Come back soon…part 7

Peter stays with me while mom’s getting us some tea. I’m normally a coffee person but right now they’re not wanting me to have something that might make me edgy. I’m pretty sure it’s decaf tea.

It was really good with him there and him holding me and me getting to hold my Kid sister doll.

“Thanks Pete, this was awesome.”

“Well to be honest I did have some help. I asked Katerina at work what she would have wanted.”

“Oh and she said this?”

“No she first said what I still want y’know and then she kinda let me know about how much it sucked and hurt growing up and being excluded from everything from having friends that were really friends and not her trying to blend in and clothes and stuff. Basically she told me. I want my childhood back.”

(Sniffle.) I nod. “I can so, so get that.”

Peter looks at me and he gives me this well duh look. “Given how much of a sad little lost girl you must have been, yeah you should.”

(Sniffle.) “You’re still being really cool about this.”

“Like I said I know transpeople down there and knowing Katrina has really helped.”

“You like her?”

“Uhm yeah.”

“No I mean like her like her despite everything.”

Peter looks at me. “You know I honestly could. Kat’s nice and she’s charming and she has a great sense of humor.”

“Is she pretty?”

“Very but she’s with a guy and they’re very happy. She’s a co-worker jenny and a friend.”

I nod and look at him. “You seeing anyone yet?”

“I was but currently not at the moment.” He has this clouded look. I turn and hug him this time. “Sorry bro.”

He laughs. “I’m already liking Jenny being out better. Mike was too much of a guy to give a shit.”

I nod and… (Sniffle.) “I wasn’t allowed to that’d be too girly and I thought since all the stuff was going on in my head that I had to be as much a guy as I could stand.”

“Well maybe you’ll be happier as Olive-oil.”

“Olive-oil?”

“Yeah because you were playing Popeye before.”

“What? How was I playing Popeye I don’t know a thing about boats?”

He gets this scrunched up face like he’s trying to imitate Popeye. “’Cause ye could only stans so much and ye couldn’t stans no more.”

Oh my god, I roll my eyes and thump him in the shoulder. “Boo, Boo bad joke that one stank, give me a dollar.”

He grins and nods and he pays me a looney. It’s a tradition in our family that when you tell a really bad joke a person you told it too can charge you a buck. You’d think that’d curb that kind of joking but it actually kind of does the opposite.

Mom comes in with Dad and Tommy and it’s.

It’s my whole family here and in my room and it’s really scary and strange and twilight zone like in the best of ways. I mean dad just sort of comes in and does thing one armed swing to get him planted up on my bed and then he passes a bag of stuff to mom and leans in and kisses my cheek.

“Hey Jenny.”

“Hey Dad.” I’m smiling in that eager but anxious biting my lips kind of way and he takes the chair and mom gets up and slips out leaving dad with the bag and he’s taking out some chocolate milks and a bag of popcorn and mom comes back with one of those COW’s. That’s a computer on wheels the ones you see the nurse with sometimes. Turns out that sometimes they’ll let families use them too or patients.

“Well that would have let me check my e-mails.”

Peter goes. “Pfft, E-mails yeah you just wanted to check your Facebook like any other girl.”

I blush and duck my head. See I have a FB account that’s me and not Mike’s I’ve had it for a while now. Mom looks over at me. “You already have a girl account?”

I nod.

“Well Friend me okay!?”

“Uhm…okay…” Wow that’s scary because if I do then she’ll see stuff that’s me. My stuff and interests and posts. My online life has been me ever since I knew that I could sort of have one there.

There’s a part of me that wants to take that back and hide from it all and her finding out but I’ve already said okay.

We all actually settle in and we watch some movies on DVD. They’re mostly kid stuff but we’re watching Wreck-it-Ralph and Tommy hugs me out of the blue. “You’re not a glitch.”

(Sniffle.) I tear up too because I was so identifying with Vanellope the way she was, how she felt about herself. I know that they made her to appeal to the way that girls feel being the outsiders but I feel it too.

I’ve felt outside of everything all of my life.

It’s all really kind of a good time though with me hugging and hanging onto my little brother and having my Kid Sister doll wedged against me and we are just kind of doing this family movie thing. We haven’t had all of us together in a long time so it’s kind of extra special and it’s the very first really family thing with me being me.

By the time we’re done it’s supper and even though I had popcorn I do have my soup and stuff and the doctor comes in and looks at me.

“Well, I thought that I’d have to wait awhile to have you moved to the ward but we’ve lucked out and one of the private rooms just opened up.”

“Got lucky?”

“Well yes no room at the inn and all that usually.”

“Oh…uhm okay.”

He just nods again and everyone helps me get my things and stuff and I feel kind of silly in my pajamas and carrying a doll and at the same time there’s this scared little girl part of me that is good with it. I kinda need the support. Having my family going with me and helping me out means so much more than I will ever be able to likely say to them.

We go down to the fifth floor and through some hallways and I’ve never really been to the hospital that much other than like going to outpatients of the occasional bit of like blood work that my family doctor had ordered.

I really didn’t know what to think about going into the mental health ward and even the name/title of it on the door made me feel freaked out. That and the fact that while there was security in the hospital you only seen them doing rounds not here…here were two fairly big guys with a desk and stuff like down at reception here outside the doors.

It was kind of scary too even if they sort of friendly smiles.

Inside was…

It was pretty sterile but not at the same time there was actually all this sift pastel blue on the walls and someone made white fluffiness like clouds up all along the ceiling. It was kind of okay and calming I guess. Then there was this large common area with tables and chairs all looking made safe by being all plastic and stuff. Bean bag looking chairs and lots of love seats and there’s a mini library and well it kind of looks like what you’d see in a mental ward out of the movies.

Most of the other patients here look kind of normal and stuff except for a few that are sort of restrained…? Those are kind of scary because they’re not like struggling…well one is and she’s saying stuff in French.

The doctor looks at me. “We have a few hear that aren’t safely mobile as well as some of the Dementia and Alzheimer’s that are too negatively active to be left on a regular nursing floor and often we’re waiting for a room for them in a special care home. That’s Ellie she has Dementia just don’t go too close to her because she might be restrained but she’ll bite if she gets the chance to.”

I’m shown around and we all are and then to my room where the nurses come and meet me but the go over my things too and they look like they’re making a list too while working at seeing if I have anything dangerous.

It’s again a kind of scary thing to have happen.

I earned it though. I think that part of the place is to foster a feeling of never again in us.

Mom helps me get things set up what little I have and then it’s some hugs and kisses and some more hugs and a promise that they’ll be here and back as soon as they’ll be allowed and then they leave.

They leave and I’m all alone in the mental ward.

It’s still kind of early in the afternoon and after a makeup wrecking cry at being here and alone and well just crying because this is what my life turned out like…yeah tears.

And a mess of my face and stuff so I clean up and I decide to sort of go exploring…a book might actually help me keep my mind off of things and me from freaking out until my sessions and stuff where I’ll likely be freaked out.

I actually get lost in looking through the titles and some of these are really old stuff but that’s actually okay as I’m not going to be picky with this stuff. One of the nurses comes over to me. “Jennifer? You have a visitor.”

“Am I allowed any right now?”

“Not family but I think she needs to see you before she explodes or something.”

“Explodes?....wait…Marlene! She hates hospitals with a passion; she’d been in them in her teen years when she had something bad happen in one.” No I don’t know what, she’s never really said but she never stays in them for long.

I head out to the front where she’s at and I stare at her there, my breath catches in my throat and my eyes tear up and I stop in my tracks and look at her there.

She’s pacing, pacing and doing that thing where she keeps doing stuff with her hands that she has no idea of what to do with her hands. She’s beautiful, I’ve always thought so even when she doesn’t. She hates her soft brown hair kissed with red, the straight fall of it. She tries so hard to put body into it and wave. Me I love the way it falls and the way it frames her face. She has glasses and needs them and do I really have to point out the thousands of sexy times and cute ones that come out from that?….And then there’s the blinks…that thing she does when I take her glasses off and kiss her.

It’s all that and more, I love the way she just is and I’ve missed her way more than I could have even put into words.

I’m trying to get it out…but the way I look…her seeing me like this and not in my bad attempt messed up by tears…oh…oh my make up’s all messed up from crying earlier.

“Mar…Marlene…”

She looks up at me because she was sort of not looking my way when I got there or if she saw me she didn’t…

“Mik…Jen?……I…I didn’t recognize you.”

“Y..yeah and scary make-up face doesn’t help.”

She nods and walks over looking at me and shoving her hands into her jacket pocket. So not like that whole casual strut thing…It’s Mar, it’s kinda her secret hunch.

“I…I can’t stay…I…I just can’t not here…and I have to go work…”

I nod and I hug myself and there’s tears there, I can’t help it. “Mar…I…I’m sorry…” It comes out as a whine.

She nods and she hugs me. It’s fast and sudden and it’s the tightest hug I’ve ever had from her in my life and she’s shaking. She’s holding me and she’s shaking herself so hard and It’s all that’s coming out of me… “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…..” Over and over and she’s nodding into my shoulder and neck and I think at one point she was just breathing me in?

She pushes back and she wipes at her face and then my eyes with her thumbs and I’ve never seen her have that kind of expression on her face before. “Jen…I…I have to go…I…”

She shoves this envelope in my hand and she backs off and then leaves pretty fast. It’s that shy girl that Marlene can be sometimes with a lot of that hospital thing and likely…likely what’s in the letter.

Was what she wrote in here that scary?

Mouth dry eyes not I stare at it and where I saw her last and I end up hugging myself. I’m trying to remember her hugging me and I walk to my room and go inside and look out the wireglass window and feel her thumbs wiping my tears away.

I set the letter on my bed and I go wash my face, and drink a bunch of Dixie-cups of water and breathe and try to work up the courage to….

Sit down on my bed, open up the envelope and read…

***

Jennifer…

Still, I can't believe it... That you tried this!

You’re such a vibrant part of my life. And this, this whole thing punched me in the gut…hurt me so bad…took the wing right out of my sails. Seeing you there on the floor not moving, not breathing dressed and mascara run all over your face. I still see it…and I just couldn’t live there anymore.

I’d wake up crying because you weren’t with me and then I’d go out and stare at that spot and my wrists would ache remembering the CPR and the paramedics pulling me away.

I want to hit you for that I really want to scream at you for that.

My life’s never been easy Jen.

I’m not the easiest person in the world to get along with. I get frustrated easy because of all the stuff floating around in my head. Abuse does funny shit to you but you know that and you look past all the other stuff.

Stuff, stuff that no one else in my life ever did and for a while it just hit me so hard that I could have lost you for real and for good that night and it’s been swimming around non-stop in my brain that I could lose you even yet.

Now, it's like living a REAL nightmare. My life without you Jennifer, it’d be so dull, so pointless, so insanely void of anything worthwhile. God just the thoughts, I’ve been choking on my grief for weeks now.

I doubt I’d will ever truly be whole again without you. What's more, I don't want to be anything without you. I’m not going to be the real me I discovered because I fell in love with you.

All I WANT is YOU. All I WANT is YOU here to share life with me.

WITHOUT YOU it IS so utterly Pointless...

I LOVE YOU.

I love you with every breath; without you by my side, holding my hand and breathing with me. Holding me tight against all the stuff during my days and just keeping me safe from myself at night.

My heart aches for you. I need your touch, your smile, your funny jokes and those longing stares and warm tight hugs to reflect my worth. Without you it is all utterly worthless... Really Jennifer.

It’s not about the sex, it can’t be about the sex when I’ve cried and cried over all the stuff that makes you and me and it’s just you that I need, not some gender or sex or…

I just need you.

Come home, please?

***

It’s, It’s so hard to breathe I’m crying that hard and there’s things in here that I never thought…I didn’t know…I mean I knew she love Mike but I really didn’t know the things that she wrote here.

I curl up and grab my pillow and bawl…I’m crying for what I did and I’m crying for what I nearly lost and I’m crying because I feel “Found” for the first time.