Masks Chapter 44

*Before…

The trick is to not to put the popcorn in until last when the dough is all done and you mix it one good time and then bake them off fast before the popcorn gets soggy.
And you have peanut butter...chocolate...then salty and crunchy and buttery popcorn.
I only have one and a half... I share one with Mary Jane but Dad has three and Becky's dad has five and we get some for Mom and Aunt Elsbeth.
Dad says. "You girls get ready after you help clean up okay it's getting late."
"Okay Daddy!"
I get a look after I hug Dad and head inside and I hear Becky's Dad say. "Okay...I still don't get all of it but...that's your daughter of close enough that I'm done worrying about it. Besides...."
And Dad's like. "Besides?”
And Becky's Dad’s all... "Becky's had honestly brought worse friends over Rob, you and her are welcome over here like any time."
I can't help but be all grins and the girls are looking at and we all yay cheer and happy dance into the kitchenette to clean up.

*And Now…

It’s actually really nice, doing all of this and cleaning up all together and stuff and even if the kitchenette is small and we’re sort of all over each other we’re doing it is a good way. Kind of a lot like how we were doing the make-over stuff in the bathroom earlier and that’s a lot of fun.

We all get ready to head out and Dad and Becky’s dad are doing the guy thing with the looks and the handshake thing and all that sort of like body language stuff that I fake all the time and everything.

I mean I get it but only sort of get it I can try and go through the motions and stuff but there’s no deep meaning that I can like get out of guydom.

Then we’re in the van and we’re headed home and Mary Jane looks at me. “Well that went better than it could have.”

I nod. “Honestly I was kind of on the edge of like scared and stuff.”

Dad looks over at me. “You still might run into people that won’t get you being you Steph.”

I nod. “I know, but it’s just not me Daddy. It’s never been me and it’s making me honestly feel sick.”

He looks at me. “I get that kiddo.”

It’s a really short drive home and Aunt Els is staying the night because mom and her rendered walking kind of not a good idea much less driving and M.J. and I walk over to her house to get some things for her and to make sure everything that’s off needs to be off and all that stuff before coming home and getting ready for bed.

I’m sleeping with Mary Jane.

Well she’s sleeping with me more like it and it’s like just us and it’s actually okay with Mom and Dad.

Mary Jane makes us hot chocolate and I actually get some stuff together for school along with Mark’s help who is packing and making things himself?

“Big date?”

He blushes some. “No I just thought that it’d be cool if I brought lunch for us both to eat at school?”

I nod. “Take one of the picnic cloths that mom has and eat outside.”

He brightens and he gives me a hug when I get them for him and he’s making salad with granola as the croutons and he is making chicken salad with a bit of deli ham and mustard and cheese and it’s sort of like a cordon-blue clubhouse? I show him to put paper towel in the containers so they soak up the extra moisture and all and then we both make dessert for our lunches and that’s just frozen mixed berries and jello and we spilt that and the salad he made and I take some mixed veggie like baby carrots and celery sticks and other nommy things snack on and I don’t do a dip because it’s messy and well it’s like possible lactose or nuts and stuff.

We pack it all up and I load the coffee maker and get a bowl beside it with another filter and more coffee to do a fast reload.

Mom’ll want coffee and so will Aunt Els.

Once that’s done it’s like late enough given it’s like a school night so I head to shower and stuff and get ready for the night with M.J. and we sort of make Will and Rob use the downstairs bathroom while we’re getting ready.

The fact that I can sort of do that kind of sort of makes me feel a little less dammit about my body compared to M.J.’s.

And I hate feeling like jealous of her because I know all of the shit she had gone through from like before.

But oh wow I want a body like that and I can never have it.

And she didn’t even get undressed or dressed in front of my but just seeing her in her sleepwear is still enough for me to feel the ow’s and those just freaking peachy dysphoria hits.

I shove it down and I shove it deep because Mary Jane is my best friend and I’m not going to make her feel bad. I am not those horrible girls that made her life so much hell.

We climb into bed together and there’s more than enough room because really I’m not all that big. As Steven, as a boy you kind of sort of learn this thing were you kinda seem big even if you’re not and to like take up space and everything.

Another thing I’ve always faked really I think that stuff like that is kind of innate to guys as like a territorial thing and that I never had.

Seriously being trans and not out is fake it to you make it. That scary crappy hope that maybe that somehow something you’re trying to do might click.

It like has to click because usually for a whole bunch of us transition doesn’t become like a thing. So if you don’t click with what you’re faking you’re living lies and in a lot of pain.

I don’t want to do that anymore, I’m not sure that I can do this anymore.

Mary Jane slides close to me and she hugs me. “Sorry.”

“Sorry about what?”

“Triggering you.”

“You didn’t.”

“Yeah then why’d you get quiet?”

“…………………”

She hugs me tighter.

(Sniffle.) “I don’t want to be like them M.J. I don’t want to be one of those jealous bitches.”

“You’re not, seriously Steph you’re not it’s like one thing for you to like feel this stuff and being trans it’s like natural really and everyone wishes they were like someone else sometimes but you’re not like those other girls that turned on me, you just don’t have it in you.”

“I’d rather an innie than an outie.” (Sniffle.)

She hugs me close. “I know, we’ll get through this together and stuff.”

It doesn’t take too long with that cleared up between us for us to fall asleep, it’s been a long day and even with the little ups and downs between Becky’s dad and him being scary and my little dysphoria hit and all the cool stuff with having Becky over and Mom and Aunt Els doing the poetry and the food and then going to Becky’s house and having fun.

I kinda wonder though as I’m drifting off do other trans girls sleep on their sides so they can tuck between easier, do they hold a pillow to their chest folded over or something like it to sort of feel like they have even if it’s in their sleep the right shape?

Are they never a boy in their dreams?

I don’t like remember all of my dreams but I get enough pieces over the years that I’m always a girl and sometimes there’s me changing into one and stuff but usually I’m just Stephanie and it’s like super, super simple stuff like me in a two-piece and moving right and my hair in a ponytail and I’m mowing the lawn or something only I’m doing it as like me.

Or shopping for clothes and it’s not the clothes it’s that shopping with nothing to feel like off about. I mean like how sad is it that shopping for clothes at the thrift store and not having to think about what you’re not or all the little stuff that you have to think about to dress and not be like that boy in the dress?

Those are like my dreams mostly.

When I wake up there’s little drifting clouds of me ta school and changing with all the other girls for gym and no one staring or saying anything and I was just me. Just plain ordinary Stephanie…it was nice.

And Mary Jane is all over the place in bed, she’d doing this kind of sprawl thing all over me and she’s not snoring but she’s really close to it and she’s in this super mess.

Wow…wow her hair.

Okay that I’m not jealous of.

I try and to dislodge myself and get clear and I was trying to be careful until I realized it’d take a freight train to wake her up and I get out of bed and head to the bathroom and I can smell breakfast going or at least the smell of toast toasting and the coffee maker going.

Dad…it has to be I can smell the bakery bought dark multigrain bread as its toasting and that’s something that’s sort of his trademark in the house. If it was mom you’d still smell toast but she’s more of a plain bread person.

I shower and then it’s putting myself away again and putting Steven in place all over again.

Just a little bit longer, this’ll be one less day no matter what happen after I come out at least I’ll be out.

I head to my room and get dressed and it’s not that I really hate the clothes, some of them are just clothes and girls can wear whatever. It’s just not my clothes and I don’t have the things that I wear as Steph so my shape is all wrong.

Mary Jane’s still out like a light and she actually moved to take up my space too and I head downstairs in my jeans and socks with my WE-day T-shirt on and I see Dad is up and the door to the deck is open and he’s making breakfasts which seems to be loads of toast for everyone and coffee but also he has like cast iron frying pans on the grill outside with ham and bacon going with something else.

I look at him. “Not working today?”

“Nope, not really it’s a drying day for the Clementine’s deck and I have some after lunch stuff and office time so I thought I’d step up and do the pro-dad thing and super husband thing this morning.”

“You kinda knocked the dad thing out of the park last night Dad.”

“Dad? Not Daddy?”

I shrug and then look at him and sort of wordlessly gesture up and down at my body looking like this.

He nods and he comes over and he gives me a really big tight hug which is hard to deal with and process the way I want to as Steven.

It’s like distorted.

Steven’s the funhouse like mirror of my life feeling included I guess.

I sigh hard and I do hug him back and I mumble into his side. “I’ll be so glad to be done this Dad; I’m so tired of faking it.”

He gives me this really super squeeze. “You don’t have to wait Steph, you can stay home until we get the therapy stuff sorted and then things with the school sorted and you don’t have to do this anymore kiddo.”

I push my face against him pretty hard. “I want to dad I do but I don’t want to get behind and I want my friends to know and to like maybe have some people there with me and on my side before it all comes out and stuff.”

“I know but we hate seeing you like this and you don’t have to do it Steph.”

“I want to try, I do.”

“Just remember if it gets too much you don’t have to do it.”

I nod and push away and go and get some coffee and it’s Mary Jane so double-double style and dad gets two travel mugs for coffee and he pours them full and does one for Mom and one for Aunt Els and toast. Mom’s is white bread with loads of peanut butter and for Aunt Els it’s a slice of multigrain with our pumpkin marmalade on it.

Pumpkin marmalade is like any marmalade with oranges only we have pumpkin pie spices in it and then there’s dried pumpkin in it but not like the dried chips but more like the whole fruit leather kind of stuff and the marmalade puts moisture back into it.

I like it because it’s chunky, and to me jelly can be smooth but I like jams and stuff to have really big chunks of things in it.

Like I said we do pumpkin here a lot because it’s the fall and Halloween and I still honestly think it’s because mom and dad went without as kids.

And I will admit it’s such a seasonal treat thing in our house now, pumpkin and pumpkin spice season just like when we have like the maple season when all the stuff from those places comes out in the stores or like even hunting season and Dad doesn’t hunt but he knows guys and there’s places that you can like buy stuff.

And Dad likes to buy that stuff because it helps people and it’s also like dude-manly.

I smile and I take the stuff to Mom and Aunt Els first and she’s like M.J. or sort of she was in that sort of coma state until mom shook her and she woke up pretty fast.

Mom woke as soon as I pretty much came in and she smelled the food and the coffee.

She smiled and she actually ate three bites of toast first before she took started in on her coffee.

“Thanks Steph.”

“Dad’s cooking it’s a varnish crew day.”

She two hands the mug and smiles. “Good, I like it when he’s like this.”

I nod. “It’s kinda cool that he likes to spoil you sometimes.”

She smiles some more and she drinks another mouthful. “There’s a lot of ways to say that you love someone but your dad’s always been good at it.”

Aunt Els nods. “I’m not the wife he really didn’t have to do anything for me. He’s just that kind of guy.”

I smile. “I think he’s pretty awesome too. I’d better get this coffee to Mary Jane so she has time to tame her hair.”

Aunt Els nods. “Yeah the curse of the curls.”

I leave them to their hangover recovery and I head to my room and take M.J. her coffee and it takes a shake or five to get her to open her eyes and I wave the coffee under her nose and she takes it and rolls over so she can drink some and she yawns and I play with her hair.

“I take back the jealousy stuff from last night, this is a mess.”

She gives me this grumpy look. “See told ya.”

I shrug. “You want help?”

“No, I got this I have a process and it’s all like shower related….you okay?”

“Nope, but I think that I can deal and stuff.”

“You sure?”

“Nope.”

I give her a kiss on the cheek. “But I haven’t had breakfast or coffee yet so I’m going to wait and see after my blood sugar and caffeine fix.”

She holds her hand out and I take it and pull her upright before I head out and back downstairs.

Dad’s got things on the table more and there’s another pot of coffee gurgling away in the perk and I can hear the guys are up and moving and stuff and I get a plate and a piece of toast with lots of the pumpkin marmalade on it and butter and then a little ham and a slice of the bacon not like too much stuff.

I still really like that he does it on the grill outside sometimes because he tosses in a few of the wood chips he uses for like regular BBQ and all of the stuff has that cooked over wood taste and with the heavy multigrain bread toast and the chunky marmalade it’s cozy kind of hug you food.

Mom’s like good at so much stuff in the kitchen and cooking but dad is great on the grill and he makes like killer breakfasts too.

I’m eating when Mark and Will and Rob come down and food swarm like locusts and it’s just scary how much they eat really. I don’t want to be like that, I don’t want the size or the weight and all that stuff that is still coming at me like a freight train.

I finish and go and get my things for school and then get my thermos for coffee and it doesn’t take that long before the current pot is drained between me and Dad and the boys and even with me making the thermos of coffee to take to school and stuff there’s another pot of right after that because I’ve just had one and so have the boys and there’s still M.J. and Mom and Aunt Els to come down.

Yes we drink a lot of coffee.

Yes I’m a teenager and I’m drinking coffee. It’s not even like uncommon here either and Mom and Dad would rather have me have a coffee than me being like so many other kids and buying pop.

That’s something that we really don’t have a whole lot of here in the house and I don’t drink it much either.

Way too much sugar.

I’m all ready and then everyone else is down and it’s the free for all that it is in the mornings sort of and Mary Jane looks great as usual but she’s still sort of in that not fully functioning but I’m awake and here thing by the time she and I are heading off to the bus stop.

Dad was making French toast for mom in the hot skillet on the grill with the bacon pan as we were leaving.

I’m halfway torn between wanting to be like that for someone and have someone doing that for me sometime in my life.

It’s just really cool.

The bus stop is peaceful without Rick there to be an asshole and a perv and it’s actually kind of nice to fit into that morning groove with the girls as we get picked up and I have coffee for refills in my thermos.

We end up picking up someone new.

It’s like at one of the regular stops because we have student cards and our bus route is actually merged with the town buses but he’s definitely new and he’s in really beat up sneakers and he’s wearing jeans and a t-shirt that’s for a bar/restaurant down by the lakeshore road called Drifters and a leather jacket that’s a bit too big for him and looks like it was passed down or something and he’s getting stared at a lot.

He’s cute, like pretty handsome cute and everything but that’s just not it or the fact he’s kind of tall and stuff but he has long shoulder length brown hair and the last like four inches of it are dyed green.

No one does that.

Okay some of the girls do stuff like that sort of; but none of the guys do something that just blatantly punk looking and this isn’t that done at home looking kind of thing either it’s like…like maybe Aunt Els might have done it or something.

He’s got hazel eyes too and I’m staring like everyone else as he shows his school ID pass to the bus driver and he gets on and he’s drinking coffee or something from one of those travel cups you see now that look like a coffee place cups and he passes all of us and.

Okay I was expecting that whole teen guy choke of aftershave or Axe but he doesn’t smell like that he actually smells like cookies and dyer sheets.

We’re still going and I miss out on a few things as he’s drinking and reading some hardcover book called Lioness Rampant and Mary Jane nudges me hard.

I look at her. “Huh?”

She and the girls are looking at me and laughing….and it kind of hits what I was doing and I turn red.

Holy cheese I was just checking out a boy.

When the heck did that start to happen?