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Chapter Nine

TAYLOR

“Honey, I’m home!” I called into the entryway of my parents’ house.

As I slipped my sneakers off, I pulled my phone out of my pocket to see if Nicole had texted me back yet.

She hadn’t.

It had been a whole day at this point.

Served me right, considering I also waited about a day to text her back that one time.

But this was different, because I was reaching out to her again after our very clear nothing-else-is-happening-here hookup. Even though she gave me permission to call her again. I mean, technically I texted her, but the intention was the same, wasn’t it?

Maybe she felt put on the spot when I asked, and she just said yes to be nice?

When I left her apartment, I had every intention of waiting a few days before reaching out to her again.

I had a feeling that Nicole was much shyer than I was and wouldn’t reach out to me first. However, the next day, as I cleaned my apartment and went about my regular weekend routine, I realized that I was still waiting for her to text me.

Eagerly waiting.

Hopeful that she’d want to reach out to me, too.

I kept checking my phone, ignoring the notifications on a couple of dating apps I cycled through, ignoring the texts from my friends’ group chat, trying to manifest that my phone was going to light up with Nicole texting me that she wanted me again.

I sat with those feelings for a bit, wondering if I was crossing some sort of boundary by wanting to hook up with her again. Or if I created some unrealistic, unfair fantasy where Nicole reached out to me first.

Her words from the day before kept playing in my mind: “I’m not sure what’s next,” and “I don’t know the protocol.”

Perhaps it was the way she said it.

Inexperienced with hookup culture, while knowing that I was very experienced in hookup culture.

I mean, Leo said it himself. I could be a great rebound for her. Everyone around me knew how I operated, so it made sense that Nicole would assume I wanted to get mine and move on in a reasonable amount of time.

What if…that wasn’t all I wanted, though?

Obviously, I wanted to hook up with Nicole again. She was a beautiful woman, with a body that made me want to drool. Soft curves that felt amazing in my hands, a sweet smile that I wanted to kiss as much as I could, the tattoos on her arm that I wanted to study with uninterrupted intensity.

If Nicole was treating this like a strict hook-up with no strings attached, perhaps I needed to be the one to show her that I was okay with exploring the concept of strings.

Maybe, I don’t know, one or two strings.

Just to start and see how things went from there.

So, I texted her.

And a day later, here I was, loitering in my parents’ entryway, wondering if I was pushing her more than she wanted.

“In the kitchen!” My mom called, pulling me out of my thoughts.

I pocketed my phone with a heavy sigh.

I followed the smell of burgers and chips, and beer.

My mom was ripping freshly washed lettuce into a big bowl.

Her dark brown hair, streaked with grey, was pulled back into a bun.

Her dark eyes hid behind her bright yellow glasses.

She wore a romper today, making me suspect that she was gardening earlier.

I could see my dad through the kitchen window, standing at the grill.

When he and I made eye contact, he smiled and waved hello.

“Need help with anything?” I asked my mom.

She shook her head, nodding for me to take a seat on the countertop.

“I’m just finishing up the salad here,” she replied, “How are you? It’s been a few weeks since we’ve seen you.”

I shrugged, “I’m good. Nothing new going on. Have you heard from Tucker lately?”

Tucker is my older brother by three years. He and his wife traveled more often than not.

“We video chatted yesterday. They had just settled into their Airbnb in Iceland.”

“Ugh, I’m so jealous,” I groaned, “I need to travel more.”

“Us too,” My mom smiled, “Your dad wants to see Thailand.”

I tilted my head in question, “That feels out of left field.”

“Not when you realize we’ve been watching season three of White Lotus.”

“Ah,” I nodded. That was usually where my dad got his travel inspiration from.

When Game of Thrones was airing, he wanted to travel wherever they filmed that season.

Ireland, Spain, Iceland, Croatia, Malta, and even Morocco.

When we asked why he wanted to go on a family vacation to Hawaii a few years ago, we learned that he had just watched Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates and Forgetting Sarah Marshall and wanted to stay at the hotel where those movies were filmed.

My older brother Tucker and my dad shared the same travel bug.

My mom and I liked to travel, but we also liked lounging at home just as much.

“How was work today?” My mom asked.

“Good. I had one client take their first steps in my office today.” I grinned as I stole a potato chip from a bowl on the counter. “I love experiencing those moments with the parents.”

“How old is the client?” She asked.

“He’s turning three next month,” I replied. “His mom cried. She was worried he never would.”

My mom stopped fixing the salad together to give me a wide-eyed look of appreciation, “That’s so sweet. I’m glad all that kiddo’s hard work is paying off.”

“He met with Adam right after me for PT, too,” I continued, “And showed off his new skills. It was the first time I’ve seen Adam get teary-eyed.”

“What a big ol’ softy,” my mother chuckled. The sliding glass door to the backyard opened, revealing my dad holding a tray of freshly grilled meat.

“These might be my best turkey burgers yet.” My dad puffed his chest out comedically as he presented the patties for my mom and me to awe over, his dark blue eyes that matched mine sparkled as he wiggled his dark eyebrows at the two of us, “You frickin’ like that?”

Courtney taught him that.

It made me simultaneously laugh and die a little on the inside every time he said it.

“Yum,” I grinned at the old man.

Just then, my phone buzzed on the countertop.

Both of my parents leaned over to glance at the name before I had time to snatch it off the table.

“Who’s Nicole?” My dad asked.

I grinned at him before holding my phone close to my chest, relief from her response filling it.

I was insanely lucky.

My parents, as traditionally as they were raised, always had my back.

When I was six years old and finally told my mom that I hated the dresses and skirts she would pick out for me to wear to school, she responded by cleaning them out of my closet and taking me clothes shopping for things that I preferred.

Most of what I liked was in the boys’ section.

At first, they thought it was because I had an older brother and wanted to be like him.

To an extent, I did. I love my older brother.

My dad got excited to have an energetic, athletic child like me, since my older brother was more into the arts and had no interest in learning sports.

It wasn’t until a couple of years later that I opened up to them again, letting them know that I didn’t like it when they introduced me as their daughter.

I was too young to have language for what I was experiencing, but my parents tried to adjust the best they could.

For a couple of years, they referred to me as he/him or “their other son.” I appreciated that because it gave me a chance to test it out for myself.

To see if those words felt right for me.

It never quite felt right, though.

Over time, the words “he” and “him” started to feel off, a lot like “she” and “her” did.

Like a square puzzle piece struggling to fit into a circle.

It technically fit, but there was too much empty space left over.

It felt like the square was too small for the space, a shape that only “worked” because it fell into the circle a little too easily.

The puzzle of my identity felt incomplete.

I didn’t want to feel incomplete.

Like I was settling for the square he/him puzzle piece out of convenience. I wanted to find the piece of the puzzle that was designed specifically for my kind of circle.

It was middle school when my parents sat me down to check in.

They wanted to know if I needed anything else from them, or if there was anything they could do to help me feel more comfortable in my skin.

They started talking to me about puberty blockers and being transgender.

They had just met someone else at my school who identified as transgender and saw similarities between that child and me.

But that didn’t sit with me, either. I wasn’t upset about starting my period, probably because I was never raised with the harmful, “Now you’re becoming a woman,” rhetoric around menstrual cycles.

My parents taught me anatomy through a very scientific lens.

They never correlated gender with what was between my legs.

My brother happened to have a penis, and he also happened to identify as a boy.

I happened to have a uterus and vagina, and my parents wanted to help me figure out my identity any way they could.

I remember wrinkling my nose at them in thought, before I finally said, “I don’t think I’m a boy.”

My mom tilted her head to the side in both acceptance and thought, “So what do you feel like you are?”

I took a moment to test the words in my head before I decided to say, “…I think I’m just Taylor.”

My parents both looked at each other, smiled, and hugged me.

All of this was so new to them. To the people in our lives, and yet, they didn’t see that as an excuse to brush me off—like so many other queer kids experienced.

My dad found an LGBTQ resource center an hour north of us in LA and he reached out to them for support. Through the center, we were able to find books and articles about being queer, the gender binary, and support groups for other kids and adults like me.