the chronicle of queer kids

hear me out (pre & post canon)

trigger warning: misgendering, verbal abuse, gender dysphoria

"Jared?" Jeremy finds their brother outside, most likely taking a break from both Evan and Brooke, and their unusually high energy. Jared hums in acknowledgment, not looking away from the road. "Can-can I tell you-tell you something?" Jared glances over at them, then, almost in a calculating way, which was strange, and Jeremy's fists are clenching and unclenching as they try to phrase the words in their head satisfactorily.

"Take your time," Jared says, his expression softening. He leans back against the wall of the building, folding his arms and still not really looking at them. Jeremy lets out a breath, still trying to find the right words. At that, the voice in the back of their head speaks up.

Just say it. Nothing is stopping you except your incompetence. Then again, maybe you can't. Perhaps you're just too much of a-

They squeeze their eyes shut as if that'll somehow get rid of the voice. There's a burn in the back of their throat where the words they desperately want to say are trapped. But they can't. Not yet.

"I- do you remember what Mom said- said when I came out?" Their brother looks at them this time, eyebrows furrowed.  

"It was..." Jared trails off, looking a bit confused. "You were ten, right?" Jeremy nods, afraid of what they would say if they opened their mouth. "And she-she..." Jared trails off again, still looking confused. Then his eyes widen in realization. He looks over at them. "She refused to believe you."

Maria's words echo in their ears as they think back.

 
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"No! I won't have my daughter thinking like that!"  They repress a flinch at the memory. Their mother, screaming in their dad's face, one brick added to the already too tall tower that was threatening to topple. The way she enunciated the feminine term felt like ice being poured over their head and sinking into their bones.  "My daughter will never be one of those-those-"

Their father speaks up, standing up for them.  "Those what?"  His voice is cold and staccato. He doesn't seem like he intends to let the conversation go on for long.  "All I see is that we have a  son."

They remember the subtly warm feeling in their body when their father used the masculine term, even though, in the back of their mind, they knew it was a little off. They remember how happy it made them that their father had stepped up that time, especially since he tended to be a pushover when it came to Maria.

Out of the corner of their eye, they could see their not-then-out brother watching wide-eyed from around the corner. There was a look of fear in his eyes as he glanced between Maria and his sibling.

But none of this was new. 

The tears, the words, the full-on screaming matches between their parents when they thought the kids were asleep. A lot of it scared them. 

They hadn't meant to make her mad. Again, as always, Maria took it the wrong way. She took it as losing her younger daughter, a girl that didn't actually exist in anyone else's mind at that moment.

After that night, after their disaster of a coming-out, Maria changes, but it definitely isn't an improvement. She goes harder on them, harsher, angrier, and later, they realize that guilt-tripping was in almost constant use by the woman.

"That isn't spotless, do the entire thing again."

"What did I do to make you feel like this? Why did you have to get rid of her?"

"At least your sister can do it right."

"Was I not enough?"

 
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"I'm sorry," Jared says, glancing away. The remorse was evident on his tongue. Jeremy shifts uncomfortably on their feet. They had never been good with apologies, but...

"You did what you could," they say, not meeting their brother's eyes. "I don't blame you for anything." And they didn't. It wasn't Jared's fault that whenever they were gone longer than necessary, Maria would come looking for them. And that usually didn't end well, so almost every time Jared would invite them out, they would decline. So, no, they didn't blame their brother.

Jeremy bites their lip, preparing themself for what was going to happen next.

"There's-there's something else I want to-to say about that." Jared tilts his head in confusion, and at the same time, telling Jeremy to go on. They oblige. "I-I was wrong."

"About what?" The glare of the sun from Jared's glasses is almost distracting, though they could partially make out his eyes behind the lenses.

"I mean, I'm not-I'm not a guy," they say, looking away from Jared, but then they add a further explanation. "I'm not a girl, e-either." Jared looks confused once again, but he doesn't ask questions until Jeremy gets done speaking. "I'm nonbinary."

Jared nods at that and turns to face Jeremy instead of just looking at them. "Are there certain pronouns you want me to use?" 

The warm feeling is back as their brother talks, asking one question that they were afraid they would have had to outright tell him. "Y-yeah. They/T-them?" they ask, hesitating a bit. Jared shoots them finger guns along with a wink, which is something so him that Jeremy has to laugh. The nervousness that they had been feeling before quickly melted away as they talked.

Jeremy learned that Jared hadn't talked to their mother in four years, after coming out himself. He mentioned that the thing that tipped her over was when he said that he liked boys. The only thing he didn't particularize to her was that he was pansexual. "If she reacted that poorly about me liking dudes, I decided she didn't deserve to know the whole story," he commented.

Jared learned that Jeremy had recently transferred to the area, slightly hoping that things could get better after their disaster of a freshman year in NJ, not that they actually gave out much information about what had happened.

They both learned that things were looking up, all because they had found each other.