Chapter 4

FOUR

Supper with Rhys was absolutely wonderful. The food was good, the conversation was interesting, and throughout the entire thing, Early felt as if Rhys was interested in them and respected them and their choices. He’d praised Early a second time for having the courage to leave their parents’ house rather than give up who they were—although the way Early saw it, they didn’t really know who they were, and their parents had strongly hinted that they wanted them to leave rather than stay and conform.

The entire evening was like some sort of dream of safety and domesticity, where Early had the object of their desire taking care of them and making certain they felt good. They’d watched some telly together after supper, talked a little more, then Rhys had fetched spare blankets and a pillow to make the couch into a bed.

It wasn’t until Rhys was saying goodnight and retreating into his own room that it occurred to Early that something had been off about Rhys all night. They cursed themself for being utterly oblivious until they’d noticed Rhys’s frown just before he’d shut his bedroom door.

That was when the doubt and angst crept in.

What were they doing there? Why had they gone running into Rhys’s arms the second he’d opened them? Why hadn’t they gone to a relative’s house? It wasn’t like their aunt and uncle weren’t supportive.

The doubt got worse as the night wore on and Early tossed and turned on the couch, surrounded by unfamiliar sounds, scents, and expectations.

What right did they even have to walk out on their parents instead of trying to sort things? If they could just explain what being non-binary meant to them, how they desperately didn’t want gender to be the entire definition of who they were and what they wanted from life, then maybe everything would be alright. Who did they think they were to be so stubborn and refuse to at least negotiate?

Those worries transformed into deeper, harsher ones as the night ticked on and Early’s phone displayed the early morning hours when they picked it up.

How stupid had they been to just run out of the house with nothing but their wallet and coat? They hadn’t packed a bag or taken even their toothbrush with them. They were lucky that Rhys had had a spare toothbrush in his cabinet. They didn’t have anything to wear to bed, so Rhys had loaned them an old t-shirt and faded PJ bottoms that were sizes too big. Sure, they smelled like Rhys and that was glorious, but what were they going to wear in the morning?

By the time morning rolled around, sending feeble rays of light through the windows, Early felt worse than they had when they’d arrived at Hawthorne House the night before.

“Did you sleep well?” Rhys asked when he came out of his bedroom, already washed and dressed and looking far too chipper for that hour.

“Yeah, I guess,” Early said, sitting up and hugging the blanket they’d been given to their chest.

They had no idea why they were being so modest, since Rhys had already seen them naked anyhow. That thought only made them blush hard.

“I didn’t hear you in the shower,” they added, forcing themselves to stand and fold the blankets they’d used as Rhys made tea in the kitchen.

“Yeah, I’m a morning lark,” Rhys said.

Early stopped their folding and blinked. “Morning lark?”

“It’s the opposite of a night owl,” Rhys said as he took two mugs down from the cupboard.

Early winced. Of course it was. “Oh,” they said, finishing with the blankets. “Right.”

Stupid. How completely stupid could they be?

Very stupid, as it turned out. They nearly tripped over the hem of Rhys’s loaned PJs as they headed into the kitchen. Then they came close to getting tangled up with Rhys when they insisted on at least helping with breakfast. Rhys finally had to order them to sit down and breathe, which left Early feeling like a useless and tragic child.

“Are you going to be okay to work today?” Rhys finally asked once they were seated across the table from each other, eating toast with jam and scrambled eggs.

“Yeah,” Early said, managing to smile.

What they wanted to say was no, they didn’t think they’d be okay at all. They wanted to spill everything to Rhys, tell him that the world was too confusing and overwhelming to them, that they didn’t know who they were or how they fit into life. They wanted to confess that they’d been in love with Rhys since the moment they’d laid eyes on him, that Rhys was the most handsome man they’d ever seen, and that the only thing about their sexuality that they were certain of was that they liked men, Rhys specifically.

None of that felt at all appropriate when Rhys started talking about how the weather was getting cooler and how nice it was that the arts center had added so many new classes and gained so much national notice.

It was almost a relief when Rhys left Early in the flat, trusting them with his personal space and his things as he headed down to his classroom to get a little of his own painting done before his morning class. A relief, and yet Early felt bereft and lost without him.

They forced themself to take a shower, and when there was nothing else for them to put on, they dressed in yesterday’s clothes. It was a small miracle that they’d been able to hide their panties from Rhys, but it didn’t feel great putting on the same pair two days in a row.

“Uh oh,” Rebecca said when Early finally walked into the office downstairs. “Is this the walk of shame I see or something more sinister?”

“More sinister, I’m afraid,” Early said, hugging themself and lowering their head.

“Oh, dear.” Rebecca came out from behind the front desk to give them a big hug.

“Have you been home at all?” Janice asked as she came out of the storeroom off to one side of the office. “Whatever happened, you know we’re here for you, love.”

“My parents kicked me out,” Early explained in as few words as possible, feeling worse with all the tender attention directed at them. It sucked how that happened so often. “I came straight here last night, since I didn’t know where else to go. Rhys was there, and I spent the night with him.”

“Did you now?” Janice asked, arching one of her bohemian eyebrows.

“Not like that!” Early nearly shouted, heating like a furnace. “I slept on the couch.”

“Mum,” Rebecca scolded Janice, rolling her eyes at her.

“I’m just saying that it would have been a lovely way to make Early feel welcome,” Janice defended herself with a shrug of one shoulder. “You are welcome, dear,” she went on. “You know that.”

“I do,” Early nodded anxiously. “That’s why I came here.”

“Good,” Janice said. “And if you need me or Robert or any of us to deal with your parents for you, you need but ask.”

“Thank you, Janice,” Early said, wishing the entire thing would just go away so that they could get on with their day, their work, and their life.

“Do you have any other clothes with you?” Rebecca asked, rubbing a hand on their arm.

Early shook their head. “I didn’t think to pack a bag before I left.”

“Sweetheart,” Janice said, full of embarrassing levels of motherly compassion as she made a beeline straight to Early to give them a hug.

Part of Early leaned into the affection. The rest of them just wanted to forget they were anything other than perfectly normal on an ordinary day.

“We have an entire room filled with clothes upstairs,” Rebecca said, grabbing Early’s sleeve and tugging them away from Janice. “It’s part lost and found, part stuff leftover from when this was a school, and part storage for the family when we don’t want something anymore but don’t have the heart to throw it away. I’m sure we can find a bunch of stuff in there for you to wear.”

“Thanks,” Early gusted out in relief. This was exactly the reason they’d come straight to Hawthorne House in their darkest moment.

“I’ll man the helm,” Janice offered, walking behind the desk. “Now, how does this telephone contraption work again?”

Rebecca sighed and grabbed Early’s hand, pulling them toward the door and groaning, “Mum!”

It actually made Early smile, despite everything going on. They might not be normal or ordinary, but the Hawthorne family would always be the Hawthorne family. They were their anchor in a stormy sea.

“I hate being so much trouble,” they confessed to Rebecca as she took them down the family corridor, then up the same staircase they and Rhys had walked up the night before, only all the way to the mythical third floor, which had once been the servants’ quarters.

“It’s your turn,” Rebecca said, brushing off their embarrassment. “Everyone goes through tough times now and then. You were so incredibly helpful to all of us last year when Raina died.”

“I was so new then,” Early said, highly sensitive to how traumatized the family still was over Raina’s death. “I didn’t really do anything but work.”

“You took a huge load off all our shoulders just by being here and manning the office,” Rebecca told them as they reached a door halfway down the hall. “You have no idea how much of a help it is just to have someone carry on with all the things we didn’t have the capacity for.”

Early nodded, but they weren’t certain they deserved that much praise. But if Rebecca thought they’d done something that meant they deserved the care they were getting now, then they supposed it was fair.

“This is the clothes room,” Rebecca said, switching gears as she stepped into the room and flicked on the lights.

Early was immediately hit by the unmistakable scent of decades’ worth of old clothes. It was the scent of every charity shop they’d ever been in times a hundred. It wasn’t just the scent that captured them either. The room was larger than they’d expected it to be, and it held row after row of rolling clothes racks packed tight.

“This is amazing,” Early said, stepping farther into the room.

“I said it was a lot, and it’s a lot,” Rebecca said, as though that were a problem. “Someone really needs to come clean it out, but now that the arts center is adding more classes and Ryan has been making noise about teaching fashion design classes, he wants to go over everything before we make a move.”

“Smart,” Early said, going straight to the nearest rack and brushing their hand over the rich fabrics that it contained.

“So pick out whatever you want,” Rebecca went on. “I think there’s a bin of underwear in the back, and I swear it’s all been laundered, if you want to go that route, too.”

“I need everything,” Early lamented. “It was so stupid to just run out without packing a bag.”

Rebecca had made it halfway down the aisle when they said that. She stopped and turned back to him. “Was it that bad, then?” she asked, all sisterly compassion.

Early tried to keep their gaze focused on the clothes they sorted through, hoping something would jump out for them to wear. They couldn’t avoid Rebecca forever, though. Rebecca was one of the closest friends they had.

With a sigh, they looked up. “I don’t know,” they said. “I think…I think I was just a coward about it. My dad was shouting because he found—” They stopped and swallowed, but seeing as it was Rebecca and not Rhys or anyone else they were alone with, went on with, “He found my underwear drawer.”

“Oooh!” Rebecca elongated the syllable teasingly, which went a long way to make them feel at ease. “And what did you have hidden in your underwear drawer?”

“Underwear,” Early said, their face heating to a ridiculous degree for what felt like the millionth time that morning. “Lacy, silky underwear.”

“No!” Rebecca gasped, her eyes bright with amusement and affection. “Early, you naughty narwhal!”

That had Early laughing out loud. It felt so amazing that at least half of the tension and dread they’d been carrying around all day melted away.

“So what if I like something soft and silky against my narwhal bits?” they asked with a fey shrug of one shoulder, switching to another rack of more feminine clothes.

“I take it your dad didn’t like it,” Rebecca said, continuing to the back of the room and the dozen or so plastic bins stacked against the wall.

“No,” Early said as they flicked through the racks of shirts and blouses with a lighter heart. “Once he found the panties, he decided to help himself to a look around the rest of my room.”

They paused and glanced to where Rebecca was taking a bin down from the top of one pile, then let go of the last of their hesitation and spilled the whole story.

“I haven’t really told my parents that I’ve been giving the whole non-binary thing a try,” they said. “I mean, they know how I like to dress and that I like my hair long. I’ve never tried on make-up at home, and honestly, I don’t know if I’m that kind of enby, because I don’t really like the feeling of make-up on my face. They know I like boys, and for some reason they’ve been marginally okay with that. I think my dad is just sore that his son doesn’t really feel like his son anymore, if you know what I mean.”

“Well, as a practicing pansexual with barmy, pan-poly-free love-hippie parents, I can’t really say I identify with your exact situation,” Rebecca said, her voice strained as she carried the bin she’d chosen up to the front of the room. She put it down on a table near Early with a grunt, then went on with, “But I am sympathetic to what you’re saying.”

“Thanks for that,” Early smiled. “It means a lot.”

Rebecca smiled and winked. Then her expression shifted to a combination of shock and sentiment as her gaze dropped to the dress Early had taken off the rack.

“That was one of Raina’s favorites,” she said, full of emotion.

Early immediately felt like they’d accidentally taken a holy relic from a museum shelf. “Oh, sorry,” they said, quickly putting it back.

“No, no, don’t be,” Rebecca reassured him, stepping away from the table. She ran her hands over all the clothes on that particular rack. “All of these were Raina’s. I guess Nick moved them up here to make room for the kids’ stuff.”

“I won’t touch any of it, then,” Early said, moving to a different rack. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“I’m sure she wouldn’t mind,” Rebecca said, picking out another dress on a hanger from Raina’s rack. “She had such fabulous taste.”

“She did,” Early agreed. “But honestly, I’m not sure I’m ready to go the full ballgown look yet.”

Rebecca grinned at the sparkly dress she held, then put it back on the rack. “Whenever you’re ready,” she said, then nodded at the sliver of sparkly material that was still visible.

“I don’t know if I ever will be,” Early said, relaxing a little as they looked through a more masculine, but definitely retro, rack of clothes. “That’s the thing about, well, everything in my life right now. I don’t know who I am yet. I don’t know what I want.” Except Rhys.

“I don’t think it’s a race to find out,” Rebecca said, going back to the bin she’d taken down. “There are days when I don’t have a clue who I am or what I want either, and I’m thirty now. You’ve got time.”

Early hummed. “Tell that to my parents.”

Rebecca laughed as she removed the lid from the bin. A moment later, she said, “Here you go. These should be perfect for you.”

Early glanced over from where they’d just picked out a plain black pair of slacks that looked like they were the right size only to find Rebecca holding up an enormous pair of sateen granny panties.

They burst into laughter and shook their head.

“God, no!” they said, taking the trousers over to look into the bin. “I’m not that desperate. Ooh, but these look nice.”

They pulled out a pair of cotton lace bikini undies that just might have been enough to keep them contained.

The next fifteen minutes was spent going through more of the contents of the clothes room and finding something to wear. It was one of the most fascinating rooms Early had yet been in at Hawthorne House, and that was saying something. Whenever Ryan Hawthorne returned from Milan to teach his fashion design course, he would definitely find a lot of interesting pieces to work with and from.

In the end, Early went far more conservative than they could have. They walked out of the clothing room dressed in the plain black slacks, but with an androgynous, nineteen-eighties silk shirt of blue, purple, and turquoise. The panties fit well enough, but their big gamble was the modest heels they’d found at the bottom of a bin of shoes. Some woman at some point in the history of the house had been blessed with enormous feet. Early’s feet were average for their height, even if they thought they were huge, so the heels fit.

They’d never worn heels, though, and walking in them turned out to be slightly more of a challenge than they’d anticipated.

“They aren’t that high,” Rebecca snorted with laughter as Early gripped the railing and walked carefully down the stairs to the ground floor. “They’re barely an inch.”

“Says the person who has worn heels before,” they snapped back quietly.

They mastered the art of balancing in the unfamiliar shoes enough as they crossed through the main hall and headed toward the office so that by the time they walked in to where Janice was chatting away with one of the retired women who took all of Robbie’s ceramics classes, they didn’t stumble around like a drunken sailor.

“I approve,” Janice said briefly before going back to her conversation with the woman.

“Approve of what?” Rhys asked, stepping out of the copy room behind the front office, a stack of photocopies in his hands.

He froze and blinked at the sight of Early.

Early was immediately self-conscious. They worried that the clothes didn’t really fit their body as well as it felt like they did, that their hair was a mess from all the dust in the clothes room, or that Rhys would realize they were an inch taller and make fun of them for wearing heels.

At the same time, the subtle shift that the heels caused in Early’s body, the stretch of their legs and the slight lift they felt in their bum, did something funny to their insides. Instead of hunching and shrinking away from Rhys in embarrassment at being caught trying something unusual, they smiled more openly at him than they ever had before.

“I guess she means my outfit,” they said, twisting this way and that and glancing down at themselves as they did. Then they took their biggest risk yet by staring straight at Rhys again and asking, “What do you think?”

It was as close to flirting with anyone that Early had ever come. They were convinced it was clumsy and stupid, but their heart raced and hope raged through them.

“I agree with Mum,” Rhys said, raking his eyes from Early’s head to their toes then back up again. He smiled warmly and nodded. “I like it. It suits you.”

“Really?” Early asked, their confidence falling apart. “All of it? Even…?” They held one foot out and lifted the leg of their trousers to reveal the heels.

Rhys nodded again. “If they feel right, then go for it.” Color splashed his face and kindness filled his eyes. Kindness and something hotter that took Early’s breath away.

A shoot of confidence began to grow in Early’s gut.

It was thrust back into the shade almost immediately when Rhys held up the photocopies in his hand and said, “I’ve got to prep for my next class,” in a strangely tight voice before hurrying out of the room.

Early glanced to Rebecca, hoping she would have something to say to reassure them, but she was busy helping a new student who had just entered the office. Early wasn’t certain she’d even seen the interaction.

To make matters worse, Early’s mobile buzzed in the pocket of their trousers, where they’d transferred it when they changed.

They pulled out their phone only to find a text from their mum.

“ Come home at once. This behavior is ridiculous .”

They let out a deflated breath and walked around to the other side of the desk, just wanting to get to work. For a step, they wobbled on their heels, but recovered enough so that anyone who wasn’t watching them wouldn’t have noticed.

That was exactly what they wanted, to go unnoticed.

But maybe not by Rhys.

They huffed impatiently at themselves and tossed their phone onto their desktop before sitting down to work. It took a lot more than borrowed clothes to change someone’s life.