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Marisol reached across the bar and took their hand. “Honey, I’ve been a woman for half my life. I’ve buried friends who didn’t make it to thirty. I’ve stood in line for hormones with people who drove six hours because their own state wouldn’t help them. Confused people don’t do that. Confused people don’t survive that.”
Deja pulled up a stool on the other side of Riley. “Well, kid. You’ve got two choices. You can sit here and cry into excellent hot chocolate, or you can let me teach you how to wing eyeliner so sharp it could cut a homophobe.”
The kid sat. Their name, they mumbled, was Riley. They’d been kicked out of their cousin’s apartment in Akron after coming out as nonbinary. The cousin had said, “Can’t you just be a normal lesbian?” and Riley had laughed, because they weren’t a lesbian, weren’t normal, weren’t even sure what they were except terrified. freeshemales tube
By midnight, Riley was perched on a cracked leather couch in the dressing room, watching Deja paint her face while Marisol lent them a clean hoodie. The bar filled with music and laughter. A lesbian couple slow-danced by the jukebox. A group of gay men argued loudly about which RuPaul’s Drag Race winner had the best finale lip sync. And in the corner, a young nonbinary kid who’d arrived with nothing clutched a warm mug and listened to two transgender women sing an old, off-key duet about survival.
The bell above the door jingled. A young person stepped in, clutching a backpack strap like a lifeline. They were maybe nineteen, with choppy hair and a denim jacket covered in pins—a fading rainbow, a small trans flag, a button that read “ASK ME ABOUT MY NEOPRONOUNS.” But their face was a storm cloud. Marisol reached across the bar and took their hand
“New stray?” Deja asked.
Marisol slid the mug across the bar. “You know what the difference is between the transgender community and the rest of LGBTQ culture?” I’ve stood in line for hormones with people
Marisol set down the glass. She’d seen that look before—in the mirror, twenty years ago, when she was still Marco and the world felt like a locked room. She pulled out a stool. “Sit. I’ll make you a hot chocolate. None of that powdered stuff—real milk, real chocolate.”
