For the Love of April French

by Penny Aimes

  “No, I’m okay,” she said. She felt not so much okay as numb. She had a suspicion that when she felt things again, she’d feel like she’d cut off a limb.

  “April, I know you need this job. Do you need me to help you walk it back?”

  The last thing she needed. “No,” she said, as harshly as she could manage. “Really, I’m—I hated it. I hated my job, and now I don’t have to do it.”

  “April, I’m so sorry. I feel like this is my fault.” There was a wheedle in his voice of both guilt and frustration. He was upset with her for throwing gas on the fire, for making him feel bad for her when he ought to be mad at her. That seemed fair when she thought about it, but it was almost unbearable to hear in his voice.

  “It’s okay,” she said grimly. She wanted to hang up, but the part of her that still ached to make things right with him and the part of her that was comforted by the sound of his voice, no matter what it was saying, vetoed that.

  “What are you going to do?” he demanded, and for a split second she hated him, because that was exactly the question that she was trying not to ask herself.

  In the same dull voice: “I don’t know yet. I’ll figure something out.”

  “If you need money to tide you over,” he began, and everything in her rose up in revolt at that, from her pride to her desire to the self-loathing urge to be punished.

  “You don’t have to do that,” she said.

  “April, I feel like—”

  “I said no,” she said, a ragged edge of emotion showing through at last. It was like a deep cut that took a minute to start bleeding, but any second now she was going to be lying in a pool of her own blood.

  “Why won’t you let me help you?” he said, and he sounded wounded, and that dropped her right back into the ice water.

  “Because I don’t want you to,” she said in a low voice. Why couldn’t this part be over? She needed it to be over.

  “Please. If things get desperate. Please reconsider.”

  “Okay,” she said, because obviously it was the only way off the phone. And he said something else that she didn’t ever register. “Okay. Yes. Okay, bye.” Okay. That was that.

  She went and sat in her nook and watched Chopped on her phone until it sank in what she’d done, and then she threw up.

  A few days later, Fatima came by to pick up her laptop and tell her how much she would be missed. “But good for you. I know you hated what it turned into. I’ll never forgive myself for telling you to take the promotion.”

  “Well, maybe once I have health insurance again, I’ll forgive you,” April grumbled. Fatima’s face fell.

  “I’m sorry.”

  April bit her tongue, just long enough to let the explosion build in force. “Yeah, maybe you can just remember this the next time you want to get your meddle on. You wanted to help me with my career, you wanted to help me with my relationship? Both of those were one hell of a lot better before your help.” She swallowed, aghast at what had flown out of her mouth but not willing to apologize. She hated feeling like this, acting like this, but the words were out and stubbornly refused to be taken back.

  Fatima closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I am sorry, April. Please stay in touch.” April said something noncommittal, and Fatima left without a hug.

  April started and deleted six apology texts, but in the end, she left it on that chilly note.

  Snarling at Fatima seemed to shatter her lethargy into restlessness and discontent. That night, she went to Frankie’s; half-afraid she’d see Dennis there and half-hopeful. Either way, he wasn’t around.

  Instead she was cornered by Vic, who was desperate for help planning the club’s annual Halloween party. She politely refused but felt bad enough to at least help him manage the bar’s erratic social media. It was officially his job, but for the last three years she had handled the newsletter and tweets and FetLife profile for the bar, and all of the accounts needed to be dusted off. She found some messages from the Shibari demonstrators from the summer and took the time to respond before catching up with friends over drinks. Lots of drinks.

  Caroline drifted up to her, tight PVC and shimmering lips. April was in jeans. Not even good jeans. She just...couldn’t be bothered right now.

  “Hey,” said Caroline. “I’m sorry about the thing with Dennis.”

  “It’s fine,” she said, staring at her drink. “You coming for my blessing before you make your move?” That was a bitchy thing to say, said the part of her that watched and criticized all the time, but it was drowning in rum.

  Caroline rolled her eyes. “Jesus, April.”

  “What?” She felt fed up, sick to death, ready to bite. “It’s not like it hasn’t happened before. I’m just training wheels, right?”

  “Hey, dummy, are any of those guys still with me? I forget.” Caroline’s shimmering mouth pulled into a tight purse. “And you know what else? I asked you, every time, before I played with someone you knew. Every time, you said it was fine.”

  “Well, what the fuck was I supposed to say? ‘Oh, Caroline, please don’t take my man?’ I have a little more dignity than that.”

  “Yeah. You’ve got your dignity, and you’ve got no man,” said Caroline. April absorbed that direct hit as Caroline brushed her hair back and set her jaw. “So I guess you’ve got more than I do, at least. You know Dennis took me out to lunch—”

  “I don’t want to—”

  “Took me out to lunch so I could tell him how to win you over? Did you know that? Has there ever been a guy in this place who took dom lessons with Mister Tony to learn to be better for me? Did I miss that?” She exhaled heavily, and said in a less combative tone: “I’m sorry if you feel disposable sometimes, but so do I. So do a lot of girls, sometimes. It comes with the package.”

  “It’s not the same,” April said in a low voice. She stared down into her drink and shook her head.

  “You’re probably right,” Caroline said, in a softer voice. “But does that mean we can’t be friends?”

  She closed her eyes. She could feel her anger collapsing like a leaking inflatable bouncy castle, all the proud ramparts of indignation sinking into themselves. As the things Caroline had actually said caught up with her, she felt her anger flushed away by her grief that she’d fucked things up so badly. He’d done all that? For her? And Caroline had known—not just known, had been in on it?

  How could you be angry at someone who was part of a conspiracy to make you happy?

  She cleared her throat of the sudden choke of emotion. “I’m sorry, Caroline. We are friends. At least, I hope so.”

  “Aw.” Caroline gave her a squashy side hug. “Of course we are. Subs before hubs, right?”

  “Is...that’s not a thing, is it?” She realized abruptly, in a way that she remembered but had stopped feeling when envy really took root, that Caroline was several years younger and slightly ridiculous and despite everything a good friend. A good person.

  “I just made it up, what do you think? You know, like hubby?”

  “Let’s...keep workshopping that,” she said gently.

  Later, head still gently swimming, she went up to the roof. It was getting colder at night at last and the place was almost deserted, but she sat under one of the heaters and looked out at the lights of the city. He can’t take this from me, she thought. It doesn’t belong to him.

  The lights doubled, redoubled through her tears.

  Dennis

  One of the things the contractors had finished was a regulation basketball half-court in the backyard. Work was over and in the tiny rind of November daylight, Jason and Dennis jostled and tried to feel sixteen again.

  “So how’s recovery?” Jason asked. He took a shot from beyond the three-point line and missed dramatically.

  “Is that what this is?” Dennis retrieved the ball. “Feels more like purgatory.”r />
  “Nice line. Very dramatic. I’m serious. Are you mad at her yet?” Jason set the world’s worst pick and Dennis slid past him.

  “Why do you want me to be mad at her?” Dennis snapped. He fired off a shot which also missed.

  Jason hustled after it. “Dennis, straight up, is it possible we just suck at basketball? Did we get old maybe?”

  “My theory is there’s something wrong with this hoop. Does this look regulation to you?”

  “Yeah, it definitely is. Look. You didn’t tell April off the night that—”

  “We didn’t break up.”

  “—the night that you and April decided to fundamentally devastate each other in exactly the way I predicted,” Jason said. “Better?”

  Dennis shook his head. “You’re the worst friend.”

  “I’m just saying you’ve got to have some shit you need to get off your chest.” Jason took another shot, which dropped through. Nothing but net.

  “I did yell at her,” Dennis mumbled.

  “You did? About lying for six months?”

  “Not exactly...” He walked over the back patio and dropped into a padded lawn chair. It was getting too dark to play, anyway. “It was later. When she wouldn’t let me give her money.”

  “Sure, very normal thing to get mad about.” Jason tucked the ball under his arm and walked over to him. “Dennis. My man. What the fuck.”

  “I don’t know,” said Dennis. “I mean, I am mad at her. I’m fucking furious. I’m just mad about all the wrong stuff.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m mad that she quit her job because of this, and now it’s on my conscience that she’s out of work and maybe can’t cover her bills. I tried to give her money to help tide her over and she wouldn’t let me. Like, what the fuck is all this money good for?” It made him think of Keisha and her stubborn, pointless pride.

  He deflated slightly and admitted: “I’m mad that she didn’t say anything when I used the safeword.” That was bedrock; when someone safewords out, you acknowledge and thank them for communicating before anything else. Dennis took it seriously, like any late convert, and to tell the truth it frightened him to see it go by the board when things got tense. It reminded him too much of Sonia. Maybe hiding behind the rules of the game had been a way to avoid how genuinely devastated he’d been in that moment, but that just made it feel worse that she hadn’t followed them.

  “I’m mad,” he said, “that for six months she walked around waiting for that bomb to go off and end our relationship, and she was fine with that. She thought that was all she deserved. I’m mad because I don’t know how I can ever be with her if she thinks that little of herself, and I want to be with her...” He hung his head and muttered, “So goddamn much.”

  Jason exhaled and dropped into a chair. “Well, shit. You really are in love with her.”

  Dennis looked up at the purpling sky. “Yeah, I really am. So fuck me, I guess.”

  “Maybe...” Jason waved a hand and sighed. “Maybe you should just forgive her.”

  “It’s not about forgiveness,” Dennis said slowly. He’d been thinking about this a lot. “It’s...about whether she’s ready to be in a relationship or not. Especially one as intense as ours. I need to know she’s not... I need to know. I talked to Tony about it and he agreed, it has to come from her.”

  “Oh, well if Tony said so,” Jason said with an eye roll.

  “Hey,” said Dennis, sharp enough to get Jason’s attention. He smirked. “That’s Mister Tony to you, isn’t it?”

  Jason gave him the finger.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  Dennis shrugged. “Wait. Hope.” He was spending a lot of time hoping lately. He couldn’t say he preferred it to planning. His every urge was to do, fix, solve, but this was something she could only do herself. Tony agreed. His therapist agreed. It was the right play.

  It felt like dying by inches, but he knew it was the right decision. He just had to wait. And hope.

  April

  Elena and the rest of the Dungeons & Dragons crew were supportive. Melissa had pointed out she still needed a new roommate, which was horrifying to imagine but kindly meant, and Joanne had offered to see what positions were available at her company. April knew the closeted girl was taking a risk bringing her two worlds so close together and appreciated it.

  Elena had pressed her, very, very gently, about telling the truth to her therapist, and she hung her head. “I know,” she said. “I know.”

  While she still had insurance, April started going to therapy twice a week. She needed the extra time to backfill her personal history. Her therapist scribbled furiously as she rewrote the history of the last ten years to include certain truths. Finally, he laid down his pen.

  “Thank you for telling me all of this. I know it wasn’t easy.” His tone was calm and even, and it pissed her off a little.

  “That’s not true,” she said. “You’re mad. Nobody likes it when you keep secrets.” Her own voice was jagged.

  “I’m not mad,” he said. “I’m a therapist. People lie to me a lot, even though they pay me to be able to tell me the truth. Hopefully, eventually, they tell me the truth, and we can talk about why they felt like they had to lie in the first place.”

  “There it is,” she said. “You know why I didn’t tell you? You know why? Because this is not a relationship of equals, okay? If I tell you I’m into kink, if you think this is a fetish, then you can say, whoops! No hormones for you! No surgeries! Textbook case of autogynephilia!” She could hear the bitterness and fury in her voice. She felt like someone had torn open a hole to some kind of abscessed pit in her soul and it was just pouring this stuff out all the time now. It made her feel sick, yet the relief was unutterable.

  Her therapist smiled crookedly. “That would be a pretty outdated textbook. But your point’s well-taken. So you feel like as a transgender person, there’s an inherent trade-off between telling the truth and...being taken seriously?”

  “Between telling the truth and safety,” she snapped. “You don’t know how many times I’ve had to pick a restroom and not know which one will get me beaten up. I told my grandma the truth and I’m not welcome at home now. I told my work the truth and I don’t have a job anymore. I told Dennis the truth and he’s gone.”

  “That’s very profound,” her therapist said. “It sounds like this is a pretty central belief for you.”

  “It’s not a belief,” she said, her voice ringing in the cozy room. She usually liked this room, although it was small; the natural light and the many plants made a charming, comfortable space. Right now she wanted to start smashing flowerpots. “It’s the central fact of my life. Every day since I was born, I woke up and decided if I could stand to keep lying.”

  He nodded. “And eventually you couldn’t.”

  Her jaw worked. She choked on a sob and put her head down.

  “Telling the truth means trusting someone not to hurt you,” he said. “And you certainly can’t trust everyone. But if you don’t trust anyone, sooner or later something has to give. That happened a few years ago. I think that’s what’s happening now.”

  She sniffed hard and raised her head. “I know. I’m... I’m out of control. I lost my job. I yelled at Caroline and at Fatima.” She sounded to herself as if she’d just heard about it and was horrified.

  “Your friends don’t seem to blame you. And it was a job you didn’t like.”

  “A job I need to pay for things! To pay you,” she pointed out. Her therapist waved that away.

  “We have a sliding scale if we need to use it. I’m not going to abandon you, April. Some people will run away from the truth, that’s true. But some people want to help you, and telling the truth can help them do it. I’m just saying, it’s not a one-way choice.”

  “I need your help,” she said quietly. “I’m wre
cking my life lately.”

  “I don’t think that’s true,” he said. “You turned down Dennis’s offer to help financially. Why did you do that?”

  “Because it would...” He waited. She bit her lip. “Because it would mean we could never be together. He’ll never let someone be totally dependent on him again. A friend, maybe, but not a lover. And I don’t want that, either.”

  “If you thought you were going to be on the streets, thought you were going to starve, would you let him help? Or would you rather die first?”

  “Of course not,” she scoffed. “If I had to...”

  “So doesn’t that mean you haven’t given up yet? On finding a job, or on getting Dennis back. Part of you—the part that truly cares about survival—read the situation and decided it was okay to take that risk. I know you’ve got plenty of savings. Part of the point of being a practical person is that you’re prepared when things go out of control.”

  She sat silently for a long moment, and he let her. Finally, he prompted: “What if you leaned into this? What if you let yourself be out of control for a little while?”

  She laughed helplessly. “I’m pretty sure this is not what a therapist is supposed to tell you to do. I want to be getting better, not spiraling out of control.”

  He nods. “Getting better. What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know, I—I’ve never been in a relationship like this. My ex-wife was a white woman who never really stopped seeing me as a man. I know I’ve got a lot to learn and figure out if I’m going to be good enough for Dennis. And right now I’m...really far from being that person. I lied to him for months. I remember thinking, when he came to Dallas... I remember thinking I wanted to be a safe place for him. I didn’t want him to have to be strong all the time. But even now he’s being strong for us. Let alone...”

  She laughed weakly. “He found a mentor. He learned about trans stuff. For me, because he wanted me in his life. Nobody ever wanted me like that.