Work Text:
1.
"How was school?"
Ed shrugged, he climbed into the passenger seat of his mom's Buick and threw his school bag into the backseat.
"School's okay." He mumbled as he sank lower into the seat. His mom kept her eyes on the road as she drove out of the school parking lot.
"Do you want to take that jacket off? It's hot out."
Ed shook his head. The oversized leather jacket, that he had gotten for ten dollars at a neighbor's garage sale, was a second skin at this point. He always wore it, even under the sweltering Florida heat. He heard his mother sigh.
"Ed, sweetheart, you know you can talk to me if something's bothering you, right? I know it's not easy with everything that's been going on."
"I'm okay."
"Alright." His mom said. Her voice sounded sad. Ed felt guilty, because he knew he was upset, and he was making his mom upset by being upset. Edward was good at keeping secrets, but he knew his mother saw through him.
"Mom?"
"Yes?"
"Well, I wanted to tell you something but I've been really scared to tell you. And I don't think you're gonna be upset but I don't know . And I never told this to anyone. And I don't know how much longer I can go without telling anyone, especially you-"
His mom pulled over to the side of the road, and when she put the car in park she dug around in the glove compartment for some tissues. Ed wasn't crying yet, but she had a good feeling that he was about to.
"Take a breath. There's nothing you can say that's going to make me love you less, or make you any less my child, okay?"
Ed looked everywhere but at his mother. His eyes were focused on the cars rolling by. He reached for one of the tissues his mom was holding.
"I'm gay."
The car was silent for only a few moments, but those moments felt so long. He braced himself for whatever his mom was about to say, but she didn't say anything. Instead, she leaned over and pulled him close, hugging her son.
Hugging her gay son.
"Is this okay?" Ed asked.
"Sweetheart it is more than okay. I don't care who you date, as long as they treat you right."
2.
"Is that what you're wearing?"
"What's wrong with it?"
"It looks like it's made out of a canvas bag."
"It is made out of a canvas bag!"
"Ugh!"
Ed was laughing as he watched Anne and Jack's argument in the kitchen. He was helping Mary make some unholy concoctions consisting of Tito's, grape Fanta, blue curacao, and a few other half-empty bottles Mary pulled out of the cabinets. She called this cocktail a "Go Fuck Yourself". The four had plans to hit up a new goth club downtown, the Go Fuck Yourself's were only the pre-game.
"Are these supposed to taste good?" Ed asked her.
"If they taste good you made them wrong." Mary said as she dunked Sunny-Delight into the pitcher.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
Ed sprang over the phone.
"Everyone shut up." He shushed his friends as he lifted the phone off the reciever.
He heard a recording, a familiar recording, on the other side.
" An inmate from Dade County Correctional Facility-"
"It's my dad." Ed mouthed, and suddenly the three others were all watching Ed intently. Ed made a promise to himself last week that, "Next time I talk to my dad I'm gonna tell him." and Anne, Mary, and Jack were all witnesses to that promise.
"Hey, Dad."
"Hey."
Ed still felt a chill down her spine every time he spoke with him, but it helped knowing that he was in there , and Ed was out here. He hoped it stayed that way.
"How's, uh, how've you been?" Ed asked, trying to have a normal conversation with the person she blamed all her problems on.
"Great, I feel like I'm at the Ritz-fucking-Carlton." His father's usual brand of harsh and dry humor.
You're exactly where you belong, Dad.
"So um, I'm actually glad you called because there's something I've been wanting to tell you…"
"You didn't get a girl pregnant, did you?"
Ed couldn't help but laugh. "No, God no. I'm not getting girls pregnant anytime soon."
"Don't be hard on yourself, you're not that ugly."
"Well, Dad, the thing I wanted to tell you is that um," Ed took a deep breath. His friends were all staring at him, tense with anticipation. Anne offered a supportive thumbs-up and mouthed "Do it." at him.
"Dad I'm gay."
Ed waited, and waited, and waited with bated breath for his father to something, anything . Part of him hoped to be pleasantly surprised.
He heard a dial-tone instead.
"What did he say?" Mary asked when she saw Ed dock the phone back in its reciever.
"Nothing. He just hung up."
"Oh, Eddie, I'm so sorry." She offered.
"No, it's okay. Really. I told him and that's all I needed to do." Ed knew he was going to be okay, his father's acceptance was worth less than nothing, but it still hurt. "I think I need a glass of Go Fuck Yourself."
"That's the spirit!" Mary clapped him on the back.
3.
Ed's mother invited him over for tea. But tea was just a cover to get him to help her with the spring cleaning by loading boxes of old clothes into the car to drop off at the donation bin. And also to get extremely sentimental by going through old pictures together.
"Look at this one, this was your fifth grade play. You were Captain Hook, remember?"
"I remember." Ed smiled at the picture of his younger self with a frizzy black wig, a taped on mustache, a red coat, and a hook hand.
"Oh, and this one! This was your school picture, third grade!"
"Yeah…I really looked like a girl back then, didn't I?" Ed took the picture and smiled back at himself.
"It's those pretty eyelashes of yours." His mom teased. "You got those from me."
"I got a lot of things from you, thank God."
Ed continued to look at the picture. I did look like a girl , he thought.
"Hey, mom?"
"Yeah?"
"What if I was a girl?"
His mom raised her eyebrows in surprise, but her usual gentle expression overcame it quickly. "Well," She started. "I guess if you were a girl I would've raised you the same. Maybe put you in some cuter outfits. But I don't think things would've been so different. Why do you ask?"
"I bought a dress last week." Ed answered.
"Okay." Ed's mother said, seemingly a bit confused on how that answered her question.
"I bought a dress last week and I haven't worn it yet but I really want to."
"Ed, whatever it is you're trying to tell me you can just say it. You need to beat around the bush. We've been through this before."
Ed felt fourteen again. The nervous and moody child telling his mother he was gay. But this was different, wasn't it? He hugged her, resting his cheek on the top of her head and feeling the hot well of tears beginning to bubble up.
"Mom, I think I was supposed to be a girl." Ed said, she could felt her mother's arm squeeze her tighter.
"Would it make you happier if you were?" Her mother asked.
"I think it would."
"Well," Ed's mom said as they pulled apart. She reached out and tucked a bit of thick black curls behind Ed's ear. "I'd be more than happy to call you my daughter." Her mother smiled and Ed, like a mirror, smiled back.