“Let them,” Luca said. “I’ve got snacks and zero remaining fucks.”
“Luca,” Samira said. “They’re my partner.”
A long pause. The kettle began to whistle. Nasrin turned it off, even though Samira had been reaching for it. She faced him fully. big dick shemalegals
Luca took a slow bite of green bean casserole, chewed, swallowed, and said, “Hungry. Pass the gravy?”
Samira had come out as a trans man two years ago, during his sophomore year at the state university three hours north. Returning to Salt Creek for Thanksgiving was always a negotiation: between the boy he was becoming and the girl the town still saw, between the sharp, clean air of the dorms where his friends used his name without flinching and the salt-stained living room where his mother still slipped and said “she” over cranberry sauce. “Let them,” Luca said
He nodded, not trusting his voice.
Luca was a lighthouse in human form: tall, calm, with a cascade of purple-and-blue hair that he tucked behind one ear. He was nonbinary, used they/them, and moved through the world like a question mark that had decided to become its own answer. They carried a battered copy of Stone Butch Blues in their backpack and had a habit of drawing constellations on Samira’s forearm when he was anxious. The kettle began to whistle
“You are something here,” Luca said. “You’re you. The town’s just slow to update its software.”
“I used to stand here at fifteen,” Samira said quietly, “and wish I could just dissolve into the fog. Become nothing. Because being nothing was better than being a girl.”
He thought about the lighthouse. About how light doesn’t ask permission to shine. About how some beacons are built for ships, and some are built for sons coming home.
At the end of the weekend, as Samira and Luca packed the car, Nasrin came out with a container of baklava. She handed it to Samira, then hesitated.