Chapter Nineteen
Grayson
Alyssa and I sat cross-legged on the floor of my apartment, an old shoebox on the floor between us. She had on a sundress, and her hair was pulled back in braids. “You sure you want to do this?” she asked.
“Now or never,” I answered as my stomach churned.
With all the good things happening in my life, a part of me wanted to push through the bad and skip ahead to the part where I had moved on. But Marco and Demir recommended more than once that I take the time to deal with my mother’s death, and I was learning to put a lot of weight on their advice.
I lifted the lid off the box, revealing the collection of old photographs inside. Most of the pictures were from high school on, when I had gotten my own camera, and they only showed the parts of my life that I wanted to remember. There were a few, though, that came from my childhood before that and that had survived a few past attempts to erase the negatives from my history.
“What’s the plan?” Alyssa asked. “You want me to just dig through and find the pictures of your family?”
“Sort them out,” I agreed. “And maybe describe them to me?”
I tried to not feel silly, needing someone else to look at the photographs for me. But there was a lot more than just a picture of my mother in those memories. They were pictures of my father, and everyone else who had abandoned me, of course. But there were also many pictures of me at my most miserable, forced to dress and act like someone I wasn’t.
No part of me wanted to see the look on my face back then, especially not when looking at my mother for the first time in years.
Alyssa started tossing aside the photos I had taken, making a small pile of my friends back in Kentucky and a couple solo shots of my girlfriend from when I was twenty. It felt dizzying to watch my life fly by in snapshots, and by the time Alyssa came to my first childhood picture, I was already feeling a little overwhelmed.
“It looks like you, your mom, and your dad, celebrating Christmas when you were eight.”
My heart ached. “Put that one aside for later. I don’t think I’m up for it yet.”
“A few of you and your dad on some kind of camping trip...”
“Back when I was so young, it was still okay for me to play in the dirt. Those can get filed back away.”
Alyssa kept going, pulling me to memories, then moving on just as quickly. It was like inhabiting the different phases of my life again and remembering all the people I used to surround myself with, from my large family of birth to the social scene in Louisville. As much as nostalgia and grief tugged at me, I still felt proud.
I might have gotten sidetracked for a number of years, but I was surrounded by people I cared about again, and this time they were relationships I had chosen on my own.
“Here we go,” Alyssa said. “There’s a few photos of just you and your mom together. It looks like you’re eight or nine years old…” She checked the back of the photo quickly. “Yup, nine. And there are some caves in the background.”
“Mammoth Caves,” I said, brightening a little at the memory. “God, I had to beg for months to get her to take me there.”
“Do you want to see?”
Alyssa held the photo out, and I hesitated. From the corner of my eye, I could see our figures, standing with the gray cave entrance and green hillside behind us.
“Not yet,” I said, my voice catching in my throat. “Can you set those ones aside, though? I think they’re what I was looking for.”
Alyssa and I sat together in silence, and slowly, the tears started to come again. I felt comfortable enough with her to cry for a while, her arms around me and holding me tight. Even though I was feeling better, I knew the grief was going to keep showing up for a long time.
“I’m very glad I get to deposit you in the arms of two very good men. Otherwise, I’d be worried sick about you, Grayson.”
I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, then plopped the lid back on the box of photos, figuring I’d spent enough time with my memories for the day. “Remind me to tell you about the breakfasts they’ve been making. You’ll never worry about me again.”
Alyssa chuckled, then stood and helped me to my feet. “I’m always happy to show up for you, Grayson. I hope you know that. But I have to ask, why didn’t you look through the photos with Demir and Marco? I’m sure they would have been happy to support you.”
I frowned. “I’m sure they would, too,” I agreed. “I just… I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about them seeing those pictures of me, you know?”
I couldn’t even quite bring myself to say what about those pictures bothered me so much, but luckily, Alyssa didn’t need an explanation.
“Grayson, they know your story, and they know you didn’t transition when you were a kid. I totally understand not wanting to look at photos like that and not wanting to share them with other people. It’s entirely your right to decide what happens to pictures of you taken before you figured out your gender. But I hope you know seeing a picture like that wouldn’t change how they felt about you. It wouldn’t make them see you as anything but the man you are.”
I took her hand. “Thanks for the reminder, Alyssa. I don’t know if I’m comfortable having them look through all of my memories, but you’re right. They asked me to be their boyfriend, and I don’t want to shy away from that. Ican’tshy away from that, not when I’ve finally found the relationship that I want.”
