbage by him and all of the people we knew he still sort of had me where he could keep trying to stuff his bullshit and hate down my throat.

Gays, minorities, women…he was a very opinionated shit for brains as well as my primary abuser.

It wasn’t that long ago that I was struggling with the whole gay thing with Alex and me. Hating myself and there’s still stuff there.

There will always be stuff there.

But since Alex things have changed so much that it doesn’t matter. It’s like one of those fairy tales and stuff like an actual Cinderella story only he didn’t come looking for me with a glass slipper, he came and found me when I was half dead and he saved my life.

I still get a kick out of that idea. Me as Cinderella…I can see the whole scene with the fairy godmother and stuff and the whole glass slipper thing.

I mean transparent shoes are a hooker thing.

I can’t help it but snerk.

Alex slips his fingers into mine and pulls me close as we walk to the parked cars. “Something funny?”

“Just life, I was kind of having a Cinderella moment.”

“Really, here?”

“Yeah actually I think a lot of those Disney stories have some weird real life parallels but they’ve been all cleaned up and stuff.”

“Okay and what brought this on?”

“I kind of get the whole Cinderella thing; I mean my life was in a whole different way was sort of the non-pg version of the poor girl from a not so good family meeting her prince.”

“I’m no prince.”

“Oh yes you are. Alex compared to a whole lot of people you’re rich. Well off and you live a charmed life.”

“No…no I don’t.” he looks sort of back to him mom’s grave.

“No, you don’t but on the surface yeah you kind of do.”

He’s giving me this non-plussed look. “I’m not that useless, I mean most of those guys are useless.”

“Yes and no, you showed up and rescued me.”

“That’s different.”

“Yes it is and it’s sort of I think what they meant. I mean those stories are really cleaned up stuff and I so like you way more that Prince charming guy y’know.”

“Really?”

“Yes because you’re real…and I don’t mean in the non-fiction way but in the fact that you watch the movie and you know nothing about him. They made him a non issue without any issues.”

“So you like me because I have issues?”

“Yes, I couldn’t be with someone that was perfect or acted like they were perfect. I couldn’t take it.”

Alex is looking at me then back at his mom’s grave….then back at me….

“Yeah, no-one can Hunter it’s not right.”

I step closer to him and grip my fingers tighter with his, he’s all stormy looking and stuff again and looking over at Adam.

“It wasn’t just him Alex it was her too.”

“Yeah…” He turns away and he’s staring at me again.

I look him in the eyes. “I promise…I will never act like I’m perfect okay?”

He’s staring at me and he looks down a little shaking his head with a little rueful half smile there. “That is the best and most screwed up thing a girl has ever said to me.”

I smile back and shrug. “I am a right messed up person Alex, we both are and I think if people actually admitted that a lot more in relationships then they’d be better off.”

“Yeah, and to think we just got all emotional and in a tiff over Disney stuff.”

“Tiff?’

“Y’know fight?”

“Uhm…that wasn’t a fight…”

He hugs me.

Okay I’m missing something with that, was this a fight where he comes from?

We get to the cars and April is on the phone and she looks at me. “Hunter?”

“Mmm…yeah?”

“Wednesday.”

“Huh?” I’m still kind of in brainlock over that being a fight. Or rather Alex thinking we had a…tiff.

“They can fit you in on Wednesday.”

“For what?”

“Your surgery.”

“That soon?” Holy crap.

“Yes, there were a few openings in the schedule.” What she means was she’s connected and she pulled some strings.

I just sort of stand there a few minutes and she’s looking at me her hand covering her cell phone and Alex moves and wraps his arms around me. “Hunter you don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do.”

I shiver a little sort of nerves and yet not. I close my eyes and calm myself down. It’s a huge big scary step really and suddenly in my face as a reality. I stifle a giggle at the thought of what is figuratively staring me in the face.

“Okay…”

Alex asks me. “Are you sure it’s not like they can reverse this?”

“Yes I’m sure I want to move ahead in my life and in my body. I want to be me finally.”

April smiles at me and she goes back to talking into her phone and Adam’s sticking close to her but I just give both of them a smile and walk us both over to George and Moira.

Moira’s looking at us and smiling a little shyly and she sort of opens her arms a little for a hug. I give her one and Alex is tentative it’s not that he doesn’t want to but he’s got that whole thing where he’s never hugged them before and they’re strangers so it takes him a few starts to hug her.

I hear a muffled. “I...I remember this…I think.”

I’m hugging George. “Thank you Hunter this means a lot to us.”

I wipe at my eyes again. “It’s okay George, we needed this too. Alex needs family and given how I told you guys about some of my child hood family like this…this can be fixed, we can work at it.”

“It still makes an old man’s heart happy girl, thank you.”

“Okay, I’m not going to argue but Adam’s involved here too, this will take baby steps okay.”

He looks a little less than pleased and he looked over to Adam who’s looking back and there’s some tension there building.

“Hey…I said baby steps and family this is not going to be about you too fighting over Liz, that’s done.”

He purses his lips but sort of nods.

“Okay…”

He nods again.

“Next Sunday.”

“What?”

“Alex and I’ll come over to the house next Sunday okay?”

“Uhm…yes…will he?”

“I think so, we have to start sometime, maybe us stopping over for dinner would be okay to start.”

“I think Moira would love that.”

“Good…I’ll talk it over with Alex.”

I go to the car and Alex shakes George’s hand and they do that sort of guy barely hug thing and then he’s walking over to me.

“So we’re going to Sunday diner at their house next week?”

“You don’t want to?”

“No, no just checking.”

“Are you mad?’

“Nope?”

“You’re not mad?”

“Hunter, trust me I’m not mad.” He looks amused and he opens my door and I get in then he gets in too.

“Okay…what’s so funny?”

“Oh it’s just you being like this and planning my day, my weekend without asking me is…”

“Oh…oh shit I did that didn’t I…?” I’m completely mortified, that’s not a cool thing to do…that just.

“Yes Jenn you did.”

I stare at him and my jaw is hanging open and he looks just amused as he starts the car and pulls out.