It Will All Work Out (Intersex gxg)

Chapter 46

Even with the realization that I would be okay, I was feeling down for several days after the confrontation at the hospital, if only because I knew I'd probably lost my mom for good. I spent most of that time in bed, and Shay got a little lap desk and did her classwork right next to me while Owen and Amy took turns bringing us meals and checking in on me. I thanked them all, grateful to have so much love and support. But why couldn't I get that from my mother?

It made me wonder how I'd missed the signs that my mom could have felt that way about my sexuality. It wasn't anything that I'd ever talked about with my family, I was too young to even think about a relationship before things fell apart, and with her lucid month it was the last thing on my mind.

She was from Ohio, though I could only dimly remember one trip there when I was much younger when we went and visited my grandparents before they passed. She was the youngest kid, and my grandparents both smoked, which took a toll, and they were gone before my father. But even then, I didn't see anything overly conservative. Maybe it was something I was just supposed to know? But my father was from California, and he was open about a lot more, which is what I'd assumed our whole family was like.

But even with him, I never discussed it. I guess when you're nine or ten, that isn't a subject that you discuss unless you're a lot more confident than I was. When I was that age, I was more interested in helping build the treehouse than I was in having a relationship with anyone. Once he was gone, and my mom was no longer able to be a parent, it was just something I never could talk about with anyone. I finally realized that I didn't miss any signs, I just never knew about her feelings on it. I don't think I would have done anything differently though, I would have still ended up falling for Shay.

My mom showed up at the house a little over a week later with another woman that I didn't know, maybe it was her friend Darla who she had planned for me to live with, though no introductions were ever made. I had no idea how she was discharged already, since she still looked weak, but she was there pointing out everything she wanted. Harper was with us, along with Amy and Shay, and we all helped load up her car, which was still in the garage, so that she didn't have to lift anything. Everything she wanted, I let her take. I didn't want there to be any more bad blood between us, though she didn't speak even one word to me the entire time she was there. When the car was packed up, she never gave me a hug goodbye, or even a wave. Much like she never wished me a happy birthday when we had our argument in the hospital, though I was pretty sure she had no idea what day it was to begin with.

She didn't take any furniture, she was only loading up a car after all, but she took all her clothes, the television from the living room, and all the plates and glasses.  That was a little annoying, but we took a trip to the thrift store after she left and got some decent secondhand ones at a good price. We spent a little more on a new TV, and put it back in the living room, because we always loved snuggling in front of the fireplace while watching movies. I was surprised she didn't take more, like family pictures and things like that, but I guess she wanted no reminders of our life here. The biggest issue with her move was that I no longer had access to the money in the account where the insurance money was to use for our food, clothes and utilities, so Shay and I were on our own. Yes, we were making money from our jobs, and the house was already paid for, but we had more expenses now.

But we were determined to make it work.

Harper had been able to talk my mom out of selling the house, at least until I was out of school. That was good for now, but once college was over, Shay and I would be moving for certain. In the meantime, we had to get our butts in gear. I threw myself into work and picked up a couple of shifts bagging groceries at the Stop and Shop to help out a little, because Shay could only work weekends while going to school over the summer. But things were going well. We didn't order out as much, and we started cooking cheaper cuts of meat. I was glad we did, because the utility prices turned out to be pretty steep, and I knew that would go up when winter hit and we needed heat.