But even as one chapter ended, another began. Aubrey started showing up to the smaller brunches. Aubrey, who I'd known in the 'before times,' pre-transition. We recognized each other in a random LinkedIn chat. Trying to figure out how the fuck we knew each other, because I didn't know an Aubrey, and she didn't know a Wendy.
The first time I really saw her—not just noticed her presence, but saw her—she sat down on my couch, purse clutched to her chest, sunlight catching in her redly dyed hair like fucking fire. Something about the way she moved made me weak. We locked eyes, and, there was this silent explosion between us. Recognition so deep it felt like someone had reached into my ribcage and squeezed.
"Holy shit," she whispered, voice cracking like thin ice. "It's really you."
We spent 2 hours that day, talking until our throats were raw and the ice in our drinks had melted to nothing. Her laugh was different now—fuller, freer—but the way she tilted her head when confused was achingly familiar. My past and present collided in her eyes, green as moss after rain.
As that friendship rekindled, another one withered. Jonesy—passionate, outspoken Jonesy—had been organizing events, speaking at panels, trying to create visibility for our community. But I was too wrapped up in my own shit to notice how my brunches had evolved into movie nights, drawing attention away from her efforts. Another friendship I'd managed to fuck up without even realizing it.
I saw her at Pride downtown, her voice hoarse from chanting, face flushed with purpose. The disappointment in her eyes when she spotted me cut deeper than any knife could. She turned away, shoulders rigid, the space between us growing into a goddamn canyon I didn't know how to cross. The guilt tasted metallic, like blood from biting my cheek too hard.
But there was Aubrey.
She showed up at my door one day with her kids. Just looking to visit and hang out. because I dunno, her kids wanted to meet me or something. We sat in my living room playing Cubirds and laughing and joking for 3 hours that day. And for another moment, I felt normal again.
"We're both new," she whispered against my collarbone, breath hot and damp. "But we're still us underneath it all, aren't we?"
Months passed in this exquisite torture. Cammy and Shay watched us orbit each other, neither brave enough to close the distance. They'd roll their eyes at our obliviousness. "Do you think Aubrey likes me?" I'd ask Cammy for the hundredth time, and she'd bite back a scream of frustration.
"Jesus fucking Christ, Wendy," Cammy would hiss through clenched teeth, her knuckles turning white around her coffee mug. "She looks at you like you hung the goddamn moon. How many times do I have to say it before it penetrates your thick skull?"
But there was baggage—heavy, soul-crushing baggage that kept us both teetering on the edge. Aubrey's marriage was technically over, but the separation was fresh, raw—a wound still oozing that she picked at daily. Her ex kept showing up unannounced, flooding her phone with texts about "fixing things," each message another chain binding her to the past. Mary and I were still just trying to figure out where we were, and why we couldnt reconcile things between us.
"I know Wendy likes me," Aubrey would confess to Cammy in hushed tones when I wasn't around. "She just has to be patient. This shit with Ellie is a fucking nightmare, and I can't drag her into it until it's done." Her voice would crack, heavy with wanting and restraint that made Cammy want to shake us both until our teeth rattled.
Meanwhile, I was a pathetic mess behind closed doors. After our weekly brunches, I'd chat with Cammy or Shay or one of the others, dissecting every touch, every lingering glance from Aubrey like some lovesick teenager.
"She brushed her hand against mine when passing the salt," I'd whisper reverently into the phone, and I would get a stifled a groan so deep it sounded like it was being torn from her gut.
"For fuck's sake, just kiss her already!" Cammy screamed one night, so loud I had to hold the phone away from my ear. "We're all dying watching this shit-show! It's like watching paint dry, except the paint keeps giving the wall bedroom eyes!"
People in the group would see us together and wonder aloud, "Do Aubrey and Wendy know they're a couple? Do they not see that they're in a relationship?" And always the response: "YES! We know! They just aren't ready to admit their feelings."
It became a running joke at gatherings—the elephant in the fucking room that everyone acknowledged except us. During movie nights, we'd naturally pair up, finishing each other's sentences and constantly repeating movie quotes at the same time, sharing knowing glances that made everyone else exchange exasperated looks. Jack once choked on her wine when I absentmindedly tucked a strand of hair behind Aubrey's ear, my fingertips lingering against her cheek like I was touching something precious.
"Cant they just get a room already," was hushed under soft language, loud enough for half the table to hear. The laughter that erupted was tinged with the collective frustration of watching a car crash in slow motion.
The group had a goddamn secret text thread dedicated solely to documenting our obliviousness—"The Aubrey-Wendy Watch," they called it. They'd share photos captured mid-glance, our eyes locked on each other while the rest of the world blurred into background noise. "Day 87: Still clueless," the captions would read. "Taking bets on who breaks first."
Kathleen had dubbed our painful back-and-forth the "Trans Lesbian Olympics" during one particularly heated brunch. She'd been watching Aubrey brush crumbs from my sweater, her fingers lingering just a beat too long against the fabric while I froze like a deer in headlights, my cheeks burning hot enough to set off smoke alarms.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Kathleen had announced to the table, wine glass raised in mock ceremony, "welcome to another riveting competition in the Trans Lesbian Olympics. Today's event: synchronized pining. Judges are looking for technical difficulty, artistic interpretation, and maximum emotional constipation."
The term stuck like gum to a hot sidewalk. Every time Aubrey and I engaged in our elaborate dance of almost-but-not-quite, someone would mutter "Olympics" under their breath, triggering stifled laughter and knowing glances around the table.
"Wendy takes the lead with that longing stare," Maya would commentate in a hushed sportscaster voice. "But wait! Aubrey counters with an unnecessary shoulder touch! The judges are going wild!"
"At least Cammy and Shay only took six months," one of the girls groaned one night, scrolling through the latest addition to the Aubrey-Wendy documentation. "These two are going for a goddamn world record."
"I swear to god," Cammy declared one night, three martinis deep and filter abandoned, "watching you two not-fuck is worse than any breakup I've ever had. It's emotional edging and we're all caught in it."
The truth exploded during a trip to the Bay Area, where I was visiting my parents with Violet (who had become my chosen family child), Ylse, and Mary. Cammy, fed up with our mutual pining, sent a group text to Shay, me, and Aubrey: "I'm being Wendy's wing woman. She is bat shit crazy about you which I am sure you're aware of. Due to her autism she is afraid to relay this information and or pick up on the queues."
My stomach dropped to my feet, blood rushing in my ears so loud I could barely hear. Exposed. Raw. Terrified. The phone trembled in my hands like a fucking leaf in a hurricane. I felt naked, skinned alive—my most vulnerable feelings splattered across our group chat like blood at a crime scene.
Aubrey's response cut through the noise: "Don't be anxious Wendy, please."
Simple words that shattered me completely.
Then my phone buzzed again—a separate chat, just Aubrey and me. "It's not a big deal, Wendy. Really." The words blurred through my panic. My brain, the traitorous bastard, immediately translated this as rejection—clear and crushing. Of course she was letting me down easy. Of course this was her polite way of saying she didn't feel the same.
"I understand," I texted back, fingers numb, throat so tight I could barely swallow. "We can forget Cammy ever said anything."
I shut off my phone and then I passed clean out on the floor.
"That's NOT what I meant."
"Wendy, please respond."
"I meant it's not a big deal because I ALREADY KNEW."
"I've known for months, just like you've known about me."
The following weeks were excruciating. We were already living together by now. She had her own room separate in the house. And despite her clarification, my brain kept circling back to that initial rejection I'd manufactured. Every time we talked, I'd find some hidden meaning in her words, some proof that she was just being kind, just sparing my feelings.
"Jesus Christ," she finally let out at her desk. "Do I need to tattoo 'I want Wendy' on my fucking forehead?"" She would scowl. But something had shifted. The truth was out there now, acknowledged if not acted upon. And neither of us could take it back.
Until DC. Until I mentioned the annual requirement from my job—one fucking week in Tysons Corner for corporate meetings, strategy sessions, and the mind-numbing bullshit that comes with working for a company that needs to see your face in person exactly once a year to remember you exist. So we traveled up there together. Still friends.
"I'll be in Virginia next month," I said casually over coffee, as if my heart wasn't trying to punch its way out of my ribcage. "Tysons Corner area. Thought maybe I'd explore DC a bit while I'm there. Hang with my sister."
The words hung in the air between us, heavy with possibility.
Aubrey's eyes lit up like she'd found something precious she'd thought was lost forever. "I've always wanted to see the cherry blossoms, so yeah. I’ll go with you." she said, voice careful, measured, like she was walking across thin ice.
So up to Washington DC we went. And that's how it was.
That's when Cammy fucking snapped.
"I swear to every god that ever existed," she hissed at Aubrey later that week during a phone call, her patience shattered like fine china against concrete, "if you don't pick a place and take Wendy on a proper date while she's in DC, I will personally beat your ass in when you get back. I'm sick of this shit. The Trans Lesbian Olympics are officially OVER."
She wasn't done. The very next day, she cornered me over text, her virtual finger jabbing into my sternum with each syllable: "And YOU. If Aubrey asks you out and you don't say yes, I will kick your ass into next week. Everyone is sick of watching this shit show. EVERYONE."
Three days into the trip, Aubrey texted me at work: "Dinner? Just us. Saturday at 7. Pikoteo in West McLean. I'll take you from our hotel."
And so it happened—our first official date—squeezed between corporate meetings and team-building exercises that made me want to claw my eyes out. The restaurant was tucked away in a corner of West McLean, VA—Pikoteo, with its Caribbean-Spanish fusion menu and amber lighting that turned everything golden. I'd spent an hour getting ready in the room, trying on and discarding outfits while my hands trembled like I was coming down from something.
After dinner, we wandered through Tysons Corner, and walked back to the hotel. And there, with the artificial paradise of Tysons Corner spread out around us, I finally reached for her hand. Our fingers interlocked, and the simple touch sent electricity crackling up my arm, more intense than any fantasy I'd conjured in the darkness of my bedroom or the boredom of my strategy meetings.
Then she kissed me.
The Trans Lesbian Olympics had finally, mercifully, reached their closing ceremony.
"Wendy, I want to be with you," she said, her voice steady even as her fingers trembled against the table.
"Aubrey, I've wanted to be with you for a long time," I confessed, the words like glass in my throat. "You probably knew this already."
In that moment, the world narrowed to just us. All the loss, all the community fractures, all the identities shed and discovered—it all led to this single point in time. Two women who had known each other as different people, finding each other again on the other side of transformation.
This is the brutal truth nobody fucking tells you: transition isn't just about your body changing. It's about watching entire worlds collapse and rebuild around you. Friends who swore they'd stay forever vanish like smoke. Family members become strangers overnight. The ground beneath your feet shifts constantly until you forget what solid even feels like.
I lost so goddamn much. We all did. People look at your journey and see only before-and-after photos, not the wreckage between frames—the relationships shattered like glass, the nights spent wondering if anyone would ever truly see you again, the grief of mourning yourself while still living in your skin.
Then you find your people—really find them—and it hits you like a fucking freight train. These connections aren't just nice to have; they're oxygen when you've been drowning. They're shelter when you've been exposed to every emotional storm possible. They're proof that you weren't wrong to hope, even when hope felt like the cruelest joke in the universe.
The bitter irony is that it takes losing almost everything to understand what actually matters. It takes watching communities splinter and reform to recognize that belonging isn't about perfect harmony—it's about choosing to stay when staying gets hard. It's about creating spaces where broken people can bring their jagged edges without fear of cutting others or being cut in return.
Communities rise and fall. People come together and drift apart. But in those moments of connection—however brief, however flawed—we find pieces of ourselves we never knew were missing. And sometimes, if we're lucky, we find someone who sees us exactly as we are and loves us not despite it, but because of it.
That's what I found, in that room full of trauma and different personalities. That's what I created, in my kitchen full of food and laughter. That's what I discovered, in Aubrey's eyes on that first real date.
I found my people. I found myself. I found home.
And fuck anyone who says these connections don't matter, that chosen family is somehow less real than blood. They haven't lived through what we have—the exile, the rebirth, the crawling through emotional wilderness to find each other. They haven't felt the raw, visceral relief of being truly seen after years of invisibility. They don't understand that sometimes survival itself depends on a text message that says "I see you" or a hand reaching for yours across a mall fountain.
This is the lesson carved into my bones: When the world burns everything familiar to ash, you build something new from the embers. Not because you're brave, but because you have no choice. And what you build—with trembling hands and tear-streaked faces—can be more beautiful, more honest, and more yours than anything you lost.