Chapter 51 - Doing Some Splaining

There were some murmurs around the class between the languid claps. I couldn’t be sure if they were more rumors and questions about Lea or if they were simply lost in what she’d verbosely stated.

Lea rotated her neck and clutched her small ponytail before glancing over at me with a half-grimace of embarrassment. I assured her it wasn’t that bad. She nodded and rested her head on the table with her hands clasped underneath. I rubbed her shoulder gently and whispered, “Just three more.”

She clenched her eyes shut and answered, “But friends of Nats in two of them…”

With a puff through her nostrils, Lea pivoted quietly, “…It’ll be okay. We’ll figure it out. She’ll see me. We can do it.”

I nodded and half-listened to the other groups. We didn’t get far in the lesson. Just far enough to be assigned plenty of reading for the weekend, as usual. Then, at the end of class, Chilton finally addressed the lingering, oppressive elephant in the room.

“At the beginning of this week, something happened when we went to the library. It’s still being…looked into by administration, but you will treat everyone with the full...respect of school behavior code and classroom conduct rules or you’ll be writing them for Saturday work. Next week, if anyone doesn’t treat their fellow students with full respect…full respect… then you’ll be immediately sent out.”

If he wanted to enforce that, then he should’ve sent the asshats (my word, not 1998 Kenzie's) out this time. But it was more of a determined reaction than I expected from Chilton. He waved for Lea to stand. She looked over at me, took a deep breath, and approached the front.

He introduced her with her full name and intoned, “You will treat her with full and complete respect…No nonsense.”

Lea gave a little wave. I could only imagine this sort of thing had been done better by her last period Spanish teacher. While leaning her leg towards me like she wanted to spring for a swift escape, Lea got a question from a random girl in the back middle of the room.

“You really a girl now?

Curling her lips, Lea nodded gingerly, with her head down, and responded, “Yeah, I’m a girl. Totally…and all that. It’s…different and everything…yeeeah.”

A series of questions burst out. From blunt ones about her period to little ones about what it was like. Lea’s head darted around to try to catch them all. She clutched her hands together and looked over at me like I was a raft and she was adrift on the sea. 

“I am really pretty flummoxed right now. I still feel like me. I just want to be me. Whatever that means…now.”

Then came a wave of offers both ridiculous and earnest. Offers to give her makeup and clothing tips, answer hygiene questions, and promises to beat up random people who might try to mess with her. I was vigorously and thoroughly ignored, but that was a fine spot for me.

Lea thanked everyone and blushed quite a bit before creeping back over to her seat. I did my best to keep out of the way when some girls came over to talk. Valerie, with her black, Rachel-style hair, was among them.

Some products were passed to Lea, who delicately held them like ticking bombs. Other girls showed their compacts, along with different brands and colors. When they started to disperse, she was left with a blank look in her eyes while gently clawing at the edge of the table.

Yeah, there was that part of being a girl. And all that came along with it. I walked around the back of her table, laid a hand on her shoulder, and quietly reiterated, “It will be alright.”

She took a deep breath and clasped my hand as she responded, “I know. My mom vaguely alluded to…all this stuff. I just felt circumspect about inquiring further, because of everything else.”

Lea rose from the seat gingerly and with her loaner pack in tow. She stretched and muttered, “I just…it kinda sucks…I was fairly set in what puberty was like for a guy. Now I have to articulate the human cycle of life in a whole new language. And I don’t even get the run-up of being a…little girl. Just all of it at once…from the deep end.”

Well, life by itself can be a deep end. I vaguely wished that Lea could be some sort of cycle-free girl. Or maybe it was better to wish that hers were quick and relatively painless. She could also take the pill but that would depend on what her family approved of.

For the moment, all I could do was give her a little hug. She flashed a faint smile and resolved, “I’ll be alright. I’m more worried about getting through history. Val will be there though. You have Horwitz next, right? Will you be okay?”

I promptly assured her not to worry about me. So long as Natalie didn’t go leaping off the side of a building in camo face paint and wielding a Bowie knife. I expressed this visual to Lea and she raised her eyebrows at me. I offered, “You said she can be like me and I could imagine doing it so…yeaaah.”

She raised her eyebrows higher, and I stuck out my tongue. She giggled and flashed a quick grin. Anything to give her a smile.

Not long after that, the bell shrieked in that exasperating sound and released the class. Chilton tried to get in a fruitless reminder about the homework. At least he didn’t try to hold anyone after the bell. And he solemnly wished the two of us a good weekend.

Outside, it was back to the slogging crowds. Lea hung close to me even though our paths would diverge near the edge of the field. Once again, I went straight and someone else went another way. But she stayed with me on the path, till past when her turn should’ve been.

I looked over at her with curious eyes. She fiddled with her ponytail, rubbed her arms, and admitted, “I wish we had all the same classes….”

We got pretty close freshman year with four out of six but that was the peak. I’d never known anyone with all the same classes as me. I turned to face her, with the intent to rub her shoulder and think of something comforting to say. But she leapt at me first.

Well, not literally. She rushed at me, with her arms out, and wrapped them around my body. I saw no concern about anything in the way on her side or mine. I wobbled but caught myself so we didn’t both tumble to the hard sidewalk. Lea quickly and nervously apologized, leaning back into a hug still bound around my shoulders.

I freed my arms to rub her back and reminded her, “Val will be in your next class. She knows what’s happening and your teacher probably knows what’s going on…”

With a sigh, Lea sadly interrupted, “Not this one…to an inordinate degree.”

Yeah, I had a few like that before. I rubbed her back again and urged, “You should know the words by now. We’ve both said them.” I didn’t have to remind her which words.

She nodded evenly, took a breath I could feel on my cheek despite all the people swirling around us, and amended, “But saying it’ll be alright is a daunting chasm away from making that a reality.”

Fair enough.

Right then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a flicker of black, like the edge of an eyelash dipping across my lens. Only it didn’t track from top to bottom but up and over from the depths of the dark hallway and across the roof.

Bigger than a black rat. More like a small monkey with the same crawling, leaping motion. My feelings flared and I pressed my hand on Lea’s back.

No one and no thing was going to harm her.

She turned to look, when she noticed my glare. I smiled for her and said, “You know, if you ask, you could probably be sent to another classroom…if you feel like you have to…like my math class. Maybe.”

It was an outside chance. Especially if her history teacher was like she claimed.

I only watched the roof of the dark hallway out of the corner of my eye. No movement.

Lea’s eyes widened. It looked like her mind ran with the possibility. She clutched my hands while stretching on her toes. But she soon dipped with a calm but not sad expression.

“Thanks for the offer. And, believe me, indubitably, I want that. But it’s not the sort of thing I can do every single day when I feel stressed. I need to do my best to be strong…on my own.”

Of course, the last time she was strong on her own, she got pummeled by Natalie’s fear and anger.

Begrudgingly, I accepted her decision but left her with a smile, one last hug, and the words. “Take care.”

I watched her track back through the path and cut across the edge of the grass, creeping to avoid any soggy spots. Turning around, I scrutinized the roof of the dark hallway.

Whatever the hell that fucking thing was, it was not getting my Lea.

In my mind, I could see myself adorned in a brown robe, my head leveled, and a beam of green light projecting from my hand. The beast snarls from the lip of the roof. I leap far and fast through the air and slice at its darkened belly. Weaving between air conditioning units, I rain hot metal in my wake.

It rears up like an angry chimp, its smoky tendrils flailing. I hack it in half, sending the remains motionless to the abyss below. The blackness burns in shrieking agony until all that is left is the memory of its tormented screams for any of its kind that might foolishly follow its example.

I…should probably head on to class instead of engaging in little fantasies. But I left the thought there as a warning shot and a promise.

Art by Alexis Rillera/Anirhapsodist