Page 25 of Begin Again Again

Byron rubbed his face. “Jesus.”

“It’s not a big deal! I’m allowed to have short hair if I want. It’s my head.”

“I know, but come on. Couldn’t you wait until you move out?”

“How am I supposed to move out when I don’t have a job? The day-care centre slashed my hours, and I can’t get anything else. And my hair was starting to freak me out, okay? I had so much dysphoria, I spent all of yesterday in bed crying.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

Byron rubbed his thumb over the slash in his brow. “How’s it look?”

“Amazing! So much better!”

“I bet.”

Sal sighed. “I know this is all super annoying, but I keep waiting for things to get easier with Mum and Dad and they never do! Last night we had this huge fight and Dad left. Just went out the front door and walked around or fuck knows what. I heard him trying to sneak in at, like, 3am. Like he’s some fucking cat burglar or something.”

Well, that explained why their dad looked like shit. “Sal, I know it sucks, but maybe when you move out—”

“That won’t change anything! They’re still not going to listen to me or call me by my pronouns or come to my shows!”

“Sal…”

“Don’t!” Their voice cracked. “Don’t. They could at least try. My show means a lot to me. I’ve worked on it for ages, and now they won’t come—”

“It’s a burlesque show! Of course, they won’t come.Idon’t want to come!”

“Yeah, but you are! And it’s notgross. It’s dancing.”

“Sexy, naked dancing.”

“What’s wrong with being sexy? Or naked?”

Byron closed his eyes. There it was. The story of his sister’s life. Sal at sixteen, the only out bisexual at St Jerome’s Girls Grammar, showing their tits on Snapchat because ‘fuck the patriarchy.’ Sal at nineteen, getting massive thigh tattoos and posting pictures of themselves eating fried chicken in lingerie. Sal at twenty-one, back home because of COVID and getting into screaming fights with their mum every night. Sal calling him in tears, their mum calling him in tears, both of them begging him to make the other apologise. His dad ignoring all of them until he blew up worse than anyone, demanding Sal dress ‘normal’ and call themselves a girl or get kicked out of home. Sal refusing to leave, refusing to change, insisting they could all come to an agreement.

The situation was impossible. Unsolvable. His parents refused to stop being dicks, and Sal refused to see that Dave and Lauren, who voted Right and thought the Paul Hogan Show was the funniest shit ever, couldn’t,wouldn’tunderstand them. And him in the middle, trying to get everyone to calm down and only succeeding in disappointing all of them.

“If you get it, Mum and Dad can get it,” Sal insisted. “They have to.”

Byron’s temples throbbed. “Sal, I’m twenty-five. And I accept I have no idea what other people think or feel, and I never will.”

“Nerd.”

Byron huffed a laugh. “Yeah, okay. I’m just saying you can’t get Dad not to call women ‘females.’ You can’t get Mum to stop making you salad for dinner—”

“Such a self-hating cow.”

“—so you might be aiming a bit high asking them to get the non-binary thing.”

“Because they don’t accept how I feel?”

“They don’tthinkabout how you feel. They just want you to go back to being a girl and having long hair and not inviting them to burlesque shows.”

“They think I’m disgusting,” Sal said, their voice full of tears.

“But you’re not disgusting.”

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