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“Dolores,” Camilo calls quietly into the dark of their own room. They’re staring up at the vibrant, ever changing mural on their ceiling, as they have been for the past couple hours. It’s late, they know it is, but at least the colorful, silent brushstrokes that replace themselves over and over again gives them something to focus on that isn’t their own thoughts. They just wish it were a little more distracting than it was proving to be. “I’m sorry for disturbing you so late, but I kind of want to talk to you.”
For a moment they wonder if she’s already asleep, and part of them hopes she is. Dolores, despite her overwhelming sense of sound, was a heavy sleeper, almost impressively so. When Camilo was younger they found it annoying, but, now, after learning more about her gift, they thought it was the very least the miracle could do for her.
They’re about to give up hope and try to go to sleep themself—a task which they know would be next to impossible, given their current predicament—until they hear a faint knocking on the wall that separates the two. They smile a little. Oh Dolores. What a sweetie.
“Do you ever feel different?” they ask the ceiling. “Like, maybe everyone else was given a guide book on life and they didn’t have enough for everyone so they just… skipped you?”
For a long moment, they wait for an answer. They’re not super surprised when they don’t get one. They close their eyes tight.
“Sometimes, I think that I wasn’t meant to be the person that I am,” they admit. They open their eyes again, hit with the reality of their statement. They hadn’t put it out in the open like that before, hadn’t let it be known to anyone outside of their own subconscious, hadn’t yet found the words to condense it into a single sentence.
There’s a knock at their door. They let out a huff of laughter. “You can just come in.”
Like everything Dolores does, she appears in their room quietly, quickly, and without much fanfare. They stare at each other for a moment, before she lets out a quick musical beep. God, Camilo loves their sister.
“I like the person you are,” she says. Camilo laughs a little, mostly at their own melodrama than anything else. They shouldn’t keep Dolores up, they know this, but they trust her. They want her support.
They sit up on their bed to face her, to better look at her.
“Don’t get me wrong, I do like a lot of the person I am,” they say. “I like that I can make people laugh, I like that I can be helpful, I like that I’m brave. But, I don’t know. When your whole thing is changing into other people, I guess it weighs on you. I like my gift. But no one ever just wants me, you know? It’s never Camilo. It’s always,” they huff, “someone else.”
She tilts her head a little bit. They know she’s waiting for more. They know she knows when there’s something else they aren’t saying.
“And, well, I guess it doesn’t help that I, uh, like being other people more. Sometimes. Every once in a while.”
A pause.
“Why?” she asks.
She’s good at calling people’s bluff. At calling Camilo’s bluff.
“I…” they pause for a moment. Collect themself. Take a deep breath. Look at the floor. “I feel like everyone, uh, perceives me wrong? But when I’m other people they don’t really get to do that. They don’t get the chance to say I’m something that I’m not.” They think for a moment, realizing the inherent oxymoron that they’ve created. “Well, okay, they are seeing me as something that I’m not, but I’m controlling it. I guess what I mean is, everyone sees me as this, you know, this goofy guy. And I guess the first part’s right, but…”
They trail off. They can’t meet her eyes. As much as they want to look up, gauge her reaction, they can’t bring themself to. They hate it.
It’s Dolores, they tell themself. She loves you, it’s okay.
“Oh, Camilo,” Dolores says, her voice closer than Camilo had thought. They look up to see her standing only a couple feet away. She’s smiling. Something in their chest unravels a little bit, but their shoulders are still tense, their stomach is still eating itself. “Can I hug you?”
Camilo opens up their arms and Dolores almost falls into them. She holds them close, holds them tight. They bury their face in the crook of her neck, let out a breath they didn’t know they were holding. They know she notices, how could she not, and she squeezes a little tighter for a moment.
After what feels like ages, she backs off, sits next to them, takes them by the shoulders instead. Looks them in the eye.
“You’re very brave for telling me,” she says. “There’s nothing, nothing at all, that could possibly be wrong about you. You are meant to be this person. You are meant to be in this body, to return to this state at the end of the day. The people who matter will see you the way you are, and those who don’t, they don’t matter.” she smiles. “Camilo, you are a wonder, and if people can’t see that, then fuck ‘em.”
“Oh no! Dolores swearing? I’ve corrupted you,” they say, ignoring the tears that are threatening to spill. Dolores just keeps smiling at them. “Thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me,” she says. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” they say. They laugh a little at themself, wipe at their eyes. “C’mon Dolores, you made me cry. How am I supposed to keep up my bad boy mystique now?”
“I think you need to be a boy for bad boy mystique,” she says, and Camilo laughs, a little shocked. “And even if you were one, no one thinks you have bad boy mystique. You’re too good with kids.”
“Well that’s my mystique, Dolores. Everyone thinks I’m super cool and interesting but a little scary and intimidating, but then they see me high-fiving all these little kids and taking care of people’s babies so they can go on date nights, and they’re all like, ‘wow, that Camilo. They seem so intimidating and cool but they love kids and their family? I just can’t figure them out!’ it’s a thing, you wouldn’t get it,” they say. She giggles. Camilo tries to pretend that doesn’t spark pride in their chest.
“Sorry, you think you’re intimidating,” she says. “that’s cute.” Camilo lets out an over-dramatic huff and makes a big show of putting an offended hand on their chest. Their smile doesn’t waver, though, so they know it ruins their performance.
“How rude,” they say, then pause, look at her for a moment. She’s smiling at them, wider than they can ever remember. She isn’t wearing makeup, which, for one, is entirely fair, but, for two, really hammers home how late it is. Camilo can feel their eyelids get a little heavier as they think about it, the adrenaline of honesty wearing off.
“I love you,” Camilo says again. “Thank you. So much.”
Dolores pulls them back into her arms. “I love you too.”
//
“Camilo?”
They meet their sister’s eyes at the same time that she makes a little musical beeping sound. A nervous tic, Camilo knows, which sort of adds context to why she’s stood at their door this late.
Though, even without the tic it would be easy to tell that she’s stressed. She looks nervous: eyebrows knit together and chewing at her bottom lip. She’s holding something that Camilo can’t quite make out. After a moment they realize that the object is obscured on purpose. “Can I talk to you about something?”
Camilo pushes the random assortment of objects on their bed onto the floor to make room for her, then make a grand presentational gesture to the empty space. Dolores doesn’t comment on the mess, just walks over and sits down on their bed. She doesn’t face them when she does, just looks down at her hands and whatever it is she’s holding. Which, from this angle, Camilo can make out the three bottles of nail polish she’s holding. Red, yellow, orange.
“Do you remember when you told me that you didn’t think you were a guy?” she says, and how could they forget. It was kind of notable. They decide maybe now isn’t the time to point that out. They just nod. “Well, I, uh.” She closes her eyes and sighs. She makes another beeping sound. Camilo looks away from her face, looks down at her hands to give her some sort of privacy as she composes herself. After a long moment, they realize she isn’t going to say anything else.
“Did you want me to paint your nails?” Camilo asks. They watch her fingers uncurl from around the three colorful bottles.
“Oh,” she says. “Sure? But I was actually going to ask you if you wanted me to paint yours?” Another musical beep. As Camilo looks up at her, she averts her eyes. They look back down at the bottles, a warmth growing in their chest. They deliberate for a short moment before picking up the yellow bottle and holding it up to Dolores’s face.
“Does yellow work?” they ask. She smiles, her shoulders drooping a little bit, relief apparent on her face. She puts the two other bottles of nail polish on the bed next to her as she adjusts her spot to face them better. She takes the bottle of nail polish from their hands, then takes the hand that was holding it, places it on her knee. Carefully, she unscrews the bottle and gestures for Camilo’s other hand.
“Hold this?” They do what they’re told, and watch as Dolores quietly and oh-so-carefully paints the nails on their hand one by one. There’s a distinct look of concentration on her face as she works, and they sort of want to reassure her that she doesn’t need to do a perfect job: it’s sort of a novelty seeing nail polish on their own hands as it is. It doesn't really matter if she does a good job. But they don’t say anything, just watch as their nails are decorated in a nice pale yellow. It’s sort of soothing. Colder than they would have expected.
“Camilo, I don’t think I’m a girl.”
Camilo’s head jolts up to look at their sister—sibling? She isn’t looking at them, keeps her eyes on their hand.
“Not in the strictest meaning of the word, I mean,” she says. “I’m still okay with Dolores, and she, and feminine terms. But I don’t think that makes me a girl.” She takes the polish from their hand and balances it on her other knee. She then takes their first hand and replaces it with the unpainted one. Camilo, properly distracted, takes their eyes off of her, stretches the finished hand in front of them, admiring her handiwork. They smile absentmindedly, sort of transfixed by the color and the way they shine in the light. They look back at Dolores. She’s already looking at them with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. For a moment, the two just look at each other.
She looks back down at the unfinished hand.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said when you told me,” she says. “About being perceived in the wrong way? I sort of realized that I could relate.” She sighs. “I don’t understand it. The difference between being a man or a woman. And the differences that people try to point out don’t really make sense.”
“You know, it was really mean of you to paint my nails right before telling me something that you knew I would want to hug you over,” Camilo remarks. Dolores laughs a little and Camilo smiles at her. They fall back into a comfortable silence, Dolores focusing on painting Camilo’s nails, Camilo watching Dolores paint their nails. It’s still a little foreign, but they decide they like the feeling. “For the record, it’s okay if you don’t understand the gender mess,” they say. “I sure as hell don’t. You don’t have to figure it out perfectly right now, but if and when you do, I’ll be here for you. And I’m here for you now. And I’m really proud.”
A pause.
“Thank you,” she says to their hands, quiet. Well, quieter than usual.
“Anytime!” Camilo says. “I love you. And besides, what kind of sibling would I be if you supported me through my gender confusion and then I turned around and didn’t support you through yours?” They pause for a moment. Dramatic effect. “A bad one, that’s the kind of sibling I’d be.”
“I love you too,” she says, ignoring their dramatics. She puts the final touches on their pinky finger, leans away from their hands, inspects her handiwork. Apparently satisfied, she nods her head once and screws the cap back onto the bottle of nail polish. “The first layer is done,” she says. “We can do a second coat tomorrow when it’s dry, if you’d like.”
Carefully, Camilo lifts up their hands to their eyes, stretching and wiggling their fingers in the light. They feel a little starstruck. They can feel Dolores watching them. When they look up to meet her eyes she’s already smiling softly at them.
“I love it so much,” they say, their voice giving away their awe. “Thank you.”
“Anytime,” she says.
They smile at each other for a moment and then Camilo turns and pick up the other two bottles of nail polish. “Alright, your turn! Pick a color,” they say, presenting the orange and red bottles to her. They watch as her eyes widen and eyebrows raise in an almost caricatured expression of fear. She sighs, consigned to her fate, and picks the red.