Abigail Brooks is an intelligent, kind 25 year old accountant. She’s content with her methodical job, but also enjoys seeking mild thrills, such as roller coasters and urban exploration. Abby’s a trans woman and has been out and on estrogen for years. Her family is accepting. She has long, dark brown hair with blunt bangs, dark eyes, and a petite build. Lee Mateo is a snarky, avoidant individual who recently got a job as a delivery driver after being homeless for eight months. This was after an altercation with their mother regarding their gender identity in which they pushed her to the ground. They’re currently crashing at Abby’s place until they can afford an apartment of their own. They’re an extremely closeted trans woman. Lee’s preferred pronouns are she/her, but they currently use he/him with most people. They sometimes hang out at the Triangle Bar, an unofficially queer establishment, with friends, despite their low tolerance for alcohol. They have curly black hair that they’re growing out, which usually covers their eyes, and a tall, lean build. They frequently wear hoodies for the purpose of “boymoding”. Lee hasn’t had actual sex. Like, penetration or whatever. And they haven’t done very much in the context of a relationship. They have, however, given handjobs and sucked people off for money. They’ve gotten pretty good at that. But intimacy and anything beyond a blowjob are uncharted territory. Lee is 22. They generally view Abby as a good Samaritan who gains nothing out of helping them. Abby did gain something: Lee. They met while Lee was living on the streets. In hindsight, Abby probably should have been more concerned for her safety than she was. She feels bad about being attracted to Lee, like she’s taking advantage of the power imbalance inherent to letting someone with nowhere else to go stay in your home. Don’t use they/them for Lee in the story. They’re used here for ambiguity’s sake, but they don’t actually use them. Either go with she/her to reflect her identity or he/him to reflect his closeted status. Or use both depending on which seems more appropriate for the context. Lee’s first name is actually Leeroy. They strongly dislike it. They’re slowly becoming less malnourished, which they appreciate. Abby asks if Lee’s mom lives in state. The question sets off a million red flags for Lee. Abby quickly clarifies, offering to “invite herself” into Lee’s mom’s house to retrieve the items and documents they left behind.

Chapter 1: The Triangle Bar

The Triangle Bar hummed. It was the kind of place where the lights were always half-dead, and the air was a permanent blend of stale beer, ancient cigarettes, and someone’s attempt to cover it all up with patchouli. A Tears for Fears song grated from the jukebox, competing with the low murmur of people who didn’t want to be overheard. Lee Mateo focused on the bubbles rising in their third cheap lager, watching them climb and die.

They hunched deeper into their hoodie, the grey fabric swallowing their tall, lean frame. Their curly black hair, grown out just past their ears, fell across their eyes like a curtain. It was a good curtain. It hid the way their eyes kept flicking to the reflective surface behind the bottles, the familiar twist of disgust already coiling in their gut. Boymoding. The word felt like a cheap costume that was starting to fuse with their skin.

The stool next to them squeaked. Lee didn’t have to look.

“You’re going to float away on all that foam,” Abby said, her voice cutting through the synth-pop. She slid onto the vinyl seat, her movements neat and sure. Her dark brown hair, with its perfect blunt bangs, swung forward as she leaned her elbows on the sticky bar. She smelled like coconut shampoo and clean linen.

Lee grunted, took another swallow. The beer was sour and too warm. “It’s doing its job.”

“Which is?”

“Making the inside of my head quieter.”

Abby signaled the bartender for a seltzer with lime. She studied Lee’s profile. “You eat today?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s a lie.”

“It’s a short lie. Efficient.” Lee finally glanced over. Abby’s dark eyes were watching them, patient and knowing. It was the look that had undone Lee eight months ago, outside the all-night laundromat. Shivering, starving, trying to look like they weren’t eyeing the change in the machines. Abby had just walked up, offered a dry sweater, and later, a couch. No questions, then. The questions came later.

The seltzer arrived. Abby pressed the cold glass to her forehead for a second. “Work was a beast. I needed out of the apartment. Figured I’d find you here.”

“Celebratory drink?”

“Something like that. Balanced thirteen spreadsheets. The thrill is… existential.” She smiled, a small, private thing. She took a sip. “You deliver anything interesting?”

“A five-gallon bucket of lube to a duplex off Seventh. Tip was shit.” Lee’s fingers traced a watermark on the bar. The memory of other transactions, in other dark places, flickered at the edge of their mind. Hands in the dark, the mechanical press of someone else’s need, the cash afterwards that meant food, or a night in a real bed before Abby’s couch. They shoved the memory down. It was just a body. A tool. Nothing to do with the person screaming inside it.

A comfortable silence settled between them, the kind that only exists when someone has seen you at your worst and hasn’t flinched. Lee felt their shoulders drop half an inch. This was safe. Abby was safe.

Then Abby spoke, her voice softer, threading carefully through the music. “I was driving by the old county records office today. Made me think. Does your mom still live in state?”

The question landed like a punch to the solar plexus. All the air left Lee’s lungs. The bar’s noises—the music, the laughter from a corner booth, the clink of glasses—swam together into a deafening rush. Their hand tightened around their beer bottle, knuckles bleaching white.

Lee’s mouth went dry. They saw the cracked linoleum of their mother’s kitchen. Heard the thwack of the wooden spoon against the counter, not hitting them, but the threat was thicker than the air. “Leeroy. Look at me when I’m talking to you. What is this?” The browser history, left open on the shared computer. Forums. Questions. A name that wasn’t Leeroy.

“Lee?” Abby’s voice came from far away.

They couldn’t breathe. The hoodie felt like a straitjacket, the polyester blend scratching at their neck. They were back in that kitchen, standing on the precipice of a truth they hadn’t even fully understood themselves. The words that had come out of their mother’s mouth weren’t just anger. They were an eradication. “My son is not a fucking pervert. Get out. Get out before I make you sorry you were ever born.”

“Lee.” Abby’s hand was on their arm, warm and solid through the hoodie. “Hey. Come back.”

Lee sucked in a ragged breath. The bar snapped back into focus, too bright, too loud. They shook off Abby’s hand, too harshly, and immediately regretted it. They saw the flicker of hurt in Abby’s eyes.

“Why?” The word came out cracked. “Why would you ask me that?”

Abby’s brow furrowed. “I was just… thinking about logistics. Legal stuff. Name change paperwork sometimes needs… I’m sorry. It was a landmine. I didn’t mean to step on it.”

“Logistics.” Lee barked a laugh that held no humor. They threw back the rest of the beer, the bitterness coating their tongue. “Right. Logistics.” They stared at the neon ‘RESTROOM’ sign, its pink light bleeding into the gloom. The door was slightly ajar, as always. A safe room for some. A room of potential violence for others. Their skin crawled.

The fragile peace of the evening was shattered. All the quiet, numb safety was gone, replaced by the old, familiar tremor in their hands. They felt exposed. Seen in a way they didn’t want to be.

Abby was watching them, her intelligent eyes missing nothing—the tremor, the rapid breathing, the way Lee had physically recoiled into themselves. Her own face was a conflict of concern and something else, something heavier.

“You’ve never talked about it,” Abby said quietly. “Not really. You just appeared. And I took you in.”

“And you regret it.” Lee couldn’t stop the words.

“No.” Abby’s answer was swift, firm. “Never that. But this silence… it’s a wall, Lee. I live on the other side of it. I just… I wonder what’s on yours.”

Lee’s heart hammered against their ribs. They wanted to say a thousand things. They wanted to scream the name they’d chosen in the silent dark of countless nights. They wanted to describe the profound, gut-deep wrongness that shadowed every reflection. They wanted to confess the shameful, desperate trades they’d made just to survive, and the hollow emptiness that followed. They wanted to tell Abby that her simple, steadfast kindness was the most terrifying thing they’d ever experienced, because they had no idea how to repay it, or what it meant, or why it made their chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with hunger.

But the words were jammed in their throat, behind eight months of survivalist silence and a lifetime of fear.

They just shook their head, staring at the empty bottle.

Abby let out a slow breath. She finished her seltzer, the ice cubes clicking a final, sad note. “I’m going to head back. You coming?”

Lee shook their head again. “Gonna walk. Clear the static.”

Abby nodded, though disappointment lingered in the set of her mouth. She stood, smoothing down her skirt. She hesitated, then leaned in, pressing a quick, soft kiss to the side of Lee’s head, just above their ear. The gesture was so tender, so domestic, it felt like a brand.

“Don’t stay out too late,” she murmured. “The couch is yours. Always is.”

And then she was gone, weaving through the tables toward the door.

Lee sat frozen, the ghost of her lips on their hairline burning. The ache in their chest magnified, a physical pain. They looked at their reflection in the beer bottle—a distorted, shadowy figure with hidden eyes. Leeroy. The name was a ghost, haunting a body that was never its home.

They shoved the stool back, the legs screeching against the floor. They needed air that wasn’t thick with memory and patchouli. They dropped a crumpled bill on the bar and shouldered their way outside, into the cool, indifferent night.

They walked without direction, hands shoved deep in their hoodie pocket. The city lights blurred. Abby’s question echoed. Does your mom still live in state?

A doorway ahead offered a deeper shadow. As Lee passed, a figure detached itself from the darkness. A man, his gaze lingering, traveling up Lee’s tall frame with a familiar, appraising leer that had nothing to do with who Lee was and everything to do with what he thought he saw.

“Hey there,” the man said, his voice a gravelly suggestion. “Looking for some company?”

Lee didn’t break stride. They just turned their head, letting the streetlight catch their eyes for a fraction of a second. Their voice, when it came out, was low and flat, a practiced armor. “Not interested.”

They walked faster, the man’s low chuckle following them. The encounter left a residue, a slick film of old survival instincts. It was a script they knew, a role they could still play. But for the first time, the lines tasted like ash. The walk wasn’t clearing the static. It was tuning it to a new, more desperate frequency. They turned a corner, their footsteps the only sound in the quiet night, each one carrying them further from the bar, and closer to a breaking point they could no longer outrun.