Who We Could Be Read online

  “Will you get mad if I fuck them up?” I asked, as she pushed a ball of dough toward me. Let’s just say that I’d tried to bake and cook with her many times before and it hadn’t gone that well.

  “I’m not going to get mad,” she said, but I gave her a look. “Okay, I’ll try not to get mad.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that,” I said as I started to roll out the dough. I sort of knew what I was doing, but I could feel Monty vibrating with anxiety next to me.

  “Okay, I know you’re not getting mad, but I can feel you stressing, Ford. What does it matter if the crust is perfect? I’ll eat the ones that don’t look good. It’s the least I can do.” The dough looked relatively flat, so I started cutting out strips.

  “You’re not going to measure?” Monty squeaked.

  “No, I’m going for a rustic look,” I said, and watched her eye start twitching. Sure, if I was making a pie for someone else, I might have been a little less haphazard, but winding Monty up was part of the fun.

  I swiped a flour-covered finger under her eye.

  “You’re twitching, Ford.” Monty slapped my hand away and pressed both hands onto the board and closed her eyes.

  “Shut up,” she said, and there was a tension in her voice that didn’t seem to have anything to do with me messing up pie crust.

  “Hey,” I said, putting a floury hand on her shoulder. Monty wore an apron that looked like it was ripped from the corpse of an exhausted 1950s housewife. I already had flour all over my clothes somehow. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, flexing her fingers and rolling her shoulders back. “I’m fine.”

  “You know, the more you tell me you’re fine, the less I believe you.” Monty shrugged my hand off her shoulder and walked to the rack to stare at the finished pie.

  “I’m fine,” she said again. “Can you just not pester me right now, okay? I have a lot going on. I need to pack up some of my stuff and start moving it over to TJ’s.”

  That last sentence made my stomach drop. I’d been ignoring the fact that she was going to be moving in with TJ after the wedding. I didn’t want to think about the fact that I couldn’t just show up at her place and crash on her couch or annoy her whenever I wanted like I did now. Things would be different, and I didn’t like different. I didn’t like it at all.

  But I swallowed all of those feelings and asked, “Do you need any help?”

  Monty shook her head.

  “No, it’s fine. I’m not going to take much. We’re going to get new stuff, so most of my furniture is going to be donated.”

  I couldn’t express how much I hated that she had to get rid of her stuff, but I guess it made sense. She’d buy shit with TJ and it would be romantic. Made me nauseated to think about that too. There wasn’t much about her upcoming nuptials that didn’t make me want to hurl my guts out. Ugh. I needed to talk about something else.

  “Are you sure you can’t let me have one slice? Just say your dog got it,” I said, inching toward the pie.

  “I don’t have a dog,” she said in a deadpan voice.

  “You have no sense of imagination,” I said.

  Her eyes narrowed and I could see her fighting a smile. “You mean lying.”

  “Lying is just being creative with reality. And if you believe it enough, it’s not a lie.” I reached toward the pie with one finger and I heard a sound behind me.

  “You put your finger in that pie, and you will be in trouble, Cin.” Monty’s voice was soft, but she held her rolling pin like she knew how to use it.

  I moved my finger infinitesimally closer.

  “What are you gonna do, Ford?” I didn’t know why I loved teasing her this much, but it seriously gave me life. It was one of my favorite hobbies, next to kickboxing and reading really smutty fanfic.

  Monty closed her eyes and inhaled slowly as I waited. Then her phone rang, startling us both.

  “Freeze,” she said, pointing the rolling pin at me. I did, and she answered her phone.

  “Hey, yeah, what’s up?” I knew who she was talking to just by the tone of her voice. I knew all of Monty’s voices. She was talking to TJ. Instantly I stepped away from the pie and leaned against the counter.

  Monty talked briefly to TJ and then ended the call.

  “Sorry, he was just calling to figure out when I can bring stuff over tomorrow and then we’re having dinner with his parents.” Another roll of nausea. I didn’t want pie now.

  “How nice,” I said, because I had to say something.

  “You don’t have to finish these. I can handle them.” She went back to working on the mini pies and I went back over to join her.

  “No, I can help. It’s the least I can do.”

  “Thanks, Cin,” she said, and I brushed another streak of flour on her cheek.

  “You’re welcome, Ford.”

  “CAN I HELP?” I ASKED, as Vanessa and Hollie flitted around the kitchen making dinner.

  “No, no, we’ve got this,” Vanessa said, waving a hand that had a spatula in it. Hollie pushed a glass of wine into my hand.

  “Sweetheart, can you hand me that colander?” Hollie dashed to help Vanessa with a giant pot of pasta.

  “You two really need to get some kids soon because there’s no way I’m eating all that,” I said.

  “We’re working on it,” Vanessa said, brushing some dark hair out of her face. “Adopting while trans and gay can be a little tricky, but we think we might be getting closer.” Hollie hugged Vanessa and kissed her on the cheek.

  “Well, you’re the best moms I know. Don’t let my mom hear me say that.” They both held their arms out to me and folded me in for a squeeze.

  “Now, this carbonara isn’t going to eat itself,” Hollie said, her eyes a little misty. My stomach growled as if in response and we all laughed.

  I’d set the table in the dining room with their good china and we said a quick grace before I started attempting to twirl pasta with my fork and a giant spoon and giving up. I didn’t know how many times Vanessa had tried to teach me how to do this, but it just didn’t work out.

  “So, how’s work going?” Hollie asked, eating as daintily as a queen. Or as daintily as I imagined a queen ate. I had no point of reference.

  “Good. I’m somehow in charge of the Pride display, so if you have an ideas or suggestions, I’m all for it.”

  The bookstore kept giving me too much power and I didn’t know how far I could push them before they realized that giving me any kind control was a bad idea. To be fair, the bookstore was owned by gay husbands, but they always did a subdued display.

  This year was going to be their queerest Pride display. No half-assed, lukewarm rainbows this year. I’d been celebrating Pride as an ally since before I could remember. My aunts had taken me and my brothers to parades wearing “I love both my trans aunts!” t-shirts that my brother Mike had drawn the designs for. I still had them all in my closet. One of these days I’d make them into a quilt or something.

  Vanessa and Hollie made suggestions and I ended up writing some of them down in my phone. I really wanted to do the window justice this year.

  While I was working on my second piece of black forest cake, I got a call from Monty.

  “Hey, I’m just at my aunts, what’s up?”

  The only thing I heard in response was crying.

  “Oh my god, Ford, what’s wrong?” I shared a terrified look with my aunts as all the possibilities chased each other through my brain. Car crash. Cancer. Fire. Kidnapping.

  “Ford, you have to talk to me,” I said, pleading, and starting to cry myself.

  “TJ cheated on me,” she finally got out through sobs.

  “Holy shit. Holy shit, Ford.” I stood up and started pacing the room. “Okay, okay, I’ll be right there. Listen, I’m coming.” I set the phone to speaker, and Monty’s sobs filled the dining room.

  “I have to go,” I said and gave my aunts quick hugs and told them I’d call later with updates and assured
them that no one had died.

  “I’m coming, Ford, I’m coming,” I said over and over as I raced to her place. She was still crying, and I was so scared and the drive took forever. Fortunately, I didn’t see many cars on the road and there was a spot right in front of her apartment. I slammed the car in park and raced up the stairs. The door was unlocked and I found her on the floor of the living room, curled up into a ball.

  “Ford, Ford,” I said, touching her shoulder. She just cried and I wrapped myself around her. I needed to know what happened, but I needed to get her out of this part first. And then I’d get to decide exactly how much pain to inflict on TJ as I slowly murdered him.

  “It’s okay, I’m here, I’m here.” This was peak best friend duty. I held the broken pieces of Monty together so she didn’t fly apart in a thousand pieces.

  “I’m here and it’s going to be okay.” It wasn’t going to be okay, but that didn’t matter. It was just the thing I had to say. I rubbed her back and told her to breathe and held her tight as her body shook with tremors.

  At last she started to quiet. My arms ached from holding her so tight, but I wasn’t letting go until she told me to. If it took the rest of our lives, I was going to hold her together if she needed me to.

  “I’m okay,” she said in a soft voice that broke my heart a little bit. She moved to sit up and I let her, loosening my hold, but not letting go completely.

  “Hey,” I said, when she raised her head. Her hair was all in her face, so I used one hand to push it out of her eyes. She had snot running out of her nose and her eyes were so puffed they were almost swollen shut.

  “Listen, I’m going to get you a cloth for your face, but I’m coming right back.” If I’d been wearing a shirt with longer sleeves, I might have just used that, but today had been a scorcher, so I only had a tank on with no excess material.

  Monty nodded and I rushed to the bathroom to grab a washcloth to wet with cool water. I wrung it out and brought it back to her. Monty sat still, a tear here or there still escaping her eyes to run down her cheek as I wiped each one away and cleaned the rest of her face.

  “What do you need?” I asked. I hoped she would tell me that she needed me to end TJ’s life, because that would be my fucking pleasure.

  “Just stay with me?” Another tear appeared and I wiped it away with my finger.

  “No matter what, always,” I said. Monty fell into me and I put my arms around her as she burrowed into my shoulder, as if she was trying to hide.

  We sat on the floor so long that my right leg went numb, but I would not fucking move until she told me to.

  “He’s been fucking someone else,” she said, her voice muffled. I slammed my lips shut so I didn’t interrupt her or make any kind of comment. “I only found out because he left his phone on the table and I saw a text. A text that left nothing to the imagination. I knew I shouldn’t have picked up his phone, but that’s his fault for not having a better passcode. I just...I never thought he would do this to me. How could he do this to me? We’re getting married.”

  Not anymore they weren’t. I’d known TJ was fucking trash, but I was standing by her side as long as he didn’t do anything like this. But now? No, he was as good as dead. She couldn’t forgive him for this, I didn’t care what kind of excuses he made. There was no excuse for this. None.

  To think of him throwing her away made me want to throw up. He had her and all he had to do was not fuck it up, and he couldn’t even do that. Death was too good for him. I’d never had thoughts this murderous before in my life. Incandescent rage, brighter and hotter than the sun, simmered and tingled in my veins. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see flames to sprout from my fingers.

  “We were getting married,” she said, and raised her head from my shoulder and sniffed. I handed her the washcloth again.

  I finally spoke. “Did you confront him?”

  “Yeah. He denied it, but then I showed him his phone and he couldn’t deny it. He said it was one mistake, but I don’t know how you can call fucking another girl for months one mistake. That’s where he’s been instead of working late. He’s been with her.”

  I couldn’t hold it in anymore. “I’m going to fucking kill him.”

  “No, you’re not.” Monty grabbed my arm and dug in with her fingernails. “You’re not going to kill him, because I need you to help me get through this and you can’t do that if you’re in prison for the rest of your life.”

  “Only if I get caught,” I said.

  That made her huff out a little laugh. “You’d get caught, you’re not nearly as sneaky as you think you are.”

  “Okay, so help me get away with it.”

  She shook her head. “No, you’re not going to kill him. And I’m not telling you her name because I don’t want you going after her. When I asked him if she knew about me, he said she didn’t.”

  “But you’re going to tell her, right?”

  Monty pulled her hair over her shoulder and started braiding random pieces.

  “I think I have to. I’d want to know if it was me. I just need to figure out how to say it. She might not even believe me. If he could lie to her about being engaged, think about what else he might have told her?” That was a good point, but we had to at least make an effort to save someone else from destruction at the hands of this poor excuse for a human being.

  “You can figure that out later. Right now what do you want to do?”

  Monty looked around her apartment and sighed.

  “I don’t really know. My entire world just fell apart and I’m supposed to be getting married in a few weeks, so maybe we should order some pizza, I don’t know.”

  I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped from my mouth.

  “Let’s get some fucking pizza.”

  Our town was so small that there was no such thing as delivery pizza, but I called in the order to the pizza place that was attached to the hardware store, Charlie’s. There was another restaurant that had pizza, but Charlie’s was better, hands down. The recipe for the sauce had been handed down, and I had no idea what made it so magic, but I would have pounded shots of that sauce if I could.

  The two of us could have walked to Charlie’s to pick up the pizza, but I didn’t think that Monty was in a state to leave the apartment, so I took my care and made the two-minute drive. It took me forever to pick up, because I had to shoot the shit with Wendy, the cashier, Rose, the owner, and several customers who were eating at the counter.

  I interrupted Hank, a local yokel who didn’t seem to have a job, but always had money, and made my escape.

  “I would ask what took you so long, but I know what happens when you walk into Charlie’s,” Monty said, when I walked in much later with the cooling pizza.

  “Sorry. I’m just really bad about cutting and running. I don’t know what it is, but people seem to want to tell me their life stories.” Monty took the pizza from me and held my chin with one hand.

  “You just have one of those faces.” She let go and went to the kitchen to grab some plates for the pizza. If I was in charge, we would have eaten it from the box while sitting on the floor, with maybe some paper towels, but Monty had always been classier than I was.

  She started setting up her little table, but then she pressed her hands to the surface. “Fuck it. Let’s do it your way. But we’re using plates.”

  So we ate on the floor, but we used plates and actual napkins, and had sweet tea from wine glasses. I managed not to spill too much on her rug.

  “I should just lay down a drop cloth or something when you come over,” she said as we both attempted to scrub out a sauce stain.

  “This is your fault for buying a beige rug. Who owns a beige rug? Honestly.” I did my best and Monty came after me with the special stain spray. She didn’t seem to want to talk about everything that happened with TJ, but I couldn’t help but flinch every time I saw her left hand because the ring was still there.

  “I wonder how much I could get for it,” sh
e said, freezing mid-scrub and staring at her hand.

  “You might have better luck trying to hock the diamond than the entire ring. Not a whole lot of market for used rings. Bad luck, you know.” I gave up on the rug and went back to shoving pizza in my face.

  “Yeah, that’s true. I guess I’m going to find out. Fucking hell, Tessa, we spent so much money on non-refundable deposits.” She covered her face with her hands and groaned.

  “Hey, hey,” I said, putting the pizza aside and reaching for her shoulder. “Don’t think about that shit. You don’t need to worry about it. We’ll take care of it. We’ll figure it out.” That part was going to fucking suck. I knew that she’d spent a lot of money that she didn’t really have on this, and she wasn’t going to get a lot of that back. On the bright side, TJ had spent a lot that he wasn’t going to get back, so there was a small consolation there. Plus, he was still paying off the ring debt. I hoped he defaulted on the loan and ruined his fucking credit.

  “I’m just so tired, Tess.” Monty rolled onto her side and curled up into a ball.

  I wiped my hands and then started stroking her long hair. She closed her eyes and sighed. “That feels really nice. I haven’t said it, but thank you for being here. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “The feeling is mutual, Ford. This is for all those times you’ve saved my sorry ass. The least I can do is be here for you through this.” Her eyes fluttered open and she gave me an exhausted smile that wasn’t quite all the way there. I was going to make it my mission in life to get her to smile again.

  Oh, and destroy TJ. Completely and utterly destroy. He was going to wish he was dead when I was done with him.

  MONTY FELL ASLEEP ON the floor as I stroked her hair so I did my best to try and scoop her up and carry her to bed, but it didn’t really work, so I had to wake her up a little and help her walk to her bedroom. I got her under the covers and she mumbled something, but I didn’t catch it.

  Once I was sure that she was asleep again, I backed out of the room and cleaned up the mess from the pizza and filled her water bottle with water and ice and brought it back to her. I also made sure she had her phone nearby.