Chasing Kinder Tides

Rough Seas

 The sun had been out for hours, but no warmth clung to the earth. It was strange to her that the cold did little more than raise goose flesh along her arms and neck, but the rotten feeling deep in her core had managed to shake her frame almost visibly. She practically vibrated with anxiety. Beneath her, the bright colored metal shook as well, rattling faintly in a sort of harmonious anguish.

"Are you going to say anything?" Their voice was tight and somehow colder than the wintry air. Felicity tensed, tucking her head down farther. She knew that voice well enough to hear the need underneath--the desperation, the hope--but still the bite left a wound deeper than she had expected.

"You've got to speak eventually." They spoke softer now, but not soft enough for her to relax. Pink knuckles flexed until they were bloodless and pale gripping at the edge of the battered jungle gym. "You wouldn't have called me out here if there wasn't something you wanted to say."

It was true. She had been avoiding them for days, trying her hardest not to catch even the slightest glimpse of cropped hair or that faded red hoodie. If she didn't have anything new to say, she would've continued on like that, no matter how much it hurt.

"I..." She tried, but couldn't. Her voice cracked on the first word, and she struggled to swallow the knot that threatened to choke her. Images flashed white hot behind her eyes. Long mousy hair tangled around slender fingers; two sets of lipstick stains on a chipped coffee mug; a smile glowing bright over the dim light of a cell phone. Quickly, she pressed both palms into them and tried to drown them out with stars, but they had done their damage. Before the other could even think to try and comfort her, the words finally snapped out of her throat like a rubber band pulled to it's breaking point.

"This isn't you! I tried, I tried so hard, but this isn't the Laura I fell in love with!" It was somewhere between a shout and a wail, but with her hands still pressed into her eyes, it came out muffled. She wanted to keep going, to keep shouting, to yell until her lover's sense returned, but again her throat clenched around the words.

"You're right, this isn't Laura. Laura is gone, why can't you see that? Laura was never even real." There was a pause as they took a shaky breath. "I've always been Parker. Deep down inside, just like I said before. Laura was what everyone else wanted me to be, but she wasn't real. Parker is real. Parker is who I'm supposed to be."

Felicity's mind reeled. She'd heard those words before, but each time they graced her ears, she felt like a tornado had kicked up inside her skull, and memories flew like leaves in the storm around and around.

A year. It had been almost an entire year. Sure they were young, but that hadn't meant shit to either of them. Love has to start somewhere, right? So why not let it start in High School, curled under the thick blankets of Laura's bed, the sound of her parent's watching television in the room next door drowning out their breathy laughter. And once it had started, there was no reeling it back in. For twelve entire months they had practically lived together. They had eaten together. Showered together. Made love together. And then--and then this happened.

Felicity couldn't remember when she'd started to sob. She'd been so lost in her thoughts that the entire world around her seemed distant. It took her a long moment to gather herself enough to speak, and when she did, it was with her head lowered and her eyes fixed on the ground. "That's the thing, though. I only knew what you wanted me to know. I don't know anything about this new person--about Parker. How am I supposed to share my bed with a boy I know nothing about?"

He winced as if he'd been struck. For the first time he looked away too, watching his fist clench and unclench as he struggled to swallow his own tears lest he start to sob as well. "You're not. I don't expect things to be the same. I mean, I'm not the same, so how could they be? But that doesn't mean you should give up on me." He made to move towards Felicity, but she withdrew, pulling her knees up close and her arms over her chest. "I still love you, Fliss. That much sure as hell hasn't changed. And I promise you--I swear to every God out there--that it will never change."

Felicity still wasn't entirely convinced. She wanted to trust him. Every bone in her body ached to feel him against her body, to hug him hard enough for ribs to crack against her arms; but she knew he would feel foreign. "What do you want me to do? What am I supposed to do?"

"I can't tell you what you're supposed to do. I can only tell you what I hope you do. I hope that you give me a chance--give Parker a chance. It'll be like starting over from the ground up. I can keep my distance for however long you need; we can text, or call, or hell I'd settle for just a snap here and there if that makes you comfortable. We can come here, to the park, and hang out like we did when we were kids. We'll go through the entire getting to know each other stage again."

He made to move towards her again, and this time she didn't pull away. With bated breath, he sat down slowly on the cold platform-floor of the jungle gym by her side. He didn't dare touch her, no matter how badly he wanted to. At this point, what he wanted didn't matter anymore. His only focus was doing whatever he could to keep her from leaving him.

She didn't have the energy to scoot farther away from him--and to be honest she wasn't even sure she wanted to. She really didn't know what she wanted anymore, and it was driving her mad. "How do we start over? I still have your panties on the top of my laundry pile. Your lipstick is in my backpack. Everywhere I turn there are little pieces of Laura left behind. How can I try to love Parker when Laura isn't even gone yet?"

"I know this is hard for you. Trust me, I do. Just think about how hard it is for you to see those things--my old panties and lipstick and other things I'll never need again. And then think about what's it's like on my side. Sure, you mourn for your lover; but I mourn for myself. Yeah, I never felt like I was meant to be a woman. I felt ashamed and trapped. I felt disgusted with myself. But that doesn't change the fact that I lived as a woman for nearly twenty years of my life."

He could tell that he was losing Felicity. She could hardly grasp the fact that Laura was gone, let alone the fact that maybe he missed Laura too in some convoluted way. Desperately, he searched for the right words to try and explain himself. "It's like when you transferred schools. You remember how hard that was for you? For months all you talked about was wanting to come to BroadOak with me. You hated it at your old school. Then when you finally got the chance to transfer, things suddenly became real. Everything had changed for you. Sure you loved it at BroadOak, you loved having classes with me--but you kinda missed your old friends too."

Parker breathed a sigh of relief when he saw his words click in Felicity's mind. She switched from staring down at her feet and not moving, to chewing on the end of her coat sleeve--something she'd always done when thinking. He let her mull over the comparison for a moment before he continued, trying to make things as clear as possible.

"I've been waiting to make this change for so long. I thought I'd be complete when I finally did, but change is hard even if it's positive. I see things lying around my room, things that I've had for years, and I suddenly realize I'll never need to use them again. I pass people on the street that have known me since Middle School, and they don't even recognize my face. And then--" He stopped. It was hard to speak around the lump swelling in his throat. "And then I look at you. I look at you and you won't look back. You can barely stand for me to sit here next to you, and nothing in the world could have prepared me for what this would feel like."

Suddenly the tables had turned, and Felicity felt the need to apologize. She didn't understand why Laura--why Parker--would want to do this, but maybe she didn't need to understand. Maybe she just needed to be supportive. In truth, she wasn't really sure she could be supportive. Everything was changing so fast, and she didn't like any of the changes. How was she supposed to encourage things that made her entire world feel like it was crumbling around her?

She'd stopped crying. It didn't feel right for her to be so upset anymore. Parker was silent at her side, waiting for her to say something--to say anything. Eventually she'd have to give him an answer. Was she willing to start over with him? Without knowing it, she'd already decided on an answer. She wanted to hesitate, to take longer to decide, but she knew her answer wouldn't change. 

"Okay," she said. "Let's start over."