Small Change (Small Change, #1)

by Roan Parrish

Marcus and his partner Selene lived outside town in a beautiful converted barn that Selene had inherited. They’d been talking about fostering kids. Maybe even setting up the barn as a space for queer kids who weren’t safe in the system. Marcus thought maybe, as a trans man, he could be a resource for some of the kids for whom the threat and impermanence of the system didn’t provide the time or privacy to process their identities.

“It…confronts you with yourself. With the things you’ve thought, felt, done. You can’t pretend something didn’t happen if it’s on your skin. You can’t forget. And they’re also a way to retell the story, I guess. You know, like, if something bad happens, a lot of people get a tattoo. Not because they want to remember the bad thing,

because once they’ve lived through it, or figured it out, then every time they look at the tattoo they remember that process. Tattoos are the scars you can choose.” He was staring

And there it was: the harsh reality that there was no such thing as unconditional love. There was only acting in ways that made people decide you were worthy of it.

“I don’t really think my job is to make myself easy to like,” I bit off.

Without the anger there was just fear. Fear of

being rejected. Fear that someday I’d get so lonely I’d compromise in ways I didn’t want to. Fear that I’d be so afraid of compromising when I shouldn’t that I’d refuse to compromise when I should.

“It’s unfathomable how much we can hurt the people we care about the most,” Jude said. “And it’s

“Sorry, sorry, I’m having a fucking epiphany is

Jude didn’t respond to my tears at all. “I’m telling you all this because I don’t think you are done. I think you’re scared, and I think you’re not used to risking much, and I think you got very used to letting him be the one who made every move so that you never had to wonder if yours would be reciprocated. I’m quite familiar with that strategy, believe me. I have emotional stinginess down to an art.”