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  Without further adieu, here's this week's chapter.

  Briar Rose

  Twenty-Five Years Ago

  “God, you are just so damn cute,” Sarah said as she fastened the wig to my head. Her hair was longer in those days, and much lighter, so the blonde wig made us look more alike. The matching pink dresses definitely sold that as well.

  “Sarah!” I excimed, putting my hands on my hips. “You know you’re not supposed to swear! Or to take the Lord’s name in vain!”

  Sarah sighed with affection. “And you are just so pure, it’s really nice to see.”

  “Thank you?” I said, confused. I was confused by lots of things in those days. What Dad said to me st time I’d been dressed up, the look on Mom’s face when I came down to dinner still in my princess outfit, the looks on my friends’ faces when I mentioned that I did this when I hung out with my sisters.

  Today, Mom and Dad weren’t back from work yet. Juniper was at gymnastics practice, Ruth was at a friend’s house, Veronica was on a date, and Mia was at the library. So for the afternoon, it was just Sarah and I. I always liked that, when it was just us. She loved me, and was always telling me that. I was just her sister, nine years younger, but around her… Around her, I felt like I was around a real mother. Someone warm and kind and graceful and generous. And she was so much fun!

  We stood in the living room together, but she took my hand and began leading me towards the kitchen. “Now then, little miss Briar Rose, what do you say we get those chocote chip cookies into the oven, then watch Princess Diaries while we wait for them to bake? Does that sound good to you?”

  “That sounds awesome!” I said.

  “Heehee, yeah it does,” she said as she led me down the hall and into the marble-floored kitchen at the end.

  “Will you show me how to make them myself next time?” I asked.

  “If you want, yeah!”

  “I do want that!” I excimed, absolutely beaming in a way I hardly ever did. “I want…”

  “You want what?”

  “I wanna be just like you when I grow up, sis,” I said.

  And then she… Wept. I hadn’t been prepared for that. Had I said something wrong?

  Sarah wiped the tears from her eyes and wrapped her arms around me, squeezing me tight. “Thank you. Just promise me something, okay?”

  “Anything.”

  “Promise never to lose sight of who you are,” she said.

  “Okay,” I said with the kind of crity and conviction only a six year old can innocently muster. “I promise.”

  “Good,” Sarah smiled.

  We had a quiet hour after that, sitting in front of the television in our media room watching our girly movie together, only for the door to open and, after a few moments, Mom to stand in the doorway with her hands on her hips and death in her eyes. That look… That one wasn’t confusing. Mom’s short, ash-blonde hair and thin eyebrows always made her look cross, but this was on another level altogether.

  I pulled my bnket up over my face, and heard Sarah whisper, “It’ll be okay, Briar Rose. It’ll be okay.”

  “Sarah, can I see you in my office for a moment?” Mom said in a low, steady voice.

  “Yes, Mother,” Sarah said, pulling the bnket down and giving me a kiss on the forehead before she left me there.

  I peaked out from under the bnket just enough to see her walk away.

  I never saw what happened between them that day. But I did hear the distinct sound of an open palm connecting with someone’s face. The crack echoed throughout the first floor of the house. Sarah didn’t come back after that, but eventually, Mom came back in the room, snatched the wig off my head, and said, “Go to your room. And for the love of God, change into something appropriate.”

  After that… I ran. Out of the safe spot Sarah and I had carved for ourselves, and up into my room, away from all things that scared me and confused me and made me feel small. I just wanted to be warm like Sarah. I didn’t understand why Mom didn’t want that for me. I didn’t understand… Why Mom didn’t want me to have a mom.

  Twenty Years Ago

  “And that’s how you blend foundation,” Sarah said as we stood together in the bathroom. She was home from college for the summer, and getting to spend time with her every day was my favorite thing in the world. Especially when she wanted to spend time with me dressed up in real clothes… My girl clothes…

  They felt like my real clothes. I bought them myself with my Christmas money. Dad had even taken me shopping for them, and said he wouldn’t tell Mom about it if I didn’t want him to. Which was good, because I didn’t want him to. A sky-blue dress patterned with embroidered flowers all over the skirt. It went just below my knees, had short, puffy sleeves, and a white ribbon at the center of the chest. A bck headband pushed back my chin-length auburn hair, and the coat of foundation Sarah had helped me apply.

  “Am I pretty, Sarah?” I asked. “Pretty like you?”

  Sarah sniffled a little bit, and said, “Yeah. Yeah, you are.”

  “Eeee!” I squealed, bouncing up and down. “Thank you thank you thank you!”

  “You’re welcome,” Sarah said, poking my nose and then brushing a colr-length strand of dark blonde hair out of her face. I didn’t understand why she’d cut it so short after she graduated high school- it was so pretty when she wore it long. Not that she wasn’t still pretty. I still wanted to be just like her.

  “Am I pretty enough to get a boyfriend?” I asked.

  Sarah’s eyes went wide as panic rippled across her face. “Uh… Brian, maybe you shouldn’t get carried away.”

  When she called me that, and I was dressed the way I was, and we were being sisters together, this horrible feeling shot through me, like an arrow plunging dead-center into a target. A spike of pain, straight to my heart. “What do you mean?”

  “I- I mean… You know you’re not really… You know we’re just pying pretend, right?”

  “We are?”

  “Yeah, of course we are. You’re not really a girl,” Sarah said nervously, pupils swallowing up her eyes, fidgeting with her hair.

  “I’m not?” I said.

  “Oh God, Mom is gonna kill me,” Sarah muttered.

  “Why?”

  “B-because it… It… You shouldn’t be like this,” Sarah said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I shouldn’t be encouraging you to-”

  “Do you not have fun when we py together?”

  She flinched, then brought me in for a hug. “Of course I do. It’s just… Not everyone understands-”

  The door opened downstairs, and a second of painful silence strangled the room.

  Sarah grabbed a pack of makeup wipes and shoved them into my hands. “Go to your room. Wipe off your makeup. Change your clothes.”

  “Sarah, what-”

  “Just go, please!” Sarah said. “Please, do it for me?”

  “Okay,” I nodded, then, makeup wipes in hand, I dashed towards my room and shut the door. I scrambled to scrub the makeup off of my face, but I wasn’t fast enough.

  Mom tore open my door, and stood there like a monument to maternal disapproval. She loosed a long, heavy sigh, jagged-edged with disdain and disappointment. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you two be alone together.”

  “P-please don’t be mad at Sarah,” I said, running over to Mom, grabbing her hand. She yanked it free and held it aloft, palm-ft.

  I flinched.

  The blow never came. It never did. In all my eleven years, I can’t recall a single time Mom ever hit me. She threatened to, made it seem like an inevitability; but the blow never came. Instead, she cupped my cheek and offered a pitying smile.

  I couldn’t tell if that was better or worse. There were still so many darn things that confused me about the world and the people in it. Even about the people who said they loved me. Even Dad… I never understood why he and Mom yelled at each other so much, and why Dad shrunk when Mom yelled louder than him.

  “Too much makeup will give you acne, you know,” Mom said with a ft, low tone to her voice. Like she was bored with her own anger, bored with me, bored with everyone. “And dry out your skin. It’s really not good for you. Especially since you have your father’s complexion. It’s not good for him either.”

  “Huh?” I said.

  “You’re so much like him,” she sighed. “All I wanted was to give him a son. I thought perhaps that would straighten him out.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you need to be better,” Mom said, lowering her hands. “Come on, put on some real clothes. We’re going to the barbershop.”

  “No! Please, no!” I said, eyes going wide, taking a step back and running a hand through my hair. It was finally getting long- I’d always wanted it to be long. And now she was going to take it away from me, just like she always did.

  “Brian Caleb O’Neil,” she said, her tone never inflecting even a little bit. “This is not a discussion. I am your mother, and you will not defy me. Now take off that ridiculous dress. We’re going.”

  “But-”

  She raised her hand again.

  I knew the blow would never come, but…

  But I still nodded. Still took off my dress. Still followed her to the car, and towards the barbershop, where a stern, scary old man sheered off all my hair until only a severe crew cut like you saw on soldiers remained.

  I made it all the way back to the car before I started crying. Mom put a hand on my shoulder, but didn’t look at me as she started the car. “From now on, you’ll be spending your days with me down at the office. I’d like to show you what it is I do, so you’ll be ready when your time comes to enter the business world.”

  I wanted to protest. I wanted to tantrum. I wanted to beg her to give me my hair back, to let me hang out with Sarah and pretend we were sisters. But I didn’t. I nodded silently while trying to levy my tears once more, because deep down, I was afraid that next time would be when the blow finally connected with my face.

  16 Years Ago

  Sarah was the one who found Dad. She’d been the one to tell me he was dead. I was just in my room, spending my secret time in my secret clothes, when she knocked on the door to tell me she had bad news. We waited downstairs together, in the kitchen, holding hands, when Mom and the others finally got home. Everyone else was crying, but Mom’s eyes narrowed in on me. On what I was wearing.

  “Brian, honey,” Mom said. “You need to stop this. You need to stop this now. You’re all that’s left of him. Please, I need my son back. And we need a man in this house.”

  Those were the first words she said to me after my father died. And she said them in the same monotone she alway spoke in, the one I’d copied as I got older and my voice began to change and I hated the way it sounded. It was such an ugly voice, it didn’t deserve to have any emotion in it. The only time it did was when…

  Was when I was wearing my real clothes.

  But they weren’t my real clothes, were they? It was all still so confusing, and it all hurt so much… I did what I always did when I was confused. I looked to Sarah.

  And Sarah, whose warmth had dulled a little more with each passing year, who’s hair kept getting shorter and darker, looked at me and said, in that same monotone, “She’s right, Brian. You’re not really a girl. It’s time to grow up. It’s time to man up. Now that he’s gone… Things have to be different. You have to be different.”

  Ruth and Juniper were both looking at me with pain in their eyes, while Veronica and Mia were busy consoling each other. And I…

  I nodded, silently.

  And at the funeral a few days ter, I made my vow. I told myself it was what Dad wanted, what God wanted, but… The only ones watching me while I made it were Mom and Sarah.

  I look back on that day now, and I wonder if Dad cried from up in Heaven. I wonder if the rain falling on me from above was his tears.

  8 Years Ago

  “How was your Saturday night?” Sarah asked as we stood in the doorway of our church. St. Xavier’s Church was a lovely pce, ornate and grand without being ostentatious. All stained gss windows and high rafters contained inside white wooden walls and lined with row after row of wooden pews. Veronica and Mia had already left, while Mom stood before the altar talking to Father Sullivan about something. Juniper was off in Vegas, and Ruth had stopped coming to church with us a while ago. I was the only one who still talked to her.

  Sarah looked tired. Her husband, Sam, didn’t come to church with her: something about not wanting to poison their kids’ minds with old world values (whatever the hell that meant); something about how he already had to put up with enough of his wife’s family drama. He… Well, he and I didn’t interact much. I’d only met him at the wedding and he’d barely said two words to me. I knew he worked in pharma, knew his family was even richer than ours, knew that was the main reason Sarah had married him. It was what Mom wanted. And in the past few years, it seemed all Sarah would do was what Mom wanted, right down to dressing like her, cutting her hair in the same way, talking in the same ft tone. I didn’t say anything about that, because it wasn’t what Mom wanted, and I’d gotten pretty good about doing what she said in the past few years.

  “It was good,” I said. “Went to a hockey game.”

  That coaxed a tiny smile out of her. She hated sports, but she knew watching hockey together had been something Dad and I had shared. “Did you have fun?”

  “I did,” I said, before a small smile appeared on my face. “And, uh, I made a new friend.”

  For a second, a tiny bit of the old Sarah peeked out and giggled. “A friend or a friend?”

  “Well, it’s a guy, so-”

  “Then he better just be a friend, Brian,” Sarah said, and the warmth was snuffed out just like that. She was a clone of mom again, right down to the bitter gre and a ft tone.

  “He is, Jesus,” I rolled my eyes.

  “You shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain, Brian,” Sarah continued to gre.

  “Right,” I said awkwardly. I pulled out my phone and opened up a picture of us at the game. “This is him, by the way. His name’s Kyle.”

  Sarah’s expression changed, then. I wasn’t sure what it meant. Twenty-three years old and everything, everyone, was still so damn confusing. “He’s beautiful,” she said, with… Something in her eyes. Something powerful.

  Mom walked over to us then. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” Sarah and I said in tandem, mimicking Mom’s speech patterns perfectly.

  I guess in a way I got my wish. I was all grown up, and I was just like her.

  So why did it hurt so fucking much?

  10 Months Ago

  “I’m home,” I said, my voice as tired and ft as my mood. I opened the door and found the apartment immacutely clean as always. Good old Kyle. Reliable. Steady. Strong. Together. He really was my rock. He sat on the couch, whiskey gss in one hand and television remote in the other. He muted the kung fu movie he’d been watching and beckoned me over to the couch with a wave of his hand. He was shirtless for some freaking reason, but I’d learned not to question his varying states of undress at this point in the tenure of our friendship. Honestly, it was kinda cool, the way he was just… Comfortable with his body.

  “Hey there, gremlin,” he said, putting the remote and the drink on the coffee table. “How was the trip?”

  I responded by immediately flopping onto the couch and groaning.

  “That good, huh?” he chuckled.

  I rolled over and rested my head on his p. It was so nice of him to let me do that when I was home- most people would find it weird, but Kyle just accepted it as one of my many idiosyncrasies. It occasionally made me wonder if I should tell him about some of my childhood ones, but… I pushed the thought away. I’d made a vow, and I couldn’t go back on it.

  “Oh, the usual,” I said, looking up at him and letting myself smile just a little, while he smiled a whole lot. “I missed you,” I added. Because I did. I always did.

  “Missed you too,” he said. “And my condolences on the trip.”

  “Heh. Thanks, lunkhead.”

  “No problem, gremlin.”

  “Do anything fun while I was gone?”

  “Well, actually… I met a girl. No, I met a woman. A fine as fuck woman, at that.”

  “Oh yeah?” I said, a tiny bit of emotion creeping into my tone. I didn’t recognize what the feeling was. Something sparky and vibrant, almost incandescent. I was… Jealous? I guess I must’ve wanted to meet a woman myself. It was probably high time I did something like that anyway- I owed it to my father’s memory to start cranking out some new O’Neils.

  “Her name’s Sarah,” he said.

  “Huh. Funny. One of my sisters is named Sarah,” I said, trying to stamp out the feeling of jealousy. No sense in envying that. I couldn’t date someone with the same name as my sister. That would be way too weird.

  “Yeah, but you have like eighty seven thousand sisters or something,” Kyle ughed.

  I scoffed and rolled my eyes. “Yes, Kyle. Yes.”

  “Oh, I love it when you scream my name like that,” he said, still ughing.

  I rolled my eyes, but didn’t take my head off of his p. “Keep dreaming, lunkhead. Keep dreaming.”

  “Don’t have to. This Sarah girl has got a real appetite, if you catch my meaning.”

  The sparks of jealousy shot out again, threatening to light up the whole byrinth of my mind in a verdant pyre. I snuffed it out, and simply said, “Good for you, man.” Because I meant it. I wanted him to be happy. He deserved to be happy.

  “Thanks,” Kyle said. I believed him, because… He meant it. He wanted me to be happy too. It made it all the harder for me when I wasn’t happy.

  I pulled out my phone when it buzzed inside my pocket. New text from Mom. I groaned. I did not want to deal with her right now. But I knew I had to eventually. Couldn’t put off facing her forever.

  I shoved the phone back into my pocket, though, because I could put it off for one more night. Instead, I lifted up my head and rested it on Kyle’s shoulder, falling asleep nuzzled against him while we watched the movie together.

  He made me happy.

  Now

  “Mom,” I said, slowly and delicately, trying my best not to sound like her, not to speak in a ft, dull tone that made it seem like I was irritated and bored with everyone around me. I forced myself to use my girl-voice, forced myself to inflect. I worked so damn hard for this. I earned it.

  I was not gonna let her take it away.

  “Answer the question, Brian,” Mom said, looming over me. The hair was white, and she had some more lines on her face, but otherwise, this was Sarah. Just older. And bitchier (which was an accomplishment, of some sort).

  Kyle moved forward, like he wanted to put himself between me and my abuser. I loved him for that. I loved him for lots of reasons. But I couldn’t be cowed by this woman. Even with my trembling hands and throbbing heart, even with decades of pain and terror and confusion echoing through the halls of the byrinth, even with every fiber of my being aching to run away and never look back… I had to stand my ground. I put my arm across Kyle’s chest, mouthed ‘I got this’, then took a step forward.

  “You tell me,” I said simply.

  Kyle snickered.

  Mom balked. “Well then I’d say it looks like you’ve broken your oath.”

  “You mean the one you pressured me into taking as a grieving child?”

  “Leave it to you to phrase it in the most melodramatic way possible.”

  I bunched my hands into fists to steady them, while Kyle stood behind me and put a hand on my shoulder. I breathed in through my nose, held it, then exhaled slowly. “What are you doing here, Mom?”

  “I came here to pull you back from the brink.”

  Now who’s being melodramatic? “No, I meant how did you know I was here?”

  “Sarah told me about her st conversation with you,” Mom said. “How’d you psed.”

  “Awfully rich from the girl who doesn’t go to church anymore,” I rolled my eyes.

  “And you do?”

  “I’m working on it,” I said, my voice coming out ftter than I would have liked. I couldn’t afford to slip back into old patterns. I wouldn’t be like her. “And also, she’s cheating on her husband. Did you know that?”

  “And?”

  My jaw dropped. “You knew?!”

  “Of course I knew,” Mom said dismissively. “I even know she was using that idiot behind you for months on end.”

  “What?!” Kyle said.

  “Quiet, young man. Don’t interrupt your betters,” Mom said.

  At which point I stepped forward. “Do not. Talk to him like that.”

  “Brian, come on, he’s just-”

  “You will NOT talk to the man I love like that!” I screamed, everyone in the courthouse lobby staring at us now.

  Mom’s look of contempt grew ever-more withering. “The man you love? You cannot be serious.”

  “I’ve never been more serious about anything, Mother,” I growled. “I love this man. I’m going to marry this man.”

  “Brian, be reasonable-”

  “That’s not her name!” Kyle barked.

  “No, I suppose legally it isn’t anymore, is it,” Mom glowered. “I came here to this wretched city because I thought you might try to get it changed. I take it that you succeeded?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” I said. “I’m a woman, Mother. My name is Rose. And if you can’t accept that… Well, I really don’t give a damn, to be perfectly frank.”

  “Brian, think of what you’re saying,” Mom said. “You’re throwing your life away. Something like you can’t hope to succeed in our world. And what you’re suggesting you have with this jumped up hayseed… That’s not what a marriage is.”

  “And what is it, then, Mother?” I narrowed my eyes.

  “A business transaction, obviously,” Mom said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “That’s what your father and I were. We brought two wealthy families together and begot enough heirs that one of them had to succeed. That’s what Sarah’s marriage is-”

  “Her marriage is a sham. She’s a cheater,” I spat.

  “So is her husband,” Mom shrugged.

  “W-what?!”

  “He’s been keeping mistresses for years. It used to upset her terribly, but after enough time and some prodding from me, she realized she may as well do the same as he did.”

  “You encouraged her to keep me like some kind of sex-pet?” Kyle said.

  “I wouldn’t put it so crudely as that-”

  “And how would you put it?” Kyle said.

  “A servant,” Mom said simply. “The proper pce for someone like you.”

  Kyle looked ready to murder someone. I was right there with him, the burning fumes of my rage choking out any fear or apprehension I might have had. But we were in a courthouse- beating an old dy to death probably wouldn’t end well for us.

  “What did you come here for, Mother?” I asked. “Did you think you could browbeat me into detransitioning? Drag me to a barbershop and shave all my hair like when I was a kid? Threaten to hit me so I’d fall into line?”

  “She did what?!” Kyle said.

  “I’ll do a lot worse than threaten you, Brian,” Mom whispered.

  “That’s. Not. My. Name,” I hissed.

  She raised a hand to me.

  I flinched.

  She moved to strike me.

  I caught her by the wrist before the blow could nd.

  She looked at me like I’d sprouted a second head. I squeezed her wrist as hard as I possibly could, staring up into her steely gaze without blinking.

  “Leave me and my boyfriend alone,” I said. “I don’t ever want to see you again. Ever. Write me out of the will, if you want. I don’t need anything from you. Leave. And never show your face to me again, because if you do, I will spit in it.”

  I let go of her, and didn’t blink until she began to back away. She said nothing as she stalked away, fury pounding into the floor with each step.

  I didn’t look away until she was out the door. She’d never wanted me to have a mother, and now I didn’t have one. Good fucking riddance.

  I turned to face Kyle, and found fury and sympathy warring for dominance over his face. I went up to him and embraced him, burying my face in his shirt. “Hold me?”

  “Always.”

  “Protect me?”

  “Always.”

  “Love me?”

  He cupped my chin and raised it, so I was looking up at him. God, those eyes. God, this man, and his beautiful soul. “Until the end of the world.”

  I smiled delicately. “Thank you. For standing with me.”

  “Of course. Are you okay?”

  “No,” I shook my head. “But the first time… I think maybe I will be, eventually.”

  He kissed me, a light jolt of delicious electricity that thrummed through my body. “Good. I’ll hold your hand and walk with you while you get there, if that’s alright with you.”

  “It’s more than alright, Kyle,” I said. “It’s perfect.”