Chapter 10: Isamu

I thoughtthat sleeping in my childhood bed would bring some comfort.

It doesn't.

The house creaks with noises I'm no longer used to, and for some reason it hurts that I won't have time to relearn them before they're gone. I can hear my dad downstairs speaking to my mother in hushed Japanese. They're talking about my dad delaying his move to Japan to take care of me.

I feel like a freak. Like a half-formed version of what I used to be; the other half lost to the wind that carries the sands in the Middle East.

When you're sick, you take medicine. If you're really sick, maybe they put you on chemo or under a scalpel and pray for the best. When you lose a leg, they give you crutches and eventually a metallic stick, etched away as best they can to mimic your real leg. But when you're brain sick, there's nothing they can do about it.

Take the PTSD pills, talk about your feelings with the willingness of running a cheese grater down your heart, try not to give up. I'm not giving up. At least not permanently. Just for a few hours.

My brain has become a fever dream. Paranoid to the point that my resting heart rate screams fight or flight, all because I can't stop imaging shadows in the brightest alley. Top that with the loss of a limb that also creates heart issues, and I'm a walking disaster.

Tomorrow, instead of getting my new prosthesis like I've been waiting for so long to do, I'll be at the VA running blood tests and getting screened to see if I'm even healthy enough to go on a simple hiking trip. I should be thankful I'm even being seen. The VA normally takes months upon months to get a checkup, and maybe a smidge less for surgery.

I guess fainting enough times on base didn't only qualify me for a service dog, it also made me a model case for a crazy PTSD veteran.

Inu lifts her head from my chest and sniffs me, cold nose right against my neck. I watch her nose dig through the blankets to find my hand. I push back in acknowledgement and try to think about something else. Anything else.

But everything is stressful right now. My heart rate is still high despite my dad's best efforts, but if I think about the van, I'll be anxious it's all for nothing and if I think about John, I'll be emptied out and replaced with shame. He must think I'm a husk of a man.

The urge to scream in frustration is overpowering but my dad is downstairs, and I don't want to deal with more looks of pity today. That leaves me no other choice.

Inu shifts as I sit up in bed, tucking my head between my knee and arm, deep breaths chasing away the scream. Therapy was awkward. Being stuffed into a room with other military personnel reluctantly sharing our feelings isn't ideal. But I did learn a lot from it. We were almost all in the same boat. In fact, PTSD is actually some healthy survival mechanism that my body created to keep me safe. While I was in active combat, it made me more vigilant—prepared for anything.

The leg, on the other hand, doesn't provide any survival benefit. But it is what it is.

"Everything is fine," I whisper between my limbs. "The chances that someone is going to shoot at me are slim." I ignore my brain supplying all the ways it could happen—this is America after all. A constant voice of negativity, designed to survive a world that will never exist for me again. "And it doesn't matter that John saw me vulnerable. He either won't care and we can go back to usual or, he'll see me differently, in which case, he can fuck right off.

"There's nothing wrong with me... well there is—a lot actually—but that's okay because I've made it this far and, come what may, I can get through tomorrow. I haven't failed yet."

I breathe between my arms and knee, taking time to fill myself—lungs expanding across my chest as I try to suffocate the gross feelings still haunting my body. Eventually, I roll over and continue breathing deeply until I finally fall asleep.

Before my deployment,but still on base, I used to entertain the idea of dating a guy. I was far from home, and no longer had the fear of having the people close to me discover I was gay. The squad was easy to keep out as long as I was secretive about it. That all went out the window when I would hear the older guys talk about what it was like for them, receiving letters from their girlfriends or wives, expecting some Dear John romantic longing. They knew it wouldn't keep because the reality was, for however long they were off in Afghanistan or wherever the US had decided it needed to flash its massive metal cock with missiles bursting out the end, their girlfriends would get bored or horny or depressed. On the off chance they did wait for the guy's return, she anticipated those sweet "Military Husband Comes Home" videos, where they meet at the airport and embrace with the longing of nine or more months. Instead, most of us come back with PTSD.

Nobody wants to sleep next to that, especially when the aftermath is me quickly falling to the ground as I lose my balance, and Inu laying on my chest as I panic so hard it shakes my body, tearing me in half all over again.

Sometimes I remember the dream. Sometimes, like tonight, I don't. It doesn't matter. I still wake up stumbling out of bed, reaching for a weapon that isn't there to shoot at enemies that are ghosts in my head.

If it isn't the PTSD, it's the crippling phantom pains that keep me up at night. It seems that no matter how much mirror therapy I do, they come back after each nightmare.

Unfortunately, tonight, it's both.

I roll an antineuropathic pill in my hand—supposed to help with the phantom pains—and wonder if there's a better solution than late nights on the couch, with the television on full volume, to drown out the sound of my own screaming memories.

Inu is on the floor, lying on her back in front of the television, legs flailing in the air as she dreams of chasing squirrels. I'm glad she was able to get back to sleep after we left the shadows of my childhood room, opting for the comfort of the television in the living room. She deserves the break after the day we've had. I didn't mean to wake her up with a nightmare.

At least my dad has streaming subscriptions now and I don't have to rely on cable to muffle my thoughts. The last thing I want is some early morning sales broadcast to put me back to sleep.

The sun rises eventually, and just as it's barely peeking through the horizon, my dad comes down to start breakfast. It's always been like that with my dad, early mornings and late nights. The life of an academic is a never-ending cycle of long hours. It's not a life I would personally want for myself, preferring to lay out in the sun or hike up a mountain. But it makes him happy, and that makes me happy.

"Do you want breakfast?" he asks.

I shake my head at him and stand up, reaching for the spare crutches I keep at my dad's—I didn't want to put on my prosthesis after my nightmare.

"I'm sorry," I tell my dad, my voice shaking as I fall into his arms.

He rubs my back. "Why be sorry if you've caused no burden to me?" He pulls back and wipes my face. "That is why I am here. Shh," he says when I open my mouth. "If it weren't because of the military, you'd come here upset when you got into a fight with a boyfriend. Or you'd call me at two in the morning because your van broke down in a mountain. Maybe in another universe, you're here because you failed a college exam. That does not matter. What matters is I am here for you—big or small. You are my son and I want to be who you call when you need to be cared for again."

He pats my cheek and I watch his face scrunch-up.

"Y-you are my son. My son. I will always care for you." He wipes at his face and pats my chest. "Now, go call your mom. She cares for you too."

"Hi Mom."

There's rustling on the other end as my mom gets grandma ready for bed.

"How do you feel?"

I look down at Inu, curled up beside me with her head on my lap as we sit on a stone bench outside.

"Better," I tell her, looking up at the red trees, bamboo behind them like a natural fence in my dad's garden.

"That's all we can ask for. What happened? Have you seen your doctor yet?"

"No. It's still early here, mom. I went to the Duke Gardens with a—a friend and some asshole yelled at me for having Inu. Triggered all sorts of shit."

"You should sue him. The American way," my mom says flippantly. "Did your friend get his name?"

I laugh. She's such an advocate for me, and it's comforting even though I have to make her stand down frequently. "Nah, I think he was more stressed since he thought I was dying."

"He?" she asks, interest suddenly piqued.

"John," I start with a sad smile. "is straight."

"My other son, Jesus," she says, wrapping her Japanese accent around a Hispanic accent. "Always says it's all a, eh, constrict."

"Construct," I correct gently. "And that's gender. Gender norms?"

"Whatever. Is he cute? John?" Her accent livens up his name and I laugh at her line of questioning.

"Yeah. He's a real looker. It's kind of a problem, you know, because he's also anti-social, like you—" she makes a noise of complaint but doesn't try to fight it, "—and I always drag him to stuff to get to know him better, but maybe I'm just being annoying."

"You're just like your father. He always took me out for drinks with our coworkers."

I laugh as she tells the stories of their youth, and I try not to lose hope that John might not want anything to do with me now.

John

When my dad'scontract with the military ended, he debated getting a storage unit for the furniture we had accumulated at our on-base housing, since it wouldn't fit in the trailer. In the end, he had to call a buddy to sell it instead because he was too drunk to take care of it. He didn't give me a say in it, despite how much of it was mine.

It's a complicated feeling, seeing my dad once as the alcoholic screw up, spewing his guts across the living room, to the now frail but kind man he is today. I want to have hope in him, but I'm too scared. I just can't trust him; can't see past the man that made me feel like an unlovable piece of discarded trash.

But now I'm at the same storage units we once almost had, chasing another complicated feeling.

"Hey," I say, knocking on the side of the unit door. It's unnecessary as Inu has already alerted Isamu to my presence, but it feels rude not to.

He sighs. Maybe I shouldn't have come.

"Listen," Isamu starts, turning around, eyes darting away from mine. "About last time." He stands up fully, which is still short comparatively.

"We don't have to…" He's kept all my pieces. I can keep his just as well.

He laughs, a little wet sounding, and thrusts out a bag. "Token of my appreciation. If you'll have it, I guess."

"Of course," I tell him with ease. "It doesn't change anything."

I take the bag, expecting the typical food, only to find a cassette tape: Judas Priest.

"Not sure how you feel about heavy metal but, uh, thought you might..."

Getting food from Isamu is one thing—payment for the van. But this isn't just a gift from an employer. This is a thought-out piece of him—heavy metal—with a piece of me. It's kind, considerate and wrecking me just a little.

I grin and run my thumb over the label. "Yeah. I might."

Isamu is smiling back at me when I look up, and I feel my lungs seize. This is a horrible idea—by my brain, by my heart, by whatever chemical my brain is releasing that causes Isamu's smile to affect me.

"You should see if you can get a better sound system, especially since you're hitting the road in a few months," I say, pointing at the van, begging him to look away so I can keep pretending I'm not affected by him.

Isamu's face blanks in confusion and he looks back at the van. "Oh! Yeah, of course. The van."

"The van," I repeat, because the van is the reason he still doesn't know I'm gay. Because it's one thing giving him secrets, and it's another thing to hope he'll hold onto them long enough for me to understand why I've told him anything in the first place. The van is the reason he doesn't know the rest. He's leaving. He has no reason to know.

Isamu takes the respirator I hand to him, and our fingers get tangled in the straps. His elegant fingers pull away quickly from where they graze my hand, but too late. He thrusts the mask on quickly to cover the blushing of his cheeks, and I turn on the sander to cover the pounding of my heart.

Hospitals don't bother me.Whenever I meet people that say hospitals make them anxious, it makes me feel exhausted. Exhausted of them.

I've been to the hospital more times than I care to count. I've grown immune to the effects it has. When I was ten, my aunt rushed me here, thinking my mom wasn't DOA. She was, and there was no one to say goodbye to. In my childhood, I lounged around with a camera in my hands, my thoughts on homework I hadn't gotten to, while I waited for my dad to get stitches for his most recent drunken fall. Now, I come for all my doctor's visits.

"John Love," the nurse calls from the door with a smile.

Despite having to come here every three months, I doubt she remembers me. There are people in the lobby who have obviously just begun coming here; layered in baggy clothes, hair cut, or wigs placed haphazardly as they begin their journeys of self-discovery. Their faces are pinched in fear and embarrassment.

It's nothing to look down on, but it makes me wish I were a braver man like Isamu. He'd be able to easily reach out to the person I sat beside and have a long chat with them, easing their tension and giving them hope.

My childhood would've been different if I had met Isamu when we were still in high school. I can just imagine him reaching out to me, asking me to join the basketball team, despite my once slim frame covered in baggy hoodies. I wonder if he'd be disappointed to learn I'm not allowed to play basketball.

I wonder if he'd be disappointed if he knew why.

"Hi John," Doctor Shelby says when they step into the room. "How are you?"

"Uh, I'm good," I say, because it's mostly true.

"Any changes?" they ask, sitting in front of the computer. I watch them go over my checklist, looking over what the nurse had written.

"My face is less oily and I think I'm about done with puberty. Just leveling out I'd say."

When I first started visiting this clinic at eighteen, these sessions were long. I had come with low expectations, knowing that hormone replacement therapy takes some people months or even years for anything to change, but I'd been excited for every little thing. With no one in my life to share it with, I shared it with my doctor and nurses, secretly begging someone to care.

"Today, I got my first chest hair," I'd say, thinking of that little nub of black hair, still pin straight until it had the chance to grow further and curl.

"My voice is getting deeper, don't you think?" And the doctors and nurses would say yes, even though it just sounded like a female who was losing their voice.

"I'm scheduled for top surgery. I've been saving up." But I had to reschedule when my dad needed money for the lot.

"Everyone on campus thinks I'm a guy," I'd say excitedly, and the nurse would smile back and say, "No, John. They know you're a guy."

Eventually, I bit the bullet and gave this part of myself to Aaliyah. She was probably the best choice, since she's never looked at me differently or asked for more of my past.

I had a theory that my dad just accepted it because he was too drunk to remember if he had a son or daughter, but in his sobriety, I've realized he just didn't care that I am transgender.

"That's good," Dr. Shelby says, referring to my second puberty. "Your last blood tests came back fine so there's no reason to be concerned about your cholesterol. Do you have any questions for me before I send you your next three months' supply?"

I hesitate, pulling at my knuckles that have always felt smaller than they should be.

"What happens if HRT is banned in North Carolina?" I ask, but I know the answer. I've researched it. It's why the rally is so important. I just need to hear them say it.

It's easier to be honest with my doctors than with anyone else. They've been nothing but kind to me, but that's in part because I had heard so many horror stories that I researched the best queer facilities. It helps that Dr. Shelby is nonbinary; it makes me feel safer.

They sigh and pinch their lips. "John, we're doing everything to make sure that doesn't happen. But if it does, there are options of going over state lines to get your prescription or seeing an online doctor and getting it shipped to a different state."

I nod, knowing that's basically code for "you're fucked" because all the surrounding states are red states. If North Carolina goes down, a swing state, the others are already down too, and there goes my life-saving medication.

It's a war on drugs all over again but instead of targeting people of color, the government is coming for the queers. "Protecting children" they say, or they tack on a label of mental illness.

Those people in the waiting room should be excited for their transition, not scared of how the world will react. I was lucky to be socially transitioned as a child, and then have the ability to go through medical transitioning in the middle of my senior year, and go to college where no one knew me. No one from my graduating class except me attended Duke; not many get accepted. It wasn't meant to be a secret I was trans, but for the first time in my life, I felt so comfortable. And eventually it felt like it was too late to say anything.

When I still didn't trust my dad, Aaliyah took care of me after my top surgery, but that's it.

People would only look at me differently. See me as less than a man.

I keep it to myself unless someone has a good reason to know.

"I'm sorry, John," Dr. Shelby says sympathetically.

"I know."