Hesitance
Chapter 16 [https://www.rellawings.com/superluminal/chapternum/chaphead_16.jpg]
It wasn’t too long into their talk when it became obvious that Sarah hadn’t had a good opportunity to let loose about her passions in a long time. She exuberantly rattled off every single thing that came to her mind, zero-filter.
First it was gaming, then nerd culture, animals, clothes and on and on. She was a nigh-unstoppable being of pure enthusiasm.
Not that Leona wanted to stop her, not even a smidgen.
Leona was having a blast keeping up with this hyperactive kitty. As far as she could recall, she’d never had this much fun talking with anyone else aside from her family, and Sarah seemed to feel the same way.
The conversation between them flowed naturally and without problems for who-knows how long Leona happily lost all track of time.
Looping back around to the subject of gaming, Sarah spent a good few minutes fully articulating her particular views on the ‘Reven Patch debacle’ that had recently torn the Realms of Valor community asunder. She was firmly in the camp of those who believed that the updates had been too conservative and left the game feeling too much like it always had. She understood that older players liked the way things used to be, but the game was now faced with stiff competition in the MMO space and all its players agreed it needed a major overhaul if the devs wanted to keep up.
Leona had tangentially heard about this controversy and agreed with Sarah. Leona had never really been too interested in the game because of how steep the barrier to entry seemed to be. The patch had actually gotten her to consider checking it now that the game had functionally hit the reset button and the whole thing had become much more friendly to newcomers.
This prompted Sarah to talk about how she’d been interested in the outreach that the devs had been enacting to organize something with players who were interested in cosplaying.
It was just as Sarah was in the middle of a screed on how much more support the game’s feline-focused cosplayers could get that Quinn finally returned with a broad smile. “How’re things going with you two?”
Sarah returned the smile. “It’s so nice to be out here in the sun with my new best friend!” She looked at Leona with sparkling eyes.
Quinn winced, but covered it with an even deeper smile. How had Leona got friend-zoned already?
Anyway, as Sarah had touched on, although it had cooled off little yet, the end of summer was drawing near, which was why this was among the last bits of free time those present had before the school year started back up and with it Quinn’s final year of high school.
“Is it true that you’re gonna be going to our school too?” Quinn asked Sarah with wide-open, innocent eyes.
Sarah nodded and grinned. “Yeah! I’m transferring in soon! It’s not because of Leona or anything, though. It’s just that we’re in the same general area, just a coincidence. My parents wanted to put me in a private church school, but that didn’t go through because of ideological differences and I pouted really hard until they let me go to a public school instead. Anyway, we settled in our new home before the summer break.”
“Isn’t it tough to move from a rural place to a city like San Isidro?” Leona asked Sarah. “How are you doing? You know, our school isn’t really the best—it’s even got metal detectors so kids can’t take in weapons.”
Sarah thought about things and frowned slightly. “Not really— My grades are good. Anyway, you’re right that my parents aren’t keen on all the crime, but my dad didn’t have a choice. They’re so strict that I can barely breathe, but anything’s better than Montana. It’s way more exciting here.” Sarah said, laughing.
Holding up a hand, Quinn gave Sarah an apologetic look, saying, “Hey, sorry to bust up a good flow but can I grab my sister for a sec—there’s something I need to say to Leona privately.” Not waiting for a response, Quinn took Leona to the side. “Hey—does she know you used to be a boy yet?” she whispered.
Leona blushed and shook her head. “Nah, she treats me like any girl-friend… I would feel a little awkward telling her now, like saying I’ve been lying to her just to spend time with her.” She chewed her lip while Sarah curiously watched them from a short distance away.
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“It’s not a big deal. Don’t worry about it. If you’re just her friend, it doesn’t matter much.” Quinn shrugged and tugged Leona back to Sarah, who waited patiently the whole time, though her aura made it seem like her fake cat ears were practically twitching with expectation.
“What was that about?” Sarah meowed, concerned. “Secret sister stuff? Oh gosh, will your mother be mad at you if we spend too much time out?”
“No—nothing like that!” Quinn laughed. “Actually, I was telling Leona that we should all go to the beach.”
“I don’t have a bathing suit with me!” Sarah blinked and, after a moment, grinned. “I mean, I really want to check out the beach since we’re so close. The ocean was always too far away for my whole life. But even though I was nowhere near one, I always looked forward to seeing one, but like… I have no friends yet to do it with and I didn’t want to go alone. Dad’s busy and Mom does her Bible studying with a new group.”
Quinn nodded, saying, “Not right now—but we have only a week of free time, and the weather could change any time. Too bad your folks are so busy. We’ll definitely get that checked off your bucket list, though. Right, kiddo?” With a wink, she clapped a hand on Sarah’s shoulder as another idea occurred to her and she suggested, “Well, actually… I know how pedestrian the idea my idea seems compared with swimming in the big blue, but there’s also an amazing water park here in San Isidro. It’s right on the ocean, but if you’ve never been in the big blue, you might not know that you have to shower after going in, otherwise you’re likely to get a horrible rash on top of the sunburn. At least with a water park you can just go, jump in, splash around and have a great time along with the obligatory sunburn.”
Sarah tilted her head and smiled. “That sounds fine too, since I’ve never been to a water park either, but I’m not sure my parents would give me an advance on my allowance to pay for it. I spent everything I had before on dressing up for the rave.”
“I’ve got you!” Leona announced with a thumbs up. “I mean, I’ve got enough.”
“That’s pretty generous of you, sis.” Quinn winked. “Alright... I hope you have a swimsuit, Sarah?”
With a low purring noise, Sarah nodded, exclaiming, “It’s a nice one—no spoils though!”
Leona’s head suddenly crooked over and she stared at Quinn. She hadn’t gone swimming since her transition. All she had were some old kiddie trunks she couldn’t fit into anymore. Going topless probably wasn’t the best idea, so she’d need to shop for her first bathing suit.
Sarah and Quinn stared at Leona briefly before her older sister let out a laugh and said, “Don’t worry! I have a special gift for you. Just not on me right now. It’s for your birthday. That’ll take care of that.”
“My birthday was months ago.” Leona stated flatly.
“Well, consider it a late present then,” Quinn joked.
“Umm, I really should head home now,” Sarah interjected softly. “My parents dropped me off here and I told them all about you, Leona. They seemed okay with you. But they’re super uptight anyway—” Sarah pouted.
“Didn’t you say they don’t know where you are?” Leona asked.
“I meant the rave.” Sarah rolled her eyes. “How d’you think I got here? The bus? My parents wouldn’t let me use public transportation.”
“I don’t blame them.” Quinn nodded. “I’ve seen some real weirdos in the back.”
“Hmmmm——how weird are we talking about?” Sarah asked, curious.
“Erm… Aha… I’d better not say too much. Just remember to go with friends when you have to.” Quinn looked at Leona.
Sarah looked at Leona and said, “Leona, I think my parents will want to meet you sometime soon. I have to warn you that if they don’t approve of people, I hang out with—they get—um——upset.”
“No way!” Leona gaped and protested, “That’s going way overboard! Why are they so controlling? Besides, w—what would they have against me?” Leona flushed self-consciously.
“We can get you home.” Quinn nodded, changing the subject. Leona was kinda digging herself into a hole. She looked at Sarah again. “Sorry, give us just another sec—” Once more she tugged Leona back and whispered, “Can you tell me again why you haven’t told her? I mean—her not knowing about your birth gender should be okay for now, but—you never know—things could take you down the romance road and then there’d be a little surprise in store for her—.”
“Not yet—” Leona suppressed a scowl. “You can already see how that would go over with her and her parents, right?”
Quinn nodded. “Yeah, like, ‘By the way, Sarah, the girl you’ve been hanging out with for the last couple hours actually used to be a guy a few years back’—or ‘Hey, I can’t tell if you really like boys or not because you don’t want your parents to think you might be a lesbian’… I mean she gives off that kinda vibe. She really does. Even so, her parents… They don't sound like they’d approve of anything out of their norm.”
Leona sighed and nodded in agreement. It just wouldn’t go over well.
“On the bright side, even if you don’t tell her, I’ll screen for you when you change into your swimsuit. With that nice gaff you have, you probably won’t need to worry. Now let’s finish your date and we can talk more about what to do when we have more time and privacy.”
“We’ll see.” Leona heaved another heavy breath while Quinn stroked her hair reassuringly. “Hey, wait! I told you this was NOT a date!” Leona pouted.
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