text: ## Home for the Holidays Snow crunched beneath my feet as I walked through the streets of my old neighborhood, my mother’s words from earlier that evening echoing in my head: *If you’re not my son, and you’re not my daughter, I don’t know what you’re doing in my house.* The Christmas lights, cheap, tacky, and beautiful, seemed to wonder the same thing. “Go back to the city,” they blinked on and off, never in-between. “Change isn’t welcome here.” “But I haven’t changed,” I wanted to say. “I haven’t.” But it was too cold to stop and argue. I had to move on. I didn’t mean to end up at Maggie’s Diner, but my feet had to take me somewhere, and there was nowhere else to go. I’d grown up with the owner’s daughter, Jess, and we’d spent a lot of time in that diner. But that was six years and a gender ago; Maggie wasn’t likely to recognize me like this - not a man, but certainly not the girl her daughter used to hang out with, either. A bell on the door jingled the same familiar greeting as I entered the diner, which was empty save a few homeless people at the counter. It was Maggie’s tradition to stay open on Christmas Eve, even though few paying customers came in, and to give the homeless a hot meal and an escape from the cold. A familiar voice caught me by surprise. “Hello, stranger, what brings you here?” I turned to a smiling Jess who, besides the uniform, barely seemed to have changed, herself. *Strangers, is it, now?* “I’m just passing through. I thought I had some family here, but I was mistaken.” “Oh. I see. Well, I’m sorry to hear that. Take a seat, and how ’bout I get you some hot cocoa?” “That sounds perfect,” I said, taking a seat and picking up a menu so shiny it could have been a mirror. *Finally, something different*, I thought, but as I looked it over, I realized that despite the new look, it hadn’t changed, either. Jess returned a few minutes later with the hot chocolate, topped with toasted marshmallows just the way I remembered. Something, at last, to bring a smile to my face. “Do you see anything you like?” she asked. *I like you, Jess. I always have. But you wouldn’t like me if you knew who I was.* “I’ll have the turkey dinner.” “Comin’ right up,” she said, then flitted off. Just as I was enjoying the silence, the jukebox started up - *All I Want For Christmas Is You.* As far as Christmas songs go, not bad, but I was hardly in the mood. Jess returned and sat down at my table, in the booth opposite me, with a hot chocolate of her own. “So, where do you call home?” She hadn’t changed a bit - as forward as ever. "I live in San Francisco." “San Francisco? You don’t sound like you’re from California.” “Well, no, I didn’t grow up there. I moved there.” “Why?” *Why? To get away from here.* “I guess I felt I’d fit in better. In a big city, I mean.” Jess nodded. “I know what you mean. I don’t exactly fit in, myself.” Maggie approached with a tray. “Here’s your turkey dinner, and I thought you might like another hot cocoa.” “Ma,” Jess said, “you forgot to toast the marshmallows.” “Toast the marshmallows? What on Earth are you talking about? The only person I ever toasted marshmallows for was that girl you had a crush--” Her mouth dropped. “Victoria?” “It’s, um, just Vic now.” I looked at Jess. “You knew?” “Of course I knew, you idiot.” “Does this mean you’re into girls?” asked Maggie. “Ma!” “Well,” I said, looking at Jess, “you’re a girl, so I guess the answer is yes.” She blushed, and suddenly all her other blushes made sense. How had I missed so many signs growing up? What else had I missed? “Well,” Maggie said to Jess, “it seems like you finally got that Christmas present you always wanted.” And I had, too. “Being wanted,” I said. “is the best present I could have ever hoped for.