Chapter 49 - Bra Clasp Warfare

The day when it’s easy to write is the day you’re doing it wrong.

As I’ve mentioned before, though I read ravenously, I didn’t write much. I had ideas. I had all sorts of thoughts. Most are best left out of this.

Whether a quiet day when nothing was happening or a busy day when everything was, my mind wandered. What if a portal suddenly opened in front of me between worlds and times? Would I be willing to jump through it into the unknown? What if a Vogon Constructor Fleet suddenly emerged from deep space? Would I be ready to grab the nearest towel?

I often daydreamed of change, a jolt to the status quo, whether good or bad. But I didn’t write. So many random, horrible, beautiful, exasperating ideas sublimated away by the energy of youth. Followed by the tedious task of piecing together the remnants to glimpse, through dimmer eyes, what once made it all so marvelous.

Kenzie at age sixteen, standing on that ramp with Lea, is a vastly different person from me. You can cite Stanford studies and old Ray Bradbury tales about how often the brain or the body remakes itself over months and years into an entirely different form to support that. We’re still close enough to be twins but separated by a gulf of time, change, and so much more.

I can divine her a bit through my memories. Then cringe at certain moments, groan from several, and often raise my eyebrows and shake my head at the whole thing. I’m sure some iteration who follows me will feel the same about now.

She or he can bite me.

As for the Kenzie tangled up in my words and her story, she still sailed on the warm notions of friendship, confidence, and strength. A good place to hold for happy thoughts, though no such high ever persists.  

Rising up the even grade of the ramp with Lea gripping my hand, I could shrug off the fears and anxieties of tainted responsibility. What I’d done had created a beautiful person, one growing into his or her sincere self, a hatchling of human spirit.

Lea’s face caught a ray of mid-morning sun streaming off the overhang. It trickled through her slightly-tousled, raven hair and brought a quick squint to her eyes. Once past it, she took careful but steady steps to the open door.

It loomed open, displaying fraying, thin brown carpet and the cusp of an English poster cut off at the verbs.

Chilton tossed another “shh” through and the ineffectual suggestion to “get back to the sentences or I’ll be writing referrals.” He lobbed a few names around the room before turning a sympathetic look to us.

Lea gripped both me and her loaner backpack a little too tightly as she exhaled the word, “Alright…”

After all that preamble, the room’s first reaction was surprisingly still. Once past the door, everything had a sickly, cloying warmth smothered in sweat. Marginally better than cat piss.  

Then, came the dull roar. Not even the best of teachers could’ve nipped it in the bud. Excusing the semi-coherent swearing, I could make out some bits here and there.

That’s him!...Some girl?...It can’t be…You saw!...Got powers…An alien?...How big his titties?

Dragging on my hand, Lea slowly receded between me and the wall. Her head dipped and she brought her backpack around as a little shield. I clenched my jaw and turned to face the cacophony.

I stared sharply over the whole class. I thought about how my mother looked when she was especially cross. No matter how weak my version was by comparison, I wielded it.

It didn’t really work, but I persisted till the talk began to settle on its own. Silently, I walked with Lea to the empty TA desk on the far side of the room. I remained a buffer between her and the others as she sat. I turned around and the entire class gave a quiver, like an unspoken gasp. Like the villain in some campy program had just revealed their menacing sneer.  

So, I menaced the room with my presence. I stalked to the closest empty desk with a wave of guys and girls leaning away from where I stepped. It would’ve been nice if I’d been "cool" about it. Just hoist up the desk and walk it back over. But it was a heavy-ass desk. Grunting and sliding it bit by bit across that wretched carpet was the best I could manage.

Lea helped me the last bit to position it right next to her desk. She kept her head down except when facing to look at me.

“How big you titties, man!? How many time you play wit’ them?”

Of course, it was Treyvin.

Lea stretched the backpack to provide as much of a wall as possible. It quickly deflated.

I shot at Treyvin, “How big you want yours?”

Mouth open, Treyvin shook his head and said the sort of things he usually did. Still shut him up a little.

Chilton attempted to command the room while calling roll. He kept pausing to drag out his threats of referrals.

Lea sniffled without tears. She slipped out the notebook and a black pen from her backpack. She only looked up to see what Chilton had written on the main whiteboard.

We had a sentence from recent reading to diagram along with a few review questions. Lea crossed her legs under the desk and hunched over with the pen gripped in her hand.

While Wes never crossed his legs like that, he often bent forward to write. With that position, you wondered how he could even breathe. The pen curled in a claw grip of his right, like he was scratching it at the page instead of writing. Lea still wrote in that seemingly uncomfortable position with the same level of cleanliness and speed.

No comment on my method of writing.

I noticed Heather staring at me from a sea of fluttering, shifting eyes. Her anxious expression from the other day and avoidance had settled into a stern calm. She sent me slow blinks, wore a tight brow, and stiffly folded her arms, like she expected me to provide some prompt and definite answer for why I was sitting there.

I answered by looking back without anger or expectation. Eventually, Heather shook her head and went about the same board work.

“But serious…that gotta be a C-cup a’lease…”

I doubted that Wes had been in the right state of mind to get herself measured but Trevyin probably wasn’t far off. Lea adjusted the front of her sweater and gave another little sniffle.

Though Chilton soon stepped in, it was the black girls around Treyvin who had the strongest words.

“What you thinking saying that around any girl?! Or guy or whatever. You don’t do that!”

“Hey…I know titties…”

“Know all of Playboy, more like it. And that all you gonna know…”

They teamed up on him on all sides, till he grumbled out a passive, “Shiiit” before slumping deeper into his chair.

Lea peeked over quickly and returned to her writing.

Please let it get easier, for both of us. It had to get easier. Somehow. It had to.

Things settled down for a bit. No more outbursts. I could pick up words said about us, but it didn’t matter. Listening fed my imagination for what I didn’t catch. Instead, I took out my textbook, shared it between us like last night, and tried exceptionally hard to care about Chilton’s lesson.

It had something to do with the American Dream. Not really, but I mainly remember only a few works in 11th grade and The Great Gatsby was one of them. I’m also using ‘remember’ loosely and inaccurately. I recall it was taught. I don’t remember any of the actual text.

But Chilton, between filling out referrals and fanning them, brought up the question of ‘What does the American Dream mean to you?’

Lea held her pen against the note page. I’d been taking some notes as well but the less said about my horror show spread over the paper the better. She brushed some of her hair over her ear and pressed the back of her fingers against her lips. She gave a visible swallow and raised her other hand high.

Chilton widened his eyes and asked, “Yes....uhh…”

With firm, steady words, she announced, “I’m Lea. I think the American Dream...is having the best opportunity to fulfill your innate potential and pass the same on to your family and…loved ones…” She rose up slightly in her seat.

With a wobble of nods, Chilton marked simply “opportunity” on the board and waited for the next reply.

Having lots of money came up. Having a family. Good job. Being successful. It soon became all the stuff everyone in the room wanted to have. Some of them were ‘small’ things like a PlayStation. Some were mansions to put pop stars and rappers to shame.

Lea sighed softly and looked out across the room. A few looked our way. She only crouched to take random notes. The session crawled along, as it always did.

The novelty of the two of us started to wane as nothing exciting happened. Perhaps Lea's hair had crept out by an inch or two but nowhere near enough to tell. Her marginal changes had come and gone and returned. Her lips still looked fairly plump and her eyebrows fairly tame.

Wes had always been attractive, it was just turned a different way. I wanted to say she wore his face well but that made it sound like she was some alien from Men in Black.

She was like Wes’s twin sister, only it was still him. Only it wasn’t, because I’d blasted her full of whatever I had in me. And I only hoped this was as far as it went.

I’d already reshaped her into something she hadn’t been before. She accepted it, even encouraged my energy. And there was a sense, a hope, that this was still the original Wes…only it was like how he would’ve been if he’d been born female and…meant to be female? I still lingered in that question mark, though I tried not to dwell on it.

My fears half-considered what might happen with further…interference...

What if she could become anyone or anything? ‘Like’-heavy Kats? Buff Summer? A giggly cheerleader? Someone I couldn’t even imagine? What was I even dabbling with, and what right did I have to start her on this path of change in the first place?

Would I even recognize anything of the person in Wes’s skin if this kept going?

It sucked to swing between confidence that everything would be fine and stress that I’d certainly fucked up and would fuck up again. For Lea, I swallowed what nausea I was feeling and smiled.

Art by Alexis Rillera/Anirhapsodist