It makes you think about how she would have seen you then. Would she have turned up her nose in disgust at the near-shaved head, the baggy guys jeans and the work boots? Would she have laughed at the way you bound your breasts down with a makeshift bandage and packed out your boxers everyday so that you felt a little safer and a little closer to the person you had denied through all those years in care? Would she have even given you a second glance when you didn’t quite fit into her polished-to-perfection little world?

Deep down you know the answers and they aren’t what you want to hear. You know because, even after sharing your past with her, she still seems to ignore that side of you. Instead she tries to fit you into her little mould, putting you in a dress and heels and long hair and all the things that take you back to a time and a place and a person that you never want to think about. And all the while your pleas of ‘Don’t make me do this’ are ignored because what Carmen wants, Carmen gets.

And because, despite everything, you feel that thing called love when you’re around her. She makes you light up so that everyone around you knows it, no matter how blind or ignorant they are to the little things. But it still doesn’t stop her hurting you.

So on the night of the party, when you get to meet ‘Max’ for the first time and see how comfortable he is in his own skin, you want to go and talk to her. Make her see; make her understand who it is you really are. But she’s working, and she’s flirting, and she’s too busy with her polished life and the people who will never drift into that middle ground of androgyny and shades of grey that she obviously wants to ignore.

As much as you remember and read in other people, you know yourself just as well. So its no surprise that you calmly drive yourself back to a place that you felt accepted and never judged. Because Cherie never made you feel beneath her even though you were. And you weren’t scum just because there was confusion and roughness around the edges of who you are. And its also no surprise that you stop by your room to pick up a near-forgotten box from under the bed to bring with you. Because knowing yourself as well as you do, you’re well aware that this is something that you’ve missed: a part of yourself that’s been gone too long.

But apparently she does see you and remember the little clues about who you are, because in the morning she’s waiting for you, well aware that you went to that house last night a fucked Cherie good and hard with the strap-on that Carmen won’t let anywhere near her.

Pretty soon it’s all about choice and maturity and responsibility and monogamy and all these other words that show you she has missed the point yet again. That she still doesn’t understand that you can’t be shoved into this little labelled box that holds everything she wants from a girlfriend and tries to crush out the rest. That what you are isn’t as simple as the surface that you let people see and that all those pieces of your past are still pieces of you. That it was never just a way to make a living with Clive and the fags, it was a way of life. And you lived it for so long that parts of it are still ingrained. And most importantly, that you like it that way and don’t want it erased.

You know if she keeps ignoring it, this can never work. Realistically its never going to give either of you a happy ending, but you never expected one anyway. So you’ll forgive each other in that careless way that retains all the hurt and rage that you’ve caused then go back to hating and loving each other in that cute, bright, self-destructive way that will burn out your soul in the end.

All that you can hope for is that you will forget it all and stop reliving the pain on her face and in your heart. But that won’t happen either, because forgetting is something you will never let yourself do.