Chapter 5: The Visitor's Return
The week passed in a haze of soft light and small gestures. Scott woke each morning to the ache in his chest, deeper now, a constant pulse that reminded him of the pills in Vanessa's room. She brought them to him with her coffee, two amber capsules and a glass of water, and she sat on the edge of his bed while he swallowed, her eyes tracing the line of his jaw where it had begun to round.
"You're getting prettier," she said one morning. "Every day. I can't stop looking at you."
He pressed the glass to his lips to hide the warmth that rose in his cheeks. The voice that thanked her came out soft and clear, almost musical. He heard it now without flinching. It had been days since he'd heard the old one in his head.
She dressed him in the afternoons. A soft pink blouse with pearl buttons, a skirt that swayed when he walked. She brushed his hair until it shone, parted on the left, falling to his shoulders in a smooth curtain. The clip Megan had given him sat in a drawer upstairs, untouched. He didn't ask about it.
On the seventh day, the weather turned warm and bright. Vanessa opened the windows and the floral curtains breathed in the breeze, scattering the smell of cut grass and lavender across the living room. She had put him in a pale yellow sundress with thin straps, and she'd done his makeup lighter than usual, a touch of gloss and mascara, nothing more.
"You look like a summer day," she said, and kissed him on the mouth, quick and possessive, before she went to the kitchen.
He sat on the couch with his hands folded in his lap. The dress was new, bought two days ago. The fabric grazed the soft swell of his chest with every breath, and he found himself aware of the sensation, the way the dress moved over him. He had started noticing things like that. The way his hips felt in certain skirts. The way the bra sat against his skin when Vanessa adjusted the straps.
The doorbell rang.
He looked up. Vanessa appeared in the kitchen doorway, a tea towel in her hands, her eyes going to the front door. There was a pause, a stillness in the air, and then she smiled.
"Expecting someone, sweetheart?"
"No."
She dried her hands and went to the door. He heard the latch turn, the creak of the hinges, and then a voice he knew. Bright and warm, with that edge of confidence that had made him smile at the café.
"Hi. I'm looking for Scott. He lives here, right?"
Megan.
Vanessa's voice came back smooth as cream. "He's resting. Can I help you?"
"I really need to talk to him." A beat of silence. "You're his sister, right? Vanessa? He mentioned you."
"Did he now."
The door opened wider. He heard Megan step inside, and the soft scuff of her sneakers on the mat. He stood up, his heart beating fast under the pale yellow cotton, and when she came around the corner of the hallway, she stopped.
Her eyes went wide. She held a paper bag in one hand, the top folded down, and she stared at him from the doorway of the living room.
"Scott?"
"Hi, Megan."
Her gaze traveled over him. The dress. The way it hung on his shoulders and fell to his knees. The soft curve of his chest under the fabric. The gloss on his lips, the sweep of his lashes. He watched her take it all in, and then her eyes came back to his face, and he saw the shock settle into something else.
"Wow," she said. "You look... you look amazing."
Behind her, in the hallway, Vanessa leaned against the doorframe with her arms crossed. Her smile was cold and bright, and her eyes never left Megan's face.
He stood in the middle of the living room with the sunlight warming his bare shoulders, and Megan took a step closer. The paper bag crinkled in her grip. Her eyes kept dropping to his chest, then snapping back to his face, then drifting down again.
"I brought pastries," she said. "From the place by the market. You said you liked the almond ones." She held the bag out, and when he took it, her fingers brushed his and lingered a beat too long. "You never came to the river. I waited an hour. I thought maybe you'd lost my number, but I figured I'd just show up. That's not weird, right? It's a little weird."
"It's not weird," he said, and his voice came out soft and high, the way it had been all week. He saw her hear it. Her lips parted.
"Why didn't you come, Scott?"
He glanced past her shoulder. Vanessa still leaned in the doorway, arms crossed, her smile fixed in place like something pinned to a board. She gave him a small nod. Encouraging. Or warning. He couldn't tell.
"I got sick," he said. "I'm sorry. I should have texted you. My phone's been acting up."
"You look really good for someone who was sick." She laughed, nervous and bright, and stepped closer until she was inside the living room proper. The floral curtains breathed behind her. "Seriously. You look like you lost weight or something. And your skin is, like, glowing. Is that weird to say?"
"No."
"It's not a come-on, I just mean, you look..." She trailed off, her eyes catching on the soft rise of the dress at his chest. She swallowed. "You look different. Really different."
Vanessa pushed off the doorframe and walked past Megan, slow and deliberate, her hip brushing the younger woman's shoulder as she went to the couch. She sat down and patted the cushion beside her.
"Come sit, sweetheart. Don't leave our guest standing."
He moved to the couch and sat next to Vanessa. She put her hand on his knee, possessive and warm, her thumb tracing a lazy circle through the cotton. Megan watched the hand, and something flickered in her face.
"So you're really his sister," Megan said. "She talks about you a lot. I got the impression you two were close."
"Very close," Vanessa said. "We share everything."
The words landed with a weight Megan couldn't have understood. She tilted her head, looking between them.
"You know, when I saw you at the café last week, I thought you were just a really pretty guy. Like, androgynous, you know? Artistic." She laughed. "I gave you my number because I thought you were cute. But now..." Her eyes swept down the length of him again, and her voice went a little breathless. "Now I don't know what to think."
"Think of her as my sister," Vanessa said smoothly. "That's what she is."
Megan blinked. "Her?"
Vanessa's hand slid from his knee to his thigh, squeezing gently. "Scott's been finding herself. That's all. Some of us grow up and realize who we really are."
The word hung in the air. He felt it settle into his chest beside the ache of the pills. Her. Vanessa had said her. He looked down at his hands in his lap, the pale yellow cotton stretched over the soft weight of him, and he didn't feel the need to correct her.
"That's so brave," Megan breathed. "Seriously. I had a friend in high school who transitioned. It took her forever to tell anyone." She sat down on the armchair across from them, leaning forward, elbows on her knees. "So, like, is that why you've been changing? Hormones?"
He glanced at Vanessa. Her eyes were bright, watching him like a cat watches a bird through the glass.
"Yes," he said.
"How long?"
"A few weeks."
Megan shook her head slowly, a smile spreading across her face. "God, that's fast. I mean, you already look like a girl. Like, fully. If I saw you on the street I wouldn't even question it." Her gaze dropped to his chest again, and he watched her throat move as she swallowed. "They're, um. The changes. That stuff works fast."
"Miraculously," Vanessa said, and her thumb pressed into his thigh.
Megan's cheeks had gone pink. She kept fidgeting with the hem of her shirt, stealing glances at him, looking away, then back. She leaned in, lowering her voice as if Vanessa couldn't hear.
"So, would you want to try again? The river? I could come by tomorrow and we could just walk. Get to know each other properly."
The want in her voice was plain. He felt it like a current, pulling at him, and for a moment he forgot Vanessa's hand was on his thigh. Forgot the pills and the ache and the way his voice didn't belong to him anymore.
"I'd like that," he said.
Vanessa's fingers tightened. Not hard, just enough to remind him she was there.
"She's busy tomorrow," Vanessa said. "We have plans. Don't we, sweetheart?"
He looked at her. The smile was still on her face, but her eyes had gone flat and cold, and something in his stomach turned over.
"We do," he said.
Vanessa's thumb kept its slow circle on his thigh. She turned her smile on Megan, warm as a lamp.
"You two will have plenty of time," she said. "Once things settle. Right now she needs routine. Stability. A new friend every week would overwhelm her."
"It's not every week," Megan said. "It's a walk. Come on, we're not planning a wedding."
Vanessa laughed, a bright little sound with nothing in it. "Sweetheart, why don't you put those pastries on a plate for our guest. There's a good girl."
He rose. Her hand slid off his thigh slowly, fingertips trailing the hem of the dress before releasing it. In the kitchen his hands shook a little, slicing the almond croissants onto a plate he'd eaten breakfast off a hundred times as a boy.
When he came back with the plate, Megan had moved to the armchair's edge. She took a croissant and bit it, watching him over it as he sat down again. Vanessa's arm came around his shoulders at once, pulling him against her side. Her lips pressed his temple, then his cheek, unhurried, in full view.
"You've got lavender everywhere," Megan said.
"I like it," he said.
"I can tell." She set the croissant down and brushed sugar from her fingers. "You smell like a candle shop. In a good way. Seriously, everything about you is, like, curated now." Her eyes went to Vanessa's arm around him, and stayed there a moment. "You two sure are close."
"Only family we have," Vanessa said. Her chin came to rest on top of his head. He sat stiff in the circle of her arm, the floral curtains breathing behind them, sunlight crawling across the coffee table.
Megan stood abruptly. "Okay, well. I should probably go. I have a shift at two." She hovered, hands in her back pockets. "Scott, walk me out? Just to the door. I feel rude talking over your sister the whole visit."
Vanessa's arm did not move.
"Go on, sweetheart," she said. "Manners."
At the door Megan turned on the mat. Up close he could see the small freckles across her nose, the shine of sunblock on her collarbone. She smelled of coffee and pastry sugar.
"I'm not stupid," she said quietly. "She answered every question for you back there. And that thing with your phone, and the river." She searched his face. "Are you okay? Like, actually?"
"I'm fine," he said. It came out soft and high, and he watched her hear it again.
"You don't sound fine. You sound like someone reading lines." She glanced past him down the hall, then back. Her hand went into her jacket pocket and came out with a receipt, folded once, and she pressed it into his palm, folding his fingers over it with hers. Her skin was warm. "That took me two minutes to write while she was staring at me. Don't lose it."
"What is it?"
"You know what it is." She held his hand a beat longer than she needed to. "There's a payphone outside the gas station on Mill Street. I know that's insane, but nobody's monitoring a payphone. If you ever want out, even just for a coffee, call me and I'll come get you in ten minutes."
He stood with the folded paper biting into his palm. Through the hallway behind him came the sound of the kettle starting, Vanessa's unhurried footsteps in the kitchen.
"I don't need out," he said.
"Okay." Megan's voice gentled. "Then lose it. But keep it first." She leaned in, quick, and kissed his cheek, her lips landing soft at the corner of his mouth. "You really do look beautiful, Scott. That's the messed up part. I'd have said that no matter what."
The door clicked shut behind her. He stood on the mat with the receipt crushed in his fist, listening to her sneakers cross the porch, then the gate, then nothing.
He almost put it in the kitchen trash. His hand actually moved toward it. Then he was walking, fast and light on his bare feet, up the stairs, and the drawer where the lavender clip lived was already open before he knew he'd crossed the room. He laid the folded receipt under the clip, in the back corner, and shut the drawer.
Downstairs the kettle was screaming. He smoothed the front of his sundress, breathed once, and started down.
Vanessa stood at the foot of the stairs. She was holding his cardigan, and her face was pleasant and still.
"You were up there a while," she said.
"I was looking for something."
Her eyes moved over him, down and up, cataloguing. Then she climbed one step and wrapped both arms around him, pulling his body flush against hers, her hand cradling the back of his head into her neck.
"I don't like her," she murmured into his hair. "But it doesn't matter. You come back to me every time. Don't you, sweetheart."
He stood in her arms with the ache in his chest pressed to hers, and the paper hidden one floor above them, and said, "Yes."
That evening she fed him dinner on the couch, spoons of chicken soup she ladled into his mouth herself while he sat with the receipt burning in his chest two floors up. She talked about nothing. The weather, the new curtains she wanted for the kitchen, the way the light had come through the weeping willow all afternoon. Her knee pressed against his thigh the whole time.
"Do you like the soup?"
"It's good."
"You'd tell me if it wasn't."
"Yes."
She took the bowl from his hands and set it on the coffee table. Then she turned on the couch, one leg folded under her, and pulled his feet into her lap. Her thumbs found the arch of his foot through his socks and pressed slow circles there.
"I thought about her all afternoon," she said. "That girl. The way she looked at you."
He watched her hands move over his foot. Small, deliberate motions.
"She kept touching you. Not a lot. Just enough." Vanessa's voice went dreamy and flat. "The way she brushed your fingers when she gave you the bag. The way she leaned in at the door. I saw her kiss you."
"It was my cheek."
"It was your mouth's corner. I saw it." Her fingers dug a little deeper. "She wanted to take you from me. She doesn't even know what she was reaching for."
He said nothing. Her hand slid up his calf, over the hem of the sundress, coming to rest on his knee. He was aware of the heat of her palm through the thin cotton.
"But you came back." She said it softly, like a prayer. "Up those stairs, then back down to me. You always come back."
He felt the weight of the hidden paper pressing on him from the room above. He looked at her face, tilted up to his, open and waiting, and he wanted to tell her about the receipt. He wanted to tell her everything. The want rose in his throat like water.
"I'll always come back," he said instead.
Her face broke into a smile that made her look younger, softer, like a girl who had just been given the thing she'd asked for. She pulled his legs across her lap and leaned over him, bracing her hands on either side of his thighs, and she kissed him. Slow, her mouth finding his, her tongue tracing the seam of his lips until he opened. She kissed him like she was tasting him for the first time, and when she finally pulled back her breath came fast and her eyes were bright.
"Come upstairs with me," she said.
He followed her up the narrow stair, her hand in his, and she turned at the top of the landing toward her bedroom instead of his. The door was open. Her bed was a mess of pillows and a rumpled duvet, the room smelling of her perfume and sleep.
"You're going to sleep in here with me," she said. "From now on."
He stopped on the threshold. The room was bigger than his. The curtains were a deep rose, the light through them a soft blush. Her lingerie hung over the back of a chair, a lace strap catching the last of the day.
"Why?"
She turned and faced him. Her eyes were steady and calm, like she'd practiced this.
"Because I can't sleep without you in reach. Because every night I wake up and I feel for you in the next room and you're not there, and I lie in the dark thinking about her hands on you." She stepped closer and took his face in her palms. "Because I'm done pretending I don't need you beside me."
He stood under her hands. The ache in his chest had settled to a low hum, as constant as his heartbeat. The room smelled like her. He could see her toothbrush on the sink through the open bathroom door, her hairbrush next to it, her lipsticks in a row. His own reflection staring back at him from the mirror, softer than it had been a week ago.
"Okay," he said.
Her hands shook as they found the back of his dress. She pulled the zipper down with a sound like a long breath, and the dress fell away from his shoulders, pooling at his feet. She stood in front of him in the bra and panties she'd helped him choose, her eyes moving over the new softness of his chest, the curve of his hips.
"Look at you," she whispered.
She led him to the bed and pulled back the duvet. He lay down, and she climbed in beside him, gathering him against her, her arm tight around his waist. The warmth of her bare legs against his. Her breath in his hair.
"You'll never be alone again," she murmured. "Not for a single night."
He lay in the rose-dark room with the ache in his chest and the feel of her heart beating against his shoulder blade, and somewhere above them, in the drawer of his old room, the paper waited. But he did not think of it. He thought only of her hand, sliding up his stomach, settling over the new weight of him, holding him there like something precious.
He lay in the rose-dark room with her hand over his chest, and the ache had become something almost familiar. Her breathing evened against his shoulder blade. The house settled around them, creaks and soft sighs, the last of the daylight fading from the curtains.
He was drifting, the edge of sleep pulling at him, when she moved. The mattress shifted. He opened his eyes and watched her slide out of the bed, barefoot, her robe loose around her shoulders.
She crossed the room. Her hand found the door, and she turned the lock. The click was small and final, a sound that seemed to hang in the dark long after it faded.
She came back to the bed. The mattress dipped. Her arms found him again, gathering him against her, her chin tucked over his shoulder.
"Why did you lock it?" he asked.
"In case she comes back." Her voice was soft and matter-of-fact. "In case anyone comes back."
"She doesn't know where we live."
"She found the house once. She can find it again."
He lay still. The room was darker now, the last of the blush gone from the curtains. Her breath stirred the hair at the nape of his neck.
"It's not about her, though," she said. "It's about us. I want you to understand that."
"Understand what?"
"Understand that when you're in this room, you're mine. No one can reach you here. No one can take you from me." Her hand slid up his stomach, over the new softness of his chest, and pressed there, warm and possessive. "Not that girl. Not anyone. The door stays locked until I open it."
He thought of the receipt, hidden in the drawer of his old room. He thought of Megan's warm fingers folding his around it. For a moment the distance between this bed and that drawer felt like the longest distance in the world.
"Okay," he said.
She made a sound low in her throat, something between a sigh and a hum of satisfaction. She pulled him tighter, her lips pressing to the back of his neck, then his shoulder, then the corner of his jaw.
"Say it," she said.
"Say what?"
"Say you understand."
"I understand," he said. And he did. He understood the way the lock turned, the way the room held only her smell and her heat and the steady press of her body. He understood that he had walked in here willingly, and that the door closing behind him had not felt like a trap.
She rolled him onto his back. She moved over him, her weight settling onto his hips, her hands braced on either side of his shoulders. Her hair fell around them, a curtain of dark silk. Her face was soft in the dim light.
"You're so beautiful," she said. "Every day I look at you and I can't believe you're mine. Every day he's a little more gone, and she's a little more here."
He watched her. The ache in his chest pulsed with his heartbeat. Her thumb traced his cheekbone, his jaw, the corner of his mouth.
"Do you feel her?" she asked. "Inside you. Do you feel her taking shape?"
"Yes," he said. And it was true. The voice, the softness, the way his body curved under her hands. He felt her.
She leaned down and kissed him. Slow, deep, her tongue finding his, her hips settling against him. He opened under her, his hands coming up to rest on her waist, and she made a small sound against his mouth.
"I'm going to keep you here," she whispered. "Locked in. Safe." Her lips brushed his again. "And you're going to love it."
He lay beneath her in the rose-dark room, the lock turned, the house asleep around them, and he did not think of the paper two floors up. He thought only of her, and of the door, and of the way his body had already stopped wanting the other side of it.
"Say yes," she murmured.
"Yes," he said.
She kissed him again, and the answer tasted like his own.