DerbyGhost

Ey brief CW for this chapter

Spoiler

References to physical and emotional abuse by parents. Brief, but just don't want anyone to be triggered.

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Besides that, sibling time!

“So you’re, what, a plushy catgirl until you grow back into a normal human?” Audrey was on her second glass of wine and her scepticism had basically flown out the window as soon as she saw me. Stace was a little more shaken, but she seemed to have recovered with her brief introduction to the floor. She was having a pretty animated conversation with Kass saying that she wanted to give us some catch-up time. 

“Cat, uh, cat person, if that’s okay with you,” I smiled, stirring the pot of boiling water. “Oh and I’m going by Jay for now just because, y’know, it fits better. And yeah, although according to all the experts I’m going to be a cat person once I hatch from this plushy shell. Apparently I just rolled the magical lottery and woosh, here I am. Feline fine.”

“Jay,” Audrey smiled, “Oh my gosh wait. Remember when we used to play with our dolls. We had this elaborate sitcom that we created with my barbies and a bunch of your stuffed animals. What did we even call it.”

I scratched my head and suddenly it dawned on me, “Oh! I remember, ‘Toybox Theater Presents: The Good, The Bad, and the Stuffed.’ Oh my God I haven’t thought about that in forever. How many times did we make Señor Ken have amnesia? It must have been at least 10. I swear how did we even know what amnesia was back then?”

“Beats me. Probably saw it on some soap opera that mom and dad definitely didn’t want us to watch but we watched anyway. But don’t you remember? Jay was your ‘main character’ for the show. They were this raggedy old stuffed bunny that you had that was a trickster who could be a boy or a girl depending on what the situation called for. There was this time that you convinced Henrietta Hippo and Barbie that guy Jay was dating girl Jay even if they never saw the two of them in the same room? God that was such a good storyline.”

“Oh holy shit, Jay. What happened to them?” 

“Probably got thrown out with all of your other stuffed animals as soon as you grew hair on your balls because you were an ADULT now. God. That was a bad year.” Audrey shuddered and I wasn’t so focused on making sure the food was ready I’d probably do the same.

“Most of the years with mom and dad were bad years,” I poured the pasta into the pot and heated up the wok to fry up the shrimp, garlic, and all the other little delicious bits that went into a scampi. 

“Fair enough sib, fair enough. I don’t want to be insensitive but what’s with the dress? Don’t get me wrong you look totally cute in it, but it’s a little more bold than I would have thought. I’m not saying it’s bad at all, in fact it’s gorgeous, just not something I feel like you know, you’d go for. That shade is totally your color though.”

“You mean it!” I squeeked, “I mean uh, well pants don’t really fit now because of this.” I hefted up my tail and waved it at Audrey. “And also, uh, well I like how it looks on me. I’m trying something new since I can experiment a bit before I have to, y’know, put all of this away because I’m some boring dude again.”

“Well it would be a shame if you put it away, it’s nice to see you like this.”

“What feminine?”

Audrey shook her head, “No Jay. Happy.” It was at that moment that I had to drain the pasta so I gave Audrey a quick apology and started rushing off to drain the pot. Thank God for my growth spurt, I no longer strained to get the spaghetti strained.

Siblings across time are said to have a bond. There are unspoken codes that siblings have undertaken, given years of carefully figuring out boundaries and blatantly crossing them as well. Something that we in the Lane family had well developed was a knack for giving each other space when we knew we needed it. A real mic drop moment. I was glad that my tears were hid by the steam of the pasta and the  frantic need to tend to the shrimp before it burned. If Audrey noticed, she didn’t say, and I appreciated that more than she would ever know. 

~~~

“Well, Audrey, when you told me your sibling was going to cook dinner for us I had my reservations.” Stace smiled glancing down at her empty plate, taking another sip of chardonnay. 

“Hey!” I shouted, laughing all the while.

“Ah ah, cat-in-law, I’m not done yet. The only thing I knew about your cooking skills was when you almost burned down a campground making s’mores. I just wanted to say that I am incredibly impressed. That was delicious. How long have you been seriously cooking again?”

“First thing’s first I just want to address the rumors in the room. I set our tent on fire, and just a little bit! It’s not my fault that I was scared that my marshmallow went ablaze. And then dad yelled at me. And then woosh, I yanked it out and the whole thing flew and stuck to the tent. It stuck to it! I’m the only seventh grader to make a homemade napalm substitute. Some people would consider that an extreme accomplishment, I’ll have you know.” I huffed. And if we drop this now, it’ll be great for everyone.

Kass’s eyes went wide, “Holy shit Jay how have you never told me this story? This is amazing!” I groaned, God please I don’t want to talk about this.

“God Kasssssssssss, you should have seen it.” Audrey laughed, imitating my dad’s voice “‘Mr. Jerrod Tobias Lane, if you burned down Hidden Pines Nature Preserve and Recreational Camp-Site I could never show my face in church again! You’ve betrayed me, your mother, your sister, Jesus himself, and Smokey the Bear.” I shivered, her impression of him was way too good. I could hear him saying that right in my face and suddenly I was seven again, terrified that I had just made the biggest mistake of my life. Worse than when I only played with the girls at recess in kindergarten, even. I spent most of my life trying to deescalate him from that point and yet here I am and I can’t escape from him and the tent is burning and-

“Yeah and then when you ran to get more safety water for our fire after we used it all setting out the tent he, uh, let’s see how he put it. Gave me such a fucking whuppin’ for destroying nature and having the gal for being a pussy about it. It was really fun. A massive laugh a minute” I mumbled. Somewhere in the space of the conversation I had wrapped my tail around my lap and had been stroking it to give myself something to do physically. If I focused on the sensation of giving myself light pets, I wouldn’t have to deal with my emotions. Perfect plan. 

“Oh, oh God, I’m so sorry Jay.” Audrey looked crushed, “I genuinely had no idea.” She walked over and gave me a massive hug. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m so sorry I brought that up. It’s been such a fun memory for me and, well, I’ve fucked this whole thing up huh. We should probably just-”

“Forget the miserable sacks of skin who happen to share our last name.” I sniffed.

“Yeah. Yeah that sounds good.” Audrey held that hug for a few moments while I quietly cried in her arms. It’s not her fault that she thought it was just a big joke. I had never told her what happened and played it off as something funny whenever dad would tell that story at cookouts and family gatherings. For some reason he always omitted that last part, who knows why huh.

“How about we talk about something, uh, less traumatizing.” I turned to Stace, “So I know a little bit about how the two of you met but what was your wedding like? It happened so fast that I never really got to get any of the sweet deets.”

“Oh! Well it’s nothing that fancy,” Stace fortunately picked up my sign that I very much would not like to talk about how fucked up I am. “It was during the pandemic and we were like ‘well if we can get hospitalized for some shitty-ass virus we might as well have each other’s names on our tombstones.”

“Oof yikes,” whispered Kass. Not sure if anyone caught that besides me, thank you fluffy ears!

“God Stace you make it sound sooooo dark. We also had been dating for about, two years? Yeah. And it just felt right. We clicked, we had all these big plans of starting a business together. And also I mean look at her,” wiggling her eyebrows Audrey’s voice took on a strangely flirty tone to hear from my older sister. “She’s sooooo fucking cute and I knew if I didn’t snatch her up some other girl was gonna get luuuucky. It just had to be me.”

“Well I remember thinking when I saw you ‘wow she’s going to be my wife’” Stace smirked, “and guess what? I was right. Since things were so crazy we just had a simple thing at the courthouse. Our pal from college was our witness and we kind of did the deed right there.”

The rest of dinner was more like that, light conversation and laughs shared all around. I even got a cheer from the crowd when I debuted my homemade oreo-crust cheesecake with hand-whipped cream. That’s right, motherfuckers. I finally got to whip that goddamn cream. Finally! And you know what? It tasted fucking delicious. 

I found the recipe on some copycat website for Cheesecake Factory cheesecake, I guess people didn’t want to brave the liminal Lovecraftian horror show that is the Cheesecake Factory. I did tweak it a little bit, the crust recipe called for nuts and I don’t like nuts, but I like anyone else who has a brain loves oreos. They’re hard not to love. If you’re a hydrox stan get the hell out of this story I don’t know what’s wrong with you. 

It was satisfying though, and more satisfying than the decadent flavor of the cheesecake was knowing that I made it myself. That people that I loved were sitting around the table and eating something I worked hard on. It was something worth being proud of. It hit me at that moment that I was as proud of that dinner and dessert as I had been presenting my final thesis for my history capstone. Maybe it’s because they were both things that I had worked hard on, but also because they tapped into something I loved. I wanted to make people happy, sure, but keeping people sustained. Keeping people going through food? That meant a lot to me. 

After savoring my final bite I looked up and noticed that Kass and Stace were sitting on the couch talking in the living room and Audrey had moved closer to me, a serious look on her face.

“So actually Jay,” Audrey brushed a lock of her deep brown hair behind her ears. “I had something I wanted to talk to you about too. I was actually going to reach out to you soon, and then boom! You reached out to me.”

“Oh dope, what a cool coincidence.” 

“Yeah! I guess it’s just our Lane telepathy.”

“More like Lane sociopathy,” I smirked.

“Wow, I resemble that remark pal. I’m trying to be serious here so stop being such a dink.” She took another sip of her chardonnay, fingers playing Would you be my Bride’s person?”

“Me? But you’re already married, right? You’re not in like, a throuple or something? Because if so cool, but also I don’t think that’s legal in the South, well unless it’s our cousin. He’s quite the catch. He still has his Trump memorabilia collection and a jetski.”

She shoved me playfully, “Shut up dork. I’m serious. Stace and I didn’t really have a ceremony or anything and we thought it would be nice to actually have an official wedding. And you’ve always been my best friend Jay. We got through so much together, and I can’t think of anything I want more than to have you with me. I would be honored to have you walk me down the aisle and be by my side while Stace and I tie the knot,” I bristled for a moment, “Ha, sorry Jay. While Stace and I tie the KT. No matter what shape you end up taking. I want you there with me. It wouldn’t be my wedding without you.”

For once in my life, I was speechless. Speechless and so overwhelmingly happy. The kind of happy where you want to shout from the rooftops that you’re having a great time, but you know that your neighbors would call in a noise complaint so you hold it in. You hold that happiness in and it builds and builds and builds and you bounce with glee.“Audrey, there’s nothing I’d like more than to be your person of honor. That sounds sick as hell.” I smiled, but she was just looking at me shocked.

“Jay, you’re purring.”

“What, n-no I’m not.”

My sister smiled and gave me a headpat, “yeah you are sib. You are suuuuuch a cat person. It’s adorable. You should stay like this, it’s such an improvement over smelly old Jerrod.”

“Well good news for you then, Jerrod’s kind of dead. Jay’s here though and I heard that Jay’s pretty cool."

Audrey laughed and nodded. “Jay, I will admit, is very very cool. But you have to be right. You’re my own little sibby after all.” She got up to leave before apparently changing her mind and sitting back down. “Oh, one more thing before I go, which yeah, I know I have to go because someone has to save your roomie from Stace’s 10 million questions about magic. I swear  it’s a good thing we’re going to be hanging out more because it’s going to be very hard to drag her away.” I turned over and fair enough, Kass had a very tired look on hir face while Stace seemed to be hitting hir with any question that she could think of while furiously scribbling away on a moleskine notebook.

“Jay, I just wanted to say I’m proud of you for being well, you. I was so worried that our parents had crushed the personality out of you. You used to be so happy and adventurous and didn’t care what people thought. And then slowly I watched them chip away everything that brought you joy and I couldn’t do anything to help, and just. . . It’s nice that you’re experimenting with your girl side a little bit. Do you remember the name you used to have me call you when we were playing outside, far away from the crushing gender roles of ma and pa. The one you kept insisting was your real name. At least for a while.”

“Uh…” I froze and my stomach sank. This was just a KT thing, this wasn’t like, me. Or maybe it was. I don’t know. I don’t know anymore. What’s the point in building up a denial wall before even trying to figure things out again. Remember, Jay, remember what you said. You were going to face this head on once they were gone. “I uh, I don’t remember much. From being a kid. Well I remember a lot of the bad stuff, but the good stuff too. I remember playing with you but it’s more like, uh, a collection of colors and feelings versus exact memories. But you can jog my memory if we try hard enough.” My chest hurt. I wanted to run, thinking back to that time was tinged with melancholy. It felt like I lost so much of myself that other people could just bring back easy-peasy. 

She gave me a sad smile, “Well when we were kids playing pretend, you told me that one day you’d be pretty like me and would probably be an official disney princess, good luck on that one by the way, and your name would be-”

“Juniper,” I said, tears in my eyes. A part of myself that I thought I had buried so long ago was exhumed before my very eyes. “My name would be Juniper.”