Symbiosis

I tell Lacey I'm thinking about cutting my hair. Charley's girlfriend Mina says when I wear my hair long, she forgets I'm not a girl. She gets confused when I go into the men's room. Charley says that Mina doesn't know what she's talking about.
Lacey says she thinks I look good, even if I do look like a girl; she kisses me, hoping to distract me but failing to do so.
Charley pipes in, "Don't worry about. It increases your options, if nothing else." When me and Charley go out, I'm sometimes I'm mistaken for his little brother, sometimes his girlfriend. I guess, honestly, my role in his life is somewhere in between the two. Or maybe that's not right. Maybe it's something totally different, like something other people don't get because they haven't experienced it.

When people ask, I just say we're friends. Close friends. Best friends, even. Some people are satisfied with this answer, but the nosier ones are skeptical. This answer gets eye rolls, nudges, and the condescending, "Sure," accompanied by an exaggerated wink.
Honestly, I'm not sure if I'm totally satisfied with this answer myself. I think it's more complicated than that. I try not to think about it because I don't know how to put it into words; as Charley so often reminds me, I'm no writer. He is a writer, and even he can't define it—or maybe he chooses not to. It's hard to tell. Arriving at a definition would mean talking about it, talking about it would mean acknowledging it, acknowledging it might ruin it.
Not that what me and Charley have is fragile. Fragile things require extra attention. They have to be handled with care, monitored constantly; there's a lot of upkeep.  That's not what this is. It's almost the opposite of fragile, really. Holding it in place with styrofoam and lots of tape would suffocate it. In fact, I think it thrives on our lack of attention to it.
Me and Charley, we're like an old shack that's been overtaken by vines. We're tangled up in each other. I'm the one with the money. He's the one with the car. I'm the one with the ideas. He's the one who polishes them up, makes them sound nice, makes them workable. I'm the one who can't cook worth shit, has never heard of fabric softener, doesn't know what to do with 409. He's the homemaker, though he hates it when I say that. I'm the one who wakes him up, makes sure he gets all his shit done. He's the one makes sure I sleep, covers me with a blanket when I pass out on the sofa, rubs my back when I really can't sleep because sometimes it helps.
It's different when Lacey and Mina are here, not totally different, but just little things. I know that Charley thinks Lacey's an idiot, but he'll never say it. Sometimes when he gets really fucked up he talks about how much he hates Mina. He talks about what a slut she is, what a bitch, how many dudes she's fucked. Sometimes I say things about Lacey, but I don't mean them like Charley does. For me, she just occupies this girlfriend-shaped space in my life, and that's good enough. She doesn't really piss me off, but I wouldn't say that I'm in love with her. Charley and Mina are always fighting. They've been together for four years, and he doesn't want to marry her, but he feels like he's supposed to, or like she expects that. Sometimes I think Mina hates Charley, but they've just gotten so used to each other that they don't remember how not to be together. I guess they're tangled up, too.
Right now Charley and Mina are arguing because of Mina saying I look like a girl. I'm not mad at her, so I don't know why Charley's so upset, though I am definitely considering cutting my hair. Eventually, Mina storms out, and Lacey chases after her. Lacey and Mina were friends before I even met Charley, so Lacey's always chasing after Mina when this kind of shit happens. I try not to get involved with it too much.
When the girls are gone, Charley gets up and goes to the kitchen, and comes back with two beers. He sits down next to me on the couch and hands me one of the bottles. He flips on the TV, and I settle in next to him. He messes up my hair, but then that turns into sort of petting me softly, somewhat hesitantly, like you'd maybe pet a dog you were afraid might bite you. I begin to fall asleep, thinking that someday one of us is going to have to acknowledge this thing we have and hoping to God that it won't have to be me.