66. A Long Process
”Why is it so hard?”Lily moans as she falls back onto the bed, and I laugh as I walk over toward her. ”Help?” I take the trainer from her hands and kneel at her feet where the other one is lying on its side.
”Never pulled your groin?” She groans as I lift her foot to slide the shoe on for her. I”ve heard dying animals who sound more cheerful than she does. Before I move to the other one, I pause so she can have a chance to breathe.
Once it”s on, I take her hand and pull her from the bed. ”Is this what it feels like?”
”Worse, because it doesn”t come with six orgasms, so it”s just pure evil.”
She walks awkwardly toward the top of the stairs. ”I knew we should have stopped at five.”
”Want me to carry you down?” I put a hand on her hip, hoping she”ll say yes, because I”m going to take her right back into the bedroom and show her all the other ways to have an orgasm that won”t stress her groin so much.
”I made it through bottom surgery. I can make it through this.” I try not to laugh as she steps down with one foot and brings the other beside it before moving down to the next. Over and over. ”How are you not sore?”
I stand on the step behind her and hold her tight as I run my tongue under her earlobe. ”Easy. I used my tongue and fingers when my dick needed a break last night.”
”Well, tonight is my tongue”s turn.”
”We”ll see. Mine might have unfinished business it needs to take care of.”
She swats me away and then continues down the steps. Finally she makes it to the bottom, only stopping to glare at me twice when I laughed a little too loudly at her struggles. Then we waddle to the car. Well, she waddles. I make a point of showing her just how normally I”m able to walk. To inspire her. She doesn”t seem to appreciate my motivational efforts, though.
Michael is waiting for us when we get to Bridges. He”s wearing a bright pink sweater and a pair of pants that are more blue than anything in the natural world. ”Good morning, dears.” The office looks the same as the last time I was here a month ago, but the desperation is no longer suffocating as we sit across from his desk. ”So, you wanted to talk about Chloe? She hasn”t gone to school at all this week. Says she”s sick, but I can tell she”s not. She just stays in her bed and won”t talk to anyone. Since you”re here, I”m guessing you know what”s going on?”
Shit.My stomach does a dive. One of the fancy Olympic ones off the ten meter platform that involves all kinds of spins and tucks as it plummets. The sensation makes me dizzy, and I have to close my eyes.
”That”s my fault.” Lily draws in a shallow breath and looks down at her shoes. ”We were having—No, I was having issues. I got scared and almost moved away. It didn”t go well when I told Chloe what I was planning.”
”Saturday?” Michael asks.
I hold my hand out for Lily. She”s still staring at her toes and doesn”t see it, so I rest my fingers across her wrist. She flinches at the touch. ”We made mistakes,” I say, ”but we fixed them.”
Michael grins and leans back in his chair. ”I thought it looked like you two had a good night last night.”
”What?” Lily asks at the same time that I say, ”A very good night.”
”You look a little stiff,” Michael tells her. ”And you”ve tried to cross your legs three times since you sat down, but your legs are having none of it. Trust me, girl, I know the feeling.” He winks. ”So, is that why you”re here? To tell Chloe that you worked through your problems? To be honest, she could use some adult role models who show her how to work through issues rather than just firing anger at them or pretending they don”t exist. It seems that”s all her parents would ever do.”
”Sort of,” she says. ”Brant and I think of her… we think of the three of us as a family. We want to talk to you—and to her, obviously—to see if there are ways we can make that more official. If she wants to. It would all be up to her.”
”But we want to.” I can”t emphasize it enough to make him understand just how strongly I feel about this, and how strongly I know Lily feels. If Chloe doesn”t want any part of this, it will break both of us. ”We”ll still always be there for her regardless of what she says about this, but we would really like?—”
”We”re wondering about taking guardianship of her. Officially. Legally.”
”Oh. So you two...” Brant waves a finger between the two of us, and we both nod.
Lily finally takes my hand and a smile breaks over her face as she coils her fingers around mine. ”I”m moving in with him as soon as we have the time to do it.”
”She”s doing it today,” I say. ”There”s no game until Friday, so I”ll have the boys come over. With all of us, we can move everything you need in an hour. And Emory is here. She can help you get settled in.”
”That”s so quick.” Lily narrows her eyes as she looks at me. ”Are you sure?” she asks.
I want to say I”ve never been more sure of anything in my life. That I don”t want to spend another second apart from you for as long as I live, let alone a minute. If an hour passes without being able to see you or touch you, I think I might actually die. Instead, I say, ”If you need more time, that”s fine.”
”Today is perfect.” God, that smile makes me half hard even though my dick should be too exhausted to do anything except piss for the next week.
Michael clears his throat, no doubt worried we”ve forgotten all about him and are about to do something he doesn”t want to see. ”So anyway, getting legal guardianship can be a long process, and you will need to get a lawyer involved.”
”I already put a call in.” Lily whips her head back to me, her eyebrows halfway to her hairline. ”While you were in the shower,” I tell her. ”She doesn”t do family law, but she has a friend who does. He”s going to call us.”
”Then he”ll be able to give you a lot better information than I can. Just know it”s going to be a whole ordeal. Her parents might object. If you get the wrong judge, he or she might object. A trans woman and her boyfriend seeking guardianship over a trans teen? We”ve come a long way from all the anti-trans hysteria a few years ago, but some of it still lingers. You know.” He points to Lily, and she nods. ”But if you two are willing to put in the work and the money?—”
”We are.” We both interrupt him.
”And most importantly,” he continues, ”if it”s what she wants, then I think I”ll support you in it.”
I know that Michael”s approval is the least important part, but I still want to leap from this uncomfortable chair and hug him as he says those words. Getting this, getting my family, that”s my championship. There”s no way lifting any silver cup over my head will ever feel half as good as this.
”Can we talk to her?” Lily asks, and just like that, the nervousness pours back inside me, displacing everything.
Michael walks around the desk and toward the interior door that separates his office from the living areas of the shelter. ”I think seeing you two would be good for her. Remember, she”s a hurt teenager right now. She might lash out or she might not even say a word to you. It”s not personal.”
But it is. When Lily told us she was leaving, it felt like someone was ripping away a part of me, and I knew it hurt Chloe too. But the full reason didn”t dawn on me until just now. Her life has been filled with people who only love her on their terms. They love her if she wears her hair a certain way or if she dresses a certain way or uses the name they want to call her. Lily and I tried to show her that we”re different. Then Saturday happened. As I drove her back to the shelter that night, I thought it was a good sign that she wasn”t crying. I should have known better when she didn”t say a single word to me. Not even when I hugged her goodnight. She wasn”t coping, at least not in a healthy way. She was retreating to a place where we couldn”t get to her.
Michael points to the left as we walk into the room. If he hadn”t pointed her out, I would have passed by. It looks just like a wadded blanket on an unmade bed. ”Hey, so...” Lily kneels beside the bed and reaches out to lay a hand on what is probably the girl”s shoulder, but she pulls it back just before touching her. ”So, I made a mistake. The biggest mistake I”ve ever made. And I”m sorry.”
”Hi Chloe. I”m here too.” I take a knee beside Lily and lace my fingers through hers, hoping to reassure her that everything will work out. Hoping to reassure myself of that. Michael taps me on the shoulder to let me know he”ll be in the office before closing the door behind him. ”Lily and I want to talk to you about something. Something really important to us.”
The blanket twitches slightly. It”s the first sign that there”s something alive under it. ”Like what? You”re both leaving? Good.”
Fuck.
”The opposite actually,” Lily says. ”I”m staying. I was hurting before. I thought it would be best if I left, and… But I was wrong and I hurt you and I have never wanted to hurt you, and I?—”
”You did hurt me.” Christ, her voice wobbles like a six-year-old on the verge of tears, and I want so much to hug her and tell her everything will be alright.
I want to tell her she”ll never hurt again. But she will. And what if things won”t be alright? I always visualize things going well. It”s some sports psychology BS I picked up somewhere, but it works. And I”m picturing it now. I see both of them at my games, wearing my name on their backs. I see Lily and me picking her up from school. I see myself, setting a table each night for the three of us. The images make me smile. But how do I tell a fifteen-year-old girl that it will all be okay because I visualized us together?
”I know,” Lily whispers. ”That”s the mistake I was talking about. I thought leaving would be best for everyone. I thought…” her voice catches, and the way she pauses, I wonder if she”ll be able to keep talking. ”You and Brant are good things. The best things that ever happened to me. Both of you. And I”m so used to thinking everyone is better off without me that I thought leaving was the best thing for you and Brant.”
”That was stupid.”
”I know, and I really hope you”ll forgive me someday and be able to trust that I love you.”
Chloe rolls over to face us, her red eyes reflecting the light from the window behind me, and I see she wasn”t alone under the blanket. Silver rests his head on her hip once she turns. A reminder to her that he”s right there and a reminder to us that he”s here to protect her. She absently strokes a hand over his head, smoothing back his fur. ”I”m so sick of everyone else telling me what”s best for me. People still think I”m just a kid, but I know what”s best for me. And you leaving me…” The tears spill down her face as she pinches her eyes closed. She swallows so hard her entire head moves. And I break seeing this girl I love in tears.
”I know,” Lily says. ”I”ll never do anything like that to you again. Can I hug you?” Chloe nods but doesn”t look at us. Lily twists and tries to wrap her arms around the girl without bashing against the top bunk. I hold my hand above her head to cushion her in case she does. When she”s done, she”s lying on the bed with Chloe—only her feet are hanging off the side—and the two of the them have their arms wrapped around each other so tight it might take some heavy extraction tools to get them to release the other. ”I”m never leaving you,” Lily whispers. ”I promise. I”m never leaving either of you.”
”Me either. But I”m not going to get in there and join this hug because?—”
”Because you”re so big you might break the bed,” Chloe snickers, and it feels like the moment the rain starts to let up after a storm.
”Are you calling me fat?”
Chloe sniffs as she looks up at me, but she”s smiling. ”All I”m saying is I”ve seen how many garlic knots you can eat, and it”s kinda ridiculous.”
”Ouch.” I clutch a hand to my heart. The girl drops one of her hands from Lily and extends it toward me. I take it and inch even closer until the tops of my thighs are digging into the side of the bed frame. I settle my other hand on the small of Lily”s back. My girls. My fucking girls. ”You know I love you too, right?”
She nods.