Girl's Love | Editing |

Chapter 6

I should have spent the rest of the weekend planning my poem. But what could I say? Peter was right about My Hero Academia. It was freaking good.

Besides, my two priorities were homework and keeping tabs on my sister. That thing about a person not changing when they come out? Screw that. She was reading manga. Lesbian manga, granted, but manga nonetheless.

She had even changed in regard to Neal. On Sunday, he asked me for help with his homework. It was math; I did my best to help, but his teachers were teaching it to him differently from the way I was taught. 

Without being asked, Amber approached us.

"Need some help?"

Neal looked up, his eyes wide with surprise. Amber was always supposed to be a last resort when he and I needed homework help. Eventually, he found his voice again.

"Uh... yeah, sure. It's with this problem here."

I stepped back so that Amber could take over. She really did earn the spot as top of her class; she understood exactly what Neal was talking about. It was honestly kind of funny, seeing how awkward the interaction was. I imagined that I wore the same expression as Neal did now when she started talking to me again.

Once Neal got the hang of it, he waved his hand dismissively at us. Rude. I stuck my tongue at him before following Amber back towards my room.

"Thanks for that," I said.

"I'm used to helping Lily," she replied with a shrug.

Part of me wondered if that was her way of apologizing to him for not sharing the secret that she shared with me.

Monday morning came almost unexpectedly. I planned my poem on the bus and read more of My Hero Academia during down time in class. 

Classes went on as normal, but I was finding it harder to get through the day. There was just so much I wanted to do, and these wants took up most of the space in my brain. I wanted to finish my manga, I wanted to write, and I wanted to know more about my sister.

Lunchtime came, finally freeing me from my apprehension. I took out my journal and started to write. For a minute, I had to really think about it. I decided maybe I should try something short and sweet, like a haiku. As I chewed on my burger, I banged one out and looked it over.

The monster is gone

The mask broken, it reveals

Just a normal girl.

Wait a minute... you're publishing this, I reminded myself. You can't call your sister a monster! Ok, well what's another word to say someone antagonistic? Demon? Wall? Barrier? Ugh, it still doesn't sound right...

I scratched out the haiku and wrote another below it. But it was just as wrong, if not worse.

Yeah, this isn't going to work. I just have too many thoughts about it.

I had felt Peter looking over at me for a while now, but I chose to ignore it and focus on my work. Eventually, I sighed and looked up at him. "What's up?"

Peter shrugged. "Not much. You seem busy over there."

"Yeah... I'm trying to write something for the magazine."

"Oh, so I guess the meeting went well. That's great!"

With all of the excitement of Amber's coming out, I must have forgotten to mention it yesterday. It made me happy that he was able to connect the dots.