XX. Live Your Life In Spite

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Thad's father was kind of rambling; trying to distract him, he guessed.

"So, how'd you get into this line of business?" he asked at one point.

"I knew it would annoy the hell out of my father," Jason said distractedly.

Thad's father frowned. "Why would it annoy him? You're helping people."

"He's kind of an asshole. He has a grudge against people who are different in this way."

"How do you get a grudge against a bunch of people you don't know?"

Thad wanted to tell his father to shut up, that he was prying, but the perfect timing of him getting his shot at that moment stopped him. He hissed in pain.

"My brother was born intersex. My father was disgusted, especially since there was a complication and my mom couldn't have any more children. He liked the rest of us just fine, but couldn't get within a five foot radius of his youngest child. So we didn't like him, either."

"Your brother? So he identifies as a guy?"

"Yeah. We let him decide when he was old enough to tell us, but even when he was young he'd unconsciously wrinkle his nose if we called him a girl's pronouns. We switched between he, she, and they when talking about him so he could see which he preferred."

"There. That wasn't so bad, was it?"

Thad shrugged. "Let's agree to disagree."

Jason laughed. "I really like you, man."

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