She was beautiful, and free, and exotic.
She was trans yet passed so elegantly.
She confided in me many joys: the men she slept with, her love of nerf, her mastery of Sidechat, and her sense of humor that was at once raucous and vulnerable. Through her jokes I learned about her experience being, her attitudes to her future and how she saw herself in the world.
Maybe I overstate our connection. Her life was an open book to anyone who wanted to listen. By the end she had shared many things with me – life and death, her kiss, even her naked form. The only thing which she never shared was her birth name. I suppose I could reverse engineer it now, not that it matters.
It wouldn't be inaccurate to call her an exhibitionist. On a morning of a day in late September, she announces on the Discord server that she is hospitalized for attempted suicide. The previous night she has attempted to jump. Her english teacher reports her, after she sends a note acknowledging the true reason of her absence.
Visiting K in the hospital that day was a profound experience. It was simple; rarely in our life are we able to help somebody so directly and so significantly by just showing up. I went to Cambridge General with the clothes on my back, a Siddur with Mi Shebeirach scrawled into the back pages, and a bouquet of flowers hastily acquired from a sympathetic Cambridge Florist.
I remember seeing her on that bed. She was so pale. Her voice was weak, but her wit was still sharp – the hospital room was a "double single." She listened as I said the prayer; her hand felt boney and cold in mine. I asked the questions of a stranger: about the ordeal of hospitalization, her physical wellbeing, her immediate plans for the future. I did not dare ask her how or why she had attempted.
G was probably the most important person to her in those few days. But I hope, and I know, that I also made a difference.
