“I love you.” Josh whispered, as he lifted his head and rubbed his nose against Sarah’s.
The flashlight sitting in the middle of the floor drew shadows on the wall as the couple laid on the queen-size bed that sat in the middle of their living room.
They didn’t have much, just a couple of chairs they’d gotten thanks to the church at the end of the street, a mattress, and some sheets from the thrift store.
Sarah and Josh sat a chair at each corner of the bed and threw a sheet over the chairs, creating a fort, just like the ones Josh used to make as a child. At the head of the bed sat the lantern Sarah’s mom used to use to light the house whenever the electricity would get shut off.
“I love you too. So much, and sometimes it scary just how much I do.” Sarah said.
Taking Josh’s face in her hands, she pressed her forehead to his.
All the movies, books, songs, and TV shows Sarah consumed as a child, depicted love as something that was easy, a walk in the park; but after four and a half years of being with Josh, Sarah realized falling in love, that was the easy part. But being in love? Staying in love day in and day out, on the good days and the bad ones? Well, that was when the work really began.
Sarah didn’t have any examples of what love or even a healthy relationship looked like. In her experience love was like the fuse at the end of a bomb, burning hot and fast until the fuse ran out and everything went up in flames.
But with Josh, Sarah didn’t fall in love, she slowly slipped into it, like falling asleep; falling a little bit at a time, and then suddenly all at once.
Josh was patient, and like waves at the beach, he’d rise and fall, allowing Sarah to pull him in and push him out as she saw fit. Sarah had been in lust thousands of times, she’d been swept up in hot, meaningless sex that would last a season or two before becoming a distant memory. But with Josh, things were different. Josh and Sarah took things slow and allowed themselves to get comfortable before really opening up to one another.
“What’s this?” Sarah asked, running her nail across a faint scar on Josh’s cheek.
“Dad’s championship ring. His backhand could put Tiger Woods’s swing to shame.” Josh chuckled.
His eyes were cloudy as he stared at the wall, the memory of the day his father walked in on him trying on his first binder, playing like a movie in his mind.
Sitting up, Sarah straddled Josh.
Josh snaked his arms around her waist while she threw hers around his neck. Then, leaning into him, she brushed her nose against his. She loved being this close, nose to nose as she stared into eyes greener than an overhead shot of a forest in the middle of spring,
“Do you ever worry that we’ll turn out just like the people who made us?” Sarah asked, hugging Josh close.
Boogiemen and monsters under the bed and in the closet never scared Sarah, because while other kids’ imaginations were conjuring up things for them to be afraid of, Sarah’s monsters came in the form of living zombies’ parents, hopped up on drugs and walking around with needles sticking out of their arms.
Josh shook his head, his eyes certain and confident.
“The lights are off because we turned them off babe. You’re about to celebrate four years at the salon and I make comics for a living. Are parents couldn’t have seen this future even if they had perfect vision and a crystal ball.” He said, causing Sarah to laugh.
When Josh was seventeen, he came to terms with the fact that he was trans and the day he made that realization he knew he had to get out of his father’s house.
“You will not ruin my good name! You fucking here me?! You’re a girl, you’re a fucking girl and I won’t let you destroy the body God gave you!” Josh’s dad yelled.
The walls trembled at the sound of Josh’s dad’s voice. In the corner, his mother cried funeral tears and yelled out how ‘this wasn’t right’. Josh had expected this reaction, he knew that from the moment he took his first breath, his father had his whole life planned out. The college he would attend, the career he’d have, and the man he’d marry; Stephen, Josh’s dad, had planned it all out, and there was no room in Stephen’s plan for a trans child.
“What will pastor David say? My colleagues, my family, my friends, what will they-”
“WHO GIVES A SHIT?! Who cares about the opinions of any of those people?! This is my life! Not yours, not mom’s, or your pastor’s, or the churches, or any of your snobby little friends! This is MY LIFE! MINE!” Josh yelled.
Josh’s chest rose and fell like he’d just gotten done running several miles. His eyes locked with his father’s as his mother silently cried behind him.
“Get out!” Stephan shouted as he pointed at the door.
Josh held Sarah close to his side as he let the memory of one of the last times he’d seen his father float by like a cloud in the sky.
He and Sarah might have grown up on opposite ends of the poverty line, but they both grew up in chaos. While Josh’s dad was wearing designer suits and doing lines of cocaine on coffee tables worth more than Sarah’s parents would see in a lifetime, Sarah’s dad was blacking out in the backs of abandoned houses with a crack pipe in one hand and a lighter in the other.
“You know Tommy’s grandmother just passed and it’s rumored that he’s getting the house.” Josh said.
Sarah shifted on his chest.
“Surely he’s going to get all new furniture.” Sarah said with a knowing grin.
“Are you kidding me? Jenny would never be caught dead with such outdated furniture in her home.” Josh said with a smile.
“Better press that suit then.” She said, leaning up to kiss him.
They didn’t have much, but that didn’t matter because together they were pretty good at coming up with ways to survive whatever storms came their way.
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