39. Sawyer
Sawyer
The shop felt too loud the next morning.
Not the normal loud. The good loud. Grinders whining against steel, compressors kicking on in short bursts, the steady clang of metal landing where it belonged.
That kind of noise usually settled me. It was familiar. Predictable. A soundtrack that gave the day structure.
This was different.
Every sound had edges. The welder hissed too sharply, like someone had turned the volume up too high. Sparks flashed across the concrete, each one hitting my eyes like a camera flash. Even the smell of hot metal felt harsher in my lungs.
I had been awake since four-thirty. Not productive awake. No coffee, no scrolling through my phone, no real attempt to fall back asleep. Just lying on my back, staring at the ceiling like it might give me an answer if I waited long enough.
It didn’t.
Eventually, I got up, showered, pulled on the same jeans and boots I always wore, and drove to the shop anyway.
Because that was what I did.
Benji clocked me before I made it ten feet inside.
He stood at the workbench with a tape measure hooked over a length of railing, a pencil tucked behind his ear, and his hair shoved beneath the same gray beanie he wore whenever he needed to concentrate.
He didn’t say anything at first.
He just watched me set my coffee down harder than necessary, then peel off my jacket like it had personally offended me.
After a moment he lifted his chin toward me. “Okay,” he said.
I looked up from the workbench where I had been pretending to reorganize a pile of tools. “Okay, what?”
Benji pointed the end of the tape measure at me. “You’re doing that thing.”
“What thing?”
“The one where you act normal when you’re clearly not.”
“I’m fine,” I said automatically.
He made a face like he had bitten into something sour. “Sawyer.”
I exhaled slowly through my nose. “I’m fine.”
He didn’t argue. Benji was good at waiting.
“What do you want me to say?” I asked.
“Whatever you’ve been chewing on since you walked in.”
I tried to swallow it down, but it wouldn’t go.
“We ran into her best friend and fiancé last night,” I finally said. “At the record store. She pulled away from me, and introduced me as a friend.”
Benji’s expression shifted. Not surprised. Just heavy. “Lilly?”
I nodded.
He blew out a breath and leaned against the workbench. “Fuck.”
“Yeah.” I looked away. “Fuck.”
He didn’t defend her or try to explain it away. “What happened?”
My hands flexed at my sides like they needed something solid to grab.
“We were fine. Dinner, walking around, holding hands.” I shook my head as the memory came back. “Then Lilly showed up, and it was like Addison’s brain slammed a door.”
“And you?”
A sharp laugh escaped me. “And me?”
“Yeah.”
“I stood there while she called me a friend.”
Benji winced. “Sawyer…”
“I know.” I lifted a hand before he could say anything else. The anger drained as quickly as it had appeared. “I know she didn’t do it to hurt me.”
“But it did.”
My throat tightened. “Yeah. It did.”
Neither of us spoke for a moment.
Benji rubbed a hand over his mouth. “She’s scared.”
“I know she’s scared.” The words came out rougher than I meant. “I know. I get it. I really do.”
I looked down at the concrete floor. “But, Benji, I’m falling in love with her.”
He didn’t look surprised. He just looked tired for me.
“And I can’t be someone she edits out when it matters,” I continued. “I can’t keep being the safe part of her life that only exists in private.”
“You shouldn’t.”
I was very surprised he was defending my feelings and not just his sister, “I told her I needed space.”
His eyebrows lifted. “You left?”
“I did. And I hated it.”
“Good for you.”
I looked up. “Good?”
“Yeah.” His jaw tightened. “Because you weren’t wrong. She needs to understand that this has consequences. Not as punishment. Just because your feelings are real too.”
Part of me had wanted Addison to stop me. To grab my sleeve, pull me back, and say my name like she meant it.
To prove I wasn’t something that only existed when no one else was looking.
But she hadn’t.
She had stood there wrapped in her fear and let me walk away.
Benji shifted closer and lowered his voice. “Look, Addison has been trained for that world since she could walk. And after I came out, it got worse.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
His mouth tightened. “When I came out our parents didn’t just adjust. They grieved. Loudly. Publicly. Like they had lost something that belonged to them.”
My chest tightened.
“I was the firstborn. The daughter they paraded around like proof they had done everything right. Cotillion, debutante bullshit, sorority legacy. All of it.”
He gave a humorless laugh. “By the time I was twelve, I refused to do any of it. My mother wouldn’t let me cut my hair, so I cut it off myself. They wouldn’t call me Benji. They only used my deadname.”
My stomach turned.
“They were furious,” he continued. “They couldn’t have their perfect daughter through me anymore, so they handed the role to Addison. They were horrible to me. Refused to ‘let me’ be trans.”
I stared at him.
“She saw all of it and she stepped into the role of ‘only daughter’ like it was a job. Like if she did everything right, they might stop being angry at me. Stop treating me like some tragedy.” His jaw tightened. “She took all that pressure and made it look pretty.”
“How old was she?”
His eyes flashed. “Too young, seven.”
I pictured Addison in pastel dresses with a practiced smile, learning exactly how to take up space the way her mother expected.
Learning that approval was conditional.
That love required a performance.
But she hadn’t only done it because they expected her to.
She had done it for Benji too. Stepped into the space he left behind because she thought it might take some of the pressure off him. Because even at seven years old, she had been trying to protect her brother.
No wonder she froze.
No wonder her first instinct was always to make everything look presentable.
“She’s been doing it ever since,” Benji said. “Every dinner, every holiday, every wedding invitation. Every time my mother tells her she should meet someone’s son. She’s been holding onto the life they expect her to live with both hands.”
“And now she has me,” I said quietly.
He nodded. “And now she has you.”
The anger didn’t disappear, but it changed shape.
“That doesn’t mean what she did was okay,” Benji added. “And it doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to be hurt.”
“I know.”
“But if you love her, and I think you do, you need to understand something.” He held my gaze. “When she pulls her hand away, it isn’t because she’s ashamed of you. It’s because she’s terrified of what happens when she stops performing.”
“I know that.”
“Knowing it and living with it are different.”
I swallowed. “I told her I don’t want to be her secret.”
“You shouldn’t be.” His voice was firm. “She needed to hear that.”
The noise of the shop rose around us again as the day kept moving.
“I’ve been plenty of people’s secret,” he said after a moment. “People who didn’t want to be seen with the trans guy in public but were more than happy to be with me behind closed doors.”
His jaw tightened. “I don’t want that for you. So, if Addison can’t give you what you need, I’ll understand if you have to walk away. She’s my sister, but that doesn’t mean you have to let her hurt you.”
I shook my head and rubbed a hand over my face. “I don’t want to lose her.”
“Then don’t disappear.” His expression softened. “but hold your boundary.”
I nodded slowly.
“Let her meet you in the middle,” he continued. “Not just in private. In her real life.”
Something in my chest shifted. Less panic. More resolve. “Okay.”
Benji straightened. “Also, if she ever brings you to dinner with my mother, I’m faking my own death and moving to Vermont.”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. “Deal.”
He clapped a hand against my shoulder. “And you can always text me if you need anything.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I will.”
* * *
By the end of the day, my body felt wrung out.
Not from work. Work was the easy part. It was holding everything from last night inside my chest and refusing to let it spill that exhausted me.
I hadn’t texted Addison.
I opened her contact more times than I wanted to admit. Typed messages. Deleted them. Tried again.
Nothing sounded right.
So, I did the one thing I always did when my head got too loud.
I got on my bike.
The air had cooled by late afternoon, sunlight slanting gold across the street as I pulled on my helmet. The world narrowed to my breathing, the engine, and the familiar vibration beneath my hands.
As soon as I started moving, some of the tension left my shoulders. Movement helped. It always did.
I took the long way home, cutting toward the waterfront and letting the wind scrape some of the noise from my head. Traffic was thick but steady. The city looked the way it always did. Impatient. Alive. Completely unaware of the storm inside my chest.
I came up on an intersection I had ridden through a hundred times.
The light was green, I went through it.
Then something moved to my right.
Too fast.
Too close.
A car tore into the intersection like the red light wasn’t there.
My brain caught it in pieces. Headlights. A grille. The sudden certainty that there wasn’t enough space. I jerked the handlebars. The bike wobbled beneath me. The back tire caught for half a second before sliding out.
My shoulder hit the pavement first. Then my hip.
I felt pain run though me.
The world tipped and blurred as I skidded across the asphalt. Time didn’t slow down. That was a lie people told. It sped up.
The sound came first. Metal scraping against pavement. A violent crack that punched through my bones as the bike slammed down somewhere behind me.
The air left my lungs.
Sparks flashed at the edges of my vision, and adrenaline flooded my body, my mouth tasted metallic and sharp.
Someone shouted nearby.
I tried to move. Tried to breathe. Tried to figure out which parts of my body still worked.
Everything above me dissolved into lights and voices. Then it all narrowed to one thought.
Addison.
My hand fumbled toward my pocket. I needed my phone.
I needed her.
Shadows moved over me as voices rose around the intersection.
“Don’t move,” someone said urgently. “Please, don’t move.”
I blinked hard, trying to focus. Trying to drag air back into my lungs.
Then everything went dark.
* * *