some of the gayest things i did w my girl besties as a kid that haunt me daily even though i'm almost 25
laying on the hot cement of the playground watching the clouds, talking about which boys we'd date in class, and i look over at her and notice how the sun is turning her black hair slightly red in the sun and sigh and say "i wish i were a boy, 'cause then i'd date you"
made a new best friend a little after her who was a year younger than me and i wanted to live inside her skin, a little bit, and went over to her house constantly. i drew her silly art, those weird emo blobs from the mid aughts, and she hung it up on her door. we joked about being married a lot. when i had to move away across the country, one night i was staring up at the moon while listening to a love song and started sobbing wondering if she was also looking at the moon. i never texted her again.
when i was 12 i fell in love with a girl for the first time i knew about. i had just gotten over being weirded out by gay people & when the kids in class started whispering about us being dykes, my teacher called home about it. i cried my eyes out in a red pickup truck with my mom as i told her i was in love with her, but it was fine because she was straight. i was drinking a red slushie.
once with that same girl, we went on a field trip to a nearby science museum. it was within walking distance and she held my hand the whole way, even though we were too old for it. at some point i started swinging her hand and knocking into her and laughing and eventually she just picked me up, put me on her back, and carried me the rest of the way while we laughed. at the museum, she kept finding me and holding my hand again. i went home that night, so giddy, and just kept thinking about her hand in mine and didn't even care about what the rest of the kids were whispering
in february, before that, she'd asked me which girl i had a crush on in class because i'd posted about it on tumblr. it took me a half hour to finally tell her it was her, blushing to my ears as we walked around the perimeter of the playground (we were at a small private school with less than 100 students, so even the middle schoolers got to use the playground), refusing to look at her. she told me she didn't feel like that, but i was still her best friend and she wasn't mad at me or weirded out. if one of us were boys, she said, maybe it would've worked out. her mom moved her back to california at the end of the school year. i never saw her again and she wasn't allowed to talk to me. she messaged me once, years later on here, to tell me i was pretty in a prom dress i'd tried on. she blocked me later.
i wrote down a story about her, a year later, for 8th grade english class. in it, i imagined that she'd never left, and that she'd kissed me while we laid in the grass, mixing up my stories and my life. my teacher looked at me with such a soft sadness and told me it was very beautifully written. she wanted me to submit it to a contest. it won.
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Most people find listening to the sound of falling rain relaxing.
Most people.
Not him.
He had spent too many nights huddled under awnings and tucked under bridges, unable to avoid the water that soaked him and what little he had to the skin.
Wet shoes and socks meant being barefoot, too numb with cold to notice he was stepping on broken beer bottles along the road. Wet clothes meant that he had only hours to find somewhere, anywhere to get warm or dry before he would get sick, really sick.
He wasn’t there, anymore.
He was safe.
He was home.
But that didn’t mean the sound of falling rain didn’t fill him with a bone deep sense of dread.
She didn’t understand exactly; she knew she’d been lucky enough to never associate the sound of rain with anything other than staying indoors. But she understood enough.
Warm blankets and dry socks found their way into his lap while the whistle of the kettle drowned out at least a little of the noise.
She’d close the curtains and put a movie on, loud enough that he could almost forget until the next crack of thunder would make him jump.
He didn’t hide under storefront umbrellas or overpasses anymore, but he did tuck himself further under her arm, as if out of habit, even now.
They both silently hoped that one day, the rain would be just rain. But until then, they’d wait out the storm together, in dry socks.
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“NO!”
At 120 kilometres per hour, Virgil’s little hydrofoil tripped on its own foils and spun in the air, coming down hard, before bouncing off the water surface to spin again, bounce again and again until its angle of entry penetrated the water surface and drove her under.
There was a split second of pure frozen horror.
Then the comms erupted and Gordon moved.
His scanners tracked the pod as it dove, speed leeching into the water the deeper it got. He knew there was enough air in the craft for it to resurface by itself, but that calculation neglected to take in any possible damage to the hull.
It would only take a crack.
He flung TB4 into a steep dive, deploying her arms on approach and grabbing the wounded pod. Shifting his turbines into reverse, he slowed her plummet and began pulling her towards the surface.
His lights shone on the cabin.
Virgil was slumped in his restraints.
“Virgil?”
“Gordon, what’s the pod’s status?” Scott’s voice was strong as ever, but it was trembling just that little bit. Shock, no doubt.
“Recovering now. Pilot appears unconscious.”
“I have no response from Virgil.”
“Neither do I.” His heart was thudding in his chest.
It took years to get to the surface. Likely a matter of seconds, but staring at his injured brother while separated by marine acrylic and water and not able to do anything but look, stretched time beyond belief. But eventually they surfaced, the sun sparking off wet metal and plastic, Thunderbird Two’s engines shaking the air some distance off starboard.
Securing TB4, Gordon flipped out, under, and swam over to the crippled hydrofoil. He climbed up the side of the craft, his gloved hands ghosting over dented metal. Her foils were bent at odd angles, but the core pod…the core pod was secure. Thank god for good and safe design. Her seals had held.
He banged on the clear acrylic. Virgil didn’t react.
Please.
He reached around the back edge of the hatch, his fingers searching for the emergency release. The ocean made the world go up and down.
Finally, his fingers caught the latch and with a hiss of broken seal, he hauled up the hatch. The sea breeze stirred Virgil’s hair.
Gordon yanked off a glove and holding his breath reached for Virgil’s pulse.
His brother’s heart beat against his fingertips.
Oh, thank god.
“H-he’s alive.”
There was an incoherent sound of relief at the other end of the comline.
“We’re going to need a spinal board down here.”
“Copy that.”
It didn’t surprise Gordon to see Scott pin drop from Thunderbird Two several moments later. He’d stripped off most of his uniform, leaving only his undershirt and shorts on. He had also donned a harness to which he had attached one of TB2’s first aid kits. He paddled over on the spinal board and hurriedly clambered up the side of the mangled hydrofoil, his eyes seeking his injured brother.
Gordon had done a visual assessment of Virgil. It appeared that the pod’s safety harness had done its job. There were no obvious major injuries. There would be bruises, no doubt, but his brother appeared to be in one piece.
Scott’s fingers brushed against Virgil’s hair.
“Let’s get him out of there.”
It took some awkward manoeuvring and Virgil was damn heavy, but finally with his spine and neck immobilised as much as possible, the two brothers manhandled him into a basket stretcher lowered from TB2.
Virgil did not stir at all.
Taking one last second to grip Gordon’s shoulder in thanks, Scott rode Virgil’s stretcher up into the confines of Thunderbird Two, and the aquanaut was left staring at the mangled and empty hydrofoil.
As TB2 tore off towards the mainland, Gordon swore and sunk his boot into the side of the crippled craft.
-o-o-o-
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