Sweet Lesbian Love Stories by Giselle Renarde

Author:Giselle Renarde
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: lesbian anthologies, BBW lesbian romance, lesbian interracial romance, Canadian LGBT fiction, asexual romance, transgender lesbian romance, south asian lesbians, canadian fiction, queer fiction, gay marriage
Publisher: Giselle Renarde
Published: 2015-08-13T16:00:00+00:00

5

Even If

The city is a toilet.

Okay, you caught me—that line’s from Seinfeld. They were talking about New York, but the sentiment applies equally to Toronto, if you ask me. Not that I have much point of comparison. I've never been to New York City.

I've never been anywhere, really. I grew up in the suburbs. We camped, when I was young, in provincial parks across Ontario and Quebec. One year we drove down to Florida—went to Disney World, if you can believe it.

I can't.

What I remember of that summer feels like a dream—one of those dreams that's somewhere between a nightmare and an acid trip. Not that I've ever done acid. Most people don't believe this, but I've never even smoked a cigarette.

Wait—there's one thing I do remember, very specifically, about that Disney vacation: I remember my dad downing bottle after bottle in our motel room. He promised he wouldn't. But promises were cheap.

I remember how my mother tried not to see what was right before her eyes, and how silently irate my siblings and I were. How ashamed. Devastated. Even the happiest place on earth couldn’t slow him down.

It's funny how alone you feel when you're a kid. You don't realize how many other people are experiencing some variation of your life. I sometimes wonder if I’d have felt less like I was living in a black hole if I’d grown up in the age the internet. There are forums now, sites were you can chat anonymously with people who understand.

I guess there’s still a good amount of shame inside me. I would never walk up to a living, breathing human being and tell them about my childhood. Not even in a church basement with free coffee and Oreos. Not even “anonymously.” Because this body of mine is not invisible, as much as I’d like it to be.

Online is a different story. Nobody can see you if you don’t want them to. It’s freeing. Truly. You can open yourself up just enough to let someone inside, and if they understand, you open even wider. Like a flower. People always make that comparison, women and flowers, but it’s true. You feel the sun of that person’s sweet presence on your face, and you open your eyes, and suddenly the ugly old world is bright and beautiful. Everything is different.

I met a girl on one of those forums. Could you tell? If you saw my face, you’d suspect it by my smile. And if I told I was waiting for a flight to the Northwest Territories, then you’d know it for sure. Love takes us places, more than anything else in the world.

Well, I said I met a girl, but technically Annie’s a woman, not a girl. She’s an adult person, I just never much liked the word woman to describe a romantic partner. Too intimidating. Makes it sound like I’m some kind of highfaluting grown-up. And I most certainly am not. Sure I’m thirty...something... but that doesn’t make me an adult.

Annie doesn’t act like a know-it-all the way city girls do.

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