Page 94 of Monarch

“Yeah. You, me, and Mari.”

A pause. A jagged inhale. “Are we together, all of us?”

“Yes,” I answer confidently. It’s just a game. In the past, when we’ve played, I’ve imagined myseIf as a princess, the prime minister, and a mother to seven kids. I can say what I want.

“We all live together. But you come and go as you please. Mari travels too, for their work. Their tattoos are famous, and they travel all over the world for work. And me, I’m…I’m different.”

“How are you different, Roos?”

My hands move to cup my breasts under the sheets. “I’ve got bigger breasts. And I’ve had bottom surgery. Facial feminisation. Maybe even hair transplants.”

“If that’s what you want,roosje, why haven’t you done it?”

“Money. Time. And now I have epilepsy to think about.”

“I can help you with all of those, and you know it.”

“You haven’t been here. Until the last few months.”

We fall silent again.

“What’s our house like?” Lex asks, returning to our game.

“You really want to know?” I check, and I feel like I’m asking so much more than this one question. I know it’s my silly romance-novel-loving heart getting carried away, but I can’t help thinking that I’m asking,Is this what you want, too? Do you imagine this for the three of us? Do you want what I want?

“Yes,” Lex says.

I roll over onto my side towards Lex and Mari, hide my smile in the pillow, and then I tell Lex all about the home that I imagine, no,want, the three of us to share.

*****

I don’t know when I fell asleep. Whether it was before or after Lex and I talked about the holidays the three of us would take, the plants and vegetables we’d grow in our imaginary garden, or the matching tattoos all three of us would get together, I fell asleep with these possibilities fuelling my dreams and swelling my heart.

What I do know is that when Mari wakes me an hour or so later, I’m already waiting for them to say the words I know are coming.

“Where’s Lex?” they ask as they rub at their sleepy eyes.

Because Lex is gone. I hoped so hard xe wouldn’t, but that didn’t stop xem before, and it’s not stopped them this time either.

METAMORPHOSIS PART FIVE: EMERGING BUTTERFLY

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Lex

I’m no stranger to booking a flight and sitting on it a couple of hours later. My responsibilities, my commitments and my bone-shaking fear of flying be damned.

I can’t count how many times I’ve done it in the past, be it because of last-minute work or holiday plans, or because I simply left it all to the last minute because I hate even the thought of getting on a plane. But today’s reason for spontaneous travel is unprecedented. And my destination is one I’ve avoided for ten years.

My body knows it too. I’m jittery. My breathing is rapid and shallow. I feel uncomfortably hot one minute, and ice cold the next. I can’t keep my leg still, and it bounces out a rhythm that I know is annoying the middle-aged woman next to me. And it’s not just because I’m terrified of flying.

Besides, I don’t care. That woman can suck my dick.

I bet she isn’t going to England to confront the man who sexually abused her as a child.

I bet she isn’t going to England to ask her mum and her grandmother if they knew, and if they did, why didn’t they do anything?

I bet she isn’t going to England to try and find a way to relinquish the hold this whole event has on your past, your present, and possibly your future.