Flesh & Blood

by A. E. Dooland

  She stretched. “That’s not a bad idea,” she decided, and as I lifted her legs and got up to fetch it from her bed, she called smugly after me, “Some tea would be great, too, thanks!”

  When I actually delivered her doona and the tea she asked for, she at least looked a bit guilty. “I was joking about the tea,” she said sheepishly. “But thanks for letting me know I can totally milk the fact I’m pregnant. Can I have a foot massage, too?”

  “Don’t push it,” I warned her, tucking the doona all around her and then standing up. “Do you actually need anything else?”

  “Nah.” She set the tea aside for a second and looked up at me. “Well, maybe a hug.” I bent down and obliged. She didn’t let me go straight away, and when she did, her grin was gone and she kept holding my fingertips. I squeezed her hand and gave her a gentle smile. She scoffed. “God, we’re disgusting, look at us,” she said, and pulled me back down for another quick hug. “Gross! Okay, off you go. I need to spend some quality time sooking by myself over how much my life is ruined.” I retreated off into my bedroom to let her do that.

  I didn’t go to sleep straight away, either. It was way too early for me, and my mind kept ticking back to what Sarah had said about me wanting Henry’s help with Mum. It was fucking selfish of me to expect him to help, wasn’t it? After I’d broken up with him, why the hell would he want to do anything for me?

  Because we were friends, I thought immediately, and then felt really conflicted. He would help if I asked—at least, I thought he probably would. This was Henry: he’d help almost anyone in the world if they asked for it. That didn’t make asking him the right thing to do, though. Not after what happened, even if we had been friends.

  I remembered that last evening on our balcony: his tears, our tears, as we said goodbye to four long years of being everything to each other. ‘My soulmate’, he’d called me, and put those words in silver print on the inside of a ring box.

  That drove me to dig it out of my stuff in the corner of my room. After I found it, I sat cross-legged on the floor and brushed all the fluff off the black velveteen cover, opening it. Inside, the beautiful solitaire diamond he’d chosen for me sat nested and forgotten in the stuffing, framed by the text, ‘…to my best friend and soulmate, will you be my wife?’

  I plucked the ring out of the box, turning it in the light and automatically slipping it onto my finger. It fit, but that didn’t matter. I couldn’t be anyone’s ‘wife’, not even Henry’s.

  I looked down at the ring. Fuck, I was selfish, wasn’t I? What a disgusting thing for me to assume I had the right to do: use him to help with my mother. He was mourning not just for our relationship, but for his lost best friend, his lost soulmate, Miss Min Lee—someone who had disappeared from his life forever. And me? I wanted to use him to avoid a difficult conversation with my mother.

  It wasn’t just him who needed to let me go; I needed to let him go, too. He wasn’t my pillar of strength anymore; I couldn’t rely on him to help me. It was no use waiting for his phone calls or wondering if he was okay and what he was up to, none of that mattered. We’d already made our last memories together. He was gone, and he was asking me to let him go.

  It finally hit home: I was going to have to somehow do all this without him.

  I put the ring back in the box and tucked it away, climbing into bed and pulling the covers all around me. I felt sick, and even though there were other people who would be there for me if I needed it and not just Henry anymore, at that moment, Henry was the one I wanted.

  I needed to tell someone. “I miss Henry,” I texted Bree, hoping she wouldn’t take it personally.

  I don’t think she did. “it wont always hurt <3 <3 <3”

  I sent her back a heart emoticon and tucked myself in.

  I didn’t sleep well. These days when I felt like crap, Bree was normally beside me, warm and sleepy and ready to cuddle with me until I felt better. She wasn’t tonight, and so I tossed and turned, slept through my alarm and missed Sarah leaving.

  That afternoon, the back door opened so slowly and with so much restraint I thought it was Rob finally coming back. It was a bit of a shock when Bree was the one who slunk in, placing her bag by the door and coming over to wrap her arms around my shoulders over the back of the couch. “Are you okay?”

  I smiled and kissed her temple. “Yeah.”

  She put her chin on top of my head. “Really?” When I nodded, she exhaled. “Good,” she said, sounding relieved. “I was, like, really, really, really strong and didn’t ask about how Sarah is because you were upset, but I’ve been seriously, like, actually dying all day wanting to know what happened.”

  I laughed a bit. “Oh, right. Sorry, yesterday was….” I shook my head. “Anyway, she couldn’t go through with it.”

  Bree froze for a moment, as if she wasn’t sure she’d heard me right. Then, she lit up. “Really?” she asked me. “She’s keeping it? She’s going to have a baby?” I nodded, and her next announcement was, “I’m going to make them a cake!”

  She continued to bubble with second-hand excitement right up until Sarah herself came home. I reminded her that Sarah hadn’t told anyone yet and she needed to keep a lid on it, which meant no congratulations and no surprise cakes. Bree meekly nodded.

  Sarah wasn’t inviting those things, anyway. She dumped her handbag on the table beside us and announced, “Nobody talk to me. Today is the first day since I was like ten that I’ve had exactly no caffeine. My head is killing me and I don’t know what the point of life is anymore.” She flopped down on the couch and pretended to cry loudly.

  Bree and I looked at each other, and then very quietly continued to go over her Psych homework together. Sarah did eventually rise from the dead to check Bree’s Chem homework, but she didn’t stay up much longer after that. After lying recumbent on the couch and looking up hopefully each time a car passed, she eventually sighed, conceding, “I guess he’s not coming home tonight, either,” and went off to bed by herself.

  “She hasn’t told him?” Bree asked me later while I was trying to light the potbelly stove again. I shook my head. “Wow,” was all she said as she went into my bedroom to retrieve our doona and pillows and drop them on the couch. She waited for me to finish lighting the stove and turn off the main lights, and then stood up off the couch so I could lie down first.

  “It’s really warm here with the fire,” she observed once I was lying on my back, and then glanced cautiously over her shoulder down the hall towards Sarah’s room. The light was off. Comfortable that Sarah was in bed, she straddled me with a cheeky grin and sat heavily across my lap.

  I sighed at her. “Sarah could come out for a glass of water any second,” I said, which was actually code for ‘I don’t feel like it’. I’m not sure that the prospect of Sarah catching us would have really bothered me if I did feel like it—I was always fully clothed when we messed around anyway.

  “The chance of getting caught is why it’s so much fun,” Bree told me innocently, and then proceeded to unbutton her pyjama top and let it hang open. “How about now?”

  I was a complete spoil-sport and buttoned it back up again for her, shaking my head.

  She exhaled and climbed off me, slipping underneath the doona and lying against my side. “I thought it might make you feel better.”

  “Maybe it would if I actually had something for you to sit on,” I told her. “Sorry.”

  She tilted her head up to watch me thoughtfully for a little while but didn’t comment on what I’d said. Instead, she eventually asked, “You’re not feeling too great today either, are you?” I shook my head. She considered me some more. “Is it because you’re going to have to move out soon?”

  I grimaced. “Don’t remind me, I’m basically broke. No, it’s not that,” I told her, sighing. “I ran into Henry yesterday.” Bree made an ‘oh’ shape with her mouth as I told her about everything that had happened—I think my texts to her last night finally made sense—including that I’d r
ealised I shouldn’t enlist Henry’s help with Mum.

  “Poor Henry…” Bree murmured, thinking on what I said. After a moment or two, she looked at me again. “So you are going to tell her, after all? Like, everything? Even about your gender?”

  I sighed. “Well, no, but Sarah thinks I should.”

  Bree scoffed. “Sarah’s not genderqueer,” she pointed out, “or whatever you are.”

  Hearing that word was still really jarring, and I found myself laughing nervously as a result. “Yeah, or whatever I am.” I thought about my foray into the men’s yesterday, before I’d bumped into Henry. I hadn’t felt victorious. I hadn’t even felt uncomfortable. I’d just felt normal, and I wondered if that was relevant. “Who knows, maybe you guys are right and I will end up as a straight-up trans guy anyway.”

  That piqued her interest. “Really?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe. I’m still thinking about it.” I took a deep breath and then slowly released it. “Mum would never accept that if I was. Especially if I got surgery. Never. ‘God made us all perfect’, and all that.”

  “Maybe that’s why you’re so freaked out about it,” Bree suggested, cuddling into me. It was actually an interesting point. I considered it as I lay there quietly for a few minutes, listening to the crackling of the fire and her slow breathing. After a little while, Bree lifted her head and placed her pointy chin on my shoulder. “Andrej’s working a late night on Friday. Dad does evenings on a Friday, too.”

  I opened my eyes. “Hmm?”

  “Mum finishes on time, usually, and she’s a lot calmer than Dad is about stuff. So,” she said, “I was thinking that maybe you could pretend to help me carry in some really heavy books or something…?”

  I made a face. “I thought your parents didn’t like strangers in their house.”

  She shrugged. “They don’t, but you’re my boyfriend and I think they’ll kind of be okay to accept that you might come around sometimes. I’m pretty sure they know I told you everything, especially since Andrej hit you.”

  I didn’t really like the idea of being treated like an intruder. “Can’t I just invite them to dinner or something?”

  She shook her head. “No way, they can’t afford it and they’re too fucking proud to let anyone else pay. This way’s good. Mum will meet you, she’ll tell Dad you’re okay, and then I’ll make dinner at home for everyone one night, and they’ll see you’re just a normal regular person and that the only thing people will say about you is that I’m dating an Asian guy.”

  “Until Andrej tells everyone I’m female, that is.”

  She lay her head back down on me. “It’s not like my parents talk to him at all, so he might not even find out you’ve been around until after we’ve already told them.”

  I was not looking forward to the whole exercise, but since it was for Bree, I reluctantly accepted I was going to have to do it. “Okay,” I said. “You know them best.”

  She looked pleased and then snuggled back down into me. I had thought I probably wouldn’t sleep that well again, but the ambient warmth and having her cuddled to me meant that I ended up drifting off with my cheek against her hair. The scent of her vanilla shampoo was becoming familiar and comforting.

  In the middle of the night—at god knows what time—I awoke suddenly to the sound of the back door sliding open. My first reaction was panic and I had my hand over Bree’s mouth before she could say or do anything; this couch had its back to the door and anyone entering wouldn’t see us. My heart thumped in my chest and pulsed in my ears and I was flat against the cushions clutching Bree against me, sure it was robbers, or murderers, or kidnappers, but it was all over in a fraction of a second when I recognised the sound of Rob’s heavy boots on the floorboards as he walked through the living room.

  I released Bree soundlessly and exhaled at length, closing my eyes for a moment in relief. Bree looked absolutely stunned when I opened them again. She didn’t say anything, though. “Sorry,” I mouthed to her.

  From the couch, we could see all the way up to the end of the hallway, where Rob had turned on the light and was hanging up his jacket a bit clumsily. While he was stumbling around taking off his boots, Sarah appeared in the bedroom doorway in her dressing gown.

  He stood up slowly, discarding his last boot and watching her. He swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

  A silence stretched between them.

  She broke it. “Rob, I didn’t do it.” For a second, it looked like he hadn’t heard her. That, or he’d misunderstood. He just frowned at her while she repeated, “I didn’t go through with it.”

  He got it this time, and his brow wavered like he still didn’t really believe what he was hearing. “You didn’t last night, or you’re not going to at all?”

  She took a breath. “I’m not going to at all.”

  He stood and stared dumbly at her for a moment, as if he was waiting for the anvil to drop. It never did. “You’re keeping it?” he asked tentatively, looking afraid of her response. When she nodded, he took a step towards her, cupping her face tenderly with his big, worn hand. “It’s still in there? Our little baby’s still in there?” She nodded, and I could see her face crumple. He put his other hand up to her face and tears welled in his eyes. “We’re going to have a baby?”

  When she nodded, the tears spilt over his cheeks and he stood there for a moment, frozen and holding her face, before something came over him and he whipped away from her, marching back down the hallway towards us. We shrank in the couch, but he didn’t come into the living room, he went into the kitchen instead. There was the sound of cupboards opening, and then the fridge, and then the ring and clank of bottles sliding and banging against each other. Sarah stepped further out into the hallway, looking confused, as he powered out of the kitchen with a picnic basket full of unopened beer bottles. He brushed right past her and went out the front door; there was an almighty racket as he poured them all out of the basket and into the recycling bin. He came back in and dropped the empty picnic basket beside his boots.

  “What are you doing, Rob?” Sarah asked him, half-laughing.

  “Chucking out all my beer,” he said, and then looked her up and down. “If you can’t drink, I won’t either. I won’t eat any of that stuff you can’t have, and if you’re too sick to eat anything, I won’t eat anything. If you’re going to suffer, I’m going to suffer with you, every day, every day until you have the baby and every day after,” he said, and then took both her hands. “I will do everything for you. I will do everything for you, Sares. You won’t regret this for a second, I’ll make sure of it.”

  “You great big oaf,” she told him, but I could hear her voice was muffled by tears as he wrapped his arms around her and they kissed soundly, stopping once or twice to smile at each other. Eventually, they moved back into the bedroom and closed the door.

  Bree and I sat there for a moment in the fading firelight, digesting what had happened. Bree had tears on her cheeks, and when I brushed them away with my thumbs, she looked up at me. “Some people do get happy endings,” she murmured. “Just think about how loved that kid is going to be. It’s going to be the happiest kid in the world.”

  “Don’t jinx them,” I warned her, and lay back down with my heart still pounding as Bree curled up peacefully against my side.

  TWELVE

  “Do you think they’re going to have a boy or a girl?” Bree asked, gazing wistfully out of the window of my car.

  We were parked outside a playground near her house while we waited for her mum to drive past; Bree’s master plan was that we then follow her at a distance and ‘bump into her’ at the house as I dropped Bree off so she could introduce me. That way Bree wouldn’t get into trouble for inviting people around when she wasn’t supposed to.

  We, uh, may have been a little early, though. And by a little early, I meant nearly half an hour. I was just worried there might be traffic.

  Bree was watching some children play during our stakeout. “It’s an interesting questio
n, don’t you think? Boy or girl? Like, why is it the first question people always ask?”

  I cast her a sideways look. Did I have an opinion about Sarah’s baby being a boy or a girl? No, no I didn’t. Not at this second. The ‘boy or girl’ question was a little bit too fucking real for me right now, and not because of Sarah’s baby, but because I was about to meet my girlfriend’s mum for the first time. She could not guess I was anything other than a regular cis guy or it would create a lot of trouble for Bree.

  It was pretty rare that people did guess; I normally read as a boy in his late teens—thanks to my height, otherwise I’d look 12—and honestly people only pegged me a female when I’d forgotten to be vigilant about keeping my voice low. But once people suspected I wasn’t a guy and they looked hard at me, all the signs were there: softer skin with no sign of stubble, wider hips, fuller thighs, and my Adam’s apple wasn’t sharp enough… things that my clothes generally hid or that weren’t obvious enough to bother me as much as my chest and my groin did. No one usually noticed them. I usually didn’t notice them. But right at this second, waiting to meet Bree’s mum, I was hyper-aware of them and they made my skin crawl. I might as well have been sitting in my car in a frilly dress with high heels on for how wrong and gross and disgusting I felt. The lump of silicone in my pants felt like a weird overcompensation, and my binder was—god—really tight. I tugged at it and coughed. “She’s going to look at me and know, Bree.”

  Bree didn’t seem very concerned. “Nah, I don’t think Mum even really knows what ‘transgender’ means.”

  Not convinced, I stared at my reflection in the sun visor. “I should have worn my big hoodie,” I told her. “And my baggier jeans. These are too tight.”

  She twisted back towards me in her seat. “You look great in them! You don’t need to wear a tent to look like a guy.” She gave me a cheeky grin and her eyes dipped to my groin. “Plus you can see the packer better when they’re tighter...”