Chapter 29: Part 29 - Sleep/Over

Part 29 — Sleep/Over

It was Jessie’s mom who picked up the call when it finally went through. She looked tired and concerned. I could only imagine what had been going on at Jessie’s house. And what Ms Pike had told her parents. What dark and midnight secrets of Jessie’s she’d spilled and how it had affected her. Had she outed Jessie along with me?

“Oh how are you feeling, hun?” Mrs Marina asked, walking the iPad through from their lounge to Jessie’s bedroom.

“I’m feeling a lot better now, Mrs Marina,” I replied, letting my best talking-to-grown-ups voice take over.

“Jessie’s been so worried about you ever since she heard about the ambulance. I’m so glad you called. She’ll be over the moon to see you. I’ll pass you on to her now.”

I felt such joy when I saw Jessie’s face for the first time since our fight with Ms Pike.

“Hiya Ella!” she said, taking the iPad in one hand and waving enthusiastically with the other. That warm smile filled her face and it filled my screen.

“Heya Jessie!” I replied, smiling back.

Jessie was already in her pajamas; I tried to see behind her who else had come to the party, but she was swinging the tablet round so quickly that everything was a blur.

“Oh my God, what happened?” Jessie asked, finally settling down on a bean bag on the floor. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I replied. “The doctors are saying there was something wrong with my heart. Cardiomegaly. But they’ve got it under control now.”

“Your heart?” Jessie asked, concern and worry taking up her brow.

The other girls clustered in around her. I could get a better look at them now, on the stationary screen.

Sara was there. And Jasmine and Erica. But no one else. I felt so bad for Jessie. Even I had managed to get nine people to come to my party (if you didn’t count Bobby staring at us all from across the street), and I was the new girl.

“We were so worried,” Erica told me.

“We thought you might have—” Jasmine said, and made a cuykh-ing sound as she passed her fingers across her wrist. 

Jessie started to cry and Sara held her hand; I wondered if the others understood those tears.

“We’re just so glad you’re okay, El,” Jessie said; I was biting back tears of my own.

“Hey, I’ll be fine,” I reassured, trying to keep as many of the wires they had hooked up to me out of the shot. “Tell me what’s been going on online.”

“You mean you don’t know?” Jasmine asked, looking between the other girls.

“Mom took my phone,” I replied. Then added, “Plus… hospital.”

“Oh Ella, it’s amazing!” Jessie said. “Go onto your Insta. Right now.”

I put the call onto picture-in-picture mode and opened up the web browser. I figured it’d be quicker (and safer) to access my Insta on private mode, than log my mom out of hers on her own device. The girls patiently watched my finger swipes as I loaded it up. 

“Oh my God!” I gasped, looking at my post. It had over 100 likes. I hit the Insights button. The post had been viewed nearly 1000 times. I mean, I know it’s not exactly viral, but it was a lot for me. 

I scrolled through the comments. People I didn’t even know (and some that I did) wishing me well and saying how proud they were of me. There wasn’t even a single negative comment. I knew it probably wouldn’t stay that way once the rumor mill started up at school on Monday. But that didn’t matter. I already found the confidence I’d lacked.

We chatted for about another ten minutes about anything and everything. Soccer. Movies. Which popcorn was better (I’m a salty and sweet kind of gal). Even boys (though I got quite shy when that did come up). No one acted weird with Jessie when the topic came up, so I assumed Ms Pike hadn’t outed her as well. At least not to her friends. Though I did wonder what her dad and his ‘great massages’ might make of having a gay daughter (still euw, by the way). Eventually, Jessie’s mom called up that they were putting the movie on downstairs and the girls all had to come down.

“You guys go on ahead,” Jessie instructed. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

I was glad she did. I wanted some time with Jessie alone.

“Hey,” I said after they’d all gone.

“Hey,” she said in reply. 

It seemed weird, but we hadn’t actually spoken about everything that had happened between us since before Ms Pike caught us. That was a world and lifetime away now.

“You sure you’re doing okay, El?” she asked, looking around the screen at the wires I hadn’t managed to hide.

“I’ll live,” I replied, sincerely.

Silence drew out between us like an ocean to the horizon.

“Listen, Jessie,” I said at length.

“So, El,” she said at the same time.

We both laughed.

“You first,” I said.

“I wanted to say sorry,” she came back. “It wasn’t right of me to put you on the spot about my feelings the other day. And I had no right to get mad at you when you didn’t see what I’ve honestly been trying to hide from just about everyone.”

“It’s okay,” I replied. “I’m sorry I kept you in the dark for as long as I did about who I am. Who I really am.”

“Who you are is my friend,” she replied. “Really.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “That’s exactly who I am.”

Silence bobbed like waves again between us. Only calmer this time. A blue lagoon in the morning, warming under a sun of possibilities.

“There was one other thing,” I said as I saw her making to draw our chat to a close.

“Uh-huh,” she replied, adjusting the screen slightly.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Jessie. And I don’t want to get hurt myself.”

“I know,” she said.

“But I also don’t wanna hurt myself with you,” I replied. “You know. Like when you said. We could do it together?”

“I don’t want that either anymore,” she confided. Then added, “Anyway, we did it already.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“With Ms Pike.”

I recalled how she’d scraped her leg with the school pin; how I’d smacked my head into the lockers to set up Ms Pike. I smiled. 

“Yeah, we kinda did, didn’t we?” I replied.

I hadn’t thought of that as harm at the time. I mean, I know it was, but it wasn’t the same when you’re taking down a bully.

“You know you don’t have to do that stuff anymore?” I said to her, lowering my voice as I did so. “You can talk to me.”

“Yeah,” she answered. “I know. It’s just that sometimes my mom puts so much pressure on me to succeed. I’ve gotta make State. Then I’ve gotta make National. It’s just—”

“Your mom?!” I replied. “I thought it was your dad that was—”

“Oh my dad’s a sweetie,” Jessie replied. “He just wants me to be happy, El. It’s just my mom that doesn’t want him to be—”

I could hear her mom calling from downstairs. 

“If you’re not down here in the next 10 seconds, Jessie Marina, we’re starting without you.”

“I’d better go,” Jessie said. 

I got the feeling there was more she wanted to say to me. But she didn’t need to. I think I got it now.

“Oh. Wait!!” I said, quickly. “There’s something I wanted to tell you.”

“What is it?” she asked, seeing the excitement in my face. 

“My mom got me into a gender affirmation program.”

“That’s amazing, El!” Jessie replied.

“I’m going on the hormones.” 

“I’m so happy for you,” she said, smiling.

“I know,” I replied. “I'm going to be a real girl, Jessie!” I cried, wiping the tears away from my eyes. 

“You are a real girl, Ella,” Jessie said in reply. 

Then she kissed her fingers and touched them to the screen. 

A moment later, the screen went black when she dropped the call and I found myself staring into my own reflection. 

*

I peered off through the door to my hospital room as best I could. My mom was still down at the end of the hallway in the waiting room. I figured I still had a little more time, and there was something I wanted to do. Something I had seen on my Insta before chatting to the girls. A DM I wanted to reply to.

bob_baller_69: Hey Ella! I heard your in the hospital! hmu!! Worried!!

hellaella: heya bobby hru?

bob_baller_69: omg girl u alright?!

hellaella: i had a heart attack but im better now

bob_baller_69: u had a WHAT??!!

hellaella: id rather tell you in person. video call?

bob_baller_69: sure!! ????

I stole another sneaky look down the hallway at where my mom was engrossed in her book. She’d said she’d be back in about a half hour. I’d only been on with Jessie for about 15 minutes. I had time for a second call. I pressed the button and waited for the call to connect. 

As soon as the screen connected, Bobby repeated his question: “You had a WHAT?!”

“Relax, Bobby,” I reassured him. “I’m fine.”

I wish I could say it was great to see his face, but he looked so tense, so weighed down with worry that it just made me sad.

“I mean, I will be fine,” I explained. “The doctors have got me on this drug called Lanoxin. It’s making me all better.” 

I flashed him a comforting smile.

“So I’m not gonna lose you?” he said, sniffling a little.

“I’m staying right here, Bobby,” I said to him. 

He was such a sweetie.

“When you get out and all better, I’m taking you on a proper date,” he said. “To make up for the one we never got to have.”

“Whoa, slow down,” I said to him; I was starting to feel all warm again.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he acknowledged. “I’m just so–” he searched for the right word, “--relieved.”

That was probably it.

“Look,” I said after a second’s silence that was just a shade too long, “there’s something I need to ask you, Bobby.”

I’d wanted to ask him this since I first found out it was him that gave me the pendant. I moved my hand to my chest, but it wasn’t there. Of course it wasn’t there. I’d been slapped and zapped by the doctors when my heart stopped. They probably gave it to my mom. Was that why she was waiting down the hallway? Did she think Jessie had given it to me?

“What is it?” he asked. Then, seeing me move my hand to my chest, added: “You alright?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “No, I mean – I’m fine. Why do you like me, Bobby?”

I’d tried to ask him this before. I’d phrased it all wrong then. I’d told him he barely knew me. And that was true. But what I’d meant to say was, ‘Why do you like me? You barely know me.’ Nothing like a near-death experience to make a girl really figure out what’s important in her life.

“I mean, I figure you owed some good in your life, El,” he responded. “You been through so much bad. I don’t know it all. But I can tell. In your eyes. I can see, you’ve had to put up with all kinds of hurt.”

‘Oh Bobby’, I thought, ‘that’s not a reason.’

“Would you still want to date me if I hadn’t been through that stuff?” I asked him.

His focus sharpened; his eyes drew down on me and his brow furrowed slightly.

“Then you wouldn’t be you,” he replied coolly.

“Would you still want to date me if I wasn’t a trans girl?” 

There it was. The question I’d been dancing around for days. Bobby grinned as he was considering his answer. 

“If you was a boy, you mean?” he asked.

I nodded.

“I don’t know,” he replied, but he followed it up quickly with, “I don’t think so.”

When he could see the reaction his answer had on my face, he was quick to point out, “I like girls, Ella. I mean, we’re so far away from any of this stuff anyway, but I want you to know that it doesn’t bother me. The boy stuff–” his eyes shifted down as though he was looking at my waist, out of frame. “–You wear skirts. You shave your legs and you grow your hair. You all woman to me. It don’t matter what you got downstairs.”

It was all the answer I needed.

“Bobby, I know that whoever I choose to spend my time with is going to have to be okay with the way I look. But I don’t want that to be the only reason they’re with me. Being trans might be my distinguishing feature, but it’s not my defining one.”
“I know that, El,” he replied. He was being sincere. I could tell he was.

“And I don’t want someone to be with me just because they feel sorry for me,” I added.

“Ain’t about that either,” he said. “Look, Ella, I’ve had a lot of time to think about who I am and what I want and what I want to give in this world. And what I want is to give. I’m a caregiver, El. I got so much care inside of me and I got no one to give it to. No one who gets me, anyway. And maybe we not right for each other. Maybe you don’t want or need what I got to give. Or maybe we two halves of the same soul. And the only way to find out is to find out.”

Two halves of the same soul.

So that’s why he’d given me that necklace. It was a sign. A sign he wanted harmony. Balance. Someone to take all the love he had to give. It’s amazing the power of the human brain to misread signs. When Bobby had grinned and looked me up and down that day in the hallway when we first met. I’d assumed he was grinning at the thought of outing me. The thought of him and his friends laughing at me. Exposing me. But it wasn’t about me. This was about him. And I finally felt I had the measure of him.

Bobby wanted to give love. Maybe I wasn’t the person he needed to end up with. Maybe that person looked a little more like him than I did, but he just wasn’t ready to admit that yet. But that didn’t matter. This was high school, not marriage, and Bobby Brandon wanted to give me his care and his love. And maybe I wanted to take it.

“Alright,” I replied. “One date. Just to find out.”

“Yasss!” he cheered, fist-pumping the air.

“But you’d better be on your best behavior, Mr Lover Boy,” I reminded him.

“Scout’s honor!” he promised, holding up three fingers.

“And no parading our date-dom in front of Jessie!” I commanded.

“She’ll find someone,” he replied. 

That wasn’t what I meant, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t about to out my best friend. Not even to my (potential) boyfriend.

“I’m sure she will,” I replied.

High school, Ella. Not marriage.

“Look at you,” Bobby said. “Everything that happened to you and you still worried about other people. You need to make time for people who ask how you doing, Ella.”

“I’m doing fine,” I reminded him. “The doctors told me I have cardiomegaly. They said it’s just an enlarged heart.”

“They right,” Bobby replied, and grinned his boyish grin again.

I caught a flash of movement in the corner of my eye. My mom was done with her book and was hedging back up the hallway to my room.

“My mom is here,” I told him. “I got to go.”

“No problem, Ella,” he said, his grin growing on his face.

“One date,” I reminded him.

“Scout’s honor!” he reminded me, and my grin grew too.