Theo laughed. “Right,” he said. He took a long sip of his beer. “Well, I’ve always wanted to be an artist, but that was never good enough for my dad. He made it pretty clear that he thought art was a waste of time. So the only people who really supported me were my sister and my mom, I have an older brother but he’s basically a carbon copy of my dad with no original thoughts of his own. And then my mom went crazy, stabbed my sister, and my dad got tired of dealing with her so he sent her to this mental hospital or whatever. By that point, I was doing drugs just to give a fuck, basically, and then he sent me away to rehab because literally the only way this family deals with problems is by pretending they’re not there. And then I ran away from home, was homeless for a few years, and now here I am.” He smiled briefly. “Your turn?”
Jules sat quietly, listening to Theo talk about his life and what he went through. They could definitely understand where he was coming from, finding several similarities in their life stories, though his was arguably more dramatic. Taking a final sip from their beer, they cleared their throat. “I’m not going to say sorry because I know that doesn’t mean a fucking thing, but damn. You weren’t kidding.” Shaking their head, Jules sighed before starting their story. “Dad’s a workaholic, Mom’s diet consists of Xanax and white wine. Brother isn’t quite a carbon copy of them, but he wants to be. I never lived up to my parents’ expectations. In high school, I used to sneak out and stuff. When I came out to them as nonbinary, they weren’t supportive, so I ran away. Dropped out of high school and got my GED but that’s about it. Wandered into a tattoo shop and that was the start of my new life. Been running since I was 17. And now I’m here.”
