Page 51 of The Edge of Never

Their words stung, but not because it hurt me. They thought they weren’t worth listening to. What the fuck had the world done to Kit to make them think so lowly of themselves?

“Am no being selfless. Why would ye think ye’re no worth someone’s time?”

Kit buried their face in their hands, hiding their features from me.

“No, dinnae dae that. Dinnae hide from me, Kit.”

With care, I peeled their fingers away from their face. Their mournful expression had me brushing their hair off their cheek.

“What happened tae ye?”

“No one was there for me,” they said in a small voice. “Sienna doesn’t care about anyone but herself. I had to hurt all by myself. I’m still hurting. It feels like I can’t breathe because it’s so fucking painful, and I don’t know how to survive it. How to cope with the loss of something I didn’t even want in the first place.”

The words they said were cryptic, but I could understand them all the same. Loss could be unbearable. It could ruin your life. Turn you into someone you didn’t recognise. I knew because that’s what had happened to me.

“Start at the beginning,” I murmured, stroking their jaw with a light touch so as not to spook them.

Kit lowered their eyes to my chest and nibbled their lip.

“I’ve known Sienna since I was five. She took me under her wing when we met at school. She was outgoing, whereas I was shy, so I guess I looked up to her.”

They forced out a laugh.

“Well, it was more than that… when I got older, I found myself loving her as more than just a friend, but I never said anything. Sienna’s straight, and there was me, this teenage gender-confused bisexual who had no idea what to do with their feelings other than pretend they didn’t exist.”

I already disliked this Sienna without knowing exactly what kind of shit they’d put Kit through.

“But she did help me through the gender confusion. She might not have understood it, but she was there. When I came out as non-binary at school, she defended me from the bullies. I know we’ve never talked about it, but I’m agender, as in I don’t identify with having a gender at all. I’m not a woman, I’m a person. I usually just tell people I’m non-binary rather than explain all of my complicated feelings about gender to them.”

“Callan mentioned it tae me.”

Kit’s brow furrowed.

“Oh, he did?”

“Aye.”

“So you’ve always seen me as…”

They glanced up at me.

“A person?”

“Yeah.”

“Aye.”

For a long moment, Kit did nothing. Then tears welled in their eyes.

Without thinking about it, I cupped their face in my hand.

“What’s wrong?”

“N-n-nothing. It just… just means a lot to me. Not everyone is so… accepting.”

Tears slipped down their cheeks. I wiped one away with my thumb.

“It’s no aboot accepting it. Ye are who ye are. Who is anyone else tae say otherwise? And if they dae say shite aboot it tae ye, they’re a cunt.”

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