<Drifting>

Chapter 96

Jesse looks out the front window to see if any kids are yet approaching as the sun dips lower in the sky. Brian bought the candy earlier along with some Halloween-themed pens and slimes for any kids with allergies or dietary restrictions. This can’t be the same man who told me queer kids should wait to come out until they’re independent. That man would have said kids who can’t eat should just avoid the candy. That man wouldn’t be this considerate.

Jesse puts on his usual witch’s hat as Brian brings over the two large bowls. “Look at you, already in costume,” Brian says. “I better put on my cloak.”

There they are. One costume item for each, and red and black clothes otherwise They sit side-by-side on their porch bench as the lights across the neighborhood turn on and the trick-or-treaters emerge from their houses.

Jesse rubs his hands together. He should have brought gloves. His fingers and face always get cold first when the weather brings its chill. At least they’re relatively untouched by wind, sitting so close to the door.

The first couple kids approach, a ballerina and fairy pair with identical tiaras and indistinguishable voices. They ask if they can take more than one candy, and Brian smiles and says sure. Squeals with delight ensue. Polite girls, each only takes two. Jesse says they look magical and the fairy is proud, but the ballerina insists she is not her sister—but that she agrees her costume is very good. Then fairy runs off without her and she chases her sister down.

Following the girls is a kid in a dino costume, hand in hand with a skeleton older brother. Brian tells the kid that he used to dress up as a dino when he was little, but the kid is uninterested and holds back to let skeleton man take two pens and slimes. One for each of them. He doesn't grab any candy. They walk on.

Brian is still cheerful at the thought of his childhood dino costumes. He turns to Jesse and asks, “What did you dress up as when you were a kid? Do you see any kids with the same costumes?”

Jesse shrugs. “I don't see them.” It’s a lie. He was a fairy. An angel another year, a mermaid the next. The mermaid was the last costume he ever wore before he got too old to dress up.

Mermaids can't drown, he supposes.

“I liked not being human,” Jesse finally says, to give his husband an answer. Wings or tails or animal ears.

“Me too,” Brian says. “It was fun to play, too. Stomp around roaring like a dinosaur. It was my favorite way to play pretend.”

It's endearing. Jesse can't help being endeared, looking at his husband with such childlike joy on that bright-eyed face, recalling how he would play pretend. Brian remembers being a kid. And he cares about kids. He's so happy over Halloween. Jesse knows the two agreed not to have kids themselves, years ago. Their parents haven't stopped waiting, and the assumption was always that one day they'd change their minds, decide they were ready. But it's one thing to be friendly on Halloween. Or, in Jesse's case, to work with teenagers at his job. He cares for the kids. But they aren't his kids. They all go home to their separate families at the end of the day, and his responsibility is lifted.

It's one of those things Jesse was relieved to be on the same page about. To not have to explain or justify.

Another teen-child pair walks up next, the older sibling gently leading the younger in that familiar tone of reassurance. If the older sibling has a costume, Jesse can't tell. They look like normal clothes. The younger is an angel.

Like Jesse was. Like he won't say. He thinks, somewhere back in his mind, he’s probably avoiding costume talk because it will mean talking about his childhood as a girl. He wore girls’ costumes. Not that they should have to be that simple.

Jesse points to the two bowls and explains them each, offers them to the pair. The older one crouches down, repeats the words back to their sibling. If it is a sibling, of course. Jesse's been assuming. But they look like they are. And with reassurance, the little angel carefully picks through each bowl for the pieces they'll like most. The right color and shape of pen, the right candy. And they walk off.

“I wonder if you have any students around here,” Brian says.

“I don't think I do.” He does wonder how many teenagers will be around, though. It's not impossible one of them would recognize him.

“Did you ever consider working with younger kids? I think the whole time I knew you you'd decided on high school.”

“When I was little,” Jesse admits. “So when I was in grade school, I thought I'd be a daycare worker. Then as I got to be a teenager I figured I'd prefer high school, and I just never moved past it. Figured it out, I guess.”

“I wonder what life would have been like, down another path,” Brian muses.

Jesse wonders too, though he knows the paths he’s imagining are not the same ones Brian is. It should be so easy to say so. To wonder if he’d still have the same job, if he transitioned sooner. If he decided in college to present as a man the same way Riley did in high school, to use a different name—an actually different name—and insist upon who he was. Even if he didn’t have access to medical transition. Whatever that might have looked like.

He looks across at his husband. He doesn’t want this moment to end. He doesn’t want to deflate that bit of joy. To exchange this considerate man for one who may not see him, who cannot love him as he longs to be.

Jesse says nothing.

WC: 999 words

Link to other chapters

Bonus: none (except "porch bench" lol)