I wasn't even aware of where Dylan was driving to until he rolled the window down. The smell of salt and the sun hit me (it really does come in waves) and I glanced up for a moment to see there was a beach in front of us. The car doors clicked open, and Dylan glanced at me, worried.

"Here." He said, patting my hand. "Step outside and let me propose something."

I frowned at him and wiped my red puffy eyes. He grabbed his mcr hoodie and jumped out of the car. I climbed out just in time to see him pull it over his head. The sight of Dylan's head popping out of the sweatshirt looking dazed with ruffled blue hair made me feel a little better. He smiled and grabbed my hand, pulling me towards the beach. The sky was overcast and grey and it made the water look fierce and dangerous. To the left a large pier stretched out into the water, covered in black barnacles and seaweed. There were more clumps of the stuff piles up in mounds across the beach. The sand stretched out for miles and I was surprised by how big it was, and there was... so much sand. The beaches back in Washington didn't even come close to this.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"To the pier." Dylan explained.

I let him lead and he swung our hands back and forth gently. No words were said. I stared at the sea gulls and the pigeons fighting over chip bags and discarded fries. Until the thuds of our shoes were no longer muffled by the sand and were replaced by the heavy steps of off-brand converse on wood. Then all of a sudden, Dylan stopped.

"Here's the plan." He said. "This is a fairly long plank of wood. First, we walk to the end, and we can talk about all the horrible things that have happened so far, but on the way back we can only talk about the good ones. How does that sound?"

"That's perfect." I sniffed and wiped my eyes again.

"Okay you go first, you obviously have a lot more you need to get out right now." He insisted.

He squeezed my hand and we started walking again. I sucked in a deep breath and wondered where I should even start.

"All I'm asking for." My voice shook. "Is one parent, even if they don't agree or don't understand it, one parent who will just shut up and at least humor me. It's like I'm being pushed to make so many decisions, what colleges I want to go do, what line of work I want to get into it. All of these are so important decisions that are going to affect the rest of my life, and I'm expected to make them right here and now. But when it comes to who I actually am, something only I know, they won't even listen to me."

I had started crying again. I wiped away the tear quickly and tried to take deep breath.

"Adults are stupid like that." Dylan nodded. "All they are is walking boxes of outdated information that have been here a little longer than we have."

I laughed but then everything still hurt so it dissolved into more crying.

"I really thought he would be better Dylan. I thought he would at least try and listen."

"Me too."

"God I just... I'm sorry I just..." My breaths started coming harsher and my face was so flushed and gross.

"It's okay." He leaned against my shoulder. "Get it all out."

"I... I hate my body." I breathed in shakily.

Sometimes it just felt really good to say it. It wasn't fair that I was forced into being born like this, into being raised like this, into being treated like this. Forced to live in a cage of paper that I wasn't strong enough to cut through, but it was delicate, oh-so delicate.

"I know." Dylan said quietly. "I... I know how that is. I've been there. I've felt that too."

I stared at him, he suddenly looked very somber and well... sober.

"You go." I nudged him gently.

He shrugged uncomfortably. "I don't want to make it look like I'm trying to outdo you-"

"Why shouldn't you? This is our walk of sadness remember." I pointed out.

He smiled ever so slightly but it faded ever so fast.

"Sometimes I think about how my mom will n-never get the chance to know the real me because she died before I could tell her." Dylan whispered.

His voice sounded like a VHS player but on the wrong setting. The screen was full of white and black dots dancing around and emitting a loud fuzzy noise. My mom used to tell me the tv was just full of really angry bees. That what Dylan's voice sounded like when he was sad, a VHS player full of angry bees.

"Do you ever think about that? If someone's love for you is conditional? Like people outside the lgbt community will never understand it but it's a terrifyingly real possibility that your parents won't love you if you turn out wrong, or not what they were imagining."

I stared at our shoes for a moment, at a loss for words.

"Hey Dylan?"

"Y-yeah?" He was so nervous.

"I know we're not at the end of the pier yet, but your mom loves you. Without a doubt." I assured him.

He smiled though he looked like he was in pain, and his breaths cam out in little laugh-gasps. The sleeved of our hoodies were both wet with salty tears.

"Oh gosh, you know I've never told anyone that. I've never let myself really... feel like this. Not in a long time... I... do you want to see a picture of her?"

I blinked. "Of your mom?"

"Yeah."

"Sure."

He sniffed and pulled his phone out of the front pocket and started swiping through it. That painful smiled returned. Mental note, you could see the gap in his teeth when he happy-smiled.

"Ah geeze. These are the only pictures I still have pre-haircut. I deleted all the rest of them... you know. Oh, here's one where my hair's up in a hat, that's considerably less cringe-inducing than the others."

He handed his phone over to me and I placed my hand on the back of his and saw it was a picture of him with obviously longer hair but it was tucked up in a dad-hat. He was smiling and standing between two people. The first was his step-dad, who I almost didn't recognize because he looked... happy and sober. The second was an only slightly shorter woman with a round physique. She wore a pale white sundress that made her choppy, dirty blonde hair stick out. I felt my heart stop as I recognized that look on her face. That was Dylan's smile. Those were his rosy cheeks and bright white teeth (minus the gap). Those were his eyes, round and ready to take the world by the reins.

"She looks so nice." I noted, as soft as I could.

Dylan nodded, more tears started to flow down his face. "She is-was. She was. She... God Att, I miss her so much I just..."

The hand holding his phone was shaking and he started to break down. I had only seen him get this worked up once before, when I threatened to leave.

"Oh geeze." He started wiping the tears away despite their persistent speed of production.

He shot a pathetic look of confusion up at me, like this was the first time he had ever cried. I let go of his hand only to wrap an arm around him as we walked, so I could hold him close, so he could cry.

The seemingly everlasting bridge into the ocean we were walking, it seemed to go forever. It felt like the more we walk the farther we were getting away from all of problems, from our pain. The ocean beneath our feet was like a benevolent force. A hungry goddess that pounded her salty fists angrily against the ground and demanded we succumb to her. She wanted our will, our soul, all of our power, but importantly she wanted our tears. It was okay though, the ocean only wanted what was hers.

The pier opened up on the very end, like a very long handled hammer. We eventually stopped on the very end and leaned the against the railing. The sea was far below us, waves didn't even form this far out. There was just the occasional swelling of water that would rise up and drift through the wooden pillars of the pier like it wasn't even there. Twenty meters later white foam would lace the peak and a roaring, tumbling, crashing wave would rip through the water.

"Well here we are." I said.

"Man, look how beautiful it is." Dylan sighed, and flopped against the damp piece of wood.

Our eyes were puffy and our faces were red, we were tired. Dylan was right, as always, it was gorgeous. I looked over at him and tried to read his expression. He seemed to be doing alright now, we both were. I slumped down next to him and leaned my head against his shoulder.

Okay." He said, after a while. "Let's go back now. I'll go first."

"You already have something?"

"I always have something good in my life nowadays." He grinned his gap-tooth grin.

"What's that?"

"You."

My face flushed and I couldn't help but giggle. "You did it again! How do you always manage to make me so flustered?"

He smirked and mimed a dramatic hair flip. "Oops! I, did it again, I, forgot what I was, loosing my mind abou-out."

I gasped. "My first good thing is that you've started listening to my music."

Then we laughed and it was suddenly so much sweeter.

"My next one is I love your hoodie. First time I saw it I thought it was the best thing ever."

"The sharks?" I asked.

"Of course." He replied. I have to ask, why sharks?"

"I love sharks. I'd be a shark if I could."

Dylan suddenly got that look on his face, that sly smirk. "Well, if you were a shark. I think I'd be the ocean, that way wherever you went I'd be there to keep you safe."

I blushed again, and slowly felt that giddy warmth spread from my face and into my chest, I covered up my face in embarrassment. "Ahhh!"

He giggled and reached for my hand again. "You're one of the best things that's ever happened to me."

"Shut up, you know it's the same for me."

"Mm. See? Look at us, we're doing fine. We've got our car, a good deal of cash left-"

"I want to saw that still. Your surgery is still important." I insisted.

Dylan suddenly gasped. "I forgot to tell you! I looked at some jobs earlier and there's a few places around that are hiring. I was going to swing by, we've got that going for us."

I nodded. "That's great!"

"I mean mostly importantly we have each other but maybe we'll even have money coming in too and that's also very important." He gave me two thumbs up.

"It is, it really is." I sighed. "You know maybe we're not so bad off after all..."

I trailed off as I spotted a lackey figure in a black jacket and ripped skinned jeans walking swiftly towards us. He stuck out like a sore thumb on the beach. I felt some of that original fear return to my body.

"Atticus, wait up!" Matthew called from across the sand.