Page 16 of Monarch

“What did you do?”

“What I did to survive. I stopped speaking my truth out loud, and I kept it to myself. The only time I let myself say the words ‘I am a girl’ out loud was when I was in the bathroom by myself. I’d repeat them until I felt a little bit more peace in myself. And then I’d go to school and be something I wasn’t.”

“I’m so sorry, Roos,” I say. “That’s brutal.”

“It was shit,” she sniffs, but she’s not crying. “But it gave me time.”

“What do you mean?”

“It gave me time to come up with a plan. To escape. I saved up all the money I made delivering newspapers and working in a bakery on Saturdays for three whole years. I worked hard at school and got good grades. I made contact with a great aunt who lived in Amsterdam and asked her if I could live with her while I did my studies there. It was the only way my parents would consider me leaving. That woman, Tante Klaartje, she saved me when she said yes. And she saved me again when, on the third day I was living there, I told her I was a woman.”

Finally, Roos looks across at me and smiles.

“What did she do?” I ask with bated breath.

“She took me to a doctor, a good one, and the rest is history. Bumpy, slow, messy, painful, traumatising history, but at least it was moving me in the right direction.”

I finish my glass of water and set it on the table beside the bed. I shuffle a little closer to Roos and put my arm around her body. “Fuck, Roos. It shouldn’t have been like that. Your parents...”

“I know, but I’m not the only one. That’s why I do what I do now,” she says. “I become somebody else’s Tante Klaartje. It’s literally the name of the charity.”

“Is it?” I smile with her. “I bet your aunt is so proud.”

“Oh.” Roos’ face falls. “She died. Three years after I moved in with her. Only six months after I started HRT.”

“Shit, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Roos sniffs again, and this time there are tears in her eyes. “She did more for me in those three years than anyone else has. And now I get to carry on that… What’s the word, legacy?”

“Yes, legacy. For sure,” I say. “She would be incredibly proud.”

“I hope so,” Roos replies, her voice dimming to a whisper. And then she snuggles down so she can cuddle me back.

We stay like that, limbs entangled and hearts beating the same rhythm, and I feel it again. Hope. Loud and solid and as bright as a star in the sky.

Chapter Six

Roos

“Stay,” I whisper into Mari’s shoulder. And then add when I realise how desperate I sound, “if you want.”

“I want,” Mari says. “But I have nothing with me. No toothbrush. No clothes. No underwear. And before you say anything, you and I are not the same size.”

“I wasn’t about to say that. I was about to say I have clean toothbrushes in my bathroom. And I’m sure I could find something that would fit. And if you wanted clean underwear for the morning, we could wash yours overnight.”

Mari rolls over so they’re facing me. They’re smiling. “You offer the full service here, don’t you?” they tease, and I throw a pillow in their face.

This leads us to roll around on the bed, fighting and tickling and kissing and nibbling at each other until somehow my growling stomach makes itself heard even over our giggling. It shouldn’t be possible to swing from crying one minute as I bare my soul to Mari to laughing and play-fighting. It feels like a miracle. I’ve never had this before.

Apart from with Lex, my mind reminds me. I shared everything with Lex. I cried and laughed with Lex, too.

Fuck Lex, I snap back at my mind.

“You’re hungry,” Mari comments after my stomach rumbles for the third time in as many minutes.

“Starving.”

“Can I cook for you?” they ask. “Unless, I don’t know, your kitchen is like some sacred place and nobody else is allowed to step foot in it.”