Masks Chapter 17

*Before…

Actually I’m close to squeeing and girling out and hugging him but just the way he’s acting this…him saying that and calling me his…

Baby sister.

I’m not going to push it. He’s trying.

I let go of her hand and look at him and give him a thank you smile. But I wasn’t ready for the I love you sis look back…it’s shy and he’s likely in really new turf.

But it’s there.

He takes the waters and heads through the kitchen doors. “We’ll be studying in the living room okay?”

“Sure Bro…Love You.”

“Love you too sis…” He leaves quickly and Jenn follows this smile there like she’s surprised and proud of him.

I’m proud of him too.

*And Now…

Oh I am having such a case of the Feels right now and I lean on the kitchen island ad stare at the door Mark just left through.

“Is it just me or does Mark know about you?” Mary Jane says/asks looking at the door.

“I…I think he does, I wasn’t sure like before but yeah…I…I think he knows.”

“He doesn’t seem like he’s going to freak out.” I say and I’m kind of hoping it’s really true at the same time.

“Well what are you going to do?”

“I……….” I need to think about it.

Mary Jane’s looking at me.

The very best thing and very worst thing about having a best friend is the fact they call you out on stuff…she isn’t looking or doing anything else but looking at me.

“I….”

“Hmmm?”

“Okay, I’ll ask him when he comes back in.”

“Alright…and he’ll be coming back?”

“Teen guy with a girl there will be snacks needed.”

“Good point.” She’s smiling. “So…that Jenn?”

“Yeah not Mark’s usual kind of girl.”

“Really so what’s his type?”

“Busty, really good looking the whole cheerleader thing.”

“Well she’s not that?’

I nod but there’s not much more that I can say except that she really is different, small busted and the glasses and well…Asian. I sort of can get the boys liking Asian girls thing because I can definitely admit they are usually really pretty but I know that there are some Asian girls in his school that are really hot and so not like Jenn.

She seamed friendly though.

I actually dig out a few more things to make for snacks and I get some fajita wraps and take a little of the spaghetti sauce and use it as pizza sauce and it’s got most of everything in there except cheese so I do up two of them and grate some cheese over then and toss them in the oven on a cookie sheet until the bottom’s gone like cracker crispy like and I have them in the microwave waiting for when he comes in.

Meanwhile it’s cutting the zucchini and eggplant into lengthwise slices and Mary Jane’s browning the hamburger/ground beef off and grating the rest of the mozzarella cheese.

He must have smelled the stuff cooking because he comes in and he looks around the counter and then makes a bee-line for the fridge.

“Uhm…Mark you got a second?”

I go to the microwave and hit the start button just to get the cheese all bubbly again.

He gets two glasses and he pours some chocolate milk in them. “Sure…..”

“You told her that I was your sister and not your brother why?”

He looks at me. “That’s because you’re my little sister…kinda always have been right?”

“I…ah…how’d you know?”

“I didn’t until you did this stunt for Halloween. But I sort of thought that you were gay.”

“I’m not gay…” Okay I will admit I still don’t have a clue yet to that stuff but if I’m a regular girl then liking boys isn’t gay.

“Okay it’s just you had this whole in the closet thing going on.”

Mary Jane looks at him and crosses her arms. “So how do you know what in the closet looks like anyways?’

“My little sister’s a lesbian.”

“I am not!”

“No not you my other sister.”

“Huwhaaa?”

“I joined Big Brothers/Big Sisters this year. A couple of the other kids are doing community service stuff. It’s where I’ve been going on Saturdays. Sonja requested a big brother and we’ve been hanging out since.”

“So…?”

“So she and I’ve talked a lot, she can’t do that at home and a lot of the stuff that she talked about rung bells with you.”

“But I’m…”

“Transgendered right?’

My mouth goes dry. “H..how?”

“Since I met Sonja I’ve been to some LGBT meetings at school.”

“Really?”

He takes the plate and the glasses and leans over and kisses me on my forehead. “Yeah actually see I’m not quite the thickhead that you thought huh?”

I blush. “I…it’s not…” I’m fumbling for words because that’s kinda exactly what I thought about him.

He grins. “I…have a study date; we’ll hash out the small stuff later?”

“I…uhm…okay…?” I say kind of still in shock and blown away.

He slips out and I sit down on one of the stools and stare at the door he went through.

“He knows, he knows and he didn’t flip and I mean he really knows but he thought that I was gay, do I seem gay to you? I mean not now because Amber was likely just a friendly kiss but I mean like when I’m Steven do I come across as gay like that and what, what does Mom and Dad think do they think that I’m gay!”

Mary Jane gets in front of me and she takes my face in both of her hands and she stares me down. “Stop…you’re going to loop…breathe.”

“I…I…”

“Breathe woman.” She’s firm with that one and I close my eyes and I take some deep, deep breaths.

Wow I can literally feel my pulse slowing down.

I smile as she starts to smile back and we’re doing that really close look each other in the eyes thing.

That’s what a girlfriend does, that’s what a best friend does and that’s puts the brakes on when you can’t sometimes.

We are just staring like that for a few minutes before we just start smiling at each other again…no, grinning.

“I guess I went a little bit overboard with all of this huh?”

“Yeah just a little but you kinda likely have a whole bunch of like pent up everything about this.”

I nod. “Thirteen years worth.”

We pull apart and Mary Jane goes for the paper towel and stuff a bunch into a bowl and pours the cooked ground beef into it so that the extra oil drains off and then we look at the instructions that mom left and I go to the deep freeze and get out a bunch of frozen blocks of spinach and defrost them in the microwave and Mary Jane is breading the eggplant with egg yolk and ground parmesan cheese and we’re quick frying a crust on them.

We’re using a pan because we’re still not old enough to mess around with the deep fryer yet.

Actually they kind of scare me a little. I mean a frying pan you can cover but a big thingy of bubbling oil. And I’m scared of getting burned or splashed.

I’m not sure that I could be a fry cook.

It doesn’t take too long before we’re ready and first thing I do is to butter and flour the roaster. The flour won’t mess with the food and just like baking it really helps to keep the sticking down and then we layer stuff.

Left over sauce, then zucchini then more sauce and then some cheese then the eggplant and then more sauce and then the spinach all in a single layer and then last of the eggplant then the ground beef and over that the last of the zucchini and then the last of the sauce and the rest of the mozzarella cheese.

It’s a lot like lasagna but also a little like eggplant parme it’s one of those things that mom made up whenever to use up leftovers. As for the spaghetti from last night we never have any leftover pasta.

Not in a house with fours guys.

See what I did there?

There’s some other stuff to do for supper too and Mary Jane and I start our homework first and we both have Math and English and she has Social Studies to do and I have some Science stuff to do and we’re getting into all of that and double checking each other’s work and that’s actually kind of cool and fun too.

I’m not the greatest student sometimes and I’ll admit it’s me not able to be the real me thing. It gets in your head and there’s this kinda sad spot that nags and eats away at how you feel about doing stuff.

But this and us doing this together it’s kind of fun and it’s a whole lot less stressful when I can just be me doing it and I really want to be a good student.

Mary Jane’s looking through my notes. “You have to pass this in?’

“No why?”

“Because some of this is like different kind of messy and this stuff is like girl neat.”

Yes, yes I have spent a lot of time just in my room or messing around at school learning and teaching myself to write in that neat but loopy way that girls write like.

I just never actually noticed that I was doing that just because I’m actually being me now.

“Whoops. I guess they might think that I had some girl do my homework?’

“You could go with that it might even make sense with the whole jock thing.”

I sigh with relief. “Good…and thanks for seeing that I honestly didn’t know that I was doing that. Now if someone does ask I have something that I can say.”

She nods. “Even with Mark knowing it’s still something that you might want to watch right?”

“Definitely.”

I’m still in shock over Mark figuring me out and to have someone else do it and scarier still someone outside of the family that would be bad.

And at the same time I really, really wonder if it might be the best thing too in the long run? I mean if the absolute worst happened here at home I could live at Aunt Els place until she was able to talk my family around.

We pack up our school books and we start to look up looks for the dance and the contest and I start sketching out what our stuff might look like. Mary Jane looks things over and she’s like. “Oh wow you’re really good at this you should so be in Home Ec. I mean you can cook pretty good but these are like designer sketches.”

“Well I’ve had a lot of practice drawing out the kind of stuff that I’d dream of being able to wear y’know. And sometimes I’d sketch it out and live in my own little fantasy world in my head.”

M.J. looks at me and I bite my lip and shrug.

“You’ve had a whole frigging boatload of unhappy haven’t you?’

I shrug. “There’s lots of people that have had it worse.”

“Yeah but other people having it worse Steph doesn’t really make the shitty stuff you’re going through any better.”

“What can I do, I was stuck with this stinking rotten mistake of a body and there’s nothing that’s going to change that for me anytime soon.”

M.J. Hugs me with that lean on me and slip her arm around my waist. “Sorry Steph I really do wish that there was something that I could do really.”

“You’re doing it okay. You’ve been all kinds of awesome and have been totally like my rock.”

“Hey, I’m just returning the favor. You care and you don’t judge me and you stick up for me and even more sometimes and I haven’t had that for a long time.”

“Being the new kid suck huh.”

“I really sucks and…..”

“And?”

“Changing sucks…I…I didn’t ask for this and when it happened the friends that I thought that I had all turned out to be…”

“Elizabitches?”

She nods. “These girls were my best friend Steph and when Dad split they weren’t there in fact they kind of used that to make things worse.”

“What, how?”

“One of the rumors wasn’t just about me being a slut and a tramp it was that my Dad left because he was caught doing stuff to me and that it wasn’t molestation because I liked it.”

“Those Cunts!”

She stares at me her eyes widening and she burst out giggling. “You could be in so much trouble for saying the C word y’know if it wasn’t for the way that you said it.”

“Huh?”

“You were soooo not the mad and angry guy girlfriend.”

“Oh…it’s just kinda natural…I mean my voice hasn’t really cracked yet and stuff so I’ve been talking softer and kinda lower in guyoflage mode.”

Mark comes in with the plates. “Who’s a cunt?”

“Mark!” I exclaim.

Mary Jane starts to giggle and snort.

“What?”

“You’re not allowed to say that you’re a guy!”

“And….”

“The C-word is to women like the N-word is like to black people.”

“It is?”

We both nod and he looks at us and he grins a little bit but he blushes too. “Sorry.”

“You should be Speedy.” Jenn says as she comes into the kitchen too.

“Speedy….!” Mary Jane and I carouse together.

Oh he get’s so red and embarrassed that it’s almost nuclear.

And Jenn’s grinning with us and there’s this little zip of girlness happening since its like three girls sort of teasing a guy together.

“I…Uhm…sorry Jenn.”

She shrugs. “It happens, I know you enough that you didn’t mean it.”

“I didn’t I was just asking the girls is all really.”

She turns to us and she does that peer over her glasses thing at us and has this quirky mouth thing. “So….who is the cunt?”

That get’s me and M.J. giggling again and Mark almost too and he goes for some more chocolate milk but for all three of us this time.

Jenn listens and so do I as Mary Jane talks.

“I was living in Lethbridge and it’s kinda a bit churchy there and I’d worked pretty hard our first year there to make some friends. It was different but things were pretty cool y’know. We were going to be there likely for awhile and I hadn’t gotten like this.”

M.J. Gestures at herself.

“But then it all like started early. Mom said we do that in our family and I budded when I was ten just after x-mas and then by the start of the next school year I was on my way to having B-cups.”

“That pissed off so many of the girls but even then some of my friends were cool, most of the time….they still had like some of those jealous moments but I just figured par for the course right…it’s girl bullshit.”

Jenn and I are both nodding. I might not have the biology but I’ve seen it. I still want it but sometimes we are not nice girls at all.

“And then I started my period early too than most of them and that sucked but was cool at the same time because well…” She shrugs but Jenn and I nod again.

It’s girl we both speak it and Mark even nodded too. Maybe his little sister…the other one had that kind of conversation with him or something? I see Jenn smile though and move over to the next stool and sit close to him.

Sigh…such a thing…I’d love to stop feeling like I’m stuck in neutral.

“Then Samantha started to bud and Leslie and it was like over night they were getting boobs but they just sort of stopped being them…I mean I still was me…I liked the same books and the same tunes and stuff but Sam and Leslie they…they went full pig into the hair and make-up and the clothes and boys even though we were too young for boys they went for the guys a couple classes up and then they were trying to hang with the cool girls.”

She’s crying and she’s sniffling and rubbing at her face. I move to right beside her and do the lean on her hug.

“The popular rich girls didn’t like me, they hadn’t since I was the new girl and My Mom she’s great looking and cool and Dad being RCMP they just got like all territorial or some stunned shit and it got worse as things happened with me hitting puberty and…..and Sam and Leslie they knew stuff. Me looking up stuff trying to figure all the stuff I was feeling out and they knew about Mom and the stuff she’s into.”

I take a tissue Jenn offers and wipe M.J.’s eyes and Mark’s looking at me and he smiles at me like I did something cool.

“They started calling me a witch, and a slut and pulling pranks and saying shit about me online and on Facebook and then Mom and Dad are fighting and he moves out with this like twenty years old chick he’d been screwing for like over a ear and they blame me for it, blame “the slut” and “the lesbian” and they hauled it all out in front of people for all the ones to see.”

“It didn’t take too long for what was left of my so called friends to bail and some even jumped on the bandwagon too…..and that was going around town and the churchy types got involved…I mean they even kicked Mom out of the freaking PTA and like trashed our car and stuff.”

Mary Jane’s crying really hard now and I hold her through it and Jen comes over to take her other side and I’m crying because M.J.’s crying and…and Mark actually shuffle walks us over to the kitchen nook instead of the island and we slide into the booth seat.

Very cool.

We’re having such a girl cry thing and Mark’s being a really good guy by putting the kettle on and setting a box of tissues there with us and it’s awhile before we’re all together and Mary Jane’s doing that recovering her breath thing.

I’m rubbing her back and she has this bleak look but she starts to talk again. “That’s when they started the rumors that Dad was sleeping with me….they were even saying that I wanted it or that I started it and he got called in to get investigated even.”

She looks at all of us. “It wasn’t true! He never touched me and we didn’t y’know!” (Sobby-sniffles.)

I hug her. “I know, I know M.J. He’s not like that and neither are you.”

“But it just got worse and worse the shit gets in your head, this feeling of maybe they’re right and this is all that I’m worth? And then there’s the attention and the being nice and stuff from guys that just wanted one thing from me and I did…I slept with guys and let then use me because it felt good when it was happening. It felt good enough I wanted more…just not to fee the other stuff and that just made things worse.“

Then it really got worse George Warren this complete effing douche he decides I need a really man and cornered me at a dance and he ripped my dress top open and he tried to rape me! (Sobby-sniffles.) And when I got away and where people were at he…he blames me and every one jumps on the M.J.‘s a slut bandwagon and…”

Mark’s there setting down tea stuff so we can make our own. “That’s the night that after the cops and Aunt Els got you home, you took the pills right?”

What?

“Oh…oh shit M.J…..” I’m freaked, floored and I’ve never heard any of this….

“It just hurt so much!” She wails. “They…they were supposed to be my friends! But they…they just turned their backs on me and called me slut and witch!”

She’s bawling, I’m bawling and Jenn’s crying too.

I hear Billy and Bobby in the kitchen and they’re whispering….

“What’s going on Mark?”….Bobby.

“M.J.’s just getting it out.”…. Mark.

“The stuff with back there?”…Billy.

“Yeah.”… Mark.

“Which is why Mom and Dad are letting?”…Bobby.

“Something like that.”….Mark.

“We…uhm…can we do like anything?”…Billy.

“Yeah, stop being you two and treat our sister like our kid sister.”……Mark…and What?

“But?”….Bobby.

“No buts, look guys you’re almost sixteen ad honestly you’re a pair of little assholes. No girl is going to give you the time of day y’know.” ….Mark.

“But.”…Billy.

“No, look if you guys think that you can act the way you are fine. But dumb insensitive meathead gets around. Girls tweet and Facebook this stuff all the time.”…Mark.

“……………………” There’s a double. “”Kay…fine.” And they head out and he follows.

“Not fine c’mere let’s go outside there’s wood to split.”… Mark.

“Aww…Man…you’re sounding like Dad.”…Bobby.

“Move.”…And they leave.

I sniffle. “Actually like that he sounds a little like Mom more than Dad.”

That gets a sobby wet laugh from Mary Jane and I hug her tight, really tight and stay there. “M.J.?”

(Sobby-sniffle.) “Yeah…?”

“You never, ever fucking do that again you hear me? I can’t make it through this fucking curse with out you.” I sobbed out that last half of it.

She turns and she looks at me.

Yeah more tears are rolling down her face and she swallows a few times and nods. But instead of talking because we just can’t yet we hook pinkie fingers again.