"Mom, please, open the door!" Corrine shouted.
She was standing on the front porch, banging on the door, sobbing. A few hours earlier, her ex-girlfriends mother had called her parents, and told them their daughter was queer. Now Corrine was standing on the steps of her childhood home, begging her parents to speak to her, but to no avail. Nobody answered the door. Nobody even opened a window to yell out of. Corrine finally stopped and sat on the porch swing, hugging herself, trying not to hyperventilate. You see, she thought, this is what you get when you aren't perfect. She eventually buried her face in her hands and bit her lip hard, thinking back across her life, how hard she'd tried to be the daughter they so clearly wanted. To be the heterosexual, successful, not mentally ill daughter they craved, like the ones their friends had. But try as she might, she couldn't be any of those things.
And now she had no parents.
When Corrine started living in the editing room at the studio, before being discovered by Jay and Sharla and moving into Natasha's, she thought about how much she hated herself, and how much she loved her parents, even in the face of their out and out denial of her personhood. How could she still love them after the way they looked at her? After disowning her outright in front of the neighbors she'd grown up around? How could she still possibly want to be able to connect with them and want their support and understanding? Because the world, she realized, without parents, was extremely small and cold. It was somewhere she didn't want to be. She would lay on the little nest she'd created for herself, she would hug her stuffed animal tightly to her chest, and she would think about what she had lost, instead of all that she had gained. Because the thing about this sort of rejection is that one rarely entertains the idea of what they actually have now as opposed to what they've lost. Sure, Corrine had lost her parents. She'd lost her ability to continue to go to college. She'd lost the only girl she'd ever loved. But she'd gained freedom. She'd gained her identity. She'd gained people who loved her, even in spite of her faults and her flaws, people like Natasha, who, in her own way, knew what it was like to not live up to a parents ideals.
And then Corrine moved in. She took up the spare room in Nat's house, she became friends with Violet, who in turn turned to her in a time of questioning her own sexuality, which was truly a sign of trust, and she was a crucial element to Nat's success thanks to her editing skills and her ability to work under tremendous pressure. Corrine and Nat became best friends, and Corrine finally started to see the things she'd gained instead of the things she'd lost. She'd gained a family. She'd gained the respect of people older than her, and her peers, and an audience who constantly commented, in addition to how great the episode was, how great the editing was. Corrine finally started to see and accept the good things she had, the good ways people saw her.
And then she slept with Nat's sister, and all she could see again was what she'd lost.
***
"It's a girls night out," Sharla said, "ya know, to, kinda, alleviate ourselves of all the stress and drama of recent times."
"You two are old, you're not girls, you're women," Corrine said, laying on the couch, her statement making Nat crack up as Sharla took a drink from her squirt bottle and put a hand on her hip, looking at Corrine; Corrine continued, her fingers interweaving her cats cradle, "in fact, I'm the only one in this room who probably qualifies as a girl right now."
"I don't know, Sharla, I have a lot to do," Nat said, sitting upright, putting her pen down on the table amongst all the papers, "I have to find a new camera man, I have to pay some bills, I have to do some refinancing in general. I just don't know that I have the time or energy to focus on something like that."
"Okay, it's attitudes like that that makes us seem old to people like Corrine," Sharla said.
"Actually it's your age, but okay," Corrine said, making Nat laugh once again, which made Corrine smile. She appreciated the fact that Natasha found her so very funny.
"We are going on a girls night out, okay? That's final," Sharla said, "so get your best goddamn outfit together, get gussied up, and when I get back here after work, y'all better be ready for a night on the town."
"Gussied?" Nat asked, looking up.
"Y'all?" Corrine asked, also looking over, "...are you from Texas?"
Sharla stared at them, then exited the house. Corrine went back to her cats cradle, Nat to her paperwork. They sat there in silence together for a while. Corrine appreciated this about Natasha. She didn't require constant interaction, she didn't demand ongoing discussion, they could simply occupy the same space without doing anything together. There was a level of respect and comfort you had to have around someone before you could achieve that kind of presence amongst others. After a bit, Nat put her pen back down and sighed, scratching her nose.
"What am I gonna tell Jay?" she asked.
"About hiring a new camera guy? I mean, why are you doing it?" Corrine asked.
"Because, good as he is at his job," Nat said, "I want to move him up. He's a founder, and he shouldn't be relegated to simply doing production. He should be doing something far more important. Not that production isn't important, I'm sorry, you're an editor, everything you production people do is the most important cause otherwise we wouldn't have a show, but you know what I mean."
"Do I?" Corrine asked, "wait, am I important? I've never felt important before. Is this what true power tastes like?"
Nat smirked and leaned back on the couch.
"Are you okay?" Nat asked, and Corrine shrugged.
"Why wouldn't I be?" she replied.
"Well, things have been...fucking weird lately, for one. I just...we haven't really talked a lot about what's happened, outside of that brief car ride. I just wanted to check in with you and make sure that you're doing okay."
Corrine sat up and put her cats cradle down, then looked at Nat.
"You don't have to always be doing your show," Corrine said sternly, surprising Nat with her tone of voice, "I'm going to find an outfit for tonight, even if I don't necessarily know the definition of 'gussied'."
***
Courtney was at her physical therapy, trying to get back to walking easily after her surgery. This was one of the things she hadn't anticipated being an issue, but apparently it is. Makes sense, she thought, given that the surgery had taken place between her legs. Still, it frustrated her having to rely on her dad for everything now, or her at home nurse. She missed being independent. As she gripped the metal bars on both sides of her, doing her best to stay steady and focused, she heard the door to the room open and looked up, spotting Violet entering, and she smiled. Violet walked alongside the bars as she continued working.
"How, um, how long do you, ya know, think you might have to go?" Violet asked.
"I really couldn't tell ya," Courtney said, "but I will say this, when I'm done, I'll be really happy cause this is exhausting."
Violet laughed as Courtney reached the end of the bars, turned around, and started to head back, Violet keeping up pace with her. Violet had come here not to just to check up on her, but also for another, very important reason. After coming out to her mother, she figured the next step was to finally be direct with Courtney. Up to this point, things had been said, but those have been vague at best. Violet wanted concrete answers. She wanted to know where it all stood, even if it meant their friendship was in danger.
"When will you, um, uh, yeah, have a break?" Violet asked.
"As soon as I reach the other end again," Courtney said, "I have to do this about 5 times in a row, so."
"When you're done, can we, uh, can we, ya know, maybe go for a walk?" Violet asked, and Courtney stopped and stared at her, as Violet laughed and said, "okay, maybe bad question, but I could, um, push you in a wheelchair."
Courtney laughed and nodded.
"That sounds good," she said, "I could stand to get out of this room for a while."
After Courtney finished her physical therapy for the day, Violet got her wheelchair and helped her into it. Then, gripping the handles tightly, she started to push it through the halls of the hospital. It was a very nice hospital, thanks to the money put forward by both Courtney's father and Natasha. For a while the girls just sort of wandered aimlessly, but after a bit, Courtney told Violet to take a right at a certain area, and suddenly they were in the childrens wing. On the walls were all sorts of arts and crafts kids had made during their stay at the hospital.
"I like coming here," Courtney said, "it's nice to see kids still be creative even in the face of terror. Nothing is scarier than being a child in a hospital. You haven't been alive long enough to grasp the concept of death, so the whole situation feels so foreign to you, and you don't know how to deal with it."
"Speaking from, uh, experience?" Violet asked as they stopped at a spot full of watercolors plastered on the wall.
"Kind of," Courtney said, "heck, being my age and being in the hospital is scary, and I understand the concept of death perfectly."
"Can we talk?" Violet asked, and Courtney looked up over her shoulder at Violet. Courtney sighed.
"I knew we'd have to eventually," she whispered.
Violet didn't like that tone.
***
"I cannot believe for the life of me that you own a rhinestone encrusted cowboy hat," Natasha said.
She, Corrine and Sharla were sitting in a booth at a bar, eating cheese sticks and other various bar snacks and drinking anything other than alcohol. Each woman had their reason for abstaining from imbibing the substance, but that didn't mean they couldn't have fun.
"It really does make me wonder even more if you're actually from Texas," Corrine said.
"I like cute clothing," Sharla said, "what can I say? I like stuff with glitter and sparkles and gems and if that makes me a cliche, then dammit I'll be a cliche."
"Yeehaw, pard'ner," Corrine said, raising her glass to Sharla, making them both laugh. Sharla finished her drink and slammed her mug on the table, exhaling.
"Now if you'll excuse me," Sharla said, "I'm going to go dance for a few minutes, because there's some really cute guys here and it ain't a girls night out if you don't try to flirt."
With that, Sharla slipped out of the booth and left for the nearby dance floor, leaving just Corrine and Natasha behind now. Corrine slunk down further into the booth seat while Nat continued to eat her wings, tossing the bones back into the little plastic basket as she finished them. Corrine casually sipped her soda from her mug little by little, trying not to be noticed by anyone or anything.
"I'm surprised you wanted to do this," Nat finally said, chewing, as she added, "after all, you're not the type who strikes me as a girls night out sort of lady. Or a night out sort of lady at all, really. You really come off as a hermit, more than anything, and I mean that with the kindest inflection."
"I'm my mother," Corrine finally said, causing Nat to look at her, confused.
"Elaborate?" she asked.
"When I was in middle school, my mom had an affair with the science teacher, Mr. Dukes," Corrine said, "and everyone called her a homewrecker, even though, really, my home didn't change at all. Mr. Dukes home did, of course, his wife divorced him, there was an ugly custody battle, and it was all very public, and all the other teachers at school constantly talked about how that 'homewrecker' had ruined his life, as if partaking in it wasn't his choice. Somehow the men never get blamed. Somehow their infidelity is infallible, forgivable, expected. Now I've done the same thing, and the saddest part is my mother won't even speak to me, so I have to be like her without getting the chance to speak to her."
Natasha finished her wings and pushed the basket to the edge of the table, indicating to a waitress to remove it. She picked up her mug and took a long drink, then wiped her hands on a napkin.
"She won't speak to you?" Nat asked.
"I begged them to speak to me," Corrine whispered, sniffling, "after getting outed, I went home, and I begged them to speak to me, but they wouldn't even answer the door. They wouldn't answer my phone calls. Nothing. Apparently forgiving your wife for sleeping with another man is easy, but forgiving your child for being queer? That's outright impossible."
Sharla plopped herself back into the booth, looking disappointed.
"Back so soon?" Nat asked.
"You know, dancing would be a lot more fun if men didn't take it as a direct invitation to invade your personal space," Sharla said, "what're you girls talkin' about?"
"Corrine thinks she's a homewrecker," Nat said.
"What? Why? Just cause you slept with Nat's sister and ruined her marriage? Honey, any relationship that can be ended by someone new coming along wasn't very strong to begin with," Sharla said, causing Corrine to look towards her, listening; Sharla shook her head, "take it from me. My sister, god love her, she dated this guy for like seven years, and the entire time he was sleeping with other women. A relationship has to be strong from the outset, I mean, sure it can be built and worked upon, strengthened over time, but I think you have to really genuinely love a person right from the get go to avoid those kind of pitfalls. Also, from what I've been told, your situation is vastly different. That poor girl, she didn't know what she wanted. She didn't even know who she was, really."
"It's true," Natasha said, "and, frankly, the fact I somehow missed all the signs of her being queer is shocking to me. But I suppose she was just that good at hiding them, surpressing them, even if so unintentionally. Like me, I think she didn't wanna let our parents down, just like you, sweetheart. You've done nothing wrong. You're not a homewrecker, and most importantly, you're not your mother."
Corrine wiped her nose on her sleeve and sniffled some more, her voice cracking.
"If I'd done something terrible," she said, "if I'd killed someone, even accidentally, or I'd caused some kind of awful event or I'd committed some kind of crime, even if non violent, all these things I would understand them holding against me. But all I did was love somebody. Why is that enough to hate me?"
Sharla pulled Corrine into her and stroked her hair, letting her cry against her. Natasha picked up her drink and took another long gulp. She wanted to help Corrine, but frankly, she hadn't even expected her own daughter to come out, let alone be aware of her sisters sexuality. She just figured she'd stick the course, be there when they needed her, and be supportive until that time came.
"Let me ask you a question," Sharla said softly, "are you happy when you're with her?"
Corrine nodded.
"Like truly happy?"
"Happier than I think I've ever been," Corrine said, causing Natasha to smile, knowing someone loved her sister that much.
"And she's happy when she's with you, yeah?" Sharla asked, and Corrine nodded again.
"She says she adores me," Corrine replied, making Nat smile even wider.
"Then honey, what's the goddamned problem. You've got what everyone wants," Sharla said, "fuck your parents."
Corrine laughed a little, and just stayed being held for a bit longer. Sharla was right. She so badly wanted them to love her, to approve of her, hell, to even speak to her, but she knew that was just something that was never going to happen. And really why should she care about people expected to love her who were so willing to leave her just because she found happiness? Sharla was right. Fuck her parents.
***
Violet and Courtney were still in that empty hall of the childrens wing, Violet now sitting on a bench, facing Courtney in her wheelchair. Violets eyes, however, were cast to the floor, scared to look up. A few nurses walked by, and after they passed, Courtney sighed and spoke.
"It was just...a lot to deal with at the same time, my surgery and then what you felt," Courtney said, "and I'm sorry if I reacted less than ideally. But there's something else you have to understand, and that's that, for girls like me, of which there is a distinction regardless of whether or not I want to admit it, one of the defining traits for womanhood as seen by society for our legitimacy is heterosexuality."
Violet nodded, but she didn't move. Courtney continued.
"That boy I dated, that lifeguard, I mean it didn't last because we're just teenagers but...I realized partway through that that what I was doing was simply playing into the role that society expected me to. In order to be seen as what they consider a girl, I had to date who they considered to be acceptable. That would be boys. It isn't fair, because so many other girls our age just get to be themselves. I mean, that isn't to say they don't face ridicule or injustice or whatever, but their sexuality isn't called into question as fevervently as mine would be, because to these people, if I liked girls, that would indicate to them I was still a boy, which is ridiculous."
Violet nodded again, and Courtney sighed.
"So I did what I did because I was scared. I was already an outcast, you know? People already hated me for being who I am, and to add queerness on top of that? Oh my god, that would be just giving them double ammunition. But the thing is, who I am is already a revolt against their preconceived ideals about identity, so why be afraid to be something else they hate when I'm already something they hate? Why live in that fear if I've already broken through the first barrier? It's stupid, right? It's totally stupid."
Courtney rolled her wheelchair towards the bench, stopping in front of Violet and reaching out, taking her chin in her hand and lifting her face up until they were eye to eye.
"And then there's you," Courtney said, "someone with a learning disability, someone else society sees as 'other', who people claim to be slower than the rest of them, and yet you've been nothing but supportive the entire time, nothing but understanding, so really, if anything, you're far more intelligent than them. You accepted me right out, stood by me, defended me, came to see me after surgery, and now here you are, telling me that, for a while, you've had feelings for me. I'd be dumb not to reciprocate and not because of being expected to but because I feel the same way you do."
That made Violet's eyes widen, her breath quicken. Courtney smiled, blinking at her, her lashes wet with tears.
"I don't really know where this will go," Courtney whispered, shrugging, "but...much like my transition, I'm excited to find out."
With that, Courtney leaned in and kissed Violet on the lips, taking Violet completely by surprise. This hadn't been what she'd expected, even though it'd been what she'd hoped for. Violet simply shut her eyes and kissed Courtney back. If there was one thing Violet had learned throughout her life with her mother, it was that you had to grab your love where you could find it, and to hell with whoever questioned your choices.
She was standing on the front porch, banging on the door, sobbing. A few hours earlier, her ex-girlfriends mother had called her parents, and told them their daughter was queer. Now Corrine was standing on the steps of her childhood home, begging her parents to speak to her, but to no avail. Nobody answered the door. Nobody even opened a window to yell out of. Corrine finally stopped and sat on the porch swing, hugging herself, trying not to hyperventilate. You see, she thought, this is what you get when you aren't perfect. She eventually buried her face in her hands and bit her lip hard, thinking back across her life, how hard she'd tried to be the daughter they so clearly wanted. To be the heterosexual, successful, not mentally ill daughter they craved, like the ones their friends had. But try as she might, she couldn't be any of those things.
And now she had no parents.
When Corrine started living in the editing room at the studio, before being discovered by Jay and Sharla and moving into Natasha's, she thought about how much she hated herself, and how much she loved her parents, even in the face of their out and out denial of her personhood. How could she still love them after the way they looked at her? After disowning her outright in front of the neighbors she'd grown up around? How could she still possibly want to be able to connect with them and want their support and understanding? Because the world, she realized, without parents, was extremely small and cold. It was somewhere she didn't want to be. She would lay on the little nest she'd created for herself, she would hug her stuffed animal tightly to her chest, and she would think about what she had lost, instead of all that she had gained. Because the thing about this sort of rejection is that one rarely entertains the idea of what they actually have now as opposed to what they've lost. Sure, Corrine had lost her parents. She'd lost her ability to continue to go to college. She'd lost the only girl she'd ever loved. But she'd gained freedom. She'd gained her identity. She'd gained people who loved her, even in spite of her faults and her flaws, people like Natasha, who, in her own way, knew what it was like to not live up to a parents ideals.
And then Corrine moved in. She took up the spare room in Nat's house, she became friends with Violet, who in turn turned to her in a time of questioning her own sexuality, which was truly a sign of trust, and she was a crucial element to Nat's success thanks to her editing skills and her ability to work under tremendous pressure. Corrine and Nat became best friends, and Corrine finally started to see the things she'd gained instead of the things she'd lost. She'd gained a family. She'd gained the respect of people older than her, and her peers, and an audience who constantly commented, in addition to how great the episode was, how great the editing was. Corrine finally started to see and accept the good things she had, the good ways people saw her.
And then she slept with Nat's sister, and all she could see again was what she'd lost.
***
"It's a girls night out," Sharla said, "ya know, to, kinda, alleviate ourselves of all the stress and drama of recent times."
"You two are old, you're not girls, you're women," Corrine said, laying on the couch, her statement making Nat crack up as Sharla took a drink from her squirt bottle and put a hand on her hip, looking at Corrine; Corrine continued, her fingers interweaving her cats cradle, "in fact, I'm the only one in this room who probably qualifies as a girl right now."
"I don't know, Sharla, I have a lot to do," Nat said, sitting upright, putting her pen down on the table amongst all the papers, "I have to find a new camera man, I have to pay some bills, I have to do some refinancing in general. I just don't know that I have the time or energy to focus on something like that."
"Okay, it's attitudes like that that makes us seem old to people like Corrine," Sharla said.
"Actually it's your age, but okay," Corrine said, making Nat laugh once again, which made Corrine smile. She appreciated the fact that Natasha found her so very funny.
"We are going on a girls night out, okay? That's final," Sharla said, "so get your best goddamn outfit together, get gussied up, and when I get back here after work, y'all better be ready for a night on the town."
"Gussied?" Nat asked, looking up.
"Y'all?" Corrine asked, also looking over, "...are you from Texas?"
Sharla stared at them, then exited the house. Corrine went back to her cats cradle, Nat to her paperwork. They sat there in silence together for a while. Corrine appreciated this about Natasha. She didn't require constant interaction, she didn't demand ongoing discussion, they could simply occupy the same space without doing anything together. There was a level of respect and comfort you had to have around someone before you could achieve that kind of presence amongst others. After a bit, Nat put her pen back down and sighed, scratching her nose.
"What am I gonna tell Jay?" she asked.
"About hiring a new camera guy? I mean, why are you doing it?" Corrine asked.
"Because, good as he is at his job," Nat said, "I want to move him up. He's a founder, and he shouldn't be relegated to simply doing production. He should be doing something far more important. Not that production isn't important, I'm sorry, you're an editor, everything you production people do is the most important cause otherwise we wouldn't have a show, but you know what I mean."
"Do I?" Corrine asked, "wait, am I important? I've never felt important before. Is this what true power tastes like?"
Nat smirked and leaned back on the couch.
"Are you okay?" Nat asked, and Corrine shrugged.
"Why wouldn't I be?" she replied.
"Well, things have been...fucking weird lately, for one. I just...we haven't really talked a lot about what's happened, outside of that brief car ride. I just wanted to check in with you and make sure that you're doing okay."
Corrine sat up and put her cats cradle down, then looked at Nat.
"You don't have to always be doing your show," Corrine said sternly, surprising Nat with her tone of voice, "I'm going to find an outfit for tonight, even if I don't necessarily know the definition of 'gussied'."
***
Courtney was at her physical therapy, trying to get back to walking easily after her surgery. This was one of the things she hadn't anticipated being an issue, but apparently it is. Makes sense, she thought, given that the surgery had taken place between her legs. Still, it frustrated her having to rely on her dad for everything now, or her at home nurse. She missed being independent. As she gripped the metal bars on both sides of her, doing her best to stay steady and focused, she heard the door to the room open and looked up, spotting Violet entering, and she smiled. Violet walked alongside the bars as she continued working.
"How, um, how long do you, ya know, think you might have to go?" Violet asked.
"I really couldn't tell ya," Courtney said, "but I will say this, when I'm done, I'll be really happy cause this is exhausting."
Violet laughed as Courtney reached the end of the bars, turned around, and started to head back, Violet keeping up pace with her. Violet had come here not to just to check up on her, but also for another, very important reason. After coming out to her mother, she figured the next step was to finally be direct with Courtney. Up to this point, things had been said, but those have been vague at best. Violet wanted concrete answers. She wanted to know where it all stood, even if it meant their friendship was in danger.
"When will you, um, uh, yeah, have a break?" Violet asked.
"As soon as I reach the other end again," Courtney said, "I have to do this about 5 times in a row, so."
"When you're done, can we, uh, can we, ya know, maybe go for a walk?" Violet asked, and Courtney stopped and stared at her, as Violet laughed and said, "okay, maybe bad question, but I could, um, push you in a wheelchair."
Courtney laughed and nodded.
"That sounds good," she said, "I could stand to get out of this room for a while."
After Courtney finished her physical therapy for the day, Violet got her wheelchair and helped her into it. Then, gripping the handles tightly, she started to push it through the halls of the hospital. It was a very nice hospital, thanks to the money put forward by both Courtney's father and Natasha. For a while the girls just sort of wandered aimlessly, but after a bit, Courtney told Violet to take a right at a certain area, and suddenly they were in the childrens wing. On the walls were all sorts of arts and crafts kids had made during their stay at the hospital.
"I like coming here," Courtney said, "it's nice to see kids still be creative even in the face of terror. Nothing is scarier than being a child in a hospital. You haven't been alive long enough to grasp the concept of death, so the whole situation feels so foreign to you, and you don't know how to deal with it."
"Speaking from, uh, experience?" Violet asked as they stopped at a spot full of watercolors plastered on the wall.
"Kind of," Courtney said, "heck, being my age and being in the hospital is scary, and I understand the concept of death perfectly."
"Can we talk?" Violet asked, and Courtney looked up over her shoulder at Violet. Courtney sighed.
"I knew we'd have to eventually," she whispered.
Violet didn't like that tone.
***
"I cannot believe for the life of me that you own a rhinestone encrusted cowboy hat," Natasha said.
She, Corrine and Sharla were sitting in a booth at a bar, eating cheese sticks and other various bar snacks and drinking anything other than alcohol. Each woman had their reason for abstaining from imbibing the substance, but that didn't mean they couldn't have fun.
"It really does make me wonder even more if you're actually from Texas," Corrine said.
"I like cute clothing," Sharla said, "what can I say? I like stuff with glitter and sparkles and gems and if that makes me a cliche, then dammit I'll be a cliche."
"Yeehaw, pard'ner," Corrine said, raising her glass to Sharla, making them both laugh. Sharla finished her drink and slammed her mug on the table, exhaling.
"Now if you'll excuse me," Sharla said, "I'm going to go dance for a few minutes, because there's some really cute guys here and it ain't a girls night out if you don't try to flirt."
With that, Sharla slipped out of the booth and left for the nearby dance floor, leaving just Corrine and Natasha behind now. Corrine slunk down further into the booth seat while Nat continued to eat her wings, tossing the bones back into the little plastic basket as she finished them. Corrine casually sipped her soda from her mug little by little, trying not to be noticed by anyone or anything.
"I'm surprised you wanted to do this," Nat finally said, chewing, as she added, "after all, you're not the type who strikes me as a girls night out sort of lady. Or a night out sort of lady at all, really. You really come off as a hermit, more than anything, and I mean that with the kindest inflection."
"I'm my mother," Corrine finally said, causing Nat to look at her, confused.
"Elaborate?" she asked.
"When I was in middle school, my mom had an affair with the science teacher, Mr. Dukes," Corrine said, "and everyone called her a homewrecker, even though, really, my home didn't change at all. Mr. Dukes home did, of course, his wife divorced him, there was an ugly custody battle, and it was all very public, and all the other teachers at school constantly talked about how that 'homewrecker' had ruined his life, as if partaking in it wasn't his choice. Somehow the men never get blamed. Somehow their infidelity is infallible, forgivable, expected. Now I've done the same thing, and the saddest part is my mother won't even speak to me, so I have to be like her without getting the chance to speak to her."
Natasha finished her wings and pushed the basket to the edge of the table, indicating to a waitress to remove it. She picked up her mug and took a long drink, then wiped her hands on a napkin.
"She won't speak to you?" Nat asked.
"I begged them to speak to me," Corrine whispered, sniffling, "after getting outed, I went home, and I begged them to speak to me, but they wouldn't even answer the door. They wouldn't answer my phone calls. Nothing. Apparently forgiving your wife for sleeping with another man is easy, but forgiving your child for being queer? That's outright impossible."
Sharla plopped herself back into the booth, looking disappointed.
"Back so soon?" Nat asked.
"You know, dancing would be a lot more fun if men didn't take it as a direct invitation to invade your personal space," Sharla said, "what're you girls talkin' about?"
"Corrine thinks she's a homewrecker," Nat said.
"What? Why? Just cause you slept with Nat's sister and ruined her marriage? Honey, any relationship that can be ended by someone new coming along wasn't very strong to begin with," Sharla said, causing Corrine to look towards her, listening; Sharla shook her head, "take it from me. My sister, god love her, she dated this guy for like seven years, and the entire time he was sleeping with other women. A relationship has to be strong from the outset, I mean, sure it can be built and worked upon, strengthened over time, but I think you have to really genuinely love a person right from the get go to avoid those kind of pitfalls. Also, from what I've been told, your situation is vastly different. That poor girl, she didn't know what she wanted. She didn't even know who she was, really."
"It's true," Natasha said, "and, frankly, the fact I somehow missed all the signs of her being queer is shocking to me. But I suppose she was just that good at hiding them, surpressing them, even if so unintentionally. Like me, I think she didn't wanna let our parents down, just like you, sweetheart. You've done nothing wrong. You're not a homewrecker, and most importantly, you're not your mother."
Corrine wiped her nose on her sleeve and sniffled some more, her voice cracking.
"If I'd done something terrible," she said, "if I'd killed someone, even accidentally, or I'd caused some kind of awful event or I'd committed some kind of crime, even if non violent, all these things I would understand them holding against me. But all I did was love somebody. Why is that enough to hate me?"
Sharla pulled Corrine into her and stroked her hair, letting her cry against her. Natasha picked up her drink and took another long gulp. She wanted to help Corrine, but frankly, she hadn't even expected her own daughter to come out, let alone be aware of her sisters sexuality. She just figured she'd stick the course, be there when they needed her, and be supportive until that time came.
"Let me ask you a question," Sharla said softly, "are you happy when you're with her?"
Corrine nodded.
"Like truly happy?"
"Happier than I think I've ever been," Corrine said, causing Natasha to smile, knowing someone loved her sister that much.
"And she's happy when she's with you, yeah?" Sharla asked, and Corrine nodded again.
"She says she adores me," Corrine replied, making Nat smile even wider.
"Then honey, what's the goddamned problem. You've got what everyone wants," Sharla said, "fuck your parents."
Corrine laughed a little, and just stayed being held for a bit longer. Sharla was right. She so badly wanted them to love her, to approve of her, hell, to even speak to her, but she knew that was just something that was never going to happen. And really why should she care about people expected to love her who were so willing to leave her just because she found happiness? Sharla was right. Fuck her parents.
***
Violet and Courtney were still in that empty hall of the childrens wing, Violet now sitting on a bench, facing Courtney in her wheelchair. Violets eyes, however, were cast to the floor, scared to look up. A few nurses walked by, and after they passed, Courtney sighed and spoke.
"It was just...a lot to deal with at the same time, my surgery and then what you felt," Courtney said, "and I'm sorry if I reacted less than ideally. But there's something else you have to understand, and that's that, for girls like me, of which there is a distinction regardless of whether or not I want to admit it, one of the defining traits for womanhood as seen by society for our legitimacy is heterosexuality."
Violet nodded, but she didn't move. Courtney continued.
"That boy I dated, that lifeguard, I mean it didn't last because we're just teenagers but...I realized partway through that that what I was doing was simply playing into the role that society expected me to. In order to be seen as what they consider a girl, I had to date who they considered to be acceptable. That would be boys. It isn't fair, because so many other girls our age just get to be themselves. I mean, that isn't to say they don't face ridicule or injustice or whatever, but their sexuality isn't called into question as fevervently as mine would be, because to these people, if I liked girls, that would indicate to them I was still a boy, which is ridiculous."
Violet nodded again, and Courtney sighed.
"So I did what I did because I was scared. I was already an outcast, you know? People already hated me for being who I am, and to add queerness on top of that? Oh my god, that would be just giving them double ammunition. But the thing is, who I am is already a revolt against their preconceived ideals about identity, so why be afraid to be something else they hate when I'm already something they hate? Why live in that fear if I've already broken through the first barrier? It's stupid, right? It's totally stupid."
Courtney rolled her wheelchair towards the bench, stopping in front of Violet and reaching out, taking her chin in her hand and lifting her face up until they were eye to eye.
"And then there's you," Courtney said, "someone with a learning disability, someone else society sees as 'other', who people claim to be slower than the rest of them, and yet you've been nothing but supportive the entire time, nothing but understanding, so really, if anything, you're far more intelligent than them. You accepted me right out, stood by me, defended me, came to see me after surgery, and now here you are, telling me that, for a while, you've had feelings for me. I'd be dumb not to reciprocate and not because of being expected to but because I feel the same way you do."
That made Violet's eyes widen, her breath quicken. Courtney smiled, blinking at her, her lashes wet with tears.
"I don't really know where this will go," Courtney whispered, shrugging, "but...much like my transition, I'm excited to find out."
With that, Courtney leaned in and kissed Violet on the lips, taking Violet completely by surprise. This hadn't been what she'd expected, even though it'd been what she'd hoped for. Violet simply shut her eyes and kissed Courtney back. If there was one thing Violet had learned throughout her life with her mother, it was that you had to grab your love where you could find it, and to hell with whoever questioned your choices.