Masks Chapter 11

*Before…

My inner bitch is bigger than hers?

I’m so biting my tongue to keep from saying that.

“I didn’t cow-tow to her Mom and that’s never happened before so she thinks I’m nuts.”

“Well you get that from me.”

I smile. “That’s actually kind of cool Mom.”

She gives me a funny look when we pull in home and I try to give her a smile and then I head inside and upstairs.

Yick…my shirt is literally stuck to me with sugary coffee and caramel and whipped cream.

I go to the bathroom and I turn the shower on really high and I climb in and that’s about as far as my adrenaline takes me before I sit down in the tub and start to hyperventilate.

* And Now…

I told her.

I told M.J.

Okay she said she thought something was up and stuff but still…

I told her.

I said it out loud.

I haven’t even gotten so far even with myself.

It’s hard to breathe with everything running around din my head and I sit there with the water beating down on me and I look up into the oncoming spray and it’s going full blast so it stings after while and it helps me get out of that whole freaking out and panicking thing that I’m doing right now.

I need to get myself under control because I can’t have this conversation with Mom right now.

Just can’t and…and M.J. needs me.

Okay she might not but I wouldn’t put it past Liz doing something while I’m not there.

I slowly get to my feet and I grab my shower gel and wash with lots of suds to get clean again and wash the stuff that happened out of my system.

I rinse off and head to my room pretty fast and get dressed again this time in slacks and a Roots wear t-shirt and I head down stairs to where mom’s at and she’s got some boxes in her studio from storage.

“I’m ready.”

“Alright.”

She grabs her coat and her purse and not for the first time I’m watching her and the way that she moves. It’s just…mom’s a woman and she’s still good looking and everything and even in the everyday there’s just so much that…

That’s what I should be.

I bite my lip and follow her out to the car and she drives me back to school.

“You sure you don’t want to report that Liz girl?”

“Yeah it might have more weight if she’s more afraid of me than the admin; they can’t do anything without proof.”

“And you can do?”

“I can out teen her.” I’m really thinking I can out bitch her but I’m keeping that to myself.

“Okay, that sounds threatening.”

“I can hit her in her popularity.”

“Ouch…okay the office can’t do that.”

“Exactly.”

We stop at Tim’s and mom gets a tea and me a coffee and then we stop at the school. She looks at me and smiles. “Try to have a better day okay kiddo?”

“Me too, hopefully all uphill from here right?”

She laughs. “Exactly.”

I give her a kiss on the cheek and I slip out of the car and head to the office and get a hall pass and a slip for my teacher and I slip the long way around and I see M.J. in her french class and I slow enough so she catches sight of me and I give her a wave and a thumbs up before I head off to English class.

I’m a little late but our English teacher is pretty laid back and stuff so he just takes my note and I find my seat and he goes back to talking.

Actually it’s kind of neat because we’re doing comics.

Well it’s this bit on how comics have influence things and how the off shoots of that have become screenwriting and stuff.

I have the sneaky suspicion that he’s actually trying to teach us about outlines and stuff though.

Lunch is next and I head to the cafeteria to meet up with M.J. and say hi to a few people on the way. I mean it’s not like I didn’t have friends before this it’s just not like best friends.

It’s hard to really open up that far to someone that might not get it.

And I’m still trying to figure out why Mary Jane? I mean I kind of think that just cousins and coincidence is playing a really big part in this but as I think about it she’s been kind of broken too.

And busted toys are often flung into the same box together.

No most of my friends are from hockey and stuff and it’s been the occasional thing at their place like for a bunch of us playing videogames and stuff but usually it’s me.

But I’m a jock so being shy and quiet and introverted is called a little EMO but mostly cool.

It’s amazing the stuff that they will invent to label you with so you don’t mess with their illusions.

You take away my hockey stuff and the jacket and I’d be the sorta cute weird guy. Take away that we’re really comfortable too and I’d be the quiet creepy loser kid. So I go with the guyoflage and I play my part.

Now it’s scary and it’s exciting in a whole new way because of Mary Jane. She knows…

Oh crap I almost forgot all about that she knows!

And it’s been hours since she’s known.

I pace the halls a little in front of the cafeteria and I try to not look freaked out by the stuff going through my head. I so get the online junkies and the girls that live in Facebook and stuff because I feel sooo unplugged right now and I feel like I’m in the dark and that’s scary.

“Hey you’re back.” M.J. says out of no where and scaring the crap out of me. I jump and shiver.

“Geeze M.J. don’t sneak up on me like that!”

“Easy, chill are you okay?”

I shove my hands in my pockets and I look at her with my ‘Like really?’ look. I mean honestly she’s asking me that?

She raises her hands in surrender. “Okay, okay wrong question I mean…I mean are you okay right now.”

“I’m better but honestly I’m freaking out.”

“Because of the thing you told me?”

“Uhm-yeah dur.”

She slips me into a one armed hug around my waist. “It’s okay.”

“Really it’s not.”

“No it isn’t but at least we have a place that we can start from.”

“What?”

“I know, you said that mom knows so we work from there.”

“Work to what?”

“Making it right dur…”

“M.J…..”

“What? Look I know I know like sweet F.A. about all of this stuff but I know that you’re not a fake person okay, you can’t keep this up.”

“What choice do I have?”

“I don’t know but we’ll figure stuff out.”

We walk into the cafeteria and we get a few things me a juice and an apple and she gets some pizza and a chocolate milk and we go and we find a seat. Actually I just give the guys a nod and I keep going.

“Not sitting with the team?”

“I do sometimes; it’s just well it’s sometimes hard to be around them when I’m really not one of them.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“If you could change and be who you really are would you still play hockey?”

“I don’t know probably not.”

“Why? It’s not wrong for a girl to play hockey.”

“I know it’s just that I’ve always thought that I wouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“Well when I was little instead of hockey I wanted to learn how to figure skate.”

“Okay but you’d really not play?”

“I don’t know why?”

“Because I was just curious really.”

“I…okay honestly I’ll have to think about it.”

“Introduce me?”

Sigh… “Okay…”

We turn around and we get a seat at the jock table and as soon as we’re doing that I sort of realize that this can be a good thing for Mary Jane.

I mean it’s sitting at the jock table and with the more popular kids in school and that’s kind of got a sort of stamp of socially approvedness that comes with it.

I nod to the guys and Randy Sweet the team captain grins and looks M.J. over. “Hey Steven who is the babe.”

“The babe is Mary Jane, and while she is a babe she’s also a person dude so stop being such a guy.”

“Sorry…sorry it was just a figure of speech.”

Mary Jane shrugs. “It’s okay I’m kind of used to getting looked at that way.” Oh she says that but her tone is like she’s not good with being treated like a piece of meat.

Randy blushes. “Sorry.”

Tim Jordan of the defensemen asks. “What’s wrong with being a guy?”

M.J. nearly chokes on her drink and is looking at me.

I look back at her with a ‘shut up’ look and take out my sandwich.

Nicolas Sutherland his partner and the other defenseman says. “Well nothing but Randy wasn’t just being a guy he was pulling a Guido.”

M.J.’s looking at him. “A what?”

“A Guido, A Joey.” He grins.

“Huh?” She says blinking.

“You ever see Friends?”

“Yeah like once in awhile on re-runs.”

“You know Joey?”

“Yeah….”

Nick leans over a little and he leers a bit and does this come-hither semi-dumb look at Mary Jane. “Hey how you doin…?”

Some of us laugh and she cokes on her drink and even I’m smiling a little because that’s kind of funny.

That of course is getting us some looks which I swear I can feel. I actually can, even when I’m alone in here it’s just one of those things. But I see Liz looking over at us and she doesn’t look happy. Actually she looks peeved as heck that M.J.’s actually at our table.

I lock eyes with here and she turns away from looking at me and by the time I look back Randy’s looking at me.

“So what was that about?”

“Liz being Liz, she took a dislike to Mary Jane for no good reason and she tried some stuff.”

“Like?” The guys ask.

M.J. pipes up saying. “She had coffee and her and her friends tried to ‘accidentally’ splash me with one and Steven took the hit for me.”

Nick grins and gives me a thumbs up that makes me blush. “Yeah Steven’s like that he’s taken a few hits for people.”

I blush. “I just…look better me than someone else okay.”

Mary Jane gives me an odd look then takes this almost ‘oh really’ bite of her pizza. I can almost see the raised eyebrow in the way she’s chewing.

Randy nods a couple times while he chews and swallows. “Yeah Steven’s doing stuff like that a lot.”

“I don’t.”

Nick… “The soccer ball.”

M.J. “Soccer ball?”

“Last summer at the park there was a game and a ball went wide and there was a bunch of asses smoking and drinking and one got the ball and gave it a drunk kick back really hard and it didn’t go where the guy thought it would.”

Randy… “Yeah you just don’t haul off and do that.”

Nick… “Right well anyway there was a bunch of girls there watching us and then it’s heading at them like really hard and then Steven was like out of nowhere and took the ball in the chest.”

I’m like… “Guys…”

Randy’s shaking his head. “No, dude you’re like one of those like stand up guys Steve, you just always like do the right thing.”

I’m blushing and hiding my face in my hand.

Stand up guy…yeah.

But what I said is true…I mean it’s not really me…so yeah there’s just sometimes if something happens…it’s just Steven…armor’s for taking hits right?

Mary Jane’s looking at me. “You have a habit of doing that then?”

I shrug. “If I’m there I’m not going to let someone get hurt…”

“Fighting?”

“Actually I’ve never been in one off the ice.”

She looks at me sort of maybe skeptically.

“Really?”

“Yes really.”

“Good.” But she says it in ‘good’ by girlese so it’s ‘good’ but we’re talking about this later.

We eat for a while and every once in a while check Liz who’s doing her best to ignore us and to pretend that she isn’t bothered by M.J.

You know the type the ones that want everything their own way and raise hell when they don’t get it or someone catches them lying or just doesn’t cave to their bullshit and that’s when they act like they didn’t want it or weren’t bothered by it anyways.

It gets close to the end of lunch and I get ready and M.J.’s getting her books and she’s looking at me as she closes her locker up.

“What do you have next?”

“Art then Gym and then Woodshop you?”

“Social studies, Gym and Home Ec.”

I sigh… “Home Ec. sounds good.”

“Yeah I know.”

She rubs my back some and then up to my shoulder and looks at me. “Hey…..”

“Yeah?”

“No more okay?”

My eyes get that almost cry feel and the lump in my throat…I know what she’s going to say. “No more what….?” It’s a soft whisper given how tight my throat is.

“No more putting yourself in harms way.”

“I…I’m not just going to let someone get hurt.”

“Good, just include yourself in that too okay?”

“M.J…..”

“Please, helping is good, helping is awesome but I don’t want stuff to happen to you.”

“Okay…”

“You matter…this whole thing, the way you feel about all the stuff you gotta deal with. It’s not enough reason for you to let stuff happen even if you’re doing the right thing….you matter.”

Dammit, dammit just…I’m so on the edge of crying right now.

When no one knows…when you’re all alone in this there’s this overwhelming feeling of fuck it why bother that ambushes you sometimes…and sometimes often…like an Acme anvil and I’m the poor coyote and I’m chasing the real me as the road runner.

There’s been no one to tell me that the girl me, even stuck like this matters.

We hug and she gives me a serious squeeze that helps so much and M.J. even slips a hand down and hooks pinkies with me for a few seconds.

“Okay…okay I’ll be more careful…”

“You better, you’ll be in shit if you don’t woman.” She’s really quiet saying it and stuff and it helps, it helps a lot.

“Okay…love you too but we better get to class. See you in Gym.”

“Oooh yay Gym.” She rolls her eyes sarcastically.

“Yeah I know.”

Changing with boys, a constant reminder of what I don’t want.

Yick.

We part ways and I head off to art class and it’s a pretty cool class. The Guidance councilor teaches it and I think that’s kind of cool since I guess a lot of them don’t teach classes and it’s Halloween so there’s a lot of free time sort of projects that we do for Halloween Mrs. Lambert actually does themes for stuff all the time and right now it’s sort of messy stuff because we’re doing paper mache.

Some of us are doing decorations and stuff for home and stuff but this class is different today because Becky Truman from the bus actually picks up het stuff and moves to my work station.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” I smile as she sets out her stuff.

“I was talking to some of the other girls and we were thinking that the dance is a great idea.”

“Cool, I mean the senior high kids get to have then and stuff.”

“I know right! Anyways I was talking to Amber and she was like going to do student council this afternoon and stuff so she said that she was going to like bring it up and stuff.”

“You think they’ll let us?”

“Dunno but if we do we’re going to need like help with doing it all up and stuff.”

“Count me in I’ll help.”

“Yay!” And she hugs me and it’s kind of cool.

“So…” And I’m being careful broaching this without M.J. around. “What would you were as a costume?”

Becky leans back and shrugs. “I never thought about it that much, what do you think that I should do?”

“What are you into?”

“Like?”

“Books, Movies stuff like that. I mean you should go as something fun and something that you’d have fun as, as opposed to what’s cool.” I do air quotes.

“Well I like romance and I like movies and witches and stuff but not like the Halloween witches but like the stuff on TV.”

I look at her and she’s got a nice body and long dark hair. “Catness.”

“Huh?”

“Catness from The Hunger Games.”

“I know who she is but you know?”

“Sure I love those books and I own the DVD too.”

“You love the books?”

“Sure, I love a smart and cool and strong female character.”

“The fact that she’s hot never entered into it right?”

“Actually no. I love the fact that even in the movie it’s way more about her being a girl and reacting in a realistic strong female way. There’s way too many female characters that are ‘Strong female characters’ just because someone directs them or writes them to kick ass like a boy character with boobs. Catness defends her sister, faces up to her mom who’s seriously unplugged and she loses people there’s hurt and pain and she’s nowhere near perfect and even right up to the end of The Hunger Games she’s more thinking with her head how to survive.”

“Wow, you are into this.”

“Girls stuff is way more awesome than people give it credit for…and when it’s just well done it’s for everyone really.”

“So Catness huh?”

“You could pull off the look and there’s some very costumey like outfits in the books or the movies.”

“Coolness, so what else?”

We talk all the way through class as we do our mache stuff and I’m making a whole lot of pumpkins that will have wires to hang them with. I was talking with the teacher about it and they’re going to be something that I want to make for the little kids that come to our house.

I’m going to make little stands inside out of Bristol board and then I’ll put in an electric tea light for the candle but on that little stand inside I’m going to put some faerie stickers like Tinkerbelle so when you look inside the mine jack-o-lanterns they’ll see a faerie in there by the electric candle light.

Which is getting me several ‘Omigawdcools’ from Becky.

We even end up talking all the way to the gym.

Gym class.

Yick.

I don’t mind, mind sports that much it’s kind of Boyoflage but going into a boys changing room and not being a boy and changing with them.

Yick.

No I’m not a lesbian…but I’m not into guys either I right now am just too much in envy of the girls right now so I’m not really looking at them like girlfriends and well it’s really yick to me to think about guys like that especially since I see stuff and sides of them that are like all guyboden to women.

Seriously…if it wasn’t for the mystery of the sex’s guys would be way more unlucky with the ladies than they even are now.

I am thankfully a fast changer and I go out and into the gym for my usual Gym class torture.

There is nothing like seeing all those other girls in their gym things moving like that and looking like that and stuff to get you feeling envy and to dream and to feel just heavy…and too big and thick…frumpy.

Today with M.J. and Becky and some of the others that I know a bit better I’m even closer in feeling…like I’m stuck cover in this shell and that fake feeling is kind of stained feeling.

It’s this yick feeling that is there in your skin…you can almost feel your entire outside and it’s just kind of…this skin is wrong this isn’t me and if only I could just pull it off so that I could be me.

It’s not like some kind of like insane need but like…like all of that stuff on the outside that isn’t the real you is so wrong it gives me this skin deep stomach ache…

It’s just something wrong…

So I play…and I play hard too and that’s us going outside and to the ball field for baseball.

I’ll say this Mr. Hunter our Gym teacher tries to be totally equal in class. He’s one of the coaches for a few teams but in class he tries to have us all do stuff that both sexes can play. He’s done this ever since middle school started and it’s one of the few things that I like about Gym.

We run some bases as a warm up and we do some calisthenics too before we pick teams and he has us do this whole paired off thing of rock paper scissors on who ends up as the team captains and then who is first at bat.

Anyone can win, anyone can be a captain even the un-athletic kids and stuff. And the person that is at bat first gets second pick.

And he stops the game to show us things too…like throws and the best way to catch a ball or to bat and all that stuff.

Actually the class is okay it’s just all the other stuff that goes with it.

M.J.’s on the other team and she gets some pointer from Mr. Hunter. She’s really bad at this. Actually I feel for her too and get why she wasn’t thrilled about Gym. One she’s not really the sporty type…she can’t throw for beans…she throws like she’s never really played before and then there’s running.

And it’s M.J. so there’s the whole big breasted effect while she does so and added to that the looks that she gets from people when she’s in her Gym kit.

Thankfully it’s only 55 minutes of this before we’re done that class.

And super-yick to the changing room again.

One they’re teen boys…just getting all hormonal and the sweat…

How can some of then smell like feet all over…yick…gag…

One class left some of them skip the shower.

Duncan Fields decides to take a poo…yes there’s a bathroom in the changing room but it is just…gas escaping and smells and the guys being guys they make a production out of it and of course he goes right from there to the shower.

Nick’s joking that Duncan didn’t bother to wipe and that just…

I’m doing this arms up wrist bent hands clenched eeew scream inside my head at just the thought.

And then the final shot to my system is the cloud of Axe deodorant that is applied en masses like a WMT (Weapon of Mass Testosterone.)

One of these days we’ll have the UN weapons inspectors in doing a threat assessment.

And then we’re off to Woodshop.

Anyone what to lose a finger?

It’s another one of those classes I like and hate. We have Mr. Smith who is super serious and not a bad guy. Like some of the stuff he has us do as group projects is stuff like Bike racks for the town or us building a wheelchair ramp for a place that needs one.

That’s pretty cool and we learn a lot and I’m really good with that but it’s still not Home Ec. Where I’d love to be at and then there’s trying not to be an ass in the class because Mr. Smith is really easy to make fun of.

He has a hair lip and that lisp. So he says stuff like “Pwass me the scewdiver.”

It’s like shop class with Elmer Fudd.

Be vwey, vwey careful a nail gun is not a twoy….

And I’m doing a bunch of canvases on wood for mom and frames too. Mom’s a painter like an actual artist and it’ll be a better present than a spice rack that she has better of and Mr. smith is all for it because he gets to show us how to make frames from like boards with a router and stuff and how to stretch a canvas.
We all did some to just learn and I think all of them are going to the art room for later. Our teachers are like that if you want to do something and they figure they can squeeze a lesson out of it they will and killing two birds with one stone is something they doo here too.

Like the year ahead of us is learning to build picnic tables and some are going to the town and most here for the school.

They’re very big into community service in school here. I guess the idea is to show us helping out is okay and fun and so we like have some kind of like civic pride or something.

But still I’d rather if I had my rathers be over in Home Ec where they do stuff I really want to learn and more than that just learn all the other stuff that a class of all girls learn.

You know they do the same things too? Becky told me that she’s doing a knitting thing as part of her sewing stuff that will be for like preemies in the baby ward.

I want to sew my own dresses and stuff.

I wanna make poppy cookies for the vets on Remembrance Day.

(Inside sniffle)

We get out and the girls are right across the hall from us and M.J.’s talking and chatting with Becky and Amber and Rachel Sweet’s there with then and they’re talking about The Hunger Games and the dance and stuff on the way to the lockers and M.J. just grabs my hand and pulls me into the wake of them and Becky brings me in too with me and her’s Art class convo being picked right up and we’re talking about stuff for the school dance and costumes and Monster High and Winks club and the whole Tinkerbelle universe stuff but also like stuff from TV and even comics.

Rachel Sweet is going with Holly Stonehouse on Halloween night as Betty and Veronica which is a good idea and there’s even talk of some of the senior high kids going to do it too but doing Scooby Doo.

Amber’s going to do super girl from the comics but hasn’t decided on the classic blue or the version with the white tee-shirt top.

We talk until we do the lockers thing and Amber’s off to the student council thing and I’m almost doing a squee thing when I’m getting numbers send to me phone and twitters and e-mails.

Then we’re at the bus stop and even talking as we get dropped off and I’m grinning but the time it’s just Mary Jane and I.

“You had fun didn’t you?”

I lean back against the seat and the window side and smile. “Yeah…I did honestly this really kind of made up for the day.”

“Mom texted my in Home Ec. and your mom said you should come to our place tonight.”

“She say why?”

“It was about your brothers and talking to them about something you and her and your dad had talked about?’

“Oh..”

“Okay spill.”

“I…I didn’t tell them but I did kinda tell them about you and me hanging out and the stuff with our costumes and stuff and Mum thinks it’ll be a good learning experience for me.”

“You could tell her.”

“I could and they could so not be as cool as I would hope they’d be.”

“Why wouldn’t they?”

“Mark, Billy and Bobby…they all got their attitude from like somewhere.”

“Oh….”

“Yeah oh…I…I just can’t risk it…I don’t want to lose them….or even those three jerks.”

Dammit I’m getting sniffly again.

“Okay…I got it just…just keep it in mind okay?”

“I’ll try…It’s just…”

“Hey….” She hooks pinkies with me again…that’s definitely getting to be sort of our thing. “You have a place with me and with Mom if this ever comes out and turns south…you have a place.”

We hug and right after that is our stop and her mom’s home because Aunt Elsbeth’s jeep is in the driveway and we head inside and it smells like laundry inside and there’s rock music playing. *Shoot to Thrill.* By AC/DC and Aunt Elsbeth is setting up stuff in the kitchen like it’s for like a salon or something and she looks at me and grins.

“Hey girls.”

Yay… (Smiles.)

“Hey!” We both carouse.

“M.J. can you lend your cousin some clothes and stuff to wear after she has a shower?”

“Sure!”

“Steph?” Aunt Els say/asks as she holds up two weaves…not wigs but weaves…. “Which one do you want to try first?”

I…oh wow…that and the stuff that’s out like we’re going to do make overs…and clothes and…

“You…I…?” (Sniffle-big swallow?)

“Yes honey you can be you in this house.”

I can’t help but to drop my book bag and run over and hug her.