Chapter 52 - Sometimes There Are No Memes To Neatly Sum Up

Despite my fiery determination, I dragged myself through the door to Trig with my eyes half-shut and a mental reminder that more time with Lea was just another hour away.

Mrs. Horwitz had a bright visor on her head and was laughing about something I’d obviously missed. Summer sported one of her green, athletic hoodies. For some reason, she had one sleeve pulled up while flexing a bicep. Bless the random shit you see in class.

I soon managed to put together the context. Summer taught swimming for little kids last season. They had a fundraiser and some of the goal rewards had finally come in.

I just knew fundraisers through the ones schools always pitched to us through quick-talking salesmen with glossy magazines and dreams of getting all sorts of piddling crap.

Summer’s reward was a visor which she’d decided to give away to Mrs. Horwitz. And her charges would get some new equipment next year.

I already had fragments of the rest of the story. Summer tried cross-country for a bit, but it just wasn’t for her. She also had several friends who were wrestlers and she’d done some of that for fun. But, eventually, she just opted for weight training in the off-season, with nice results already.

Relief. With all the time she’d spent around me yesterday, I worried about lingering side-effects. This thing of mine had made her softer in some ways with her hips, lips, and voice. But at least it hadn’t touched the foundation of her buff body.

I complimented her hard work and did my best not to think about how frail and thin my own arms were by comparison. Mrs. Horwitz set the visor on her desk and scowled at a ruckus by the door.

Stretching while leaning on the teacher’s desk, Summer asked me, “You alright?”

That word again. Did I wear it on my face?

I folded my arms and sighed. “I ran into Wes…last night while going for a walk.”

Summer dipped her head and asked, “How’d it go?”

Idly, I noticed the teacher was talking about a handout I hadn’t grabbed. I could stress about it in a few minutes. I cupped my cheeks and answered, “Well…I didn’t Hulk out at least…”

She gave a little chuckle and noted, “Always good…”

Natasha entered, brushed back her lavender-toned hair, and gave us a look. We both waved. She smiled and continued to the back of the room to drop her stuff off at her desk. I set my backpack at my feet before continuing, “But…I might’ve nuked him as a boy.”

Summer cocked her head at this with folded arms. Natasha took the long way around the side and lingered behind Summer, who gave a quick recap on her now-even-more-massive muscles and the fundraiser reward.

After a little recap of my own, I added, “He stayed the night at my house…”

Their eyes widened. But we were interrupted by the violent ear assault of the shrieking bell. Class time, despite the fact I wanted to hear their answers.

Horwitz brushed her slightly-permed, silver-gray hair out of her eyes and pushed her massive glasses back on her face before starting the lecture. I let Natasha and Summer go to their seats and I took the one in front of the old computer.

Gesturing to the green chalkboard, Horwitz pointed out a small “identities” quiz to start the period. The handout was a listing of true and false identities. The true ones merely needed to be circled and somehow explained with why they worked, and the false ones needed to be amended to become true. I am currently pulling the above out of my rear end. I still don’t remember a damn thing from math, but I hope I guessed well.

Guessing would also be my approach for the quiz with some vague memories of stuff that looked familiar. To my simultaneous relief and concern, the teacher didn’t go over by me to ask how I was doing in matters outside of math. So, I was left alone with a head only a quarter-full of fuzzy theorems and too much paper to fill.

Taking a moment to breathe and reflect on the weeks and work so far did not help. There was nothing there. My brain crew was on a coffee break. To say the results of my efforts were abysmal would be the kindest way to put it. Fortunately, quizzes were a relatively small percentage of the grade.

Going over the answers a few minutes later, it was stupidly clear what I should’ve written. Only then did Horwitz stop over and asked the obvious question of how I was doing.

I quipped first about wishing I’d remembered some particular rule I missed more than once. But I added, “Aside from the test...alright. It's pretty complicated, but I’m here.”

She smiled and reflected, “It’s always a joy to have you. Just hang in there.”

Of course, someone in the front asked whether they were a joy as well. And that continued till she got to someone she had to give a skeptical look because of how often he interrupted class. To her credit, she noted that despite how much she wanted to tie him down to his seat, she was still glad to have him as well.

Summer and Natasha snuck around to the side of the room and joined me. Horwitz noticed and looked between the two of them. Summer offered, “Keeping Kenzie company again.”

The teacher raised a dense, wild eyebrow and cautioned, “So long as you all keep up with the lecture. It may be Friday but that doesn’t mean it’s a free day.”

So we kept up with the lecture for a bit until we finally got a quiet moment.

Summer inquired, “At your house? The guy you turned into a girl was at your house? And?”

I rested my pencil between the pages of the textbook so I wouldn’t lose my place. “And…he spent the night. Slept on the front couch. Mostly.”

Natasha leaned in and asked, “Why?”

The last I’d told them, I destroyed Wes. Made sense that would be weird. But I’d since remade him. No easy way to say that, especially with how Natasha responded to my words last time.

Carefully, I elaborated, “When I ran into Wes, he was in a dark place and standing over a flood basin. I got scared. Then this rat…thing started running around.”

This part of the explanation was difficult, especially thinking back on what I might have seen above the dark hallway.

“Imagine a large rat wearing part of a garbage bag…I guess.”

Natasha’s answer was, “Gross”, while Summer remarked, “Cool”.

I could’ve tried to further describe the creature but any words I grappled for felt lacking. Instead, I focused on my feelings.

“I don’t know what it was, but all I knew was I didn’t want anything to happen to Wes. So, I grabbed him and glared at the…thing. It smelled like the worst kind of dust lashing at you. So, I blasted it.”

Summer’s eyebrows arched as she inquired, “With laser vision?”

I smirked but shook my head. “Don’t have that yet. Just…I imagined blasting it away and it was gone.”

Natasha squinted and narrowed her mouth before asking, “What? Uhhh…wait. You’re not messing with us, right?”

Oh, if only it was as simple as blurting out “Gotcha!” and we could all have a laugh about it. Really, the only way they could know was if they saw it too. Like Lea might’ve. But *I* didn’t even want to see these things, if they weren’t just some contagious hallucination of my cracked mind.  

I held the back of my neck and shook my head. “I’m afraid not. Wes saw it too, he says.”

Settling back in her rigid chair, Natasha cupped away from her blemishes and murmured, “Powers. Boys turning into girls. And evil rat monsters. You’re sure this isn’t just some story you’re writing?”

That would be quite nice. No need to worry about how crazy my world had become. No need to sequester myself. No fears about destroying people. No uncertainty about what was crawling in the dark.

Just stop at the end of a line and all the anxiety would slip away like taking off a too-heavy coat. But, while I am writing it now, the story was still inescapably mine.

I shook my head and told her, “As much as I’d like for it to be fake, I gotta deal with this. And what happened after the rat-thing vanished.”

Natasha stretched with a renewed wince. She brushed back her thick hair and listened. Summer held her beefy arms and attention on me. Whatever lesson was filtering through from the other side of the room felt so far away.

After sighing through my nose too many times, I explained, “Wes…was different after that happened. He didn’t want to put his life in danger. He seemed more relaxed. He hung around me. And he seemed to think of himself as a…girl. He still had…has all his memories but that reaction was freaky.”

The two of them were at a loss for words, Natasha in particular. She rubbed her hands together gently and looked away. Summer puffed a long breath.

I wasn’t exactly full of easy words either. Did I dare describe the extent of the evening? I could lean on Lea’s words.

“And…and…he told me that he thinks I saved him. I guess…I mean I know he was in a bad place in his thoughts. But he said it was like getting square one for dealing with what happened to him. To lessen the trauma.”

Natasha rubbed her legs through her jeans and glanced up to say, “I gotta be honest. This sounds super scary. So far as you say…this guy, who I sorta know, was somehow changed into a girl by you. Then, he spent a few days depressed and feeling like you destroyed him. I mean…if I turned into someone and something I wasn’t, and I couldn’t accept it, then I would be crushed. I just…*ffffhhh*…I know my cousin. Have I mentioned her to you guys?”

I did remember her saying that her cousin had been in a serious accident when they both were young. Summer leaned back to think but ultimately shook her head.

Gripping her pants, Natasha took one of those deep breaths I’d perfected and said to us, “My uncle is an alcoholic. He used to be a doctor. He performed surgery on wounded soldiers. He told us he got through surgery by drinking right before and sometimes during. He’d be more out of it than his patients. When he came home, he refused to stop. He got his license suspended a few times. Ultimately, he wound up on the street after my aunt divorced him. Our family hasn’t seen him in years. But, a few years before that, my cousin needed to be picked up from school. I was with her and I almost got in his car too. There…isn’t a day when I don’t yell at myself for not dragging her away and getting a ride from someone else.”

Her brown eyes twinkled at the edges as she rubbed her nose and continued, “His car went over the railing and down an embankment. She lost part of her nose and one eye with burns all over her face. She’s permanently in a wheelchair now. She was destroyed…by her own dad. But she made it through so many screaming, sobbing, terrible days. One at a time. So…forgive me…if you say you just hugged him, and he started being fine again. I question whether those are his true feelings.”

I bitterly questioned the same. How could Wes get over a trauma so quickly? How could he just be healed? At the same time, what right did I have to question his happiness? What right did I have to give further fuel to his own doubts and concerns?

I nodded to Natasha and admitted, “I don’t know either. I just wanted to help.”

At this point, several minutes had passed with the two of them in my range. I hadn’t been watchful of alterations. Natasha’s blemishes were still there, her hair as full as always, and she didn’t seem bigger or smaller in any noticeable places. I had to look carefully but Summer did have some minor alterations. Her lips were a little fuller and her hair a little longer.

Was it too much to ask for consistency with this crazy power? Probably.

Art by Alexis Rillera/Anirhapsodist