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Memory 6

I moved away from Simone and the others. Not without a word, I'm not that cold, not anymore. I called Simone, said I was sorry, said I'd pay my part for the next month, said I was going through some shit and needed to restructure my life.

She said: cool, good luck.

And that was that.

I never called Cynthia. Her name and number on that piece of paper were only a reminder of who I had been, who I now wished I never was. I wanted that part of my life to be over. For the most part I succeeded.

This was the comedown, the leveling off, the return to reality. Less theatrical, less manic, more manageable. Slow your role, take stock. Live. Breathe.

The first few weeks were painful, but necessary. I suffered constant withdrawal from the variety of shit I had pumped into my system over the course of the last few months. I was all crying and regret and copious apologizing, almost all of which was directed at Cecil who quickly grew tired of it.

I was living with my parents again, as much as I wished I wasn't, but I spent as much free time as I could with Cecil, often staying over on weekends. Cecil offered more kindness than I deserved. He was always patient too, which was especially impressive considering how much of a queen I could be. I was lucky to have him and I knew it.

I told him about my year, working backwards from getting high and going into debt doing it, living with Simone and the boys, the weeks I spent so close to Ruben, all the way back to seeing Blue and saying all the wrong things. He listened without comment or judgment, nodding and occasionally prompting me to expand on something, but otherwise leaving me to it.

It was scary, being honest, but it was freeing too. When you tell all the truths there are to tell about yourself to another person you become intensely vulnerable, but if you're accepted for who you are then, god, it feels good.

Only after everything had been said did Cecil share his thoughts.

“It seems to me you've been borderline obsessed with Sophie since the day you met."

“I wish I could disagree, but..." I shrugged.

“Don't feel so bad. Sophie was obsessed with you too you know. What was it like in those early days, when the two of you first met?"

“It was a whirlwind." I said. “When I met Blue he-"

“She."

Cecil's correction was instant and firm, but not scalding.

I hesitated. I didn't understand.

“But when I met her she was a he, so-"

“No." He shook his head. “You're not getting it. She was a she back then too. It's the same as when people say shit like 'being gay is a choice'. No, it's not. You don't wake up one day and decide to like guys. Sophie didn't wake up one day and decide she was a woman. She just wasn't ready to admit it to us back then. Maybe she hadn't admit it to herself yet either."

“But, if Blue didn't know back then I don't see why-"

“Stop. You weren't straight when you were a little kid just because you didn't know you were bi. She's a woman. Show some respect and refer to her as such. It's not hard."

I found it tough to reconcile my preconceptions with Cecil's guidance. At times I felt spiteful towards his strict adherence to Sophie's identity, though such spite was born only out of selfish desire for simplicity, for familiarity, for ease, for Blue to be who I had pretended she was. At times I wanted to rebel and revert to my former self. I wanted to be selfish and smug, asinine and awful.

But those times passed, and when enough had been said and I'd had my fill of sleep-poor nights spent in reflection, it was as if a switch had been flipped in my head. All at once a great many things made sense to me.

I was embarrassed. What a fool I had been. How ignorant. How utterly arrogant. It really was all so obvious, so simple. Sophie is a woman. That she didn't always know it or that she didn't tell me when we met did not diminish that at all.

My time with Cecil wasn't all reminiscing and rumination though. We spent our fair share of evenings relaxing and enjoying one another's company, ordering takeout, playing video games, watching Netflix and, yeah, after a few weeks of reconciliation, sleeping together. I threw my hesitation over fucking friends out the window. We were both single, lonely, horny guys after all. We were not to be blamed if there was error to our ways. And Cecil was Cecil. I had known him so long, so intimately. Being in his presence like this, with such consistency and closeness, there was no way things could have gone any differently.

Cecil was charming in an unassuming kind of way. Casually captivating. Creatively carnal, when context called. A soft touch on the wrist could lead to a kiss could lead to a post-coital cuddle. Warm smiles and warm words were enough to keep me company on those nights where the past felt like it was catching up to me. Cecil made me feel special. He cared more about me than I did. It made being in his presence easy, effortless. I enjoyed nigh on every moment spent with him.

But we kept it casual. I didn't think much of it outside of the physical intimacy. It kept us happy and kept our libidos in check, that was enough for me. Frankly it was all I could handle. And Cecil was all smiles almost all the time, so I could only assume he was happy with his side of things.

Spending time with him was a blessing. I felt he was wise beyond his years, or perhaps I was just witless inside mine. In his presence I learned so much. I managed to stop being so self-absorbed and, when I finally finished yapping on about myself, I asked how he'd been. Though hearing what he had to say made me feel a fool all over again.

Cecil had been in a relationship for six months and I'd had no idea, or maybe I'd seen it online one drug addled night and had since blocked out the memory. Regardless, it was new information to me. Their breakup had been messy apparently, I didn't prod, but I was curious. He offered the information himself eventually. It was a tangled web, but all that needs to be said is he was glad it was over, though that didn't make the breakup any easier.

He couldn't afford this flat much longer, living alone as he was. I said I could move in and pay my share. He was tempted but said I should stay with my parents for now and focus on stabilizing my finances. I would have loved to argue, but he had the right of it. He was right so often I found it infuriating at times, he wasn't an easy person to argue with. In truth I looked up to him, in spite of our status as relative peers.

At some point I brought up Ruben. Neither of us had talked to him in months, but I felt we couldn't escape his shadow forever. Apparently Cecil tried to meet him half a year ago, but Ruben couldn't help but spout shit that Cecil couldn't help but refute which, of course, lead nowhere productive. Needless to say, they didn't meet. I wondered out loud what had happened to Ruben. He hadn't always been this way.

Cecil shrugged; he wasn't happy with the way things were, but the conclusion he had come to was simply that we weren't responsible for Ruben. The fox had made his own decisions. Cecil had tried to talk to him, had tried to help, but for his efforts he was demeaned, ridiculed and pushed away. He told me that after the shit Ruben had said to him, he didn't feel an ounce of sympathy toward the person the fox had become.

I wished such reasoning could have worked for me, but I hadn't reached out to Ruben as Cecil had since those weeks we spent together a year ago. My only contact with him was the one sided experience of seeing the dodgy ass posts he'd put online every so often and cringing. I'd feel like shit reading them, knowing that he used to be my friend, that he was like this now and that I had never once tried to help him.

I asked Cecil if we should've done something to prevent this in those early days. Cecil said that in those early days we didn't know anything was wrong, and by the time we did...

He trailed off, leaving me to fill the gap.

By the time we knew anything was wrong I was there with him, feeding into his hatred, his phobias, his small-mindedness. I made everything worse or, at the very least, did nothing to make things better.

Cecil told me I'm not to blame and said that I'm trying my best, that I'm doing better, being better. He said that matters more than whatever mistakes I once made, at least to him.

His words offered some comfort, but not a lot. In one short year I had gathered a lifetime of regrets.

The topic of Ruben was upsetting to the both of us. We soon stopped talking about him.

In a matter of weeks Cecil moved to a more modest apartment. It wasn't much, but it was cozy enough. It would do. I helped him move, packing, unpacking, doing what I could to be of assistance throughout the whole process. I figured I owed him that much. Really I owed him more.

One day, on a whim, lying naked in his bed, I asked Cecil if he still liked girls.

“Of course I like girls," he said.

“Well, yeah, but you know what I mean. Sexually."

“Sure," he said.

“Sure?" I asked.

He smirked.

“Sure, but...".

“But you really like dick?"

He snorted and I thought he was about to laugh, but hesitation hit instead. Emptiness filled his eyes. His whole face sunk. I had said something wrong.

“It's more complicated than that. Love and attraction, gender and physicality... It's not that simple."

He left it there, and so did I, but I didn't forget. I realized there was a lot I still didn't understand. I had uncertainties and fears and questions. In time I found the courage to ask them.

Days passed. Weeks. We talked about a lot of things: identity, gender, sexuality. Maybe that sounds like a list of buzzwords, but it isn't. To claim so would be dishonest. The words represent meaningful ideas, things that actually matter and, in honesty, I had rarely given them deep thought.

It was difficult. I remember moments of frustrated regression.

It felt like the more I learned, the more I still had left to learn. Sometimes my arrogance got the better of me, I puffed out my chest and spat my thoughts thinking some good old fashioned logic would easily dismantle Cecil's statements. Truth is I didn't know what I was talking about. I was working from outdated, errantly internalized ideas and archaic preconceptions.

I found out how little I really knew. Knowing I knew so little was scary and part of me waged war against understanding; I tried to cling to the subconscious belief that I must already have known what is right and what is wrong.

I remember saying something like: gender's a social construct, why does it even matter? Do what you want with your body, wear what you want, act how you want, but why bother with all of this gendered baggage?

Cecil's patience was seemingly boundless.

He advised empathy at every turn: try to put yourself in someone else's shoes. Just because you don't find gendered concepts all that useful or important doesn't mean others don't, or that they shouldn't.

He said it was funny, actually, if only I'd look at things from another angle I wasn't far off describing how some non-binary people saw themselves.

But that was exactly it: themselves.

You can be true to yourself without diminishing others' truths.

Why was that so hard for me to understand? All that heartache only to reach a simple axiom.

I slept little and thought much. Often when I was at home, in the middle of the night, I would go to the window, draw the curtains and stare at the stars. I would think back on my life and, in doing so, I encountered moments and decisions that in retrospect stood out to me. I'd dwell on things I'd said and done, about ways I had felt and still did feel. I started to wonder if, perhaps, I really was non-binary.

But, no. Stupid. How could I be? Somebody like me who couldn't even tell you what non-binary meant until a few weeks ago? I couldn't be. Right?

I didn't know.

I still don't.

Even now I don't have all the answers, but I keep searching, I keep learning, I keep improving, and each time I improve I feel a little better. The world doesn't have to be so awful if you don't want it to be. I had learned it was within my grasp to change my perception, to see things differently, to find beauty outside the obvious. I wouldn't trade that knowledge for anything, even if now it all seems so elementary.

Something kept nagging at me though, making me lose sleep, always at the corner of my mind. Every day. Every hour.

It was Sophie. Of course it was Sophie.

Not the who, the what, or the why of her.

Nothing so trivial. Nothing so vulgar.

Rather that I loved her.

That I had loved her for years.

That her being a woman hadn't stopped me from loving her. Why should it?

But while these thoughts were swirling through my head I had to be honest with myself, I didn't really know her. How could I? I hadn't spoken to her in a year.

I was being presumptuous again, though at least this time I knew it. That all of my prejudices toward her were positive ones didn't justify a thing.

At some point I told Cecil all of it: that I loved her, that I wanted to talk to her. His features fell. He looked tired. He knew this was coming and had wished it wasn't.

He said: let's talk about it.

I stared at the wall and thought, not in that brief and instinctive kind of way, no, I really thought.

And when I was done thinking I said: yeah, let's talk, but it can wait.

He found a smile and nodded.

Sophie was still on my mind though. There was something I had to ask.

“How come you and Sophie aren't so close anymore?"

Cecil found a frown and said: “I went to see her a couple weeks after you moved out. I thought everything went great, but since then? Ice. She rarely responds to my messages. Don't get me wrong, she's always kind when we do interact, she even sent season's greetings and birthday well-wishes, but whenever I've tried to organize something she's shrugged it off. She'll say she'd love to but ooh sorry, I have such and such on that day. I'm sure she'd claim we're close if I asked, but she acts almost like she's... scared of me. At this point I've stopped initiating conversations. I figure she wants to be left alone."

My head hurt. I asked a simple question: “but, why?"

“Honestly? I think it's because I remind her of you."

He gave me the softest, saddest smile.

It hurt him to say those words. It hurt more for me to hear them.

Other than pain I didn't know what to feel.

Moment 2

I dreamed about it. That memory. I woke up. Thought about it. Cried about it. Went to work. Couldn't concentrate. Muddled through anyway. Went home. Ate two bites of mom's lasagna. Couldn't stomach the rest. Went to Cecil's. Told him all about it. He listened, he's a good listener, but he didn't get it. Or at least he thought I shouldn't sweat it. It's in the past, a past I can't go back to. But I went home and here I am, laying in bed, totally unable to stop thinking about it.

What is it? You know what it is. It's that evening, back when we were together. It was only a month before you abruptly moved away. I didn't know it then, but it was the last time we were truly together. It was the last time I could've called you mine.

We had some tiny little argument the morning after, remember? We shouted, I walked off in a huff. I came back to you hours later, feeling a fool, but you'd had enough. You told me we were through. I seethed.

I'm not proud of who I was. I don't know how you ever loved me. Maybe I had some good features hidden deep inside, out of sight of my feeble mind's eye. I don't know.

But that's not what this is about. This is about that night. We went to the park together, set out a blanket and lay under the stars. All of space and time was ours. We kissed and we touched and we could never pull apart. I felt forever in you. What you felt I never knew.

I only know what you told me, and what you told me as the two of us lay sprawled, fingers entangled, looking up into the starry black of night was that you always felt different. That you still feel different.

I said you were different. I told you you were beautiful, thoughtful, challenging, exhilarating.

You said that's not what you meant. I asked what you meant and you said forget it. I tried to.

Five minutes later you asked me if I ever wished I was born different. I said I wished I was born rich, flashed you a grin, you laughed and jabbed my side and we kissed.

You went quiet. I asked you if you wished you were born different. You didn't respond for so long I thought maybe you had fallen asleep in the still of the cool night air, under the beauty of the endless fields of stars and the waning moon, but you hadn't.

Eventually, eventually, you said: sometimes.

You said it's all random. I said what and you said this, everything. You said it's all chance, it's all a miracle of chance. You said the earth was hit by a comet when it was a lifeless rock. That comet sent us into a new orbit, our current orbit, and that this orbit is the only reason life ever developed on this planet, the only reason either of us were alive.

You said it's all about the stars. You pointed into the sky and you said it's all about the stars. You said without them we wouldn't be here.

You said if that comet had been any bigger or any smaller, if it had hit this rock at a different angle, if any one factor had changed about that collision, about this galaxy, about the laws of the universe, then we wouldn't be here right now.

You said another comet could hit us at any time and take all of this away. You said even if it doesn't, one day the sun will burn up and the earth will become uninhabitable.

You said it's all random chance that we're alive. You said it's all random chance that we are born who we are. You said it's all random chance when we're born, where we're born, why we're born.

You took a moment, stretched your arms, and said it's all about the stars hon, it's all about the stars.

I gave you some cheesy line I had been thinking up while you were speaking: then I'll thank the stars I'm with you.

Now I'm here looking out my bedroom window trying to find those same stars we were staring at that night, wishing I could go back in time. My eyes were closed back then. I should have realized what was going on with you, or at least I could have engaged with your feelings more directly, but I didn't. I missed that opportunity, and every other opportunity you threw my way.

The curse is that my clarity only came in retrospect. I should have done more to help you, to encourage you, to understand you. I wish I had. I truly wish I had.

I love you. I loved you. You loved me. Now you hate me and I can't even blame you.

Sophie. I'm sorry.

Not that you can hear my thoughts.

Nor that you'd want to.

I cry into my pillow until I can't hear them either.