Heart ofthe Beholden

One. I’m Chinese. Yes I’m one of those adopted out of China babies. Two. I’m a girl. Well I’m a girl on the inside. Where nobody knows... The Parchment Chapter 12 By Bailey Summers Copyright© 2014 Bailey Summers All Rights Reserved.

123rf.com. The model in this image in no way supports nor conveys the issues and situations brought up within the story. The models use within this work is solely for the representation of looks of the main character of this particular story. ~Sephrena

I bite down on myself inside and I give him a hug, a tight one and he hugs me back. “I’m going to crash for a while Alex, I had an awesome time…thank you so much.”

“I had a great time too Jade, I really did.”

“Okay…have a great game.” Bite hard girl…no crying or getting weepy about this.

“Thanks Jade you’re pretty amazing…” And dammit he says that just as I’m fighting with my keycard and he leaned over and he kissed my cheek.

It’s a kiss on the cheek but it’s still a kiss on the cheek with Alex knowing.

I give him a smile that I’m not sure where I found the willpower to get on my face and he slips away and I slip into my room and lean back against the door.

Everything…everything has been just so great and alive and amazing so…so why do I feel like crying so badly.

*And Now…

I turn my head and I press my ear to the door and try to hear all of his footfalls away from me and it hurts. It’s that lump in my throat that I just can’t swallow and I make sure my door’s locked and I go over and I fall down face first into the bed.

I have a few shaky sobs before I get the pillows and some of the sheets yanked over my head and I start crying.

Start crying for the might be’s and never’s and cry really loudly.

I’m not home, I’m someplace where I don’t need to hide when I need to really cry as myself.

It’s torture not to y’know…. To be so fake.

Not having a place or a space in your life to just do this…to be able to cry and let loose.

I don’t take my little portable radio into the bathroom when I shower because I like to sing in the shower.

And this is a full on wreck my make-up sucky cry too one of those ones that makes way too much goo and leaves me with the hiccups.

Between that and not really sleeping and the sugar crash I cry myself to sleep even with the hiccups and all.

I’m not sure if it’s the food but I had vivid dreams.

Me being me but with Alex in them this time.

Alex being my hero.

Then falling in love.

Then him finding out.

Or…

Well the or stuff was nightmare kind of stuff with Donna knowing I’m Trans and pointing it out to everyone in the restaurant and me getting kicked out and all that horrible stuff.

And the last one with Alex leaving me after this fuzzy dream like relationship for a real girl with all the real girl parts and stuff.

I know, I know it’s not like Alex had really been anything more than just a friend to me and really, really cool but when you crush so hard and you get the chance to feel so good and to feel so real it’s just so…

It’s waking up and holding the pillow tight to your tummy because there’s this ache there radiating out from your insides of not having the stuff that you should have and it hurts so badly.

It takes me at least twenty minutes to untangle myself and to shake off the nightmares and cobwebs and get up.

Part of me doesn’t want to and part of me doesn’t want to waste the time that I’ve wasted while sleeping here in one of the only places in my life that I can just be me.

The combination of dry mouth and having to pee gets me moving far more than anything else does honestly. I forgo breakfast by room service and all of that and I get a can of Dr. Pepper from one of my bags and drink it down and then I head to shower and stuff.

I take my I-pod and its stand into the bathroom and plug it in so I can listen to music while I get ready and am listening to my own file mix of songs that I like that actually get me going and that pick me up.

There’s actually a whole lot of Disney songs on there…

A Whole New World… and yeah I’m so singing Jasmine’s part.

Love… From Robin Hood and that’s short but it’s just wonderful and stuff really and a very underrated masterpiece.

Part of Your World…From The Little Mermaid and wow are there ever sappy kinda crushing and in love sort of songs there.

And I will admit that I have the entire score for Pocahontas and Beauty and The Beast on there too and a lot of other stuff too.

So by the time I’m letting Lumierre charm me with “Be Our Guest.” And I’m butt dancing along with Baloo as he sings “Bare Necessities” I’m in a much better mood and enough that I’m pop dancing and rocking out sort of to “Sobakasu” Which is the opening theme to Rurouni Kenshin a really classic anime but I’m listening to the English translation even though the Japanese one’s fine but I’m nowhere near fluent so…and the English one’s a whole lot of fun.

And my costume for today?

Relic Hunter.

I might not be able to pull of Laura Croft but I can do a pretty decent Tia Carrere and I have a unisex leather coat that sort of looks right and the rest is a sort of combination of old grey jeans and the right bra and getting the look down but a lot of it is actually facial expression and the hair.

I’m actually really, really good at this because she’s actually one of my heroines. Okay I know she’s not my specific brand of Asian but she’s still an Asian woman that had a fairly great run with a show in that whole b-level of SF styled shows.

There’s nothing wrong with B-levels, not all shows can be Star Trek or Stargate or Firefly there’s stuff like Sanctuary and Warehouse 13 and Haven that are awesome as they are or where it’s part of their charm.

I pack up some of my things just to sort of get a start on things and I get my bag and stuff and I head down to the convention floor.

I’m kind of glad that I waited and slept because it seems to be the thing that’s been going on with a lot of people and there’s some that I can tell just boycotted sleep altogether.

They have a buffet in one of the offset dining rooms and I go there for coffee first and look around and there’s some themed foods and stuff that are kind of funny and I do get a granola that has fruits and labeled as a “sylvan salad” It’s actually pretty yummy with sesame crisp candy wafers crushed into it and there’s fruit like strawberries and black berries but also some gooseberries the orange things with that funny natural wrapper stuff and kumquats as well as bits of dragon fruit and star fruit too all in all it’s like really pretty and kinda good.

I’m not a fan of star fruit, it’s like eating a really kind of watery flower tasting thing and there wasn’t a lot of taste to the dragon fruit either but it was really pretty though. I do really like the difference the crushed up sesame treat does for the granola though.

Once I’m fed I hit the stands looking at stuff and drooling over some things that I soooo want but can’t really come close to afford.

Oh I know some of it’s so not girlie but I love Macross and some of the veritech large scale toys are amazing. But soooo not cheap and I have nowhere near the room to put any of them at home.

Comics on the other had I am getting, even more of them since there’s a lot of issues of things that I’m missing and some that I just like and want to have just to have them.

My mainstays are Spiderwoman, Arana, Electra but I’m also a fan of the Starwars lines and I’m actually trying to collect most of those and I love TMNT as well as Yojimbo. Please don’t confuse some of these with the kiddified market versions. They’re not it’s like…

It’s like Ultimate Spiderman and comparing it with the latest Spiderman cartoon on Teletoon that is kind of based off the same sort of idea.

But nowhere close…

Gah…it’s good to get this stuff out.

There’s a sign of the real geekette and fan girl…we bitch about stuff.

Like a fan does.

Like how Rogue, beloved freaking Rogue has a dozen different versions and most of them get treated like canon but ignore the Rogue that was in The Brotherhood and was the Dazzler Villainess.

Sad…I liked that Rogue.

Or Psylocke…I love the Character but Betsy Braddock has to be one of the most Americanized British women I have ever seen. I’m sorry but she should still have the language thing and the words going on and the food and stuff.

I want her to call someone a wanker or a prat.

I want to see her in the rain with a decent jacket and wearing wellies.

I’m actually feeling better as I’m telling a bunch of this to a bunch of other girls that are kind of discussing female characters and stuff in comics and animation. And it’s fun and it’s cool to not be alone in some of these things.

Like super heroines and skirts.

Literally the only thing in herodom more useless than capes.

And y’know it’s a lot of fun getting to do this and to actually be myself around other girls and stuff and we actually kind of go from the comic tables with our bags and stuff and head off to the Magic cards tables and get ready for the Queens tournament which is an all-girl gamer table for using Magic Cards.

I’m playing and yeah there’s part of my brain that is always there guarded and hiding all at the same time sort of whispering to me that I shouldn’t be here that I’m not one of them. That I’m taking the place of some real girl.

A side effect of reading stuff online and seeing the opinions of people about transpeople.

Part of me though is so happy that I’m passing and just being included in like the way that I should have been included and stuff.

Things like this honestly might be the only thing that I’ll ever have like this. I’m adopted…so literally my family is the only thing that I really have and losing that over being Trans…

Wow…part of so wishes that I drank.

Well like the gods and goddesses and the muses intended the tournament does its magic and I’m getting distracted from my RL pains and bullshit and we’re all having fun but I’m losing a lot of my games. We’re doing round-robin style of play so I have more chances but it’s not like my skills are really polished I don’t have regular players to do that with where I’m still sort of only on the fringes of the geek crowd back home and stuff.

But some of the girls and women playing have and they’ve been playing these extraordinary games and stuff and I’ve been sitting after most of them and watching with another girl Annie who is actually following some of the stuff with her tablet looking up some of the cards she doesn’t know off by heart and the rest of us are doing golf whisper commentary as to who did what and what the other might counter with…and that’s kind of a game in itself.

Another girl Posy…yes I actually have met someone called Posy she does a running commentary of the action but she does it in this Australian accent and she’s doing this Steve Erwin bit whenever someone uses a creature card.

It’s pretty good when we get these serious girls that are playing hiding grins and trying not to laugh at the commentary.

We actually have a good time and while I don’t place in any of the prizes I get some cool pictures with Annie and Posy before we head off to do different things.

I kind of bite the bullet and give in and go looking for Alex.

And I see him with a group of people with him out of his Skeeve costume and he’s just in jeans and a baggy green lantern t-shirt and they’re all eating together in the general dining room and they’re talking about something and it’s a kind of mixed group of guys and girls and here’s where my regular self comes in.

I don’t know them, so I can’t go over. I sort of freeze up because I don’t want to intrude…no I kind of want to intrude I honestly do want to go over there and say stuff to just talk to him but like always my feet are like lead boots and I just can’t seem to find my voice.

Because he’s smiling and he’s laughing and who the heck am I to get in the way of Alex having fun.

And I soooo have this horrible expectation that if I did go over there I’d be so awkward that it’d be kind of like….y’know that I’d kill the vibe and it’d shut down and there’d just be…crickets.

I slip away before Alex gets to see me and I wander off back into the convention trying to find some solace in the booths and the stuff that they have there.

I’m trying really hard to force the blahs back and to just let me be me but like me before meeting Alex.

At some point y’know you have to let go of things that you were really likely never meant to have.

Not everyone gets to be happy.

I slip out to the main halls; I need a drink I need something cold to press to my forehead so I don’t start crying and stuff. I want to be here, I want to enjoy this because it’s the last night…they’re packing up and stuff tomorrow…I’ll be leaving and it’s already suppertime….this isn’t fair!