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Chapter 48 - An Omelet of Emotions

Finally, even though it was just a few seconds, a tall, muscular guy from campus security rushed up and interrogated us, “What’s going on here? You girls break it up now!”

I looked away from Natalie, not sure if that was the right thing to do. I lowered my head. I could hear her gripping the bar behind me. She rattled it but finally backed away as she hissed at me, “…you’re a monster.”

The security guy separated us at arm’s length. “I don’t care what issue you two have but it ends now. Get to class or you will be suspended! Now!”

I stayed there, and Natalie went on her way. Security questioned me about the incident. The best I could offer was, “She’s upset about her boyfriend and blames me for stuff…that happened to him.” I looked to Lea, who still had her head down with a wince.

The guy looked over at Lea and questioned her, “You involved in this too?”

“I’m the boyfriend…”

Her words were small and rough but clear enough for the security officer to hear, whether he understood or not.

Still, he narrowed his eyes and gave a heavy sigh through his nose as he muttered, “Okay…okay…just…” He held his hand up like he wanted to say something else, but he just let it drop and repeated, “Okay. Hey! All of you! Nothing to see here! You get to class now or you all will be written up!”

That dispersed the disappointed crowd pretty quickly. Once things had settled down, of course, Chilton finally returned, pretty much oblivious to anything that had happened while he was gone. He slowed beside me and Lea but didn’t ask anything. Instead, he went about his normal routine of ineffectively trying to get everyone in order. He stood at the top of the ramp and made everyone line up. Lea and I settled at the end.

I looked over at her. She set her backpack aside. She kept her gaze down and brushed back her hair. Carefully, I reached out a hand for hers. It took her a long moment to notice. She stared at my hand then clasped it tightly with her warm fingers.

Her slim lips quivered as tears returned to her eyes. Slipping out of my hand, she instead wrapped her arms around my middle, pressed her face against my shoulder, and whimpered softly into the cloth.

I shut my eyes and ran a hand through her thick hair. “I’m so sorry, Lea. But it’ll be okay.”

I could believe those words, if only for her sake. I didn’t need to watch whoever might be staring at us. All that concerned me was that my responsibility was crying and her soft whimpers broke my heart.

Chilton stammered but collected himself to weakly order the rest of the class inside to begin some directions on the board I really couldn’t give a shit about.

When it was just him and us outside, he inquired, “Wes?”

Lea sniffled and lifted her head slightly to say, “My name is Lea. L-E-A…please.”

Giving a nervous little nod, Chilton repeated, “Lea. Alright. Do you need some time? Or…uhh…to go to the nurse?”

Lifting her head again, Lea sniffled to say, “I…need a little bit. I’ll…see. Just gimme a minute with Kenzie…if that’s equanimous…”

He nodded and quickly repeated, “Sure sure…take some time.” With that, he went inside and started his regular, feeble routine. Though he left the door open and we could hear his ‘threats’ and 'shh'ing, we had enough privacy to talk.

Lea whispered by my ear, “How could it be okay?”

I rubbed her slim shoulders and sighed. Because just about everything winds up being okay, despite all our fears to the contrary. One way or another. But I didn’t say that to her. I told her, “Because you are amazing…”

She pressed her little nose on my shoulder and spoke with the slurring of fresh tears, “I don’t feel amazing. But I feel…I know…I am me. But being me hurts Natalie. Being me right now feels like being torn into a bunch of tiny pieces all at once. But…when I let go of everything I’m afraid of…I’m Lea. But for my family…and her…and everyone…I’m supposed to be Wes. I just…I don’t know.”

What words could I give her? I slowly rubbed her shoulder and held her. She gave a long sniffle and told me, “I just want to feel happy, like I did last night with you. And this morning…for a while.”

I wanted to know what had happened in chemistry class to break that happiness so utterly but, more than that, I wanted to know how I could bring it back for this class and beyond.

Softly, I asked her, “Would you like to sit with me this period?”

The shivers settled a little and she leaned back to meet my eyes. She gave a quick little nod.

I could only imagine how that would go over with the class, but I didn’t care. I wanted to be by Lea so I might be able to do something more to drain the fear and sadness from her.

After a minute, she left my shoulder but still clung to me from the side. Some stragglers were dragging themselves between classes. We got a few looks but just the sort that Ryan in the security office gave me.

Lea scuffed her shoe along the edge of the ramp and suddenly asked, “Should I be…acting differently?”

I looked over at her. Her gaze was down again. I squeezed her hand and asked, “Differently?”

She only gave a half-shrug as she muttered, “Like…before. Like a few days ago. Should I want to…mutilate myself?”

Her words felt like acid on my cheek and not the way mom’s did. I held myself from shivering as I asked, “Did you…want that?” With how she was before yesterday evening, that...It wasn't good. Or even a step up compared to chasing death. Just another shadow of pain. But this hurt more for me to think about.

Lea rubbed her hairless arms together a few times like she’d just fallen into something cold. “Fleetingly. I thought worse. But, for everything that was wrong, it just felt like my only choice was to just…cut it all off. I got as far as pacing around the kitchen before I felt sick. What Natalie said…reminded me…I…” She smothered the rest of her words with her hands and shook her head.

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I set my foot on the edge of the ramp with her and asked, “What did she say?” I almost didn’t say those words. In fact, any words out of me felt like they were stupid and insubstantial. Still, I spoke them.

Letting her arms go, Lea sighed and rocked as she told me, “When she could, a lot. But…what hit me was that…she said…that something is terribly wrong with me. And…no matter how hard I begged her…no matter what words I used…she said…she didn’t see Wes…me…any more…”

Her lips curled tight and her jaw clenched but she held back further tears. I curled my own lips. What could I say? I let her speak as I softly rubbed her shoulder.

“I’m…me. I said that. I’m me but what if I’m wrong? If I’m not me…then who am I?”

Her eyes looked so ready for tears as she turned to me, eager for answers. I’m not a person for answers. I’m barely a person for questions. But I took another of those deep breaths and asked her, “Does it feel wrong?”

She swallowed quietly and wavered along the edge of the ramp. Thankfully, Chilton left us alone. I couldn’t even hear his overzealous shh-ing through the open door.

When she was ready, Lea answered, "No. But can I put faith in that feeling? My body has changed. Tuesday, Wednesday, and most of Thursday…I felt like I’d already been mutilated. I felt annihilated…”

She paused, as though she wanted to interject some apology. I shook my head. She brushed her nose, frowned, and slowly continued, “I felt lost. Like I was just some floating eye popped out. And all I could see was some other body moving in my place. I just…wanted it to end…”

She looked me in the eye and her frown ebbed. “Then, you came…and you held me. It felt like the sun breaking through complete darkness. And it was like…seeing myself again. It wasn’t the body I’d had, but I could see like ‘oh, these are my hands’. Different but still mine…if that makes any sense…”

It didn’t for me right then, but I still nodded to comfort her. She clasped my hand a little tighter and told me, “I wish I could express that to Natalie. I wish I could find a way to tell her that I’m still here.”

If Natalie was anything like me, and Wes alluded to as much, then it was unlikely to get through to her. She was probably imagining terrible things in my general direction and feeling overwhelmed with fear. I tried not to think anything bad in return, but she’d made Lea sad, so it was a challenge. But I didn’t want to perpetuate a cycle of negativity.

I wanted to make a new cycle. It was just an idle feeling right then. A feeling which might’ve been as wrong-headed and flawed as Lea feared hers were. But it was a feeling pointed in the right direction.

I told her, “We’ll find a way. And she’ll see. No matter whether you call yourself Wes or Lea or girl or boy, you are the same person. Change doesn’t destroy you. Change is a rebirth of everything that makes you who you are. It is going to be okay.”

I don’t know where any of that came from. Certainly not from my stress of the moment or the reality of my fears for what Natalie might do and say against me. Not from my rational understanding that I could well have unknowingly destroyed Wes and created Lea in her place with the same memories and many of the same attributes.

But it came from me. A statement of hope. A sun in my own personal darkness from me to us. It didn’t matter if I was probably wrong. What mattered was I said it along with the hug I shared with Lea to still her trembles and let the tears finally cease from her eyes.

She went as far as a little smile and whispering, “Thank you” when I released her. I hadn’t even bothered to pay attention to any new changes she had from being so close to me but nothing obvious jumped out.

Lea did get back some of her surprising energy. She curiously pondered, “Maybe I am a girl and a boy. I mean, they’re just words and I know words. They change meanings prodigiously.” I wasn’t sure if that was quite the word she wanted, but I couldn’t say, so I just smiled and nodded for her.

She went off from there. She mused on gender and self. All really quite cool, but her words were flying so quickly that I was behind several sentences trying to put it together.

It was then that Chilton came to find out what our decision was. Lea could’ve easily asked to be sent to the nurse’s office for the period. Or we could’ve both gone to the security office. Instead, she pressed boldly onto the noisiest, most rickety part of the ramp and announced, “I want to be a part of class…I don’t mind sitting by Kenzie. In fact, I want to make sure she’s not lonely. If that’s alright. I have….uhh…most of what I missed but uh… I read all the important stuff.”

She picked up her loaner pack and presented it before pausing to realize she didn’t have any of her regular papers with her. She quickly corrected, “I’ll resolve what I missed expeditiously…please.”

Chilton bobbed his head quietly and said, “That’s fine. Considering the circumstances…but you’re really okay?”

Lea affirmed, “I am. I’m alright. I’m ready…”

She wrapped her hand around mine.

One last, deep breath to be strong.  

We walked up the ramp together, me and my responsibility…no.

Me and my friend.

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Art by Alexis Rillera/Anirhapsodist

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