Just Super

It’s Thursday afternoon, and I'm moving all my stuff, again. The stuff from my old room is still in boxes. I didn’t see any point in unpacking it, since I hoped I wouldn't be here very long. I do need to pack my other stuff, though. 

I’ve got it all ready to go by the time Checkers appears and starts teleporting in and out, taking a box with her each trip. I try to interrupt her, to tell her I can take care of it, but she’s never there long enough for me to get an entire word out. She’s got them all moved in a minute. Finally, she pauses.

“I’m supposed to take you, too,” she says. She doesn’t reach for me, though.

“I’ll get myself there in a few minutes, if that’s okay.”

She nods.

“Thanks,” I say.

Then she’s gone.

I do one more check of the room to make sure I’m not leaving anything; I fully intend to never see this room again. I find a tube of mascara that rolled under the edge of the counter in the bathroom, but that’s it. Satisfied, I flicker to my aunt and uncle’s house.

I flicker to Vance’s room, which is my room now, I guess. The boxes are stacked neatly against one wall. I can see that Vance has emptied out the closet for me, and a quick check shows that he’s done the same for the dresser.

I drop the mascara on the dresser and leave the room.

“I thought I heard you moving around in there,” Aunt Kate says as I walk into the kitchen. “Welcome home!”

She wraps me in a hug.

“Thanks, Aunt Kate. Where’s Uncle Keith?”

“He ran out to pick up a few things. He’ll be back in a minute.”

I offer to help with dinner, but there’s nothing that needs an extra set of hands at the moment. She suggests I go ahead and get unpacked, so that’s what I do.

During dinner we catch up on stuff that’s not about me and my trauma. Vance didn’t come for dinner tonight, so we talk about him behind his back. Only good things, though. Mostly. I tell some stories about stuff going on at the school. It’s pretty nice.

I manage to convince my aunt and uncle to let me do cleanup after dinner—the bulk of it, anyway. They both help a bit, because, even though I used to spend a decent amount of time over here, that’s been a while, and I’m not sure where everything goes.

“I have a favor to ask,” I say, as we’re finishing up.

“What is it?” Uncle Keith asks.

“Could I invite my friend Denise over for lunch Saturday? She’s had me over a bunch lately, but I wasn’t able to…” I trail off.

“Of course, honey,” Aunt Kate replies, “but that’s not a favor. This is your home, you can have friends over.”

“Thank you.”

Back in my room, I get back to putting things away. I have one box left of the stuff Mom sent to The Residence. I open it up and find a brown envelope on top, with my name on it in Mom’s handwriting.

It’s Friday morning and I’m waiting for Emily next to her usual entrance to the school. If she’s one of the early drop-offs, we’ll have fifteen minutes or so to hang out before school starts. 

She shows up less than a minute after I get there. As soon as she sees me, she gets a big smile on her face, which I can’t help but echo. She closes the hundred foot gap in under two seconds.

“Hi,” she says.

“Good morning.”

“Did you get moved in?”

We walk into the school as we talk.

“Yeah. I got a parting gift from her.”

“Oh no.” She doesn’t ask who “her” is.

I shrug. “It’s not a big deal. She sent it before our last meeting. I think she was trying to make me think she might accept me so I’d come home.”

“What was it?”

“It was a necklace with a little crystal for a pendant.”

“I see you’re not wearing it.”

“Nope. I plan to mail it back to her this afternoon.”

We reach the cafeteria. I don’t think either of us noticed where we were going.

“I’m excited for tomorrow night,” Emily says.

“What’s tomorrow night?”

“You’re joking, right?”

I’m not, and it must show on my face.

For a moment Emily looks hurt, then confused, then embarrassed. 

“Oh, no,” she says. “I forgot to ask you, didn’t I?”

“Ask me what?”

“Our date. I totally forgot to ask you if you wanted to go to a movie tomorrow night.”

She buries her face in her hands.

“Um,” I say, “you still can?”

She looks back up at me and blinks.

I wait.

 “Frank, will you go see Sentry with me tomorrow night?”

As tempting as it is to mess with her, I can see that she’s feeling bad.

“I’d love to.”

Her face lights up.

“Yay!”

We spend the next ten minutes making plans, then rush to class.

It’s Friday afternoon and school is over, but I’m still standing by my locker. Not that I ever really use it, but it’s a place to be while I think about the group of kids gathered in the cafeteria right now.

I can go. It’s not a big deal. Or I can go home and get my homework done for the weekend. That would be okay, too. I want to get to know some other trans folks (other than Emily’s mum), but I’m embarrassed by how long it took me to figure myself out.

I should do this. Before I can chicken out, I flicker to right outside the cafeteria and walk in.

“Hi, people!” I say.

I’m greeted by a chorus of “Hey,” “Hi,” “Hey,” “Hello.” A few of the kids don’t look particularly happy to see me, but they don’t look especially hostile.

“Frank!” Cat stands to greet me. “I’m glad you made it!”

She walks over and holds out a pin. “She/her, right?”

I nod and attach the offered pronoun pin to my top. One of the kids gestures and another chair comes flying across the cafeteria and settles into a gap in the circle. I offer a quick “Thanks” and take a seat.

There’s some general discussion at first, and I mostly stay quiet and listen. I manage to keep from reacting when one of the girls, Luna, says she’s still not sure if she’s trans. She’s changed her name, been on HRT for nine months (and has gotten amazing results), and is using feminine pronouns. 

Glancing around, I can tell that I am definitely not the only one holding back. 

“So are you thinking about detransitioning?” one of the other kids, River, asks.

“Oh, definitely not!” Luna looks horrified at the thought. “I just…” she trails off.

“I get that,” I say. 

I get a couple glares, and one of the kids starts to say something, but Cat waves them off.

“I was going to stay like this even before I decided I was trans,” I continue. “There’s no rush. It seems like you’re pretty happy with where you’re headed, and you’re just stressing out over the label. My advice is don’t let anyone else force you into picking one.”

She perks up at that. “Thanks,” she says.

There’s some more discussion, and I go back to mostly listening.

“So, Frank,” Cat says, when the conversation ebbs, “You’ve been looking like you might want to ask something?”

She’s good. Not that I have the world’s best poker face, but I didn’t think I was that obvious.

“Yeah,” I reply, “it’s about the whole name thing. I’ve been trying to decide if I’m going to change mine, and I was wondering how you all decided whether to change yours, and how did you pick new ones?”

That starts a pretty big discussion. Most of them did change their names. Their methods of choosing, though, vary a lot. There are at least a couple of those methods that I will definitely not be using.

First, there’s the classic “opposite gendered version of their old name.” I will not be changing my name to “Frankie,” “Francine,” or “Francesca,” thank you very much. Then there’s asking their parents what they would have named them had they been assigned the opposite gender at birth. No and definitely one hundred percent no. Finally, I take “Dawn” off my list; we already have three of those in this meeting alone.

A couple suggestions get shouted out, but Cat puts a stop to that.

“Are you looking for suggestions for a name right now?” she asks me.

“No. Thanks, though.” The latter is addressed to the kids who had made suggestions. I can’t help thinking, though, that I sort of liked Luna’s suggestion.

When the meeting is over, instead of flickering straight to my aunt and—no, instead of flickering straight home, I walk with the group out to the teleport area. As we walk, Cat falls in beside me.

“I’m glad you came to the meeting. Do you think you’ll keep coming?”

“Probably not every Friday, but yeah, I’d like to. It’s nice to be around other people who’ve gone through what I have.” I think about that. “Or close enough.”

She nods and I notice that she’s walking very close to me. She’s cute. Her auburn hair is in a pixie cut, in contrast to the shoulder length dark blond of her guy form. I realize I’m staring and look away just in time. She looks at me.

“Thanks for that with Luna. We’ve told her basically that many times, but I think hearing it from a new girl helped.”

“That’s good.”

“So,” she hesitates,”you and Emily.”

I can’t help but smile a little. “Yeah.”

“Lucky girl.”

“Yep. I am.”

“I meant her, but you, too.”

I’m definitely blushing.

“I better get home,” I manage to say, after a couple of tries. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

I flicker away.

I really wish I could carry people with me when I teleport. It’s almost noon and Denise isn’t here yet. There was an incursion close to the L, so it was shut down for a half hour. She’s on her way now, but I am impatient. So impatient that I barely resist the urge to flicker to wherever she is right now.

My aunt and uncle are out, so I have the place to myself for the moment. When Denise texts me that she’s ten minutes away, I resume cooking lunch. I’m serving it into bowls when the doorbell rings.

“Hi!” we both say when I open the door. We hug, then I usher her to the dining table.

“Smells delicious,” she says. “What are we having?”

“It doesn’t have a name yet. You’re my guinea pig.”

“Why is that? And what’s in it?”

“Because if it’s any good, I’m going to make it for Emily soon. And it’s TVP sauteed with onions and bell peppers, mixed with macaroni cooked in tomato juice.”

She takes a bite. “Ooh, it’s good.”

“Thanks!”

We chat over lunch, then, once I’ve cleaned up, we head out for the afternoon’s next activity—shopping. Mom did not, in fact, drain my bank account, and my caseworker, Ms. Alvarez, helped us change the responsible adult to my aunt. In other words, I have money to buy something to wear for my date tonight.

“Cute, but…”

“It’s not me, right?”

Denise nods.

We’re running out of time. It’s five o’clock, and my date is at six thirty. There was yet another incursion, and this time we were stuck on the train, waiting for the all clear. Denise was stuck anyway, and I wasn’t going to leave her on her own when she was here to help me out.

“I’m lost here,” I say. “I have no idea what to wear. Should I go fancy? Casual?”

“Why don’t you ask Emily what she’s going to wear?”

“I can do that?” Of course I can. Denise hands me my purse and I take out my phone.

Me: What are we wearing?

Em: ?

Me: I’m new at this. I don’t want to be over or under dressed

Em: hold on

Five minutes later she sends me a mirror selfie. She’s wearing a pair of nice jeans and a red blouse.

Me: Thanks. See you soon

Em: ❤️

“She’s wearing this.” I show Denise. “If it’s chilly, she’ll probably wear her leather jacket.”

“Mostly casual, then.”

A few minutes later, I find what I want. It only takes me a few more minutes to collect the rest of an outfit, and Denise and I set out for her apartment, where I’m going to get dressed and do my makeup.

“Do you have any advice for tonight?” I ask Denise.

She stares at me. Her only response is to blink a couple of times. Finally she points to the aroace pride flag on her wall. We’re in her bedroom, finishing up on my makeup. 

“You have a lot of strong opinions on my look,” I say, “for someone who’s uninterested in such things.”

“What can I say; I’m into the aesthetics of the whole thing.”

I shrug at that, then stand.

“Thank you so much for your help.”

Denise wraps me in a hug. “Good luck,” she says.

I step away and flicker to the spare room at Emily’s house.

“boo.”

It’s said quietly, but I still nearly jump out of my stompy boots.

Emily is standing behind me, giggling.

“Seriously?” I ask. “What are you, five?”

“But you’re cute when you’re startled.”

My cheeks get hot and I look away.

“And when you’re embarrassed,” she continues, then steps back and takes in my outfit.

I’m wearing a black sundress, with red fishnet hose, and my stompiest boots. 

“Really, really cute,” she continues.

It takes me a moment to form words.

“Why are you like this?” I say.

She grins at me and walks out of the room. 

I follow her to the front door.

“Moms!” she calls out, “We’re heading out!”

“Have fun!” one of her moms calls back.

Outside, she turns to me.

“Okay, it’s about two miles that way,” she says. “I could fly ahead, and you could teleport when I get there, or, you can choose option b.”

“What’s option b?”

She puts her hands behind her back and looks off to the side, not saying a word.

“Fine, option b—”

She scoops me up in a princess carry before I can react. I throw my arms around her neck as we rise rapidly into the air.

“I’ll go slow enough that it doesn’t mess up your hair,” she says. “Much.”

True to her word, we sail along at a leisurely pace. It’s a cool night, and I hold myself tight against her warmth. We’re traveling slowly enough, there’s no real wind noise, so we could talk, but neither of us says a word.

She lowers us to the ground in a pool of darkness behind the theater.

“What a lovely smell,” I say. Then I curse myself silently. Yeah, the dumpster stinks, but I didn’t need to say anything. 

“Sorry,” she replies. She looks embarrassed.

“No, I’m sorry I mentioned it.”

We walk around the building to the front. We don’t speak, but it’s a different kind of not-speaking than while we were in the air. Good going, Frank, way to ruin the mood.

We walk in as they open the auditorium to start seating. We find our seats and Emily pulls the menus out from under the table in front of the seats. She hands me one.

“The pizza is good,” she says.

The server comes by, and we place our orders. There are a bunch of related video clips running while the lights are still on, before the previews, but we mostly ignore them. Emily asks me about my new home, and we spend the time until the lights go down talking about that.

Our food arrives during the previews, and we quietly munch away as those play, then the movie starts.

The seats have armrests, and not far into the movie, I put my arm there to find it occupied by Emily’s . I put my hand on top of hers and squeeze lightly. She turns her palm up, and we interlace our fingers. We sit like that for a while. Occasionally, one of us squeezes the other’s hand, lightly.

After a bit, I tug gently and pull her hand closer, onto my thigh. Then I slide my hand out of her grip. When she doesn’t move it away, I put my own hand on her thigh. When I do, she lightly squeezes my thigh. I squeeze back.

I’m hating the armrest at this point. I want to be pressed up against her side. Why are we watching the movie at the theater? On her sofa we could be closer. I glance at her at the same time she glances at me. We both grin.

I’m not sure what’s going on in the movie. Emily’s presence is way too distracting. It turns out I can lean far enough across the armrest for our shoulders to touch. That’s definitely better than nothing.

Eventually, the movie ends. I’m half happy, half disappointed. We can leave and be closer, but the evening is close to over. I usually stay through the credits, but the moment they start rolling, we both stand and make our way out of the theater.

“What did you think?” Emily asks.

“About what?”

“The movie?”

“There was a movie?”

She shoves me lightly on the shoulder.

“It was fine,” I answer. “What did you think?”

“The book was better.”

“Well, yeah.”

“Are you okay with walking home?” she asks. “It’s only a couple of miles.”

“I’m too heavy for you?” I tease.

She rolls her eyes. “It’s not great for talking, even without a lot of wind.”

She has a point.

“Walking is good.”

She takes my hand and leads me across the parking lot to the street. It doesn’t take us long to leave the busier streets for the quieter roads of her neighborhood. For a while we talk about nothing in particular—school, the movie we just watched, stuff like that. That conversation fades and we walk in silence for a bit. We end up in the park down the street from her house.

She leads us to the same bench we sat on last weekend—last weekend when she told me she liked me. I smile; she really does like me. It’s amazing, but…

I feel like I wasted so much time. Could I have had a year and a half more of this? If I’d found a better coping mechanism? Or maybe if she had told me before that she—

No. 

“Thank you,” I say.

“For what?”

“For not trusting me.”

“What?”

“For not trusting me before I changed,” I clarify. “Not this—” I gesture at myself, “—I mean really changed.”

She raises an eyebrow.

I go on. “If you’d told me you liked me before, one of two things would have happened. Either I’d have been an asshole about it, and we’d never have gotten here, or I’d have cleaned up my act sooner.”

“Would that have been so bad?” 

I’m pretty sure she already knows the answer.

“Yeah, it would have, because I wouldn’t have been doing it for myself, or to do the right thing. I would have been doing it for you, and who knows if it would ever have become real.”

“That’s why I waited.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Sure, I didn’t want to date an asshole, but I also didn’t want your—” she hesitates, “—behavior? Morals? Character? Whatever. I didn’t want any of that to be my responsibility. I have enough of that already.”

“Yeah, you do.”

“I’m glad I waited, too.”

She’s waiting again. She’s looking at me like I’m supposed to say something. Or like she hopes I will. It takes me a moment to figure it out.

“I have this thing,” I say. “If I’m not actively trying to hide my thoughts or feelings, I tend to assume everyone knows them. I know better if I think about it, usually, but I forget.”

She waits expectantly.

“I like you. I like you a lot. I like you more than anyone else I’ve ever known.”

I’m not sure which of us moves—probably both—but we’re only inches away from each other. With my hand that isn’t held in hers, I reach up and stroke her cheek.

She glances down at my lips, then back to my eyes. I give a tiny nod. We kiss.

Her lips are utterly, perfectly soft. Maybe part of that is how soft my lips are now. This isn’t my first kiss, but it is my first kiss since I knew I was a girl, and since I changed my body. 

She pulls back from the kiss and stands, then holds out both hands to me. I take them and she pulls me up off the bench. I wrap my arms around her to pull her close, and end up pulling myself up against her immovable self. She laces her fingers behind my lower back and I feel my feet leave the ground. If this were anyone else, that might make me nervous, but I’ve never felt safer. I can’t imagine her dropping me. 

Sometime in the last minute or so, my eyes closed. All of my attention is focused on my senses of touch, smell, and taste. She nibbles on my lower lip, and when it parts from my upper lip in reaction, her tongue darts into my mouth, for just a second,

She shifts both of us around until she’s sitting cross-legged up here in the sky, and I’m sitting on her calves, facing her. I place a hand on each of her cheeks, running my fingers into her hair. I press every inch of myself I can manage up against her. Our chests are pressed together, and that’s a feeling I never came close to imagining. 

We’re as close as we can get, but we’re not close enough. I hear little happy noises as we kiss, and it takes me a moment to realize that they’re mine. I pull my face back a few inches. I need air.

Emily gazes into my eyes. A half smile flickers across her face. An instant before I was going to lean back in, she gets there first, and we’re kissing again.

We’re up there for at least a half hour before I can summon enough willpower to say what comes next.

“I better get home,” I say. A glance down shows me that we’re several hundred feet in the air.

She gives me a sad look.

“No puppy dog eyes,” I protest.

She doesn’t stop.

I lean in again.

Five minutes later I come back up for air. We’re even with the tops of the tallest trees, now.

“That was…” Emily trails off.

“Go on.”

“Nice.”

“Just nice?” It’s my turn to give puppy dog eyes.

“Nice, and amazing, and wonderful. It’s just…”

“Just what?” Now I’m worried.

“I think we can do better.”

Oh, she’s teasing.

“I’m willing to try.”

“So am I,” she replies, “as many times as it takes.”

Another minute of silence.

We’re not kissing now. We’re touching. She brushes the hair away from one of my ears. I trace the line of her jaws with my fingers.

“I don’t suppose you want me to fly you home?”

“I do, but I think I’d be a little late.”

She sighs, and I notice we’re only a few feet above the ground. She places her hands on me and gently sets me down on the sidewalk in front of her house. We hold hands and walk up to her front door. We share a quick kiss.

“Good night, Frank.”

“Goodnight, Emily.”

Another quick kiss.

Five minutes later I flicker to my room.