Mars was staring out the window at the rain. “I’m not brooding. I’m… metabolizing.”
“When I was twenty-three, I got jumped outside a bar in the Village. Three guys. I thought that was it. But a drag king named Spike pulled them off me with a pool cue. He took me to a diner, bought me coffee, and said, ‘You don’t owe the world prettiness. You owe it your survival.’ That was my first family. Not blood. Choice.” shemalevid
Mars closed his fingers around the stone. For the first time, his hands didn’t shake. Mars was staring out the window at the rain