Chapter 4
4
S al traced their baby nephew’s cheek with their finger. He was so beautiful, sleeping in his bassinette. Pure potential and personality swirling behind his sleeping eyes, barely aware of what the world was.
“Hey, Charlie, wanna trade places?” Sal whispered.
He kicked a tiny foot as though in protest, and Sal smiled. “That’s okay, I wouldn’t do that to you.”
Charlie kicked again, and Sal felt dangerously close to tears. To be fair, they felt that way most of the time now. It had been three days since they’d spoken to Curtis, and crying was an hourly occurrence. The kids at work were starting to get worried. Ammy was threatening to forcibly dehydrate Sal. That was probably why they’d decided to spend all of Saturday at Byron’s house, ostensibly to keep Beth and the new baby company, but also so they could have a mental health crisis in peace.
“Almost done in here,” Beth called from the kitchen. “How’s my little skin dog?”
Sal snorted. Beth had co-opted the meme about calling children ‘skin dogs’ because people called their dogs ‘fur babies’. It was one of the many things that made their sister-in-law easy to like. “He’s good. Sleeping like a baby.”
“Checks out.” Beth came into the living room, carrying two steaming mugs. “Almond latte for you. Decaf for Skin Mumma.”
“Thanks,” Sal said, accepting the coffee. They sipped in silence, both watching Charlie. Sal had met him a few times, but today felt different. When Sal had first shown up to Beth and Byron’s place, Charlie had reached out and curled a tiny fist around their finger, staring into Sal’s face like he was trying to remember where they’d met before.
“Ooh, he’s a big fan,” Beth had said happily, but Sal couldn’t agree. They’d felt so inadequate in the unblinking gaze of Byron’s baby that it had been hard to maintain eye contact. They’d hugged Beth to break the moment, gushing about how much he’d grown in his six weeks of external existence.
“Sal?” Beth asked. “Do you mind if I put the football on? I won’t if you don’t want me to, but Byron’s in the coach’s box this game and?—”
Sal’s heart jackhammered against their rib cage. Curtis had sent a bunch of tiger lilies to their house today with a note.
I want this, Sal. Please watch my game today xxxx
Sal had vowed to Ammy that they weren’t going to comply with the flower note. But if that was true, why had they come to Beth’s place? There was a one hundred percent chance she’d want to put the game on. So maybe what they really wanted was to not watch it alone or with Ammy, who couldn’t stop laughing about Curtis being in ‘full panty-sniffer mode.’
“It’s fine,” Sal said through dry lips. “I don’t think Curtis can talk to me through the TV.”
Beth turned on the flat screen and muted it. “It’ll just be ads for a while. Do you want to change the channel for a bit?”
What Sal wanted was to go back in time and skip the Pyramid performance, but they’d successfully been avoiding discussing Curtis with Beth, and they were in no mood to start now. They shook their head. “It’s fine.”
As they sat watching commercials for car insurance and foot cream, the pressure behind Sal’s eyes began to build. Curtis wasn’t even in the same city, and the thought of seeing him on a screen in Perth felt as scary as if he was about to walk through the door. They felt like such an asshole, being all sooky about a guy they’d barely dated when they had a new nephew and a friend to take care of. Beth had had post-natal depression after her first son, Simon, and Sal had wanted to check in on her as much as the new baby.
So do it, dickhead.
“How are you?” they asked. “Like, in your head?”
Beth smiled. “Good, actually. I was ready this time. Therapist on speed dial, physio booked in for the foreseeable future. Plus, he’s sleeping better than Simon did.”
“Good,” Sal said with relief. “He’s such a little cutie.”
“He is. But he’s also too pinned down by gravity to be much of a problem right now. Unlike your brother.”
“Sorry?”
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you about this all week,” Beth said. “I know about him putting the hard word on Curtis for you. I almost screamed when I found out.”
Sal winced. Byron had promised he wouldn’t let his very-recently-expelled-a-human-from-her-body wife worry about their dumb shit. “He told you?”
“I figured it out. Nice try, both of you. Byron was very clever, trying to pretend it was some football related thing, but the man can’t lie for shit. Imagine my horror when I find out he actually blew his stack because a boy tried to talk to him about dating his sister...”
“He was just trying to look out for me.”
“Of course,” Beth said lightly. “But he’s also sleep-deprived and worried about me and trying to make up for lost time with you.”
“What?”
“He feels really guilty about not being more supportive of you being non-binary. Especially when you were living at home. I think a lot of this Curtis-stack-blowing is about that. But also, when I finally got him to be honest about what the dude actually said about you, he was nothing but respectful, Sal.”
Sal picked at the corner of a pink throw blanket, their fingers trembling.
“Byron’s such a knob sometimes,” Beth muttered. “He’s one to talk about football players all being dirtbags— he was one. ”
“He always told me that’s how he knows.”
“Hypocrite. Anyway, there isn’t one kind of football player, which I reminded him when he tried to defend his 1980s sitcom behaviour.”
Sal looked away. Part of them wanted to have the conversation. Most of them wanted to tear their shirt off, run into the street and start screaming until someone called the cops. “Anyway… how are you sleeping?”
“No,” Beth said firmly. “You’re not getting me with that Thomas classic. I’ve spent too much time with your brother. We’re talking about this, my love.”
Sal groaned. “But it’s so boring!”
“No, it really isn’t. So, let’s do it. I’m assuming you didn’t want Byron to go nuts at Curtis. I mean, it’s actually really cute that he wanted to let Byron know that he was into you, right?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Sal muttered. “It’s just not gonna work.”
“Really? Because you seem quite sad.”
Sal pulled harder at the blanket, pulling a thread loose and flicking it aside. “He sent me flowers yesterday.”
Beth smiled. “That’s pretty sweet.”
“It’s cringe.”
“I get that, but it’s also sweet. I think you should tell me how you’re feeling. And we have a full bottle of whiskey somewhere if you need cocktails to smooth the process along.”
Sal smiled sadly. It felt like forever ago that they’d rolled up to the place Beth was housesitting to have a drink and ask for advice about their parents. It was depressing to think they were back in that same place with a far more embarrassing, football-player related issue. “I dunno, dude. I really think I’m better off just leaving it.”
“Because Curtis is this he-man sports guy?”
God, she was switched on. Why couldn’t Sal be attracted to someone like her? Why couldn’t they fall for some nice femme with two kids and just slot into the textbook gay family?
“Sal?” Beth pressed. “Just say what you’re thinking. At the very least, you’ll feel better.”
They sighed. “I guess I just don’t know what’s happening. I thought when I got really silly over someone, it would be someone more like Klaus.”
“Yeah, I thought I was going to marry Henry Cavill for a while there. Shit happens.”
“It’s not that. It’s, like, I just don’t think I can be with someone who doesn’t know anything about my life.”
Beth’s forehead furrowed. “But he knows you’re non-binary, yeah? He’s trying to understand who you are?”
“So? I’m the first non-WAG he’s ever been into, and I just don’t know if I’m strong enough to hold this whole thing together while…”
“He figures out if he’s strong enough to stand beside you?”
The tears that had been threatening all afternoon burst like a raincloud, and Sal bent over, pressing their face into the blanket. The couch shifted as Beth moved to sit next to them, resting her arm around their shoulders. “It’s okay. I promise it’s okay.”
“It’s not,” they wailed. “I’m not who he really wants, and most of the time, I don’t think I’m enough for me, let alone anyone else!”
“Sal,” Beth said, smoothing a hand across their back. “You are. You know you are. You’re a fucking legend.”
Sal snorted into the blanket. “I’m sorry, I’m spraying snot all over this thing.”
“Who gives a shit? It’ll be covered in baby crap in no time.”
Her kindness only made Sal howl harder. “I’m not like him. I don’t fit in his world.”
“But you do. You have a brother who played football—who coaches football. You have friends who are football wives. Do you really think me and Cheryl are going to be bitches to you at the ‘drink piss, yell about scores’ parties?”
Sal hadn’t really thought about that. It did seem extremely unlikely Beth or the hot bitch who’d shared her cigarettes with them at her bachelorette party would be an asshole, but that was only two people. “I dunno…”
“Be real with me. Is any of this stress you’re feeling actually about Curtis playing AFL?”
“What else would it be about?”
Beth was quiet for a moment. “You want me to be honest?”
“Christ, yes,” Sal muttered, a fresh round of tears flooding the blanket. “I’m so fucking confused.”
“I think you’re just scared to meet someone you really care about. And I know there’s other factors involved with you and Curtis, but honestly, everyone shits themselves when they meet someone they’re into. I felt that way about Byron.”
“But he’s such a twat,” Sal sobbed.
“I know you think that, but he’s really good-looking and scary-quiet. And I know it’s not the same as feeling like you’re… I dunno, betraying the indie gays by wanting to be with a football dude, but believe me when I say, I didn’t want to go out with some preppy douche who looked like a male model and was five years younger than me, but I did, and now we’re married, and we have two beautiful skin dogs.”
“But—”
“No buts. We don’t get to decide who we fall for, and if you really believe being non-binary shouldn’t be a barrier, you can’t let the idea of what you thought life would be like stop you from being happy. It’s what we’re all fighting for.”
It was such a beautiful, stupidly perfect thing to say, Sal howl-cried into the blanket for what felt like a million years. Yet, when they surfaced, the game still hadn’t started and Charlie was still lying in his little baby-capsule, totally asleep.
“Holy shit,” Sal said, scrubbing a wrist over their eyes. “He didn’t wake up.”
“Yeah, he’s a good one. Lucky Simon’s at swimming, or he’d be fully freaking out over Big Sal being sad.”
Sal gave a watery smile. “He’s lovely.”
“So’s Curtis. Or at least as far as I can tell.”
They felt their lip tremble. “He is.”
“So are you.” Beth gave them a long, searching look. “You’re no coward, Sal. If you like Curtis, and I think you do, don’t run away from him. Be brave and take a shot.”
“But what if I mess it up? What if I let him down?”
“Then he’ll get over it. He’s a big boy, and he’s got some learning to do, I’m sure, but don’t back away because that’s easier than having to be vulnerable.”
“Christ, you’re good at this,” Sal mumbled into the blanket. “Life shit, I mean.”
“Yeah, tell that to the woman who didn’t leave her bed for months while her amazing sister-in-law flew up to visit constantly to take care of her husband and kid while she was completely clocked off.”
“That was different!”
“It wasn’t.” Beth rubbed a hand through Sal’s hair, gently massaging the base of their scalp. “We’re all stupid, Sal. We all fuck up. But you don’t need to have everything figured out to be in a relationship.”
Sal thought of the moment they’d told their mother they wanted to go by different pronouns. How sure they’d been that everything would work out. They hadn’t, and maybe that was when they’d gotten scared. Started to believe no one would ever really understand them, unless they were carrying as much baggage about their own gender as them. Their own hearts. Then they imagined Curtis, standing outside Byron’s office, bracing himself to go in and say he wanted to date his sister.
Had they ever thought anyone would do that for them? No. But he had. From the start, he’d worn his heart on his sleeve—bending and changing as best as he could, trying to make it work.
He’d been the brave one, Sal realised. And that was hard and beautiful, just like it was hard and beautiful to think they might have to take another leap, risk more rejection; have something to lose in the game of love.
“Ooh,” Beth said suddenly. “Footy’s on.”
Sal glanced at the screen where a hot blonde was standing on the sidelines, interviewing Patrick Normal. “Oh God…”
“Have you texted Curtis? About the game?”
“No. He told me to watch today and I never got back to him, which shows what a useless wang I?—”
Beth let out a little scream.
“What?” Sal demanded, but they’d already seen it. The TV camera had panned over the field, showing the Sharks warming up by the goal posts. Sal would have always zoned in on Curtis like a homing pigeon, but this time, it wasn’t necessary. The man Sal had spent weeks obsessing over was standing tall in the midst of his teammates, his rainbow boots stark against the green grass. Sal blinked, unsure if this was some Wizard of Oz colour glitch. Curtis’ boots stayed rainbow, the camera zooming in on them, highlighting them to the thousands of people in the stands and millions of people watching at home.
Beth squinted at the TV, her hand searching for Sal’s and holding it tight. “They’re pride colours, right?”
“Yeah,” Sal whispered, barely able to breathe. “That’s—Yes. They’re pride colours.”
But it wasn’t just the boots. As the camera panned upward, Sal saw the armband on Curtis’ left bicep. It was subtle, less than an inch wide, but the purple, white and yellow stripes were clear, even on TV. The colours of the non-binary flag.
“Oh God,” Sal heard themself say. “Oh my God, Curtis...”
“Impressive,” Beth said. “I did not see this coming but I’ve gotta say, I am genuinely fucking impressed .”
Sal nodded, unable to take their eyes off the screen. The camera was holding on the man who said he wanted to be their boyfriend. They’d be the first openly gay dude in the AFL if that was what it took. Their heart felt like it was full of hot water, swelling bigger with every second they took in his bright blue eyes and striped armband.
“Shit,” Beth said, unmuting the TV. “What are they saying about him?”
The commentary came through loud and clear.
“Curtis Ingram, working a very unique look for this preliminary final,” a male pundit said. “I think we can all understand what he’s trying to say, but he might be looking at a fine for this little, uh, uniform mix-up.”
“Fuck you!” Beth howled, but Sal was barely listening. They were looking at the armband. At Curtis’ easy smile as he stretched his legs and laughed with his teammates, wearing the same colours Sal had donned at protests—symbols of strength and defiance. And he’d worn them in a national game, for everyone to see. For them to see.
It was a quiet statement, and yet it was simultaneously the loudest demonstration of non-binary allyship Sal had ever seen. They’d read about queer joy, but this was the first time that they actually felt it. Light and sweet. It was so good to be known. To be supported by someone who didn’t have to stick their neck out for you, but did it anyway. It was so overwhelming they could hardly look at it, and yet they didn’t tear their eyes from the screen until the camera finally moved on, scanning the Hawks players in their white and black boots and yellow jerseys.
“Oh fuck,” Sal muttered. “What does this mean?”
Beth laid a hand on Sal’s shoulder and squeezed tight. “I think it means Curtis Ingram has your back.”
A lump the size of the sun swelled in Sal’s throat. “Yeah. I think that too.”
“So,” Beth said. “The real question is, do you want him there?”