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Chapter 59 - A Stigma of Isms

I couldn’t help but smile. Something similar had happened to me growing up.

I should have worn glasses years before I eventually got them. So many days squinting at the board, even from the front row. My least favorite teacher in junior high kept pestering me to get them.  

The ones I got were a nice, black-rimmed pair, but the weight of them made my nose feel stuffed. I wasn’t particularly impressed at first, but it was good not to have to squint anymore.

Then, when returning home, we pulled into the side driveway and I noticed there was…texture on the stucco wall I’d been missing. I had to ask my dad if it had always been that way. He confirmed it. I was still stunned.

How could I have not known what the world around me really looked like for all this time? When had it started to change and how easily had I forgotten? I further marveled at the detail of the popcorn ceiling.

Naturally, all these heightened features soon returned to the realm of the mundane and the ignored. We can’t be amazed every moment of our lives, but it was lovely to see and relive Lea’s glee at it all.

She took a deep breath through her nose and noted, “Now, I’m not as definite in this thought, but I feel like I can smell things more distinctly. The good and the bad. The school lunch was not particularly pleasant.”

It never was.

However, she pointed out that the scent of my hair, or rather my shampoo, was sweet and warm like my presence felt to her. “It makes me think of comfort, joy, and home in the best ways.” She knew just how to melt my heart. Time for another hug.

Stretching again after that, she added, “And just the feel of everything. Well….everything…” She fanned her hands over her whole body without touching. “Everything feels rather different. More wired? Like my arm, while barren…feels attuned. I got literally poked fifth period and it really hurt. I might even have a bruise from it.”

Sure enough, there was a small, faint bruise on the back of her arm. Granted, I had those when I woke up in the morning some days. It crossed my mind that Lea could be about the perfect boyfriend now…if not for the being stuck as a girl part.

No, she was a girl. Well, a boy turned into a girl. And a pretty girly one so far. But was that due to me or something inherently feminine in Wes/Lea? Femininity is a social creation, not something you can just flood someone full of like a drug. I could point to Sebastian, completely sure in himself as a gay man despite his effeminate nature.

Did it matter? Like Lea said on the ramp, she could be a boy and/or girl. Whatever felt right to her. Sure, I’d somehow changed her body and all its workings. But she had a mind and will of her own to live her life how she wanted. Or did she? How far had I gone? How deeply had I changed the fundamental nature of her existence? What had I made of the boy who tossed around long words in his everyday sentences?

While I chaotically mulled and fretted all of this, Lea took in that fall afternoon with the leaves dwindling but still lingering on the trees and the fresh blast of pine along the old, root-bent pavement. She turned in place and brushed her hair back to tickle her ears.

Alright. No worries. Not for this moment. Not so long as I had more of Lea’s day to learn about. I told her, “I’m sorry it hurt. You said fifth was the period where your teacher tried to analyze you or something?”

She gave a slow nod. “Yes. To be perfectly rhadamanthine though…she does it a lot with random students and also asked me if I didn’t want her to do it because of my situation…”

I had to stop her there and point out her word choice. I repeated it. She flashed a quick grin and noted, “Rhadamanthine. Probably not quite the right word since it means stern judgment, and I’m being more fair about her. But I can’t use equitable since I said it not too long ago.”

Ah, a peek behind the curtain.

I raised an eyebrow and asked, “Missing your dictionary and thesaurus?”

“Inordinately. A sesquipedalian is naked without them.”

Tip of my head and a sigh. Lea chirped in, “That means someone who uses long words.”

I smiled to myself and told her, “I figured. And I’ll take your word for…that word.”    

We both got a little laugh out of that. I’d gotten over the way Wes talked a long time ago. To his credit, he’d toned it down since freshman year when he was always peeking in his thesaurus every spare moment. And, I swear, during a long free period he went page by page, alphabetically through the dictionary and wrote down the words he didn’t know, along with their histories. And he kept that list of words organized for his own research.

Leaning her head back, Lea brushed her hair again and noted, “So, I stood in front of the whole class as she talked about identity theories.”

I passed along that I was dealing with ‘identities’ in my Trig class just a period before. She smiled lightly and stroked the returned curls at the end of her hair as she remarked, “She said a lot of vague stuff because it would be incorporated later in the course with different theorists, but there are stages to identity and how people think about themselves in a group. Still, it was really stressful to hear her talk about me as like ‘here’s someone for a case study in gender identity’. I’m a person too. I’m Lea. And that’s what I know and how I feel…”

She fussed with her hands. I reached over to hold them. She relaxed.

We’d taken so long to get back that I was sure class had emptied a while ago. Dad was probably calling campus security to look for us or something. As we finished the loop back to the math building, I focused on her last class since Lea seemed particularly happy getting out of that one.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Oh yeah! That one.” She slipped on a comfortable smile and walked backwards while facing me.

“No one really bothered me. The teacher knew the situation and she was kinda…” Lea’s lips contorted before she answered, “Well…she’s a person with fluid ideas of gender to begin with. So, she just welcomed me as Lea and no one else said anything.”

She stumbled over an uneven bit of pavement but assured me she was fine. Continuing, she relayed, “Just like…’Oh? You’re a girl. Okay. I need to finish my charcoal drawing now.’ This one girl said she liked the contours of my face, so I posed for one of her sketches. Not finished yet. Mostly, we did charcoal drawings of fish in a tank. It let me just decompress and reflect. And I felt good. But it was still weird having to introduce myself again to people I knew….”

With raised eyebrows, I asked, “Was there another of Nat’s friends in the class?”

Shifting sideways, Lea replied, “Yeah. But it worked out too. She hadn’t actually seen Nat all day, so I just told her what happened. She was expectedly incredulous, but I was able to convince her. Some people were really sympathetic, but it felt better to just be treated like normal. A respite of normalcy.”

I tried not to read any fretful thoughts into the fact Nat hadn’t been seen by her friends. Instead, I focused on asking Lea, “And you feel fine now?”

Hitching up her pants slightly, Lea answered, “I’m alright, especially walking with you. There’s just so many quandaries and uncertainties beyond right now and this relaxing moment. Will your dad let you hang out at my house? How will my family be? What clothes and things do I need now? How many fresh ways can I worry about my appearance? When will the…biological things start? How will I feel? How much is going to come out of me? For how long? Why didn’t I pay more attention to that part of sex ed?...”

We were at the narrow row of technical buildings with big bushes out front when Lea finally took a breath and dropped her arms to sum up, “Materially, there’s a lot I don’t know. It’s…well…twenty-four hours ago I felt like the world was over. I thought that I was over. Tomorrow was of no consequence. It didn’t matter. When…life goes on, when you’re reborn as you put it, that creates a lot of short-term and long-term issues about ‘so what do I do now?’. But it’ll be alright. One step and one question at a time…”

For emphasis, she took a single step on the path which would lead us back to my dad’s class. And we took the next ones together.

The problem with quick steps is they get you to where you do or don’t want to go quickly. I peered into dad’s open classroom door.

The room was empty, and dad sat at his front desk with papers in front of him. Gladis was off to the side, tidying up. I approached first.

“Restroom break. We're back”, I announced. I tried to say it as casually as possible and even threw in a small, theatrical sigh.

Dad leaned up and set both hands on the table. With a thin grimace, he asked, “That's Lea, right?”

“Yes, sir”, Lea answered for me, stepping forth from behind. “I'm sorry I imposed again but Kenzie articulated to me last night that you were a college instructor. My aspiration is to someday be one as well, so I wanted to see what all it entailed.”

A skeptical squint but it was followed by a gruff sigh, as he remarked heavily, “It's not easy. Exhausting work. Rewarding at times. You have to be willing to just stand up there and speak freely. Hold the room. But that's not all...”

He went on for a bit and I'll spare you because I've heard it countless times over the years whenever I mentioned something difficult I had to do. Lea darted over to her borrowed notebook and began writing in that bent-over, furious style as the words tumbled out of dad's mouth.

Dad glanced over at me as though I should've been jotting some of this down as well. He finished, “…And that's just how it is.”

Lea thanked him, and he nodded while hiding a tired yawn. I took the opportunity to propose, “There's a project in our English class based on the American Dream and we're working together. I wanted to get it worked out this evening because Lea is free tonight. But Lea felt bad imposing on us again, so I think it might be better to work on it over at her house. And that way I can be her guest, to return the favor. You can pick me up when we're done.”

Not really the most eloquent or convincing way to voice the idea but there would be no better time to say it. I tensed my legs in anticipation.

Dad flattened his hands against the table. Gladis stopped what she was doing to watch. With a deep breath, dad answered, “Alright. So long as you get it done, don't waste time, and come home at a reasonable hour.” He jerked a finger up for emphasis.

Adjusting his glasses, he continued, “Lea's parents may be fine with her staying the night somewhere but you will be home and in bed as early as you can be. Tonight. Understood?”

Automatic, obedient nod time. I didn't say Lea's “Yes, sir”. That would've been too suspicious for me but I did what I needed to.

As for dad, he kept going, “You know the kind of crazies who are out on a Friday? On the news last night, they talked about a terrible missing person case in North Langers. This whole world is getting worse and worse every day. Worse than it ever was!”

And rant complete.

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Art by Alexis Rillera/Anirhapsodist