### **Chapter 2b — Wearing the Word
For a while, Sammi let the word “girlfriend” stick. It was easier than correcting Jeff in front of his friends, easier than pausing the laughter and drinks to explain that something inside didn’t match. So he played along. Jeff squeezed his hand under the table, called him “her,” and Sammi would blush—not entirely from shame. There was sweetness in the belonging, in being claimed. He even tried to imagine himself through Jeff’s eyes: clever, radiant, *hers*.
But later, walking home alone, he’d feel the coat slipping again. “Am I really this?” he’d whisper to the night air. Sometimes he liked the way it sounded—girlfriend—as if it unlocked parts of him no one else dared name. Sometimes it felt like a mask, plastered over a face still forming. And yet, he stayed. Because being Jeff’s girlfriend was a story, and stories can carry you forward even when you don’t yet know your own ending.
### **Chapter 3b — The Dual Truth**
The months Sammi spent as Jeff’s girlfriend were full of contradictions:
* **Joy**: gifts of books, long nights of arguments that curled into laughter.
* **Dissonance**: the word “girlfriend” echoing in introductions, making Sammi’s stomach twist.
Sometimes he admitted to himself: *I liked parts of it.* Not the word itself, maybe, but the *permission* it gave Jeff to hold him close, to speak with tenderness. There was a thrill in testing out an identity—even if it wasn’t his. He began to realize that taking on the role didn’t make him false; it made him experimental. “Maybe identity is something you try on,” he wrote in his journal, “like a garment that sometimes fits in unexpected places and pinches in others.”
Sammi reveled in the physical aspects of their relationship. He loved the way Jeff’s hands would roam his body, the way his breath would hitch when Jeff kissed him. He enjoyed the way Jeff would whisper his name, the way his voice would drop to a husky growl when he was aroused. Sammi felt a thrill of power when he could make Jeff beg, when he could make him lose control. He loved the way Jeff would look at him, as if he were the only thing in the world that mattered.
But there was a fear that lurked beneath the surface. When Jeff’s friend saw them together, when Jeff was riding Sammi and Sammi was enjoying it, he felt a chill of terror. He couldn’t process the disgust in the friend’s eyes, the way it made him feel dirty, wrong. He loved being Jeff’s girlfriend, but he couldn’t handle the judgment of others.
Jeff wanted Sammi to be his girl in every way, and for a time, it seemed possible. They would spend hours in bed, exploring each other’s bodies, learning what made the other moan and beg. Jeff would hold him close, whispering promises and declarations of love. Sammi would feel a warmth spread through him, a sense of belonging that he had never known before.
But the fear of judgment was always there, a shadow that threatened to consume them. Sammi would lie awake at night, wondering if he was enough, if he could ever truly be the girlfriend Jeff wanted. He loved Jeff, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was living a lie, that he was playing a role that wasn’t meant for him.
### **Chapter 7 — Aftermath (Expanded)**
When Sammi finally spoke his truth to Jeff—about names, about pronouns, about being seen—he did so without erasing the fact that he had once been Jeff’s “girlfriend.” “I need you to know,” he said softly, “that I lived that with you. It wasn’t fake. It was real, for what it was. But it wasn’t all of me.” Jeff nodded slowly, eyes searching. “I did love you that way.” “And I needed to feel loved, even if the word didn’t fit,” Sammi admitted. “But now I need to find words that belong to me.”
They both sat with it—the paradox that something could be true in the moment and not the final truth. That being Jeff’s girlfriend had been a chapter, not the whole book.
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## **Epilogue — Belonging**
Sammi would look back on Jeff with a complexity that resisted neat summary. Yes, Jeff’s words sometimes fit like borrowed coats. Yes, his eagerness often rushed past Sammi’s hesitations. And yet, there was also truth: Jeff had wanted him, and not only as a mind across a table, but as a companion, a presence, a body that could be held.
As an orphan, Sammi had often felt like a guest in other people’s worlds, never rooted. With Jeff, however imperfect the fit, he had felt—if only for a while—that he belonged. That someone claimed him, not out of duty, but out of desire.
That mattered. That shaped him.
It was not the final story, but it was a story. A chapter that proved: *I can be wanted. I can be chosen.* Even when the words weren’t quite right, the wanting was real.
The first time Jeff had touched him, it was with a trembling hand, as if he were afraid Sammi might shatter. They were in the dim glow of a single lamp, the rest of the world outside the window a blur of rain and night. Jeff’s fingers traced the curve of Sammi’s jaw, and for a moment, Sammi felt like he was the only thing in the world that mattered. The kiss that followed was soft, hesitant, a question more than a statement. Sammi answered with a sigh, his body melting into Jeff’s, the warmth of him a stark contrast to the cold that had always seemed to seep into Sammi’s bones.
Their nights were filled with the rustle of sheets and the hushed sounds of pleasure, the air thick with the scent of sweat and the musk of their bodies. They learned each other’s rhythms, the ways to bring the other to the edge and then pull back, the ways to make the other beg. It was a dance, a tango of lust and affection, and in those moments, Sammi felt more alive than he ever had.
But it wasn’t just the physical that bound them. It was the quiet mornings, the shared meals, the lazy afternoons spent talking about nothing and everything. It was the way Jeff would look at him, as if he were trying to memorize every freckle, every scar, every curve of his face. It was the way Sammi would catch Jeff’s gaze and feel a warmth spread through him, a warmth that had nothing to do with the sun and everything to do with the man in front of him.
Years later, Sammi would carry that memory not as a cage but as a key—proof that intimacy and friendship can coexist, that desire can be tender even when mismatched, and that belonging, once felt, is never entirely lost. He would remember the way Jeff had held him, the way he had made Sammi feel seen, wanted, loved. And he would know, deep in his bones, that he was not just a guest in the world, but a part of it, a piece that was wanted, chosen, and cherished.
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