Page 38 of Monarch
A boiling rage bubbles up through my body. I stare out of the window opposite me. I can’t see the canal from this angle, but I can see golden leaves trembling on the branches of the tree next to it. The neat row of gabled canal houses on the other side of the water stands proudly under a bright blue sky. By all accounts, it’s a crisp and sunny autumnal day, but it may as well be grey, windy, and stormy for how I’m feeling.
“What are you going to do?” I ask, trying to keep my voice level.
“About Lex?” Roos sighs once more. “I don’t know. I don’t fucking know. But one thing I know for certain is I can’t keep reacting like this. I’m an idiot for getting so upset. I know what xe is like.”
“What do you mean?”
Roos chews on her lip for a moment. “You didn’t actually go into the gallery and see xir art, did you?”
I shake my head.
“Well, it was this huge installation with hundreds of butterflies on it. Monarch butterflies. All made out of fast fashion clothes xe had sourced from the Gemeente or somewhere. Anyway, I think that was another message from Lex. I mean, yes, the installation was all about the migration of fast fashion from factories in the global south to Western nations and then back again, but I think xir choice of a Monarch butterfly had some significance for xemself, too. Like, that’s just what xe does. Xe was born to come and go. Xe is constantly moving, doing, exploring, being, flying. Xe is never going to stay in one place forever, and my wanting that is foolish.”
Roos’ words settle in me quickly and naturally, like there was a place waiting for them. But still, I feel compelled to rebuke some of the statement.
“Then it’s up to Lex to explain that to you. If you and xem can navigate polyamory without issue, then you should absolutely be able to talk about this.”
Roos nods with a wry smile. “We don’t always navigate polyamory without issue,” she huffs out a soft laugh.
I want to know more about that, but asking feels like it would expose a part of me I’m not willing to even acknowledge yet, let alone reveal. Besides, I have a more pressing question.
“Did xe make you happy?” I ask. “Or was it all hard?”
It’s only once the question is out there in the room that I realise I’m answering it at the same time Roos thinks about her answer.
“Xe didn’t just make me happy. Xe made me feelreal. It wasn’t until Lex that I really believed I was a woman. I know that sounds ridiculous because I know I’m a woman, like on an intellectual, factual level. But it’s quite another thing to believe it, to feel it. And to have that belief get stronger in the face of all the bullshit I have to deal with rather than weaker. That’s what Lex did for me. Xe made me feel like myself and that I could – no,should– be happy being that person.”
“But you can find that inside yourself.” I bring our joined hands up to Roos’ chest. “You don’t need anybody else to make you feel all those things.”
“That’s valid,” Roos says, and her sad doe eyes are back again. “But I know I will need to do a lot of work for that. Honestly, it was really fucking nice having someone just do it for me, just like that.”
“Yeah,” I agree because fuck, deep down inside myself, I’m nodding in wholehearted agreement.
“But that’s selfish, I guess. Or lazy.” Roos scratches at the hem of her silk hair wrap. “If I can’t fix my feelings so I can just be contentwith Lex being the butterfly xe is, then I need to just let go completely. Let xem fly wherever xe wants, be with whoever xe wants, do whatever xe wants, hurt whoever xe wants, but not have that include me and my peace.”
“I think that’s the best thing you can do,” I say gently but with a firmness I hope translates. I want that for Roos.
Fuck, I want that for myself.
“Maybe we could help each other?” Roos sniffs as she strokes the back of my hand with her other fingers. “We could be this sad team of Lex rejects who look after each other.”
“Oh, I’m over Lex. It was so long ago,” I say quickly and defiantly.
Roos levels a stare at me that more than hints at her not believing me, but she’s kind enough that she doesn’t say as much with words.
“Then help me?” she asks. “Help me to move on from Lex once and for all.”
“I can do that,” I say, and I bring our joined hands to my lips so I can kiss her knuckles. I want to make one hundred other promises. That I’ll stay here in Amsterdam, that I can try and be what Lex once was for her, that I can help her do the work she needs to do to find that strength and belief inside herself…but that wouldn’t be fair. I don’t know what my future holds, and I can’t let Roos be the only reason I take a chair at Pink Elephant. But I can help her. Even if it’s from afar, I can help her get over Lex Williams because if I’m an expert in anything, it’s knowing what that journey feels like. “I can help you.”
Roos’ eyes glaze over, and her chin wobbles. I wait for her tears to fall so I can catch and kiss them. But instead, she shifts so she can slip under the covers with me, and then she’s wrapping her arms and her legs around my body, holding tightly. And I hold her back, kissingthe top of her head and telling her it’s going to be alright again and again and again until we both believe it.
Chapter Sixteen
Lex
It’s only when I have to turn on a light that I realise how much time has passed in the blink of an eye. It’s light again outside. I’m desperate for the toilet. My throat is parched, and my stomach isn’t simply rumbling, it’s clawing at itself. And the ache in my neck and the cramping pains in my hands are so uncomfortable, I curse out loud as I stretch out my body.
These are all familiar discomforts. They are all things I welcome, especially after a five-month drought. They’re all signs that I’m doing what I truly believe I was put on this Earth to do. To make art. To create. To lose myself in a greater purpose. But I am still only human, and I need to empty my bladder and fill my stomach and also try to avoid a UTI. Again.
