Title: Black Rainbow

 Mary watches bright crimson pooling on the ground beside Michael. It isn’t supposed to be like this. Not here.

Her first focus is of course on her best friend, there’s the ambulance and the hospital, and the mountain of relief that comes with the news that he’s going to be okay.

She has a moment of peace, and then her faith in this place shatters, and she’s reeling and reeling and reeling.

Days later, lounging in the chair beside his hospital bed, she says, “Maybe when we’re older we can find someplace better.”

“What are you talking about, this is the most tolerant, supportive, celebratory city in the world,” he says, and she searches his voice for irony, but even as his hand distractedly reaches for his stab wound, she finds none.

It’s a notion they’ve been fed their whole lives. They have marriage equality and workplace discrimination laws and everyone loves them. There’s truth to it too, queer couples walk freely hand in hand down the street, garnering only smiles. And the majority of the times she’s heard homophobic slurs it’s been from television, or family. There are micro aggressions sure, but everywhere has micro aggressions. This is as good as it gets.

She isn’t some dumb kid, she understands that there are always going to be bad apples, and that most people aren’t like that, but it’s cold comfort against the imprinted image of Michael bleeding out on concrete.

“Well, maybe we’ll make this place better then.”

 
*

 

Mary sits with Kayla on the football field, it’s early and no one else is around, nails knife-like pull away peels and they feed each other orange slices. There’s a bite to them, too bitter and too sweet at once.

She presses juice-soaked lips to juice-soaked lips and for a moment thinks this will be a small chaste thing, and then Kayla’s mouth slides open and Mary takes her cue.

 
*

 

Bright gold peeking over buildings wakes Mary from a fitful sleep, she pulls her sleeping bag tight around her but the rising sun doesn’t make the ground she’s laying on any less cold.  

“You should date Michael,” her mother had said for the hundredth time.

It felt like Kayla’s breath still filled her lungs and with it a sudden bravery filled her words, “We’re both gay.”

There had been dismissal and disbelief and yelling and then she left. Or was made to leave. It gives her small comfort to pretend it was her decision.

The nearest shelter was full and they pointed her towards the LGBT youth shelter once she told them her story. That shelter was full too. And she wonders, bitterly, if this is such a queer-friendly place- how come there are enough kids to fill the shelter?

 
*

 

The green-eyed monster is a vicious creature, Mary thinks as she watches Kayla’s parents. She’s pleased and grateful for their support, but there’s still a shrill whine in her ear of- why can’t her parents be like that.

Kayla’s parents take them shopping, because she didn’t get the chance to take much with her. She picks sparingly, a couple of cheap t-shirts, deodorant, socks. She finds one of those old, long, gothic-style mirrors and places her hand on it.

“Sometimes I like to pretend mirrors are door-ways to a better place, this almost looks like it could be one,” she tells Kayla. And then she tenses, picturing Kayla saying this place is as good as it gets. She won’t- can’t- believe that.

But instead Kayla just nods solemnly and then grins. “Did you know mirrors are actually green?”

 
*

 

She stares at cerulean stained-glass, ignoring whatever bullshit is being spouted. She’s argued her throat raw, refused to co-operate. And now she wonders if she’ll be stuck here forever.

Mary should’ve known better when her parents wanted to take her on a trip, but she didn’t think they would stick her in a freaking conversion camp.

She’s exhausted and hungry and thinks, would it be so bad to just nod and smile and do what they want, say what they want. It would sort of be like winning- tricking them into believing she’s been changed.

She misses Kayla. She misses Michael. She misses her bedroom, with her bed and her duvet and her silly mirror with a white plastic frame with little flowers on it and a smudgy paint fingerprint from when she was little.  

There’s only so many times a person can repeat a string of words, before said words start sitting inside you, even against your better knowledge, turning themselves over in your mind. Is she delusional? Is her whole city delusional?

Afterwards, she plasters on a fake smile for three days and then breaks down sobbing in Michael’s arms. She wants to be in Kayla’s arms but knows she can’t risk it.

 
*

 

“This isn’t the time or place for a lavender marriage. This isn’t the fifties. And it isn’t some backwards middle of nowhere town.”

Mary freezes. It hurts. Hearing those words. She still doesn’t know how to explain this thing that has curled gnarled and knotted roots inside her. That despite the love and support of everyone at school and of most of the people she knows, it’s still somehow not enough. She could say that she still wakes up drenched in sweat some nights, thinking she’s back in that camp. But it’s been months since she had one of those dreams and that’s only a tiny part of the whole of it anyway- that’s just the most understandable part.

She knows it’s because they are Kayla’s friend too, and they are rooting for the two of them.

When Mary had told Kayla she’d said, “I get it. I do get it.” And then she’d started crying and Mary had hated herself, for being such a mess, for being such a bad girlfriend, for being so much less than the person Kayla deserved.

“We’re doing what’s best for us right now,” Michael says softly, taking her hand, “It’s only for a little while.”

Oh, she hopes it’s only for a little while.

 
*

 

Mary and Kayla have lilacs at their wedding.

She looks at the guests, her parents among them. There have been plenty of ups and downs with her family- but they’ve reached a semblance of begrudging acceptance, even though she doesn’t trust them to give a wedding toast.

Her gaze shifts as the first soft notes flow into the hall.

She smiles at her soon to be wife coming down the aisle. And it’s been a long road; she’s had a lot of therapy. And she has still has a lot of road left to go. She knows the world, even their corner of it, has a lot of road left to go too.

But she no longer feels the need to go looking for places in mirrors.