Hopscotch…A Jump in Life 5

*Before…

I look at her. “I’m like my Dad?”
“Well with like that temperament and stuff.”
“Oh…”
I…I really don’t know how to deal with that or how to feel about it? I mean I’m Sarah right so I just kind of thought that I’d take after my Mom more or something and not my dad and I really can’t figure out if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
“Surprised?”
“Y...Yeah kind of…it wasn’t what I was expecting to hear.”
“Really?”
“Yeah…I thought I’d be more like you Mom.”
I look at her and she actually has this really sort of surprised look on her face.
And…I’m really surer than ever she doesn’t know.

*And Now…

I look at her. “Okay…is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

And now she looks confused. “What do you mean?”

“Well me just saying that it looks like it kind of shocked you.”

“I suppose it’s not something that most guys say if ever to their like mothers.”

I bite my lower lip. “Maybe I’m not most guys? Maybe I’m just trying to make sense out of everything?”

She nods. “Well sort of a good thing then I guess and a bad thing too. I mean I’m glad that you have your dad’s temperament I mean he’s kind of always been my even keel because I’ve always found myself kind of…scattered.”

“Scatterbrained?”

She purses her lips at me. “No…”

I chuckle a little. “Sorry I couldn’t resist.”

“You get that from me.” She says smiling.

“Really?”

“Really, and hopefully not the scattered thing because it was hard enough to deal with as me.”

“But I thought that you said you were a geek?”

“I was, the two aren’t exclusive it’s just a lot of the time it took me a lot of focus to keep myself on track a lot.”

I look at her. “So when you weren’t like socializing with the other kids you were…like trying to figure things out?”

“Had to figure things out.”

“Had to?”

She nods. “I was diagnosed in like the eighth grade and by that time I got a good look at what happens too often to girls like me when they don’t get out of the whole box her social disability shoves her into and add that with small town I didn’t have a whole lot of choices.”

“And dad helps with that?”

“Yeah, he keeps me grounded as much as he makes me do things.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Honestly neither do I, I have no idea what he sees in a bookish introverted geekette but I love that he does.”

I know…I know what introverted is like.

I don’t know how I know that but I know that.

I look at her and at my tablet and I know that she’s looking at me and she reaches over and puts her hand on mine over it.

“Shawn it’s okay, you can tell me anything or we can wait until you’re ready you just came out of a coma, you don’t have to push yourself.”

But…but if I wait longer the more and more that this me, this me that I’m wearing will be permanent.

That was a really big worry of mine was being able to transition without getting hammered and then word I was using was Mutated by puberty.

It was kind of bad that it was already starting and I hated it so much.

I hate it now, just thinking about it makes me feel wrong and crawly inside.

I bite my cheek and look at her. “Thanks Mom I…I just think that I need more time.”

Definitely more time no matter how much this is making me feel just wrong…I need to read more, to learn more about me.

More about Sarah.

Because I know that’s me and nothing here yet has ever really said Shawn to me.

And I’d really scared at how they’re going to take me not being who they expect me to be, who they’ve always known me to be.

She nods and the nurses come and check my pressure and they get me some breakfast and that’s semi-solid?

“Is cream of wheat a solid?”

Mom coughs having inhaled a mouthful of her drink the wrong way. “No…not by my standards.”

I eat it and it’s…well it’s hospital food so it’s kind of what I would expect from the stereotype.

The milk is good at least and they have juice too and we’re just sort of hanging out and watching TV the cable’s actually not that bad here only there’s not a whole lot on at this early in the morning except the news and I let Mom have the remote and we’re watch Canada AM which isn’t too bad and actually seems familiar.

“We watch this a lot?”

“What honey/”

“This, it sort of feels familiar.”

“I do and you’ve probably seen it like getting ready for school and stuff. But hey that’s a good sign right.”

I give her an actual helpless shrug. “I dunno, amnesia’s like completely new to me.”

She looks at me that she snerks and I grin a little.

“Good, nice one.”

“Thank you I’ll be here all week.”

“Likely longer.”

“Dammit.”

“Shawn…”

“Sorry…we don’t swear?”

She shakes her head no. “Not really, it’s a habit and it sneaks into the way that people talk and I grew up with that…everything home was like every second or third word f-thing and f-that and it didn’t take too long before no one’s parents wanted their kids to be around me….and they just kind of…they look at you a certain way when they think all these things about you because of your family.”

“Oh…oh wow sorry.”

“No, no it’s okay you didn’t know and yeah I might be a bit too heavy on using it but it’s just…it’s why as you’ll find out I never really go home and my folks, your grandparents and I we don’t get along.”

“Why?” I move to look at her better.

“Well honestly and I really don’t want to come across as a snob Shawn but I grew up white trash, from a bad part of town and my folks were looked at just like white trash because of how they acted…like swearing left and right and not caring who heard them and when someone noticed it they’d be swearing at them and giving them the finger and stuff.”

Oh…wow… “So…not cool, I mean…sorry?”

“No it’s okay…well it’s not okay I mean I grew up pre-labeled by all of that until I worked my butt off and got out of Sidney.”

I look at her and this is new, I can see her talking and she’s sort of staring at the TV and she’s not really watching it but sipping her drink and chewing on her cheek.

Okay I can see her doing that and I do it too, I mean I’m not doing it right now but I’ve done it too and that’s.

I reach over and rub her back and she looks surprised. “Hey Mom?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks, I mean I know I don’t know what my life’s like right now and stuff but right now I kind of know what it’s not like and well…thanks.”

She blushes and she looks like she doesn’t quite know how to deal with me saying that because well…kids don’t talk like that with their folks normally and I’m sure that we likely wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for this happening and stuff.

She turns and she hugs me.

“Thanks Shawn, thanks it’s…I mean you try, you really try and do the right thing when you have kids and stuff and it’s never perfect, never goes as planned in your head at all and just…just to know that…”

I hug her back. “I’m different now aren’t I?”

I feel her nod in the hug. “Yeah, kind of a lot different but not…but I love you anyways.”

There’s something there…something kind of shining through. “Always?”

She sniffle nods.

“Good, cause I think I’m going to need that.”

“Shawn?”

I’m right there on the edge of saying…something, I don’t know what…but something and then the nurses are back in and with a wheelchair. “Alright Shawn you ready for your tests?”

Sigh.