Little Pink Pills

Part Five, by Michelle Wilder

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

(Hallelujah, by Leonard Cohen)

(Revised and reposted)

----

We were all allowed to talk pretty late, and we didn't, really, but by the time Brenda left she was yawning. We didn't tell her anything, but I think she knew that something happened from Val, before.

Carson ended up falling asleep on my bed about when Brenda left and since I never moved in my sleep any more it was okay with me. Mom came in and covered her up with a comforter and I barely managed to smile hi when she kissed me goodnight.

----

When she got up in the morning Carson made the bed move and woke me, though in my dream it was the ambulance again, or the recovery room, only it didn't hurt and was almost like I was just there, not hurt or anything, and Carson came in.

Then I woke up. Or I woke up and then put Carson in my dream.

-

I dreamed a lot about when it happened, all sorts of ways. I'd been half-awake all night on and off with leg cramps, too.

-

After a few minutes more of waking up and feeling how different the bed felt, I thought of something: I'd just slept with a girl for the first time, and the ~whole~ night, and in my own house, and ~Mom~ had covered her up!

It was like such a good weird joke that I almost laughed.

"Something funny?" Carson came back in. To ~my~ room. And she closed the door again! I really broke up.

I knew she wouldn't get it, but I tried to explain, really hard. The more I said, the more she just looked at me like I was dumb, and slow besides. I think she was just being prissy on purpose. She can be totally girly.

I was even surprised I never noticed that's how she was, before, but I didn't tell her that, being ~not~ dumb and slow.

----

Breakfast was whatever we wanted since Mom was feeling generous, and we both had french toast. I think Carson was going to have something else, but changed her mind when I picked my favorite. I almost changed my mind too, just to see what she'd do, but then I thought that'd be mean. She was having a good morning.

Mom even let us eat in the den, so I could be comfortable. I'd been able to have supper at the table for a few days, but it wasn't fun. Sitting up was barely tolerable, and usually by the time I got my plate I lost my appetite. So mealtimes had mostly been in bed, mostly, but that felt like the hospital and I hated that too.

So the den was nice.

(Mom said the pills made me whiny. Carson said they just made me whine louder.)

But it~ was~ nice to be comfortable and sitting up too. Almost like a grownup. I started to laugh again. I break me up.

Carson and Mom both smiled at me like they got the joke or something, even if I hadn't said it.

"What?" I kinda laughed it, because I was still on the joke, then because they started smiling even more. "C'mon, what are you looking at?"

"Just that you're in a good mood this morning." Mom kept smiling.

I'm in a good mood most mornings. I happen to know that I'm even a morning person. Valerie tells me all the time as she drags around and grumbles until noon. Or maybe I'm just more cheerful than her.

But I admitted I was, which made Mom happy. I grinned at Carson too, which made her even happier.

-

I didn't have much appetite, but that was just from too much moving around. And more little cramps. I still had a whole slice of french toast.

----

Carson's doctor's appointment was at one, and even though Mom said I had to do some homework we'd still have lots of time to just talk. I had to lie down, so we went back up to my room and Carson sat in one of the chairs and put her feet up on the bed. We didn't even look at our books.

"How're you doing?" I thought it was a stupid question. She looked really happy.

"I feel like a million dollars." She smiled even more. "Really, I've been having nightmares about telling you or Mom and Dad and now I feel like...." She made a movement with her hands. "It's like...."

I didn't know what to say. I couldn't even imagine what it'd been like. What it was like. I asked her that before, too.

"So, what's it like?"

"What?"

"Being a girl, dummy!" I laughed at her face, which was mad and confused at the same time.

"I don't know! How should I know?!"

"Because you ~are~ one! Wouldn't that make you an expert? I can tell you what it's like being a ~guy~!"

I figured out it was dumb as soon as I said it.

"Okay, then what's ~that~ like? Hunh?" She glared at me and folded her arms.

"Alright, it was a stupid question." I knew when to give up. I'd thought about it before, last night.

"But still, I mean, it's so weird!"

She started to get a hurt look and I sped up. "I mean, weird neat, really! I mean, you're... ~you!~ And you're a ~GIRL~!"

She shushed me when I started to get a bit too loud, but I think she got my point. Even if I had to ask what it was like again.

And tell her not to ask me about being a boy, again.

"I don't know... I don't feel any different than anybody, I think. I'm just... a girl. It's not something I feel, exactly, just, just that I know, I guess...." She trailed off.

"I guess...." I thought about it some more.

"How do you know everyone doesn't feel like you do, then?"

She looked at me like I was being stupid again. "I ~have~ thought about all this, y'know?" She smiled, too, so she wasn't really mad.

"Do ~you~ feel like a girl? I mean, that you're one?"

I shook my head. Before she told me, I'd never even thought about it. I was pretty sure feeling like a sissy didn't count, not that I said that.

"Well, I do." She leaned back in her chair.

"I don't have the words for how, but I've felt this way since I was about four or five. Like, it's just wrong that I'm a boy... I don't feel like I am."

"Is that what you're going to tell your doctor?"

"No!" She kinda spazzed and got mad.

"I'm not telling him about this! I just have to see him about getting all cry-baby yesterday in front of everyone...." She got sad.

I couldn't reach over to her so I made her sit closer to the bed and held her hand.

"You're not a cry-baby. I cry more than you and I'm just a wimp." She smiled a little. I squeezed her hand.

"You're allowed to cry when you hurt. That's what all the nurses told me and you told me that too." She nodded and sniffed.

I said "Eww!" and she laughed.

I pulled at the sheets because I was getting pretty warm. She helped, folding them off me.

I watched her hands do it, and for some reason thought of something I should have asked before.

"Are you going to tell anyone else?"

She got quiet. After about a minute she looked at me like she was scared.

"I feel like it's too... dangerous or something." Her eyes sure looked scared. "It is. People..."

"It was okay to tell me, wasn't it? There's nothing wrong, it's just different...." I sounded lame. I knew she was thinking about some of the... the guys at school, or the jokes.

"Sorry... that was dumb."

"I have to tell Mom and Dad sometime, 'specially after last night...." She looked at her arm or something. "Dad's gonna kill me."

"No he's not!! You know he's not!!" Her father was as nice as my dad. He'd... I didn't know what he'd do, but he wouldn't hurt her.

"He wouldn't hurt you!"

She didn't say anything. Like she was trying to see the future.

"What happened last night?" I had an idea that something bad might have happened at her house, just 'cause she wouldn't talk about it. Dad either.

But she wasn't really sad or anything when she came back, and... well, nothing seemed ~worse~, after....

"Nothing. I mean nothing really, anyway...." She'd been smiling when she came back, I remembered. Or after a little while. When she came up. So yeah, nothing too bad.

"So, what'd you tell them? Last night."

She hunched up a little. "Just what, what your father told them, that I was... upset, I guess, and I guess he heard the freak thing and he was scared I was suicidal, you know, and I told them I wasn't... and they asked about the freak and all...."

I watched her get even more hunched up and tried to sound normal, even though I felt sick.

"Have you thought about that? Before...?"

"Suicide...?"

She was really still for a few seconds before she nodded. It was a small one, but she did it and I still felt a rush of cold. She looked up. "I don't want to talk about it now, okay?"

I stared at her. I couldn't ~not~ talk about it right then.

She hugged me hard and said it was okay, really, and a long time ago. And don't worry.

----

"School's going to be different." I was having a daydream of her walking down the hallway with a bunch of other girls.

She looked scared at me for a second and I smiled.

"Hey, ~I'm~ the one they're gonna be talking about." I laughed.

"I mean, you... I'm gonna want to hug you all the time and everyone's going to think I'm the biggest fairy in the world." I smiled my head off at her.

She still looked like it wasn't a good thing, but I had a feeling it was gonna be really great, just with her smiling and talking. I tried to stop looking stupid, but it made me almost dizzy to feel so good about her.

"I won't really embarrass you, I promise, but... but... it's like everything is so different, now." I started to want to cry. Like all of a sudden.

"I thought I was going to lose my leg... in the hospital... and I still think I'll always hurt and for a...." I had to swallow a couple of times.

"I thought it wasn't going to get better." I looked at her and her eyes were all big.

"But now I think it's all going to be okay, no matter what. I don't know why, but I think it is." I tried to smile.

"And I think it's gonna be all good for you too."

----

"What do you wanna do?" I said it like 'what do you REALLY want?'

She got kind of sad.

"I can't...." She said it pretty quietly, almost to herself.

"What? I mean, not like a million dollars, but really?"

I was being thick, I guess, but I'd just had my before-lunch pill and I was all warm and tired-thinking. She looked at me like to see if I was really that stupid and I guess I passed.

"I want to just... just ~be~ a girl."

She looked at her hands, turning them over and flexing them. She has big hands. Well, she's big all around.... I got a clue.

"You think you don't look enough like a girl?"

She made a tiny nod.

I really, truly hadn't thought about that until that moment, and I still couldn't....

She's about six three, really fit and strong. And she has a beard, I mean, like she shaves every day. And long hair, way past her collar, but it's just a boy haircut. She looks like a boy. Almost a man.

But she's good looking too, not all wall-of-muscle like some of the guys.

Her face is long, or slim, or whatever you'd call it, and I know the girls all thought she was good-looking. And if you look good one way, won't you look good the other? I mean... I mean, isn't ~pretty~ the same, even if it's a girly word?

She sure looked unhappy....

I realized I was staring and she probably wanted that about as much as a kick in the teeth right then... but I think I was disagreeing with her.

"You don't look bad at all." I smiled at her when I said it because it was true. "I'd go out with you."

She looked at me like I ~did~ kick her in the teeth.

"No, really!" I sat up a little more on my elbow.

"Look, I know... I mean, you look mostly like a boy, but that doesn't mean you can't just ~be~ a girl, does it? And I know when you get... I mean, you can take like hormones and stuff and look way more like other girls, but we could still do boy-girl stuff if you want, like movies and stuff? I mean if you want? Now?"

A horrible thought came into my head: what if she didn't like guys? But she didn't look mad when I checked, and she didn't look like she'd smelled something bad either, so maybe....

I tried to look as cool as I would asking anyone out, which is pretty pathetic, going by my success rate... I had a really hot flush feeling. Probably all red.

"You do, um, like, um, guys... don't you?"

Then I heard myself and thought that that had to have been the ~lamest~ and most insulting date-ask-out ever. Mean, even.

And what if she liked girls?! I bet none of the other girls in school would admit it either.

I peeked. She wasn't mad, didn't look mad.... I took a breath.

"Would you like to go to the movies with me? My treat and you get to choose the movie?"

I tried to erase the insult of my previous stupid questions even more with a big smile.

Then I thought that I was being REALLY insulting if she ~did~ like girls and she didn't say and I just ignored her! What did it matter if it happened to TONS of girls!?

Smile gone and I closed my eyes to keep her from seeing my face. Which was red all the way to my cast.

-

When I could hear again, she was laughing.

-

So score one for complete social incompetence to the point of being sweaty and funny.

----

I wondered if she liked girls too, but I was afraid to ask.

----

She had to go with her mom and promised to call if she couldn't get back, but we'd decided. We were going to go see one of the new movies at the mall on Sunday if I could stand sitting for that long by then. A real date.

My face hurt, the good way.

-

She said she felt pretty good too and Mom thought we were doing drugs or something, but she was just joking.

Besides I already ~was~ using heavy drugs and I told her I was just happy because Carson was feeling better, so we were having a good time.

When her mom came to pick her up she ran out and almost skipped, I think. Again.

----

After eating breakfast I wasn't really hungry for lunch, but I tried to eat for Mom. She sat with me and watched while I picked at it.

I mean she ~really~ watched, like she was trying to figure something out.

"What?" I smiled at her, like I knew she knew it was obvious. It never occurred to me it was about Carson. Stupid.

She smiled like I knew she would, if it was just anything. "Oh, you...."

Still no clue. And no worry, either. I looked at the pickle on my plate more than what she might mean. "What about me?"

"Oh, just you and Carson have been pretty much been inseparable since your accident, then yesterday you were both so unhappy.... And now...."

I about smiled my head half off. "Well, yeah! She's... "

I saw her face change the exact same time I heard myself. About a quarter-second too late.

----

I kept my very best friend's most important secret in the world exactly less than one day.

I felt like... there's no word. Less than anything. And I couldn't even tell Mom why, or what... more than she already heard.

She didn't make a big deal and didn't bug me about what I meant, but she was serious, no more real smiles.

I felt sick. All hot flushes and cold chills. They could put her in a mental hospital, or give her drugs, or take her out of school....

Or they might move. Maybe she wouldn't be allowed to see me any more, or me her.... Maybe Mom and Dad would say I couldn't... or they'd let it all out and someone would beat her up.

-

She'd never get to try being a girl. I started to cry at the end. Stupid pills. Stupid me.

----

Mom left me alone after I almost begged her, mostly because I was too afraid I'd make everything even worse.

Even though I still was sick at what I did I went to sleep almost as soon as I covered my eyes. Pills.

----

I dreamed someone touched me, but it changed too fast and I woke up.

Mom was standing by my bed and looked like she was relieved I was alive or something. Carson was behind her, with her mother, at the door. It looked like they'd both been crying.

I was afraid to even open my mouth. I was afraid to smile at Carson or look sad or apologetic or ~anything~ at her.

I was afraid that everything was ruined for her and I was the reason. I felt thick and stupid and mean.

Instead, she came past Mom and sat on the bed and pulled me up into a hug that made everything a little bit better.

I closed my eyes so I couldn't see Mom or her mother and they couldn't see us.

My leg felt awful, my back hurt, I was sweaty, and she was cool. And I felt good where she touched me.

----

She said they'd been in the doctor's waiting room when my mom called her mom and they'd gone out to their car and talked. Her mom talked.

Nobody'd ever asked her about it before, right out, and she'd never even thought about what she would say if they did. How she'd answer. Words again.

She'd just frozen, and then nodded at something, and then her mom had said something like 'Do you think you're a girl?'

And she'd nodded again... and it was all over, even if her mom hadn't asked her anything else because she'd cried so much. Carson, not her mom.

-

And all my fault, even if she wasn't mad at me.

"I'm sorry!"

"Stop saying that. It's not your fault and she didn't go postal and I'm... she probably called Dad by now, so, so maybe it's, I mean... maybe the worst part's already over." She was almost shaking me, she shivered so hard.

I think we both thought the worst part was still going to happen, no matter what she said.

A cell phone rang somewhere and we both froze for a second and listened, but all we heard was that it stopped ringing. It was her mom's.

"It's probably him." Carson almost whispered it, like a horror movie.

"Maybe." I tried to be smarter than I'd been lately.

"What are you going to tell them? More, I mean?"

"I guess the same thing I told you, about how I feel I guess...."

I started shivering by myself again and held on as well as I could from the side. I knew she was most afraid about what her father would do.

"Can I help? I mean, I don't know how, but if I can?"

She sniffed and sat up a little straighter and then sat all the way around, facing me, and almost smiled as she pressed me back to laying down.

"If I don't even know what I'm gonna tell them, I don't see how you can. You ~are~ still a boy, y'know." She pressed harder for a moment, sinking me into the mattress.

"But I ~do~ know that you'd cry, the way you are lately, and then my mom'd get all upset and then my dad would get mad that I made her and then he'd walk out or something stupid like that...."

She smiled funny at the end.

"Your dad's not really like that, is he? He wouldn't hurt you, would he? Really?" I'd always thought he was a nice guy, and she'd kinda said he was, the night before, but it scared me the way she said it, again, and he was a big man.

She smiled more normally and shook her head.

"Naw. He just gets mad, sorta, when he feels like he can't help or something. Not at us, just... at himself?" She sat up and looked at my hand. Her hands were really cool.

"But he's not gonna be able to help. I mean, anything... there's nothing that he can do...."

She noticed my face, I guess.

"I mean, if he can't do anything, then I just... I, I guess I'm worried that... be all... stressed or something... I dun...."

-

She started to look like she was going to cry again. And I couldn't understand anything she said.

-

I couldn't understand and tried to sit up and hold her but I got dizzy when I moved up. My foot cramped, hard.

Then in a second, the back of my calf exploded in pain and I jerked up with a screech and tried to reach it through the cast, and sitting up made my hip go, my whole leg a huge cramp, and I was crying my eyes out.

"HELP! CRAMP!!"

She grabbed me and squeezed so hard I couldn't breathe. Mom and then her mother banged in.

"Cramp! He's got a- a- b-bad cramp!"

-

All I could do was try to get away from her and scream and try to reach- Mom started massaging my foot really hard which hurt like fire, but soon it stopped spasming a little.

Then my hip cramped again and it was so awful I blacked out.

----

Mom crushed one of my sedative pills and helped me hold the glass so I wouldn't break a tooth.

----

It finally stopped. My whole leg was still on fire, pulsing and like it was all compressed or tight, but at least the cramping was gone.

All I could do was sob at how it was so bad and wouldn't stop happening, and how it still hurt.

-

Carson kept talking, saying nothing but that it was going to be okay and that my mom was there and that it wasn't hopeless, I guess. She hugged me and rocked, and when I was finally able to let her go, she'd been crying too.

-

Mom shooed them out changed my shirt and all and got wet towels and wiped me down to get me clean and because it felt good, and I felt awful.

And embarrassed that Carson's mom had seen me like that.

----

It was over. The sedative made me feel safer I think, because I knew it wouldn't be long before I was asleep and it wouldn't hurt at all. My leg felt like a huge cut.

Carson stood by the door by her mom, still all red-eyed and sad, but I tried to smile at her.

Her mom... she wouldn't look at Carson, or me, or anything, and she wasn't holding her.

I made a sort of hand motion past Mom toward Carson.

Or someone. I was all confused, like a dream.

-

I remember my leg still hurt, but I didn't.

----

It was almost dark when I woke up. Dad was reading and Valerie was watching me. I was totally relaxed and even my leg hurting pretty bad didn't bother me much. But Val looked sad and after a few seconds I kinda remembered what happened. I still couldn't think very much.

Val came over to the bed and touched my forehead and I guess I was sweaty or something. "Dad!"

Dad came and sat on the bed and put his hand on my cheek. On my face. I remember it was almost cold.

"Carson...."

-

End of Part 5