Another insincere smile, a hand on their waist, a joke that is returned with a reddening of their face, a kiss, a finished drink, an invite back to theirs, a gentle clumsy touch, all just to fill a gaping wound in your chest you’ve held since the day you were born.
It always follows the same cycle. You get lonely, you get desperate. You find a stranger, the sex is usually okay. But that void remains. Nothing again and again. A pit longing for something to be slotted into place. The pieces just don’t quite fit right. You feel nothing yet you wish for so much more.
You found the world to be so unlike the movies, starting with your best friend in the world admitting she had a crush on you early in high-school. You tried, she was gorgeous, brilliant, and so fun to be around. The pieces were there yet the picture remained fragmented.
This cycle repeated often. You would try desperately to make relationships work over and over and over. You would always find yourself back home. You would always find yourself sobbing in your big sister’s lap.
She would run her fingers through your hair, reassert that you didn’t have to be like the other boys, and that you’ll find your person.
Then you transitioned. You finally understood. You didn’t want someone else because you didn’t want you.
Your sister was there for you immediately, on top of your new name and pronouns, helped you get a new wardrobe with some of her own hard earned cash.
You started spending more and more time with her, little by little feeling something right. Coffee and lunch, movies and the bar. Exhausted evenings with a movie and pizza on the couch that would quickly turn to napping atop one another.
Your other relationships often failed, but there she was, your shining beacon in the dark.
You begin to realize, it’s her. It’s always been her. But, why did it have to be her. The one time you long for another’s touch in a way that simply isn’t physical and it’s her. Your older sister. Her gleaming smile, her cute freckles, her stupid sense of humor, and even all of the times she pesters you while you’re trying to rest.
You let it well inside your chest. There’s never going to be another for you, but she can’t be either. At least until one night where you both are drunkenly walking home from the bar.
Evening clouds over you like a soft blanket, once charted routes feel unfamiliar, with her the world feels sharp and bright. You stumble, you fall, and she catches you. The streetlights cast a halo over her soft skin.
Everything you have felt floods out of your chest.
She kisses you, and the world feels right.