Hand in My Pocket

Everything is gonna be fine, fine, fine.
That’s what he told me.
He said it in his kind voice and corresponding puppy dog eyes as we sat at a table at a food court in the mall. I had poured out about thirty minutes of my frustrations about my family, my job, and school. I ended my minor tirade with a bite of a tater tot and several accolades of him sitting there, taking it all in. I applauded him for it. I would have given the BotY--Boyfriend of the Year—award right then and there and maybe a long night in woods with just the two of us. I was almost going to suggest such a late-night endeavor when his cell phone rang, and we learned that he was supposed to help his dad early in the morning.
Family was important—at least his were at that moment—so we left the mall and he drove me home. We made small talk—I was doing a lot of the talking, which was normal. I mean, we only started dating because of one night that we stayed behind at school for a basketball game and just talked, non-stop: though “The Star-Spangled Banner”, the team line up, a penalty shot and one particularly gruesome scene we learned the following Monday: a player has completely twisted his foot around. Like, one hundred and eighty freaking degrees, but we just sat there yakking away. I felt a connection with him, and I deliberately parted my pink-streaked black and blond hair away from my face so I could see him. This was the equivalency of dropping the shields on the Enterprise or removing one’s enchantment during a blood moon. I think I smiled, which is something I seldom, if ever, would do.
He wasn’t a jock or a nerd, to use the oh so clique cliché of yesteryear. He was just one of the guys who went to school to learn and avoided the social outcasts and the ones that lived north of the border of “outcast land”. I suppose I could say I lived there, or at least had a summer home. Try to envision that girl who wears just enough black, but also has a mini “Pikachu” plush with a blue, pink and white emblem hanging from her backpack.
Just when you think you’ve found Mr Right.
And you know, I’ve been told to take the high road.
I’ve been advised to look to the bright side and to not dwell in the grey.
Well, fuck that…

I went home from that basketball game with the knowledge that there was an actual reason to throw a ball from the half court and that my heart was fragile and soft. I wanted to pretend that I had to be hard and coarse to avoid any pain. At my school, as large as it was, there was a clique order. Justin way have not been officially a part of one but to not be in one was to be in one in the eyes of the class caste system. I was considered the unknown. No one really knew who or what I was due to my hoodie and dark clothes. I was a girl. A special one in my own eyes. Sure, perhaps a bit high on the Harley Quinn spectrum, but if I was required to wear a mask so I wouldn’t feel put out by the forty-two percent of the school that had loud mouths, then I’d do it. But I had started to get a little brazen by wearing my colors on my backpack.
I threw my backpack on the side of my bed and took off my jacket. I would almost take showers in it if I could. It was like a warm blanket, like arms folded over my body in protection. I sighed as I wondered if Justin would take its place.
“Rikki!” A voice shrieked .
I turned to the door as it flew open and my older sister, a cheerleader who went to the same school, I might add, charged in like she owned my room. She used to do it before I transitioned, and she decided to continue doing it since we were “sisters”. However, there was Hell to pay if I returned the favor.
“Can you knock next time?” I asked as I took off my glasses and placed them in a case.
“Were you sitting with Justin Clarke?”
“Is that his last name? We didn’t do last names.”
“Jesus, Rikki, you were drooling over him the entire game and didn’t even know his name?”
“Names are not needed when the soul speaks, Becca. Wait, I wasn’t drooling!”
Becca shook her head and then stared at the ceiling. Countdown to an explosion epithets in three…two..one… “Did you tell him?”
“Tell him what? That I prefer Robert Smith over Robert Pattison? We went over movies and music, I think in the third quarter.”
“No, about—”
“I know what you’re trying to ask. So callous, Becca, God.”
“I’m just looking out for you. Justin’s a popular guy.”
“And?”
“And if he found out, maybe he would…”
“Maybe he’d love it? Perhaps I can turn him away from your CIS-lifestyle.”
“You know you’re not supposed to talk like that to me.”
“But you’re in here thinking that I need to tell a guy I just met what’s in my pants?”
“Well, he was looking.”
“Were you cheering or leering at us for the entire game?”
“Did he kiss you goodnight?”
“Becca, out.”
“I’m just curious.”
“No, CC, is curious, you’re just annoying me.”
CC—Captain Cuteness—was our cat. He was cute once but as he matured his cutesy name clashed with ugly reality, so, we called him CC.
“You need to tell me these things.” Becca took a step back but still had her eyes on me.
“How about a TikTok video when we first make-out?”
“Rikki…”
“Becca…”
“You need to be more careful, okay?” She was almost to the threshold, so I walked over, gabbed the door.
“I’m not the one trying to dox myself.”
Becca stood far enough so she couldn’t say I slammed the door in her face.
“What did I say about the language?”
“Goodnight, Becca.”
“Did you say that to Justin too?”
“Yes, in the language of undying love,” I muttered as I slammed the door and locked it.
I made a mental note to not let him even step onto our block.
Our parents would throw an impromptu party and my younger brother and Becca would throw thirteen million questions at him. We wouldn’t need matching clothes or jewelry, but matching katanas in order to perform hara-kiri before my family ever opened the front door.

I thought long and hard—well, maybe for five minutes—about the ramifications that could occur if Justin asked the right questions to the right person. We went to a large school and people tend to float in the ether and only certain names ever came out of the fog and could be recognized. Justin was one of them and so was Becca. I was not and I preferred it that way but, for some reason, I thought something different about Justin and I didn’t have to raise my defenses while we talked.
But that was just him and I for a few hours during a basketball game. I hadn’t put in much thought about what would be said by the student body or Justin. The court of public opinion would either crucify us, leave us with a shoulder shrug and a “meh” or never acknowledge it to begin with. As much as I wanted to just think of all the positives that COULD happen, I had to embrace my inner Wednesday Addams and not think too much about things.

“Omigod!” Beck shouted from the hallway. “Omigod, omigod, omigod!”

My parents and I interrupted our breakfast of waffles and looked down the hallway as Becca stormed into the kitchen. She made a beeline to the chair across from me, hurriedly shoved it out of the way and pointed her cell phone at me with a picture of Justin with me in a full, lip-locked embrace.

“When did this happen?”

“Check the time stamp, Becca,” I replied as I returned to my waffles.

“This is, right after. the game, in the hallway!” Becca replied, her voice steadily rising to a crescendo.

“What is?” Mom asked.

“This!” And Becca shoved her phone so up into Mom’s face that it almost struck her in the forehead.

She then moved it to Dad who squinted at the screen. “What am I looking at? It looks like two shadows or something.”

“Yes, of Rikki and Justin!”

I continued to eat as Becca relayed everything —and a few embellishments I mean, I love how everyone assumed we had a full love-in session a la John and Yoko in the hallway—to Mom and Dad. I would get a chance to defend myself as soon as Becca took a breath.

“That! Is a simple kiss,” I said as I pointed my fork at Becca.

It looks like he has his tongue down your throat.”

“Looks are deceiving.”

Becca’s cell phone pinged.

“Rikki, there are peeps who know you…you are, were, my little brother and now they see you with your boyfriend.”

“True, and I will just say, right now, that I do not call Justin my boyfriend, lover, or one night stand.”

“Rikki Aylesea Morris,” Dad growled.

“We didn’t do anything. This is a simple, I had a great time talking to you, maybe we can do it again sometime kiss.”

“Are your friends spreading this picture around?” Mom asked as she sat a plate of waffles in front of Becca.

“Well, no, we’re not spreading it, it’s not gossip.”

“But omigod, it must be true,” I mocked.

“I am trying to help with damage control before it gets out of hand.”
Becca’s phone dinged two times.

“How does it get ‘out of hand’, Becca?”

Our parents would suffer whiplash before breakfast was over.

“He might ask you to the WinterJam.”

“And maybe he will…Wait why would that be a bad thing?”

The three of us looked at Becca. She coughed and looked back at us for a moment. “I’m just thinking about how some people can be and we all know they can be cruel.”

“But we can’t stop them thinking that, Rebekah.”

“Dad, you don’t understand.”

Becca’s phone pinged out so many times it was someone was sending a telegram.

“Are kids still picking on the lesser ones?”

“Yes.”

“Do they still mock what they don’t understand?”

“Yes.”

“Do they assume they have it all figured out and their parents are complete morons like the ones on TV?”

“If I answer that truthfully, am I in trouble?”

“Choose your nexts word carefully, Rebecca. Anne.”

Becca sat back down at table and put her hands out. “Okay, picture the entire school wanting to follow them around.”

“Them?” Mom asked.

“Rikki and Justin.”

“By the way your phone’s blowing up, everyone already knows too much of too little,” Dad replied.

“I’ll take care of it,” Becca said as she mashed at her screen multiple times.

Half an hour later we were on our way to school. Becca drove with one hand and tapped out messages using the other. It was a miracle we never got pulled over or in a three-car pile-up. Our car was mom’s old minivan. Yes, it was old, but it got us from place to place, and Becca could comfortably fit a few members of the cheer square.

“You’re going to have to take the bus home tonight. I have practice.”

“On a Thursday?”

“Yeah, I can’t help it if Mrs. Pruitt wants to call for an impromptu practice.”

“I’ll wait for you. I have some practicing of my own I can do.”

I nudged my head to the backseat where my bass laid across the floor, held in place by the front seats.

“It’ll be a little late.”

“I can wait all night. Mom and dad, perhaps not” I replied, getting ready to call her bluff. “What’s in it for me?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re obviously going out with friends, probably to someplace mom and dad would kill you if did.”

“They wouldn’t ‘kill’ me, Rikki. You’re so dramatic. It’s nowhere, we’re just going out.”

There was a time when I listened and believed anything Becca said. Before the age of eight, I thought she was the wisest person on the planet. Einstein? An idiot. Socrates? An old, dead boomer. I held onto all of that until she turned thirteen. That was day the girly spark faded from my sister’s eyes and the flaming bitch essence filled her soul. She sold off or gave away all her Barbie dolls. Her “My Little Pony” collection, sold to the glue factory at a garage sale. She used the money to buy a dress that mom and dad would never let her wear.

Not I really wanted said toys…as I had the full set of “Jem and the Holograms,” which everyone knows was superior to “Barbie and the Rockers”. But, the fact she never asked me if I wanted at least one doll. One pony. One of her dresses she could no longer wear. Nope, all sold off in the name of being a newly christened teenager…something I never wanted to become.

I wanted to stay a kid, but Becca’s circle of friends kept me from doing so. They would come out and listen to music I didn’t understand, comment on the body parts of boys, and smoke. They smoked in the woods behind our house. Becca bribed me with a skirt she had, and like a teenager, I accepted and kept her secret.

Becca’s friends became a bane on our house as they were always over at our house and they took free reign to look at anything and everything they wanted. My room was not an exception. There was one night when I wore said skirt Becca had given me as I sat on a chair with my bass guitar. The amplifier was off as I was simply working on my fingerings.

The door barged open, and Kaitlyn and Toni strolled in.

“Becca, do you, like, have a brother or sister?”

I had several battles with myself over who I was. A boy who needed psychological therapy, a girl trapped in a boy’s body, or just a girl of a different color. My room had a mixed vibe . It did not have the ‘princess girly girl’ to match what my sister had become. My room did not have any trophies or anything that would clue anyone to go either way.

Becca ran in behind them and our eyes locked. She had the choice to say I was her brother, but Kaitlyn would use it against Becca at school and make her high school years a living hell. Toni would scorch earth our entire family right then and there.

“I have a sister. This is Rikki.”

“You play guitar?” Kaitlyn asked as she looked my room, her face showing disgust and annoyance.

“I’m just starting to. Learning how to move my fingers across the fretboard. I also need to work on growing calluses to really hit the notes.”

“Don’t really care,” Kaitlyn replied as she walked out of the room, with Toni following.

“We’re talking about this,” I mouthed at Becca before she left the room and closed the door.

Livid would have been an understatement, and a word I did not know at the time, so out of sheer spite I cranked my amplified up to eleven, grabbed the largest string, pulling it back like an archer’s bow and released it. Mom never figured how the family portrait fell from the wall.

“Fine,” Becca lamented. “But you’re going to be crowded by cheerleaders.”
I shrugged as we drove into our’s school parking lot.

Flatirons High School, home of “The Fighting Bears,” a mascot that looked ridiculous on any school document or apparel. Picture what’s supposed to be a roaring bear but looks more like a man in a pathetic bear suit, a la Yogi Bear. Becca separated from me, something she had done even before she had the van, and would to one of the other doors. I usually walked through the front door with my backpack slung on my shoulder while holding my bass.

My daily trek required me to bring the guitar to the music room, where Mr. Smith would lock it in his office, and then fast-walk back into the main hall.

“Hey, Rikki,” a voice called out. I turned to see Justin walking my way before turning and matching my pace,

“Justin,” I said with a nod.

“The other night you said play guitar.”

I nodded.

“Cool, I’d like to hear you play.”

“Sure,” I replied with a nonchalant tone but inside I was about to squeal with giddyness. “There’s some time during lunch or afterschool.”

“How about both? I think my ears can take the decibels,” Justin replied with a smile.

“I’ll make sure Mr. Smith has his ‘wall-of-sound’ available.”

“See you at lunch, “ Justin called out as he turned down one of the halls. I had a thought of turning to look at him as he walked away but decided against it.

I did not want anyone, say Becca or one of her friends; to say I was gawking at Justin. It was enough that one-fourth of the student body saw us walking together for about thirty seconds. The punk girl and the school golden boy together in the hallway.

I rushed to the music hall, grabbed my bass from Mr. Smith and went into the empty studio used for small ensembles or practice for electric instruments. It was almost soundproof inside and I would take that to my advantage to run scales and patterns. I strapped my wood grain bass over me and started to play a somber sounding melody, at least I liked to think it was.

Justin opened the door, causing me to abruptly stop the sting vibrations.

“Don’t mind me.”

“You’re a music fan, eh?”

“I sing in the shower.”

“Not in the locker room, I hope,” I said with a grin. “Although I think I’d like to see that.”

“I’d have to charge admission,” Justin replied as he cleared his throat. “What’s a song we both know?”

I didn’t think Justin knew anything by Izzy Stradlin, NIN, or All Time Low, so I plucked a bass line and Justin started laughing. “I know this one…and it’s not ‘Ice Ice Baby’. I’ll take the Bowie part.”

His voice, just about a spot-on of the Starman himself. I took a deep breath and tried my best at impersonating Mercury, impressing myself in the proces. We caught ourselves staring at each other as our song reached a crescendo.

The song ended with Justin grinning as I breathed a sigh of a relief, I didn’t forget a note or lose pitch.

“I have a confession,” he began, and the gears of bad news turned in my head, “and you cannot laugh when I tell you.”

“I’ll do my best,” I replied as I turned the amplifier down and then switched it off.

“If this gets out, then I’ll lose my popularity status here…but,” Justin gave out a long and exaggerated sigh, “I’ll take that chance. I play piano.
Lessons since I was seven.”

“Why don’t you play in the jazz ensemble?”

“It’s not what I want to, music-wise.”

“You want to be on ‘American Idol’ someday, right?”

“Maybe. I want to skip the embarrassment of Simon telling me I was just a carbon-copy pretty boy who sings.”

I opened my guitar case and laid my bass inside. “I don’t think you’re a carbon copy.

“You think I’m a pretty boy?”

“One who can sing without auto-tune, so that’s another thing you have going for you.”

“I’m kind of stuck on the ‘pretty boy’ comment.”

“You said it,” I replied as I closed the case,” I just agreed with you. I won’t tell a soul you play the piano, but I expect you to play this afternoon. I’ll grab one of the synthesizers.”

“A synth…ah, my old piano teacher would be rolling in her grave, if she was dead. Instead, she will find out and beat the crap out of me.”

I grabbed for my case, but Justin reached out and picked it up. I had a slight twinge to yank it from him as that guitar was like my baby, but we walked out of the room with him carrying it with ease. We walked back an in-coming music class and there were some whispers and pointing by a girl who I knew would report our actions to Becca.

“What were you doing with Justin this time?” Becca asked me as I stood at my locker.

“What are they saying?” I asked, my eyes as wide as saucers with sarcasm.

“Mom and Dad are not going to like it.”

“I already like it, and I have no idea what ‘it’ is.”

Becca rolled her eyes, leaned in, and whispered. “You can’t just walk around the school with Justin feeling your ass.”

“Bass. He was carrying my bass. As in guitar. But, you know, give the people what they want, right?”

“Ok, whatever. Rikki,” Becca said as she looked down the hall. I turned to see what she was staring at and saw Justin.

“You like him, don’t you?” I asked.

“Every girl does,” Becca replied and then turned back to meet my eyes. “Which is why every girl in this school will be against you once it’s out there.”

“Once what is out there?”

“That the two of you are an item.”

“Do you think I should ask him out? I admit, I’m considering it, and everyone wants me to it seems.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah, maybe I want to be with him.”

“But he doesn’t know about the ‘real’ you.”

“Fuck you, Becca!” I yelled as I slammed my locker door closed.