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He's young, just out of second grade, when he realizes there's something that makes him different than the other kids. He can't quite put his finger on it, but it's there--he knows it's there--a little itch in the back of his brain.
He gets on well enough with his classmates, and his teachers like him. His parents are busy, frazzled, pulling double-shifts at work to make ends meet, but they love him, they tell him everyday that they love him. And whatever this thing about him is, no one else seems to notice.
Still, it's terrifying. If he doesn't know what it is, how is he supposed to hide it?
There's this boy in his class, Sam Volmer. Sam's got wide brown eyes and long, sandy blond hair that falls to the small of his back. Some of the other kids make fun of him for it, but Phoenix can't stop looking at it, wondering if it's soft, like his mother's hair is soft, like a halo around her head when the sun shines through it.
Phoenix wonders if it isn't that he'd like for his own hair to be that long. He looks at himself in the mirror, trying to imagine it. He'd probably look sort of ridiculous, he realizes. He's too angular and awkward, not like Sam, who's soft, rosy.
He's not friends with Sam--they've never even talked, really--but one day Phoenix goes right up to him and touches those tresses he's been admiring from afar, and Sam turns around and punches him square in the nose. They both get sent to the principal's office, but Sam's the only one to get a call home.
It wasn't as soft as his mother's, Sam's hair, but Phoenix liked it just the same.
Sam moves away the next year, and Phoenix never sees him again. But he never forgets that hair and his strange, partially-formed desire.
Miles isn't like Sam, which is good, because his mother probably couldn't handle him coming home with another bloody nose. But there's something just as compelling about him--maybe more so--and Phoenix wonders what he's like.
He's a nerd, Larry says, and Phoenix points out that he's a bit of a nerd too. Larry explains that Phoenix is the good kind of nerd, the kind who likes comic books and video games, whereas probably Miles doesn't like anything fun at all. Phoenix frowns, considering the back of Miles' head across the class room.
Larry continues on, wondering aloud what it would take to get the new kid to smile, and Phoenix wonders the same thing, imagining if he had the power to make quiet, serious Miles laugh, until their teacher scolds them for chatting.
Larry's always getting him into trouble.
Larry lives three houses down the block. They've spent warm weathered nights in each other's backyards since Phoenix's family moved in two years ago. They're the only two kids under twelve in the neighborhood, and theirs is the sort of friendship most everyone has in their childhood, borne more of proximity and circumstance than any real connection.
Still, they're a team, even if it seems like maybe Larry's getting the better end of that arrangement.
And, you know, Larry is his only friend, really.
At least, Larry is his only friend until that fateful classroom trial, and then it's the three of them, and Phoenix finds in Miles a friend not of convenience but of true affection. Miles is as advertised, quiet and serious and smart, but there's more than just that, Phoenix quickly discovers. Miles is funny, a sharp wit that surprises Phoenix, and unlike Larry, he cares, comfortable with the idea that friendship goes both ways, that he should be there for Phoenix, because Phoenix is his friend.
They're inseparable, and if Larry is at all hurt that he's been replaced in Phoenix's heart, he doesn't show it. More likely, he doesn't notice. Certainly he doesn't notice that Miles doesn't particularly like him, putting up with him only to be close to Phoenix.
He's not good at getting close to other people, usually--the other kids like him, he's nice and a bit of a goof, which is enough at that age, but they're not friends, not really. But there's something familiar about Miles, something that makes him immediately comfortable.
They're at a sleepover at Miles' house. They watch some old episodes of Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Larry consumes two boxes of candy and three cans of soda. He's now sprawled out all over the couch, snoring quietly, having crashed hard from his sugar high.
It's only nine o'clock.
Miles stands over Larry, frowning. Maybe he'd wanted to sit on the couch, he says aloud, and moves to poke Larry awake. Phoenix stops him with a hand on his wrist. It's so rare he and Miles are alone, always either at school or with Larry buzzing around them, hogging the conversation. Miles looks confused, and Phoenix suggests they go outside. Miles shrugs and leads the way.
It's the end of fall, just starting to cool into winter with nights that are chill. Miles has the good sense to bring a blanket, and they walk to the middle of the yard and sit in the grass, wrapping the coverlet over their shoulders.
Miles is warm against the cold. Phoenix leans into him, glad he's not like Larry, who would have pushed him off and made a face. Miles doesn't mind being close, and he even reaches down to slip his hand into Phoenix's.
This is what a best friend should be like, Phoenix thinks, and smiles as Miles starts to tell him about how last weekend, he and his father planted some new flowers in the garden. He's excited for Phoenix to see them bloom.
At first, he guesses Miles must just be sick. But then one day turns into two turns into a week, and there's been no answer at the Edgeworth household when Phoenix has called. His mother frowns, seeing his worry grow as the week progresses, and on Saturday morning she drives him over to the house; Miles is a good kid, and his father has always been kind, good to her boy, and if there's anything wrong with her son's best friend, she's determined to help.
The house is dark when they get there, and his mother presses her hands against the window, using them to block the light as she tries to get a look inside. She's standing in the flowerbed so she can see into the living room, and Phoenix stands nervously behind her on the sidewalk, a sinking feeling in his stomach.
She steps out of the mulch and onto the grass with a frown. She seems to remember that Miles has some kind of lessons on Saturday afternoons, some musical instrument, she can't remember which. Maybe they went out for breakfast first, she offers, and Phoenix looks like he might cry, hearing the uncertainty in her voice. She calls him Sweetie, the way she only does when they're alone now, worried about embarrassing him in front of his friends. It makes it special, like it's just for them, and he hopes he never gets too old for his mother's pet names.
She takes his hand and assures him that they'll try again tomorrow.
It's the same thing the next day, and now his mother is starting to worry, too. It's unlike Miles and his father, always so polite and considerate. Surely they wouldn't have just gone on holiday without telling Phoenix. And really, during the school year? She can't imagine Mr. Edgeworth allowing that, or Miles even wanting it, so dedicated to his studies.
It's at work on Monday that she sees it in the paper, reading over one of her customers' shoulders. She spends the rest of the day in dread, knowing she'll have to figure out a way to tell this to her son when she gets home.
It's late when she gets in, having worked a double-shift at the diner, and her husband has already sent their son on up to bed. She gives him a kiss on the forehead, and he pulls her closer, stealing one on the lips before she heads up to the bedroom, her heart up in her throat.
She expected the tears, the disbelief and anger. She didn't expect the desperation, Phoenix curling into her lap as he hasn't done in years, balling his fists in her cardigan and weeping into her chest, heavy sobs that wrack his entire body.
It is in that moment, holding his small body tight against her own, that she begins to suspect what Phoenix does not yet know.
She spends any free time she can spare trying to track down this quiet, grey-haired boy who means so much to her son, more than she realized. She finally manages to get an address from Mr. Edgeworth's old secretary, and when she sees it, her heart sinks.
Germany.
Phoenix cannot be swayed. In the two months he's been writing to his absent friend, he has not gotten a single letter in return. He invents reasons for this--it takes a long time for mail from LA to make it to Germany; Miles' new father is jealous of his past, stealing the letters before the boy can read them--and keeps writing, convinced that even if he never gets a single letter back, Miles is glad to hear from him, to know that his best friend hasn't forgotten him.
His mother doesn't know what to do. So she lets him keep writing, and her husband gently wipes away the tears that form at the corners of her eyes.
The next year at school, there is no Sam, no Miles. But there's this girl named Nicole, quiet and smart, with jet black hair and a mischievous smile.
He doesn't realize that this is why, but he starts feeling a little better.
Lots of ten year old boys are into superheros, plastering their posters on their bedroom walls and running around with towels tied around their necks like capes.
Phoenix's favorite superhero is Gambit of the X-Men. Phoenix likes his long brown coat and his unnerving black and red eyes. Most of all he likes Gambit's voice, Southern and melodic, which he can hear on the Saturday morning cartoon.
Sometimes, when she has a little money to spare, his mother will give him a few bucks to pick up a pack of the collectible card sets they release every year. He buys the packs too irregularly to ever hope to get a complete set, but he likes them anyway. Every time, in the backseat of the car, he holds his breath, peeling away the packaging and hoping that this time he finally gets one of the elusive, foil-covered special cards.
Every year there are a few cards in the set that are based on some silly theme, putting everyone's favorite mutants into day-to-day situations: last year was Mutants at Halloween. This year it's Mutants at the Beach.
There is no coveted special card in this particular pack, but there is Gambit at the beach, carrying a surfboard and wearing low-slung board shorts, the curly dusting of hair on his chest making Phoenix mildly uncomfortable. He can't look away.
At home that night, he puts the card in the bottom of his sock drawer. It feels like a secret, and the voice in the back of his head, that one that tells him he isn't like the other kids, it's maybe starting to find the words. Phoenix waits and worries, hoping no one figures it out before he does.
It almost hits him a few days later. He pulls the card back out of his sock drawer and stares at it, trying to figure out this fluttering feeling in his stomach.
Gambit is a good looking guy, as far as animated characters go. He's marketed as such, Phoenix knows, often presented as the sexy, flirty Cajun with a dark past. He's supposed to find him attractive, the creators present him as a heart-throb on purpose.
Phoenix puts the card back in the drawer. He should feel better, he thinks, but something still feels off.
A week after that, his mother tells him that some friends from work will be coming over for dinner tomorrow night. They really want to meet him--she's told everyone at work all about him--so she'd love it if he could skip Larry's for one night and have dinner with them.
Of course he'll have dinner with them. He'd do anything she asked of him, and besides, it's not so often that he gets a peek into his mother's other life, the one where she's not only Mom but also Tilda Wright.
She'd told him beforehand that their guests were going to be a couple, Whitney and Frank.
When two men walk through the door, he tugs on his father's sleeve, asking what happened to Whitney.
He hadn't known Whitney could be a boy's name, and he hadn't known two men could date, could fall in love. He spends his meal staring at them, confused and wondered. Do they kiss, like his parents do? Do they sleep in the same bed? His mother has always told him that he could ask her anything, but he doesn't know how to ask her these questions. And what would she know, anyway, about something like this?
He goes to the kitchen to get more rolls, and when he comes back into the dining room he sees them holding hands under the table.
He used to hold hands with Miles.
That night, after his mother's friends have left, she sits on the end of his bed and asks him if he's okay. He's been quiet, she says, and she doesn't mention that she caught the look on his face when he realized Whitney and Frank were together, confusion and what might have been relief.
He tells her he's fine, and she kisses his forehead, turns out the light. Alone in the dark, he stares up at the ceiling, thinking about Miles, about Nicole. He likes Nicole, he thinks. Like-likes her. If he likes Nicole, he couldn't have liked Miles, right? Not like that, not like-liked.
He liked looking at Miles, he knows, liked Miles' soft grey hair and his sharp, angular face, his bony legs, knobby knees. He liked when Miles wore a tie, how grown up he seemed to Phoenix.
But if someone is attractive, why shouldn't he notice that? Aren't other boys able to tell when another boy is attractive, as easily as they could tell when a girl is attractive? It doesn't mean he likes boys, it's just that it doesn't matter if someone is a girl or a boy, if they're attractive, that's the end of it, put a period on it. It doesn't have to mean anything more than that.
He has a hard time falling asleep that night, unconvinced by his own logic.
Sixth grade is different. His elementary school and the one in the next neighborhood over are funneled into the same middle school. There are so many people he doesn't know, and they're different from the kids he went to elementary school with, louder, cruder. On the second day of the year, he learns what a snow job is, some boys at the end of his lunch table talking about what they did over the summer. He feels scandalized.
Scandalized and completely curious.
He's twelve, the first time he masturbates, his curiosity peaked by some of the boys at school. Because he's twelve, the whole thing takes about twenty seconds and offers no insights.
There is no defining moment when he accepts that he's attracted to boys, but he could pinpoint it to sometime during the summer before high school. He and Larry spend most afternoons at the community pool that summer--Larry's mom bought them season passes--and Phoenix's eyes wander the sharp angles of the male swimmers as much as--maybe even more than--the curves of the females.
And now that he's older, able to give name to feelings of arousal, this doesn't seem quite so strange.
Still, he doesn't tell Larry. He doesn't tell anyone.
He does tell Miles.
He still writes to his childhood friend, though he's still never gotten a response. He reasons that the address his mother got from the secretary was never right in the first place, but writing to Miles--whether or not there's someone on the other end, reading his words--is cathartic, like keeping a journal.
He tells Miles that he thinks he might be bisexual, but he doesn't know anyone else who's gay, even, so he doesn't have anyone to compare notes with. He's still not entirely convinced that it's not natural to be attracted to both genders, that distinction of sexual preference doesn't come in somewhere else. Where that somewhere would be, he isn't sure.
But it doesn't make sense to him, he writes, that there even is a distinction between finding someone objectively attractive and being sexually attracted to someone. If someone's good looking, why shouldn't he want to bone them?
Of course, he's fourteen years old. He wants to bone pretty much anything that breathes.
He thinks about Larry, sometimes, at night when he slips his hand between his legs.
It's not that he has a crush on Larry, or that he finds Larry particularly attractive. It's that Larry is safe, he's never going to tell this to Larry, he's never going to want to date Larry, so nothing will ever come of it.
And if nothing comes of it, if he doesn't want anything to come of it, it's like it never even happened.
His mother finds him at his desk one night, writing a letter to Miles. She hadn't realized that he still kept it up. Phoenix shrugs, embarrassed, but he's got nothing to hide, not in this.
She takes a seat on his bed, looking thoughtful. He swivels in his desk chair to face her, trying to get a read on her. After a minute, she asks him. She says this isn't specifically related to Miles, although that's when she first suspected...
Phoenix's mouth falls open. He nods, unsure. How could she have known, when he himself didn't even...
He trails off, and his mother smiles.
What kind of mother would she be, she asks, if she didn't know her son at least as well as he knows himself?
It's a strange rush, someone else knowing. It makes it real in a way it hadn't been before, almost like he was playing pretend until now.
She asks if he's going to tell his father. He shakes his head, his eyes going wide. She nods, frowning, a sad understanding in her eyes.
As high school progresses, more and more of his crushes are on boys. Maybe he's just gay, he thinks, maybe his earlier crushes on girls were just an attempt to conform to society's expectations.
He wonders how he could really tell the difference.
Miles Edgeworth reappears in his life in a dentist's office.
He's in the waiting room, passing the time by flipping through the months old newspaper he found in the magazine rack. He finds Edgeworth's picture next to an article titled "Dark Suspicions of a Demon Attorney."
Once he catches his breath, he starts in on the article, and he has to read the word three times before it sinks in: prosecutor. He scrutinizes the accompanying photo, but there's no doubt that it's the Miles Edgeworth of his childhood, silver-grey hair and angular features.
He's handsome, there's no getting around that. But there's something cold about him, too. Closed.
Phoenix wonders what happened, so different does this man seem from the child he once knew. It occurs to him for the first time that maybe Miles had purposely never responded to his letters.
The receptionist calls his name, and he has no more time to think about it, not now.
At first, he hunts down every bit of information he can find on Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth. But the more he finds, the less he wants to know, seeing less and less of his friend in the man Miles Edgeworth has become.
How strange, that he should think of Miles as a man; they're only a few months apart in age, and Phoenix has trouble thinking of himself as more than a child playing at maturity.
After reading a particularly scathing editorial on Edgeworth's most recent trial, Phoenix vows to give it up. He needs to talk to the man himself, let him explain himself--ask him to help Phoenix understand what happened, exactly, that turned him into the Demon Prosecutor.
With a minimal amount of detective work, he's able to get hold of Miles' work address. He starts sending his letters there, more frequently now, once or twice a week. Short things, most of the time, a sentence or two asking Miles to write back, please write back, he needs to talk to him.
He never hears back.
In desperation, he goes over to the Prosecutor's office. The receptionist informs him that Miles Edgeworth does not accept visitors without an appointment, no exceptions, but would he like to leave a message? He ducks out without leaving his name.
This isn't working, he realizes. He'll have to find another way.
He meets Dollie during his freshman year. He likes her--a lot--and it's pretty clear she likes him too. He gets worried, as they grow closer, that this is going to end in disaster, that he's not going to be able to get over her small fingers, her narrow shoulders and smooth skin, the way her hair smells like apples.
It turns out to be fine, more than fine. He comes to appreciate the slope of her hips, the swell of her breasts. It's like a renaissance of sorts, a revival of his appreciation for the female form.
What's strange is realizing that if he and Dollie work out, no one would ever need to know he's attracted to men as well. He could live his whole life as a heterosexual and no one, save his mother and the phantom of Miles Edgeworth, would ever be the wiser. It would be so easy.
He feels like a fraud.
He tells her one night, after they've finished making love. Her body tenses beside him, and he is quick to explain that this doesn't have anything to do with how he feels about her, that he's not suddenly going to want a boyfriend on the side, that it doesn't make him any less attracted to her. He's telling her because he loves her, and people in love are supposed to be honest with each other. He'd felt like a liar, keeping it from her.
She pulls him in tight, clutching him against her body, and he doesn't see the guilty tears that slip down her cheek.
It does end in disaster, but of a sort he couldn't have possibly expected. It's unreal, the revelation that his Dollie was not at all the person he thought she was, that everything he'd thought they had was a lie.
He doesn't know what he'd do without Mia, this hero in six-inch heels who swoops in to his rescue. He doesn't realize that she's as scared as he is.
Mia gives him her card after the trial, telling him to call her anytime, for anything. He knows she's just being polite, but he also knows that if he did actually call, she'd let him talk, maybe even meet him for coffee. She just seems like that kind of person, genuine and open.
The very next morning, he goes to the Student Center and officially changes his major.
Mia takes him in like a lost puppy. She's an excellent listener, as he imagined she would be, and they become fast friends. He thinks he could fall for her, if he weren't still hurting over Dahlia, and in a way he's grateful for that distance; it's been a long time since he's had a real friend, someone other than Larry.
He's not quite prepared, the first time he meets Miles in court. It's almost funny when the prosecutor comes up to him after their second trial together, complaining of the unnecessary feelings Phoenix has stirred within him.
Phoenix finds himself feeling very much the same way.
It's not until after his return from the dead that Miles admits he received the letters. In what Phoenix can interpret only as an act of repentance, Miles invites him out for drinks. Deep in his cups, he reveals that von Karma used them as a sort of test, leaving them on the kitchen table and waiting for Miles to cave, to scold the boy for his sentimentality.
Most of the time, his mentor didn't get that satisfaction. But sometimes he did.
Miles takes a long, slow sip of his whiskey and says that most of all, he was surprised Phoenix kept it up for so long.
Phoenix stares down into his beer. He says he felt alone, a lot of the time, when he was growing up. He felt different, and for a long time he didn't know why. And even once he did figure it out, the feeling didn't go away; if anything, it grew stronger.
But he didn't feel that way with Miles. And as he got older, Miles became less of a person and more of an idea, the idea that he wasn't alone in this, that there was someone else who understood the confusion, the isolation.
He's never said any of this aloud before, barely able to admit it as truth on most days. But there's something about Miles, even now, that makes him feel like it's okay to be himself, to be totally, utterly honest.
There's a quiet between them until Miles says that he remembers the letter in which Phoenix came out to him. He'd had to search through the trash to find it, as he hadn't read it at first, only realizing he'd missed something important when he read the letter that followed.
It had made him feel less alone, he says, the words quiet and shy. He says he's glad that, even through his silence, he was able to somehow return that favor.
Nervous, no longer used to such easy contact, he moves his hand to Phoenix's knee. It is solid, warm, the way he remembers the Phoenix of his youth.
Phoenix smiles, reaches down to lace their fingers together, the weight of years of uncertainty falling slowly off his shoulders.