FICTION WRITING PROMPT The room is blank, like it always is. The closet has no doors, and of course, the fan does not spin even though the day is sweltering. The only furniture in here is the dresser I'm leaning on, destroyed with nail polish and markers by us. There is also the string hanging from the fan that, at the end, holds a stuffed animal. The day we hung that, we were so sad - even now, nothing is sadder than thinking that was our only exit. Thank goodness we did not take it. Today is the day that I make a choice, though. One that'll change us forever. I know that we're both scared, I can see it. My hands are shaking, and my body is cold even though I am sweating. The day is still sweltering. Maybe this is what they call "cold sweats" - I understand now. All I can hear is my breath, heavy in the way we hate. We never could stomach the videos of us, just heavy breathing and attempts to prove who we were. You're over there in the corner. Smaller than I remember, smaller than I thought you were. For some reason, you're curled up into yourself and I can't see your face. You refuse to look at me even though I'm calling for you. I'm telling you to look at me and all you can do is nod your head "No" furiously - like you think I'll hurt you. I know I won't, but you don't know that; you've got the experience to know better than to trust just anyone. I concede to coming to you. I wanted it to be your choice, but I can't ask you to do that today - I have to make the choice this time. Remember, it'll change us forever. You're yelling too loud. I look at the door. We both know what I'm afraid of - but you keep yelling, and I keep walking towards you, trying to make myself as small as possible - trying to get on your level. I hope it's working. I make it to your corner and your yelling sounds like crying, but you still won't let me see your face. I sit down and my heart hurts as I listen to you sob. For the first time, I let myself cry with you. I think you hear me because your wails get quieter. One of your arms drops to your side, and I'm able to grab your hand. This is the first time I've ever been able to touch you; your hands are so much softer than I thought. I don't know why we thought they were rough. I drag us over to the middle of the room, where the sunlight can reach us through the curtain of the big windows. Our crying stifles into sniffles as we sit here in front of each other. Our breathing does that thing where it stutters. You let your other arm drop, and I see your face for the first time. And it's my face. But younger. I'm just 10. I'm older now. I don't know if you recognize me. I'm 22. We didn't think it was possible. The string on the fan snaps, and the toy tumbles down in front of us. I take my shaking hands and use them to wipe your tears. You hug me hard, and for a moment I'm frozen - but I choose to accept you. The room door opens. We're able to exit now, our choice. The one that'll change us forever.

The military was the only community I ever knew In this community, it was normal for parents to miss birthdays and Christmas. It was normal for friends to come and go. It was normal to go back to an empty home and make dinner for myself and my siblings while my parents were in the field, on business trips, or deployed. For most of my childhood, these things were what I considered a "normal life". I didn't realize how unusual my life was until I was exposed to "civilian" communities. Growing up, I lived in neighborhoods full of kids like me - where we would compare deployment dates & lengths the same way other kids compared after-school activities. Some kids would brag about their parents being deployed for over 6 months, like it was a badge of honor. And nearly all of us had a story about a parent missing a birthday or two. I never knew that this was atypical, that in the eyes of civilians, this was a "sad" life. Within this "atypical" life, I was still, somehow, the odd one out. We got stationed in Texas and were blessed enough to be able to extend that stay for 8 years, a pipedream for a lot of military families. But the stability came with a tradeoff; I was still affected by the transient nature of the military, even if I wasn't the subject of it. It became easy to let people go because eventually they'd leave. Everyone leaves sometimes. Your parents go away for weeks or months, friends move - people are not going to be there for me all the time because they can't, that's not how life works. After those 8 years, we moved to Hawaii, and for the first time in my life, locality outweighed the military. The change was beyond shocking, and I struggled a lot with depression & anxiety back then. It didn't help that local students kept their distance. I couldn't blame them; they had learned what I learned, military kids always leave. I was completely isolated, and with no one to talk to about it, I was forced to confront how the constant ebb and flow of the military had irrevocably affected me. The more I learned from local kids about their normal lives, the more I envied them. I envied the friendships they've had for their whole lives, and that their parents always came home at night. My desire for "normalcy" became fervent. Ironically, a pandemic that isolated all of us brought me closer to community and long-lasting friendships. Through online communities, I connected with others who shared my interests. These people didn't care if I was thousands of miles away - as long as I had wifi, then it didn't matter if I moved to another state or switched schools. For the first time, I wasn't defined by the military. Yet I realized within these groups that the military had given me a pretty valuable skill. I knew how to adapt quickly, empathize with others deeply, and connect with people of vastly different backgrounds from mine. Even if they were a fleeting friendship in a fifteen-minute game, I was able to form connections - some of which are now my longest friendships ever. In the weirdest twist of fate, the abnormal life I had gave me one of my greatest strengths. Being a child of soldiers gave me the resilience to keep going despite my mental health challenges, gave me understanding without resentment, and taught me how to find connection even when everything is constantly changing.

My very first "crush" was the lady mannequins at department stores. I never thought there was something *wrong* with me in thinking those pieces of plastic were pretty, they were simply the ideal of a women and there wasn't anything wrong with a young girl admiring them. Near a similar age, I was introduced to YouTube, the wonders of Google, and the internet. It was there that I learned what intimacy was; how kisses are a form of social currency that make people love you. It's also where I learned that those same kisses, different from the ones you get from relatives, should never come from the same sex. Before 10, I was already exposed to 2 differing ideas. The mannequins I admired were like idols of romantic worship. But, in corners of the internet, it was a sin to love another woman. I had a war going on inside my mind because of these two ideas - but in real life, there wasn't any form of homophobia that I was exposed to; oddly, my internalized homophobia came entirely from the amalgamation of differing opinions on the internet. While I struggled with my crush on the blonde girl from My Babysitter's a Vampire and whether or not that was *wrong*, my relatives openly displayed aspects of their queer identities and were never treated any differently in my house. I even grew up in the Catholic church, and funny enough, I was told that depression was a worse sin than to love whoever you want to love. But I was introverted, and the internet provided a home from all the other worries and difficulties of real life. So I took those dumb opinions of strangers on the internet like commandments to life; I trusted those people online, looking towards them as mentors rather than looking at my own community. And as the years went on, I felt myself hiding more and more within my mind; despite all these lovely figures in my life who were prime examples of people living freely, I let myself recede into the depths due to the influence of the internet. I didn't feel safe fully exploring who I was. But there was one place that allowed me some amount of introspection, writing. In a sea of conflict, writing and reading let me escape and truly figure out who I was without the judgment of anyone but those I trusted. I continued to hide, for years, I desperately fended off the idea of being queer while also knowing how close in proximity I was to queerness; instead, I lived through characters in worlds far flung into the back of my psyche. I was a kid who constantly wanted to try new hobbies and activities, but writing was the one that truly stuck. When I gave up on singing, writing was how I coped. When I found myself falling out of love with certain fandoms and artists that helped me through tough times, writing was where I processed those emotions. And when I finally started accepting myself and entertaining the idea that I might be queer like these brave people I saw growing up, writing allowed me to explore what "queerness" meant to me. It was the one thing keeping me afloat, and it never got boring, the stories never halted, and they never should - more than an escape now, writing allows me to give others what I wish I had when I was younger: A voice that'll encourage curiosity rather than shame. If even one person finds themself through my words, it was all worth it.