Page 21 of True Colors

He pulls me into a hug. “I always know.” He kisses my forehead. “Out with it.”

I melt into him. “It’s been a long day.”

“Beer?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“Let’s talk. Stew will be ready in half an hour.”

We take our beers and go into our living room. We’re on a San Francisco local-brewery kick these days—trying anything that comes out of Cellarmaker, Fort Point, or Standard Deviant like we’re conducting a very serious research study. Tonight’s selection is Fort Point KSA.

We settle on the couch next to one another. He puts his bare feet up on the coffee table, and I angle myself so I can look at him.

I take a long draw of beer and look around, feeling safe as I always do.

We’ve made our apartment cozy. We bought everything new when we first moved in. We never buy used. I think it comes from wearing hand-me-downs and sleeping on beds and bedding that were old, slept in, and not ours.

Our furniture isn’t crazy expensive or flashy, but it’s well-made—pieces we saved up for.

We have blankets everywhere because I’m always cold. According to Finn, that’s because I need to “pump iron and build some muscle,” since I don’t hold on to weight the way most people do. Not because I’m dieting—God, no—but because growing up, food wasn’t always available, and my hunger cues didn’t develop properly.

My body didn’t trust that food would be there, so it ran on adrenaline and habit instead of appetite.

It was a survival response.

I’m fine now. I eat three meals a day. I don’t skip. I don’t forget. However, I still don’t put on weight.

Finn also carries baggage he’s still healing from.

When he was a child, one of his foster mothers used to lock him in a closet for hours at a time. He isn’t claustrophobic anymore—not the way he once was, which is fortunate, because that would be a severe liability for a firefighter—but he sleeps with the windows wide open, no matter the season or the weather.

There are speakers in every room, too. If one of us is alone, there’s always music or white noise or rain sounds filling the space. Silence can be loud when you’ve lived the way we did.

So much of how we live is intentional—built around care. Around survival. Which is why our home is warm. No sharp corners. Just tenderness.

Trauma can make you cold. Finn and I know that. That didn’t happen to us because we found each other—lost siblings.

We connected instantly when we met on day two of my stay at the state home. He had a split lip and gentle eyes. I had a stutter and eyes that didn’t meet anyone else’s.

We became a unit—a family.

“Talk to me,” he urges.

I drink some beer. “You know our new CEO started today.”

He nods. “You had the early meeting.”

I lick my lips.

“Annie, please, tell me what happened.”

He knows I keep things inside—another survival mechanism.

If you showed weakness in the home, you’d be done for—bullied, beaten. I just kept quiet and learned to control my emotions as best as I could. Finn used his fists to protect himself and me.

“He asked a question,” I whisper, shame creeping up despite knowing better. “In front of everyone. I…I couldn’t get the words out.”

Finn’s jaw flexes. “And?”