“God, see how far you’ve fallen? When did you start smoking weed?” I ask.
Arthur answers, but hesitates at first. “September, I guess. Do you want some?”
I know my body—smoking weed will only act as an aphrodisiac, and I’m already at my limit.
“No,” I say. “But it doesn’t bother me. What time does the party start?”
“Are you that eager to get away from me?” Arthur asks, then starts coughing.
“No,” I lie. “I was just wondering.”
Arthur leans forward, puts the joint into an ashtray on the coffee table and slides his arms around my waist.
“Arthur,” I protest. “What are you doing?”
“Can I hold you?”
Being in love with your best friend is literal torture, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. It doesn’t hurt that Arthur is the world’s biggest flirt, and that he doesn’t always understand the necessity of boundaries.
“Yes,” I say, cautiously. He wraps his arms around me, and I can feel his heart thumping through his shirt.
The last time I let him hold me like this, we fell asleep on his bed and awoke to his father bursting into his room like the mattress was on fire. We hadn’t even been doing anything other than sleeping—we’ve only ever slept together on a bed. Hell, the door hadn’t even been locked.
When his father had put his hand on my arm, I’d thought the night was going to end with Arthur going to jail. Arthur’s parents’ constant invasion of his privacy has been a sore spot for the past five years, and has further solidified my fears that no one will ever accept us as a couple. No one wants their son dating a trans man, at least not in this part of Kentucky.
Arthur is a fiercely loyal friend, but I hadn’t expected him to respond to the incident by moving out of his parents’ house the day after his eighteenth birthday and cutting all ties with his family, except for his mamaw. I never asked him to do that, and I refuse to believe that I’m the sole reason for his moving out of that hellhole.
“Is this okay?” he asks, sliding his hands under my shirt, keeping them carefully planted on my waist. He hasn’t seen me since I had top surgery, and should know from past conversations with Gwen just how uncomfortable I am talking about it. Gwen can be an absolute dipshit at times, but she’s my confidant and closest ally. A lovable dipshit, if you will.
“Yes,” I whisper, and allow myself to lean into his warm body. He pulls me closer and rests his chin on top of my head, making me thankful that I washed my hair this morning before work.
“You smell good. Real good,” Arthur says. “If you don’t want to go to the party, we don’t have to. There’s this new Netflix documentary about the Salem Witch Trials if you wanna watch that instead. I could order us a pizza.”
Just knowing that Arthur might be into me at this point in time is enough to keep me sane—to keep me going. For the past year he’s texted me regularly, despite my inability to respond at times, and interacted with me on Facebook and Instagram, sometimes even sending me stupid messages on Snapchat. We still haven’t discussed the text he sent me, the one where he said he loved me, and I’m not brave enough to bring it up while I’m in his arms.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I reply. “I mean, I’m sure Gwen wants us there for moral support. Besides, you know she can’t start a fire to save her life.”
“I didn’t think you were into that kind of magick anymore,” he says, running a finger over my fresh undercut. “Your hair is cute.” He pauses, letting his hand rest on the back of my head. “Wait,” he says. “I thought you were exploring your roots anyway, Mexican witchcraft or whatever.”
“It’s called brujería, and when you call it Mexican witchcraft like that, you sound ignorant as hell. Very white and very country.”
“I’ve never been very good at hiding my flaws, you know that. Why don’t you come home with me after the party then?” he asks. “I can drive you to work in the morning if you need me to.”
Arthur isn’t trying to be pushy—I know. Gwen is staying with her girlfriend while she’s in town for the summer, and I hate going home because everyone still calls me Linda. But there’s no way that I can spend the night here, because having sex with Arthur is always at the back of my mind when we’re alone together, an ever-present reminder of the one and only time someone’s tried making love to me.
The details are still fresh in my mind. I hadn’t started medically transitioning yet, and despite his reassurance that he didn’t mind my binder, we didn’t go through with it. We couldn’t. I couldn’t.
Because I’m mental, and incapable of sharing any part of myself with anyone.
It had started out innocently enough, a simple game of tickling on his bed during some TV commercial, then before I’d had time to react he’d had me pinned to the bed, his mouth on mine in a matter of seconds, and I’d unleashed four years’ worth of bottled-up, neatly packed desire. I’d torn at his clothes like they were made of paper, and he’d done the same. The botched attempt had ended with me bawling myself to sleep in his arms. Waking up to his father shouting about diablo and the eternal pits of hell had been an added bonus—the sour cherry on top of an already melted sundae.
“Arthur, I’m only going to say this once, so please listen to me.” I pull away from him and slightly twist my torso so that we’re facing each other. “I have missed you—a lot. You mean the world to me, and I want to spend as much time with you as I can.” He nods and reaches out to touch my face, but I catch his hand before it lands on my cheek. “But you’re super busy at the moment with work and everything, and I do not want to be in anyone’s way. I want this to be a chill summer.”
“You won’t be in the way,” Arthur protests. “Goddamn, I haven’t seen you since August. You’ve been gone for almost ten months. Almost a whole fuckin’ year. I followed you online like some creepy stalker guy because you weren’t returning my texts, and I didn’t know what else to do.”
“I know,” I say. “I’m sorry. I was in a pretty dark place for a while there.”
“You could have texted me. You could have called me. I know you hate talkin’ on the phone, but fuck, I missed your voice. Your laugh. I wasn’t even allowed to be there for your surgery. Do you know how much that hurt?” he asks, his voice cracking. “Gwen had to tell me everything, every minute detail, every update. Then I nearly had a breakdown when I saw your post-op pictures on Instagram because I was so relieved—you have no fuckin’ idea.”
I want to touch him, to tell him everything is going to be all right, but everything I touch turns to ash, so I can’t. I won’t. I have wanted to be with Arthur ever since I could remember, but our story, the legend of King Arthur and Lancelot, has prevented me from telling him how I really feel.
Everyone knows Lancelot betrays Arthur in the end. It doesn’t matter that Gwen is my sister—something bad will come from our relationship. I can feel the wrongness of it all deep inside, lurking in my bone marrow. No one is fast enough to outrun fate.