When I look back on my childhood, I often divide my memories into two distinct periods. The first is the seven years I lived with my grandmother as Veronica. I don’t often talk about those years, at least not out loud, but when I write about them, I always describe them as the happiest time of my life. There was such peace, such acceptance in that little corner of the world she created for me. I was safe. I was seen. And for a child like me—different in ways I didn’t yet know how to explain—that meant everything. There are no bad memories from those years—only warmth.
But when I think about my teenage years, especially the time leading up to my seventeenth birthday, another kind of happiness comes to mind—a different kind of joy, more complicated, more vulnerable, but no less real. These are the years I remember most vividly, not for school dances or summer jobs, but for the trips I took with my brother Steve into the city of Spokane.
Spokane was more than a destination. It was a dream we shared. A place where we could exist outside the lines of who we were expected to be. To the world, we were just two siblings making a day of it in the city. But in the quiet between the city lights, in the walks along the river, and the diners where we laughed over cheap milkshakes, we were something more. We were two young souls learning not only who we were, but who we were to each other.
Steve was sixteen when it began, and I was twelve. I had just returned to life as my parents’ “son,” after seven years of being Veronica in the only home where I ever felt whole. The shift was hard, almost impossible. But Steve—he met me halfway. He didn’t question who I was. He didn’t ask me to explain. He simply saw me. And that small, quiet act of acceptance changed the course of my life.
After my move to Reardan, after I began living the lie of being Glen, Steve and I started taking trips together to Spokane. At first, they were simple escapes—two siblings getting out of town. It was my way — with his help — to be Veronica again. But they quickly became something more sacred. In Spokane, He didn’t just tolerate it. He embraced it. He treated me as his young woman, not with pity or hesitation, but with a kind of quiet reverence. And in the eyes of the world, we looked like any other young couple navigating the thrills and awkwardness of adolescence.
There are details of those years I will always keep for myself. Not out of shame, but because they are sacred. They belong to us. To that small, private world we built inside an old car and the backstreets of a city that never knew our names. What I will say is this: Steve made me feel beautiful. He made me feel worthy. And he gave me something no one else ever had—permission to explore who I was without fear. I have kept this part of my life secret until now.
I know how the world might view what we had. I’ve carried that burden for years. But in truth, I don’t think I’ve ever really been ashamed. What I’ve felt, more than anything, is protective. Because what Steve and I shared wasn’t some dark secret—it was a source of light in a time when so little else was. I often think of these years as when I became a woman. However, it is equally true that these were the years Steve became a man.
Steve died young, in Vietnam, in a helicopter crash they called a “non-combat incident.” But he was my hero long before he wore a uniform. He gave me five years of joy, laughter, growth, and love. And when I say love, I don’t mean it in some sanitized, distant way. I mean, love that changes a person. Love that lets you breathe again. The love I had for Steve was young love but it became the love of two lonely souls eager to explore the fullness of a love most would describe as forbidden love.
If I close my eyes, I can still see us in that city. Two kids in borrowed time, wandering Spokane like it was our private kingdom. He never called me anything but Veronica. He never looked at me like I was less than the girl I longed to be. And in those moments, I wasn’t just pretending. I was her.
He gave me that. The freedom to be.
And though he’s been gone for decades, I still carry that freedom with me. It’s in the way I walk. It’s in the way I dress. It’s in every brave thing I’ve ever done to be myself.
Steve was my brother. He was my first love. He was, in so many ways, the beginning of everything. He was the first man to fuck me.
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