Finding Home

On my deepest and most foundational relationship.

The first home we made together was virtual—tucked in a mountain, hidden behind a waterfall. I was decorating the interior, hanging art and deciding furniture placement. She was outside, picking flowers and basking in the sun. I’d excitedly run out the front door, calling her name. “Benny, Benny, come see the bedroom!” She’d follow me inside, flowers still in her hands, and like a sweet, caring mother, praise my hard work as beautiful and perfect. She’d throw fresh picked flowers in the air as we jumped up and down together, giddy and feeling the immense potential of a world only we existed in. We could do anything together, even 1228.02 miles apart.

When Benny and I first met, it was with an awkward handshake. We were on set of a Nickelodeon show I was filming, Bella and the Bulldogs. Our friend Brec was the lead of the show and she coordinated our meeting because, as she put it, “you two are so similar.” We knew what that meant, as any closeted gay kid does. We shook hands. I remember telling her I thought her yellow, purple, and green striped polo looked like it was from Blue’s Clues; my first foray into what Benny would soon teach me was called “reading.” Months later, on Halloween, we reunited and went trick or treating together. It was then, when we broke away from the group, that we were able to discover we spoke the same language.

It’s relevant to point out that this was pre-Rupaul’s Drag Race becoming the cultural behemoth it is now, before ballroom lingo was adopted (see: appropriated) by the mainstream. This was a time when a Youtuber’s coming out video remade their career. The only exposure I had to queerness was through Tyler Oakley’s Youtube videos, a clip of Rami Malek melting into a couch after a boy flirts with him in The War at Home, and Macklemore’s Same Love. To banter with Benny and to laugh harder than I ever had felt like finding a home I had no concept of yet.

When Benny returned to Texas, we would Skype until sunrise almost every night. We still hadn’t officially come out to each other and while our closets were admittedly made of glass, to actually say the words out loud, to admit it to another soul, was terrifying. Benny, taking on the role of my Fairy Gaymother, attempted to make me feel as safe as possible. We started taking innocent Buzzfeed quizzes together; Which Disney Princes Are You? and What is Your Spirit Animal? Eventually, as we got more comfortable, the quizzes got less and less subtle. The one that caused the most fervid discourse and put to bed the need for any more quizzes was Which Gay Porn Star Are You?

The moment I actually admitted to Benny that I was gay, we were in our cave base, behind a waterfall, in Minecraft. It was incredibly anticlimactic, but I remember my hands trembling as I mined deeper into the mountain to build out a bedroom for us. As the virtual flowers fell around us, I heard my Dad getting ready for work and I realized it was 6am. We said goodnight and I climbed into bed. I remember staring at my ceiling and thinking this is the start of the rest of my life.

It wasn’t until March 2020, when Benny and I moved in together that my life truly began. In pouring rain, a day before the world shutdown, we shopped for a couch so we wouldn’t have to eat dinner taking turns in the one chair we had, the one piece of furniture I brought in the move. The couch was cheaply made and not incredibly comfortable—a quintessential 20-somethings-first-home kind of couch—but as couches do, it became the center of our home. Through our “quarantine” we’d spend countless nights splitting a bottle of wine, playing Minecraft again, and getting closer than we ever had. It was on this couch that our friendship would blossom and flourish. It was on this couch that I got to play the part of her supportive confidant as Benny told me she was trans. Did she fall asleep thinking this was the start of the rest of her life too?

We’ve spent the last six years nearly inseparable. Even once we parted ways as roommates, we continued seeing each other everyday, having sleepovers, planning trips, baring souls and holding each other through heartbreak. I’ve lived more life with Benny than without her, I’ve seen more of the world with her than without her. We’ve done nearly everything imaginable together. Yes, we’ve lived together. Yes, we’ve had sex. Yes, we’ve broken into our old home after our lease was up because Benny left thousands of dollars in cash in a bag under her bathroom sink. I still don’t know why she had thousands of dollars in cash or why she thought to hide it under her bathroom sink or how she could have forgotten that in the move. Running from the house, bag of cash in hand, we felt like we’d just committed a heist. We laughed at how ridiculous our lives were together.

I have an app on my phone that tracks my sleep and records when I talk in my sleep. It’s good entertainment because I actually do talk in my sleep a lot. One night, on a vacation up in Big Bear, Benny slinked into my room and we cried over a sudden, looming breakup she was facing. Then, tired out from our tears, we rolled over for bed. I set my alarm and so also started recording audio.

There are two stages to falling asleep at a sleepover. First, you say “okay, it’s time to go to bed,” and you set your alarms and curl up under the covers. Then, there is the second and most important stage: half-asleep laughing fits. This was the stage recorded by my sleep tracker—Benny and I speaking incoherently but somehow understanding every word and giggling like kids. You can make out the sounds of our legs skidding against the bed sheets as we kicked and squirmed, our bodies at the mercy of our unbearable laughter. Even amidst heartbreak and the knowledge that our lives were changing, that we were getting older, and Girls wasn’t just a TV show but an experience we were living, we laughed and laughed and laughed. We’d always come back to making each other laugh.

Benny lives unencumbered by fear or self doubt. Whatever she wants to do, she sets her mind to it and does it. When we wanted curtains for the windows of our first home, I went straight to my computer, ready to buy a set. Benny went straight to her sewing machine and fashioned us some curtains out of scrap fabric she had. When she had an idea for a music video that would require 3D modeling, instead of hiring someone to do it, she downloaded Blender and taught herself. When she felt drawn to move out of LA, she took the leap and simply did it.

It was October 2024 when Benny told me of her initial plan to leave Los Angeles. We sat on a swingset in a park in Silver Lake, eating a dinner of taco stand burritos when she broke the news to me. “There’s something I’ve been needing to tell you but have been too nervous to…” Life with Benny is perpetually childish and innocent, even as we discuss our latest sexual escapade or heartbreak or, in this case, an impending move. Having a heavy conversation on a swingset only seems right.

When Benny left for NY I felt a pit in my stomach knowing everyone I met from that moment forward would only know her in the abstract, “my best friend Benny.” They wouldn’t understand the weight of those words and there would be no way to help them understand how much life lives in the phrase “my best friend.” While telling a story to a new coworker, I started off saying “My best friend, Benny…” and cutting me off, he said “You can just say Benny. I know she’s your best friend, I know who you’re talking about.” I guess I had told enough stories with that preface, but it still didn’t and doesn’t feel right to withhold that descriptor, especially to someone who has never met Benny. No, you don’t understand. You can’t understand. There will always be more to say about her that I simply can’t put into words.

There are pieces of furniture I own that I remember getting. Sometimes as a gift, sometimes on the side of a road, sometimes at a thrift store, sometimes brand new. Some pieces I’ve had for so long that when someone asks where I got it, I have to stop and think. There’s a lamp in my apartment that I adore and I can’t remember if it was a gift I asked for or something I found. There is a time when the story of how an object was found is almost as important as the thing itself. As you live with it, the story gets diluted and the details get less important. Benny is as foundational to me as the furniture of my home. She is home. How can I adequately describe home?

Now, as we celebrate her birthday apart for the first time in almost a decade, it feels like a return to our origin. 2450.63 miles apart, with our connection held together by the technology that allowed it to begin in the first place, we FaceTime each other and share our latest dates, fights, let downs, wins; our hopelessness, and our hopefulness, our despair, and our joy. We text each other in perfect synchrony, often typing out the same message the other just sent. We send each other audio messages of our laughter. Even thousands of miles apart, we’re still laughing together.