From the moment I woke up Tuesday morning I was in a good mood. Even at classes I was smiling and happy, and my demonic intuition thing told me the teachers and other students noticed. Nobody said anything though.
Melissa noticed too, but she kept quiet as well. I assumed she already knew why, or if not she could figure it out easily enough.
Around midday we met up with Amber at the cafeteria and the three of us got some food then sat down at a table together. Melissa had a bite of her burger and Amber munched on some fries.
I had a gulp of my juice then announced with a big grin, "We should have a little party or something tonight. I feel like celebrating!"
Amber frowned, "What's the occasion? Full moon was Friday, new moon's not for another two weeks. Same with the solstice, and graduation too for that matter? That stuff's all two weeks away. So today's the second Tuesday of June? June ninth?"
"It's my first Maraversary!" I replied, and I still had that big grin on my face. "A year ago yesterday I got killed by an SUV, and a year ago today I got reincarnated as Mara!"
"You what?!" a voice to my left asked, and a half second later Matt was standing there next to our table.
He had a tray with him, and he slipped into the seat across from Amber. His attention was on me though, as he stared with wide eyes.
I blushed, "Um... Nothing?"
Melissa gave me a hard look, then sighed and in a quiet voice told Matt "Mara's just messing around as usual. I'm sure you've figured this out by now, but she's a bit of a joker."
Amber added just as quietly, "What she meant was a year ago today she came out as Mara. You know, a play on the whole 'dead-name' thing? She's been Mara for a year, just like my first Amberversary will be in next February."
"Right," Matt said slowly.
I could tell he didn't entirely buy that explanation, but he also wasn't sure he believed I was reincarnated either. My intuition thing told me he was mostly kind of confused and uncertain, but after the past six months he was starting to get the feeling there was a lot more going on with me and my girlfriends than any of us wanted to let on.
Like Amber didn't come out as trans till she started spending time with me, then next thing Matt knew his friend magically transitioned in ten days flat. And only a couple months after that Amber suddenly shrank a few inches. Matt had a lot of questions about all that stuff. He also had a few wild nights with Melissa back at the start of the year, plus he probably heard the rumours that she was trans. Same as me, he heard rumours about me too, now he was wondering if I magically transitioned last year like Amber did this year.
It all added up to some weird stuff that he was really curious about, but he wasn't ready to start demanding answers. Not yet, anyways.
All four of us were quiet for a few minutes as we focused on our lunch and I hoped Matt would forget he heard me say anything about being reincarnated.
Eventually Amber spoke up, "Anyways I can't come over to celebrate tonight. It's Tuesday, so I'm working."
"So's Susan," Melissa reminded me. "She'll be out tonight too."
"Aww," I pouted.
My tall sexy girlfriend suggested, "Why don't we roll all the celebrations into Canada Day? We'll all be home for that. We can celebrate Amber moving in, and also raise a glass to your Maraversary and my Melissaversary too? Mine won't be till the first week of July but that's ok."
"Are you still going to come?" Amber asked her friend. "It'll be our first real BBQ party, assuming the weather's ok."
Matt nodded, "Yeah I'll be there."
He added with a grin, "I'm actually looking forward to it. I want to see how you girls party."
That got another blush out of my small blushy girlfriend, while both me and Melissa smiled.
"Your brother's coming too right?" I asked Melissa.
She nodded, "Yeah he already confirmed. Him and Troy will both be there, they'll probably stay the night too. And I'm sure Troy will bring some more of his games. Don't worry, Sam won't let him bring any trivia games."
Melissa looked at Matt and added, "Troy is my brother's boyfriend, and he's a big table-top gaming fan."
"Gotcha," he nodded. "And Susan's your other girlfriend?"
Amber blushed but smiled, "Yeah she is. Actually you probably met her a few years ago? Susan Mackenzie? She went to high school with us, but she was a couple years ahead of us. She lives right around the corner from me."
Matt shook his head, "Maybe? I don't remember. I'll probably recognize her when I see her though."
"Yeah," the cute brunette nodded. "You're welcome to stay the night too Matt, so you don't have to drive home after partying. Sam and Troy will probably take the guest room, but there's still loads of space. There's a huge sofa and love-seat in the living-room, and another sofa and a recliner in the den."
"I'll keep that in mind," the blond jock smiled.
"We should get fireworks," I suddenly announced. "Lots of fireworks, since it's Canada Day and moving and anniversaries and everything!"
Melissa rolled her eyes, "Maybe. But if we do, we'll have a responsible grown-up set them off. Maybe Susan can take care of that? I haven't forgotten about your big 'hey lets shoot these at each other' idea when we were sixteen."
I cringed, "That was like forever ago! And nobody got hurt...much. Anyways it wasn't just me, you went along with it too!"
"That was self-defence!" she stated. "You nearly burned down my mom's garden shed, and I was grounded for a month after that. And as I recall it took you a week to get the smell of burnt hair off yourself. And you didn't have anywhere near as much hair back then as you do now, Mara."
"Fine," I pouted. "Susan can play with the fireworks while the rest of us watch."
Amber and Matt had been staring at me and Melissa as we bickered, but the cute brunette chimed in with a smile "Maybe you can play with a sparkler Mara, if you promise to be careful."
That just made me pout harder as I grumbled, "You're both bullies."
Amber grinned and Melissa giggled quietly, while Matt just frowned at the three of us.
He finally commented, "I'm glad you three have time to joke around and plan parties. Don't any of you have final exams coming up?"
All three of us groaned about that.
"Ugh, don't remind me!" I grumped. "The last couple weeks our profs have been loading on the assignments and stuff like they're in competition or whatever. Now we're just about through all that and we don't get any time to relax and recover, instead it's all panic and preparations for the big tests."
Melissa teased, "If you spent as much time studying as you did avoiding it and complaining about it, you'd probably be done by now Mara."
That got a giggle out of Amber and a grin from Matt, while I just pouted some more.
"Bullies," I grumbled. "Just like I said."
My girlfriends both giggled, then we all continued with our lunch.
The four of us talked a bit more but the conversation more or less shifted to boring stuff like classes and study schedules. It didn't get good again till we got to summer plans.
Matt told us after graduation he was taking some time off to relax, then he'd be looking for work in August or September. Amber already had her plans, she had more shifts lined up at her job. I noticed she didn't actually mention where she worked, I figured she didn't want Matt to know so I didn't mention it either.
And neither me or Melissa had any plans yet. We weren't going to get summer jobs, as far as I knew Susan wasn't either. The three of us were just going to take it easy and enjoy ourselves.
We eventually finished lunch, and when the time came we all said bye to each other then Amber and Matt headed off to their next classes and me and Melissa went to ours.
And even though things at lunch were mostly pretty good, there was still something that was kind of bugging me, that I wanted to talk to Lily about. So once me and Melissa were settled in our seats, I let my eyes unfocus as I slipped into Lily's apartment.
My demon mom was relaxing on the large leather sofa, but as soon as I was there with her she gave me a look. She sat up and told me, "Mara you're getting careless again, talking about supernatural subjects in public."
"I know," I sighed. "I'm sorry Lily. There was nobody around us when we sat down, I didn't realize Matt was coming to join us."
She continued to watch me for a few more moments before asking, "And why are you skipping class? Like you and your friends just discussed, these are important lessons leading up to your final exams. I'm sure you didn't come in here to see me just to receive a lecture on not discussing our secrets in public."
I moved to sit beside her on the big sofa, then leaned my head against her arm as I sighed again. "I guess I thought it'd be more of a big deal. Our first year together? My first year as me? I don't know, it feels more important to me than my made-up birthday, and everyone wanted to celebrate that. We should have made June ninth my Mara birthday instead of May third."
Lily moved her large arm around me to give me a gentle hug, "It is a special day, Mara. To you and I at least. But it's only one of several, so which day should we celebrate? The day we met? That anniversary was yesterday. The day you woke up as Mara? That's today as you know. What about the day we signed our pact and made our relationship permanent? That anniversary is next Monday."
Her words left a frown on my face, and after a few seconds I shrugged "I don't know. Today feels like the important one for me, it feels like the day my real life began. And it's the day we started sharing our body, right? Which of those days is more important to you?"
"Probably the day we formed our pact," my demon mom replied after a second or two. "The day we first met was important, but from my perspective it was also the day I was imprisoned, which I'd rather forget. And it was the day you died, which I'm sure your mother would like to forget."
She added, "And I understand your reasoning for wanting today to be your new birthday. Perhaps that would have been the most logical choice too, considering it is the day you were 'reborn' as Mara? But I think that would have been insensitive towards your mother. June eighth is going to be a difficult day for her for some time. I think it would be hard for her to celebrate her daughter's birthday the day immediately after the anniversary of her son's death."
I frowned, "But she knows I didn't really die, she knows I'm still here. And yeah it was rough that week, but we got through it."
"Your mother knows that," Lily agreed. "But it was still a very painful experience for her. And even though you are still here, she did have to bury her son. I know you don't like to think about it but there's a grave out there with your old name on it, and your former body in it."
She was right, I didn't like to think about that. I hadn't forgotten, but I had no interest in going back there since the funeral. It left me wondering though if mom ever visited the grave. It felt like it'd be weird either way, like people would think it was strange if she never went back there, but it'd probably feel strange for her if she did since she knew it wasn't really me in there.
After thinking about that for a bit it left me wondering about Lily as well. Like that was something both her and my mom sort of had in common, they both lost kids.
I finally looked up at her and said "Ok Lily. I get what you're saying. Maybe this is a day that I can sort of celebrate quietly myself. Or like Melissa said, we can just make our Canada Day party a little more special and celebrate both of us getting our new bodies? And instead of having a party tonight, maybe I'll call my mom. Even though we just saw each other a couple days ago."
My demon mom smiled, "That sounds like a good idea Mara. But for now, I think you should get back to class. I know the school year is almost over, but you still shouldn't be ignoring your lessons."
"Yeah I know," I grimaced.
We exchanged another hug, then I got up off her sofa and returned to the body. Then I tried to focus on the teacher, since she was probably talking about something important.
demon mum good mum
