Chapter 56 - Fission Maled

Everyone else in the group suddenly perked up with his words like prairie dogs in old Disney Channel nature documentaries. Even Luna cocked her head and dipped her pen. I settled deep in my seat. I tried not to think of the attention on me as I answered, “Still problems. Still complicated. Still too much headache for a Friday.”

Flicking a hand, Sebastian told me, “You deserve a long bath…just push all those troubles away. Don’t let that B get to you. She doesn’t deserve your time or thought, girl.”

Tiffany readily agreed, set her arms on the desk, and offered, “Around last year, I went to go see my brother at his soccer practice. He had a new girlfriend and I waved to my bro. She suddenly got up in my face with all sorts of questions. Just about pushed me to the ground.”

She mimed with her hands and continued, “Even when I said we were brother and sister, she was like ‘I’ve heard that one before’. *Ufffffhh*…”

Cradling her forehead, Tiffany finished, “So, when my brother came over for a rest, she asked him who I was. He told her the same as what I said. Only then did she accept I was his sister. Then she starts in with ‘Why would your sister be coming out to meet you?’ and ‘I don’t feel comfortable with her here’ and...just on and on. She dumped him by the end of the month. So crazy.”

With his mouth open, Sebastian repeated, “She dumped…him? Really?”

Tiffany shrugged and pointed out, “My bro tried to make it work for a while. He’s doing a lot better now…”

Cass brushed a fluff of hair back, which immediately returned to where it had been as she intoned, “The idea of love is like a bright flower on a mural. It looks pretty and never wilts but isn’t the actual flower. We struggle to grasp the fullness but strain at pretty colors. We still crave the flower at full bloom, unattainable. In the madness of hearts, we don’t think but stupidly beg our dreams to bring forth that flower. Craving the sweetness and shunning the bitter…Are you sure this is a book? How can it be made of paper? It’s so glossy…”

With a grimace, Cass pushed her confusing textbook aside and muttered, “My head hurts…”

Tiffany offered up a jacket from her backpack to put around Cass’s head. Yeah, she was definitely somewhere else at the moment. Luna was still focused on our task, even though she seemed to be the only one. Sebastian offered up simply, “Love is sooo frustrating. You either get crazy, you get all mixed up, or you don’t get it. Me, I do so much looking and wishing…”

I leaned forward in my chair and planted my feet. Soon, changes would appear in those around me. Tiffany and Sebastian were closest but only Tim was really outside the range. I picked up my textbook and walked over to the conjugation list on the wall like there was something I wanted to see a little easier.

When I returned, I didn’t notice any differences in anyone. I quietly apologized and asked Sebastian, “Do you think it would help if you were…a girl?”

After a quiet pause, Sebastian giggled and remarked, “Hon, if I had a dollar for how much I’ve been asked…I could buy lunch. Here’s my answer. I’m happy with who I am, especially with my body. I know I have this little pooch up around here.” For emphasis, he traced a hand around where his vest met his small potbelly. “He’s called Horatio. But I accept the things I cannot change.”

The teacher’s credo or some prayer. Accept the things I cannot change. The strength and courage to change what I can. The wisdom to know the difference between them. But, given what I was able to do, what were my limits? Was it simply sighing defeat to say some things cannot be changed? No one else I knew could change someone’s physical sex, but I’d done it. What about the tenacity to challenge what can be changed?

Setting my arms on the desk, I persisted, “So, if there was someone who could change you…that way, you would ask not to be changed?”

With a little squint, it was clear Sebastian’s mental wheels were turning. Cass’s were turning about the wood grain pattern of the desk mixing with the shine of the overhead lights.

I could’ve just told him. I’d told Kat’s group, but I’d since grown some wary reticence. So, I lied, “I have a friend in a Psych class and there was stuff about gender changing and sexuality and like…the pariah figure about people who are different, separated from a group. And it all got me thinking. Sorry.”

Okay, the first part wasn’t really a lie since Lea was having a Psych class at that exact moment. And I’d again forgotten to think good things for her and bless her but I kinda burned myself out over lunch, so I didn’t feel too guilty this time. Mostly. The second part came from a Time-Life book on my wall involving Psychology and was hopefully intellectual enough that it didn’t sound like I made it up on the spot.

Silence filled the space after my words. Just from the group though. The room as a whole was a flutter of noises and chatter partly relevant to the discussion but mostly not. That sort of thing tends to recede to the background.

The not-silence lingered till Sebastian leaned back and said, “Even with some sci-fi kookiness, I am not giving up Horatio. I mean…girl…not to be rude at all. It’s like this though. Ever since we lost my momma, dad has raised me with a firm hand, wise words, and clear questions. I know…I know there is not a single day that he doesn’t pray that things are different, but he’s told me…he knew how I was since I was a little baby. People are not made, changed, or realize who they are quickly. It takes time…”

I winced to myself and rubbed my neck as I thought about the distraught face of Wes standing before the flood basin melting into friendly calm soon after. I held my tongue.

Cupping his mouth before holding his hands in front of him, Sebastian told us softly, “Three times, I’ve been beaten up so badly I coughed up blood. Once, I had to be hospitalized for a week. It would be easier to be different, but I wouldn’t be me anymore. All this fabulousness would be gone, and it would be someone else in my place. So…I don’t want to think about that because I am me and, despite how much it hurts, despite how much it takes to get through every day, I am so proud of me.”

Tiffany gave a quiet but enthusiastic clap. Cass looked startled but clapped carefully as though she was afraid that being too vigorous with it might cause her hands to detach from her body. Tim gave a sympathetic head shake and a little thumbs up. Luna offered a clap of her own, but it was so soft it seemed more like a mime. Of course, I clapped too and nodded in appreciation.

I tried to apologize, but Sebastian set a hand gently on mine and assured me, “No need. I always love questions, even odd ones. The more we all know, the less pain for all of us.”

Still, I couldn’t quit my feeling of guilt for even asking, along with my suspicion that everyone else in the group thought less of me now. I shouldn’t have cared, but I still did.

At least no one at those particular desks said anything when I got up frequently to ask something of Castellanos and buy myself extra cooldown time. Sebastian went back to his usual, exuberant self.

He made Tiffany laugh a few times on the topic of butt plugs. This was actually, tangentially relevant to the group activity. I’m not going to tell you why though. Leave it to your imagination.

I later chatted with Luna while we were waiting to get something answered by the teacher. She asked the question I often get early in meeting someone as to whether my name is shortened from Mac or McKenzie.

Nope. Just Kenzie. Never got a clear reason from my parents. I just figured it was a variation of some Biblical name, since my middle name was Rachel. But I barely acknowledged the existence of that name unless I was somehow required to do so.

Luna mulled as we waited. She offered me up nicknames. Zee. Kenny. Please no…

Spuds Kenzie was one that actually stuck in my head. We both chuckled about it. Not really a nickname, since it was longer than my given name but still amusing.

I adored finding MacKenzie names. Mac on JAG. The captain in the Star Trek: New Frontier quartet (at the time) of books I fawned over but never got around to actually reading. And that was about it. Fuck everything with a Rachel in it though.

At the end of class, I wasn’t entirely sure we’d done the assignment. Something was turned in though and that’s half the battle. The other half is making sure your name is on it.

I felt a little guilty that Luna seemed to have done the bulk of whatever work there had been, but she had lovely penmanship and what seemed like a clear understanding of what we were supposed to be doing. It was Friday.

Besides, I had an upcoming hug to worry about, along with whatever last class brought.

While not first out the door, I left promptly and began searching. Small, cute, and eager to see me? No Lea. But she probably got released about the same time with a lot more distance to cover.

I crept forward and hung around the railing so it would be easier to find me. I also stretched up on my toes to get a few extra inches. No one yet. A few steps towards my World History class, just the next row over. I wasn’t a hundred percent certain Lea knew where either my fifth or last classes were.

Plastering myself against a classroom wall, I waited. Luna slipped by with a smile and the words, “See you soon, Spuds Kenzie.”

A few seconds after, I noticed Cass walking along as well. She looked lost, but then she looked the same way when simply sitting in her seat. I gave her a little wave and she drew closer to me. Over the rumble of the crowd, I could barely hear her ask, “Kenzie?”

I leaned forward and replied, “Yeah. What is it?”

Cass seemed momentarily stunned I’d responded. She rubbed her hands together and said, “The touch without touching. A bridge of space without distance. The emerald star plagued by dark and nameless shadows. Not alone. The problem and the promise. A hub of scribbles on a crowded wall. Don’t time the weary. Catch the flower of joy with wide eyes….Why do they put this number of cracks in a sidewalk? So frustrating…”

I couldn’t think of any answer to her words until she had been swallowed up by the masses. What exactly had she said? Shadows and an emerald star? Something about a flower? Sounded rather poetic.

Art by Alexis Rillera/Anirhapsodist