Domino Effect

Belly

Syracuse, New York [Outer Westcott]

"Bellinor! Come take this box over to your mom and sister for the shop." Dad is standing behind the register, uncle Darik right next to him, as he reaches down to lift up an Amazon box about the size of a shoe box. 

"Yes, Papa." I reach for the box while offering a smile to Darik--who my sister and I call uncle, but we aren't really related. Thank God for that. I try not to blush as I think about the twins and how we were very much not related. I have had a crush on my "cousins" June and Summer for as long as I can remember. They are a year older than I am, just having turned 21 this past weekend, and I used to believe that it was one-sided. I remember accepting my feelings for Summer first. It was easier for me. Maybe because she was a female and I was a boy, who was trying to figure out who I was and what I wanted, or maybe it's because she makes it hard not to fall for her.

She is beautiful. She looks like a combination of her father, Darik, her brother, and I am assuming her mother as well. They don't have a picture of her, nor are allowed to ask about her, so we don't really know what she looks like. Summer, however, is the most beautiful girl in the world. Her long, black curly hair reaches a little past her shoulder blades. Her eyes are almond-shape, with a grayish blue color that pulls you in and refuses to let you go. She has a oval shape to her face that I long to explore with my fingers. I imagine tucking her hair behind her ear, then running my thumb over her full lips, which are a natural blend of her brown skin mixed with a bit of pink, and I can almost feel her tongue flick my thumb before sucking on it. I almost groan at the image. 

Of course, I didn't imagine all these things when I first met her. No, I just remembered staring wide-eyed when she smiled at me. She had a sad smile back then. I learned from June, her brother, that people were teasing her about her wild hair. She didn't have a mom that could teach her how to tame it, but luckily my mom did. My mom and my sister, Esme, actually run a hair and nails salon now, and back then she allowed us all to learn and practice on one another. My dad didn't like my participation as much, but he let it go when he saw how happy it made both Esme and my mom. He would watch me, give me a stern eye, and remind me that I was needed afterwards to help him with things around the house. Manly things. He didn't word it that way but I knew what he was implying. He didn't know, still doesn't, but it was around those moments with my mom and sister that I felt the happiest. I loved doing hair, learning how to do nails, and eventually how to blend contour makeup. When my sister practiced on me, I never wanted to take off the beautiful face that stared back at me in the mirror. I felt beautiful and I didn't understand what that meant back then.

So, when Summer smiled at me and I learned what made her so sad back then, I got to work on her. I gently grabbed her hand, and tugged her a bit until she followed me to my room, with her brother following behind us silently. I sat her down at my desk chair, closed my door softly, then I went to my closet. I pushed all the clothes hanging to the right, exposing a wall that has homemade shelving built into it for extra storage space. There's about five shelves that I placed cloth bins in to help organize sheets and whatnot. I use the lower two shelves for shoe space, but I didn't reach for any of these things. On the top level shelf, all the way to the left, there's a shoe box. It's where I kept my prized collection. I pulled it out and went back towards where Summer was still sitting and waiting for me wordlessly.  The twins were watching me the whole time with open curiosity. Having their eyes on me, back then and even now, felt like a drug that I immediately became addicted to. I remember that day fondly. The day I showed her how beautiful she was, to me and to the world. 

I love seeing her hair down, wild and naturally free, so she keeps it that way. I always hope that she chooses to do it for me. Like maybe she knows what it does to me and secretly enjoys my attention on her. Her and I were inseparable since that very first day. Uncle Darik and my dad would joke about us eventually getting married. I was okay with that. Then, things got confusing for me. The twins were over constantly and they both knew my biggest secret--something my dad could never find out. They knew I did not identify as a man, but as a woman, and I struggled having to be what my dad expected me to be.