Xoraxorel

  1.

  Amber didn't think about finding Madaline down in the living room the evening following Madaline's request to watch anime with her.

  They never discussed it becoming a thing, but after she was sure Simon had gone to sleep, she went downstairs for a gss of water, conveniently forgetting the water bottle she took up with her every night when she took her boyfriend to bed.

  The part of Amber’s mind that drove most of the time was of course surprised to see Madaline sitting there, as though she’d been waiting for her.

  “Hey princess,” said Madaline, with a smile.

  “Um, hey, queen.”

  “Awkward thing aren’t you?” Madaline ughed.

  Amber smiled back. She was teasing her, but it didn't feel mean, it felt pleasant, really pleasant, like warm; it made her skin buzz vaguely.

  “Yeah, I guess so. I get, like, self conscious, and it trips me up.”

  “We’ll see if I can cure you of that.” She pointed to the screen, “Are we watching more Dungeon Meshi?”

  “You want to?”

  “I do.”

  That was the third time and the third time made it a trend, a nightly ritual, only ever interrupted by Madaline’s evenings out of the house on Fridays.

  From 11:30 AM to 2:30 AM the house might as well have been empty, just the two of them.

  In the beginning they sat at opposite ends of the couch and talked very little, but slowly or rather quickly, depending on your perspective, over the next few days they started sitting closer to one another, until one evening they were suddenly almost touching.

  Still, even with the occasional elbow bump, they still hadn’t started talking yet, not really, just pleasantries; odd comments from Madaline and often hesitant responses from Amber.

  “Gay,” Madaline half yelled, throwing a little bit of popcorn at the screen when Marcille and Falin crawled into bed together.

  Amber giggled.

  “Who do you think tops and who bottoms?” she said, nudging Amber pyfully.

  “Um, I’m not sure, people- people do lots of cute fan art with them though.”

  “You like stuff like that?” The question didn’t come out as judgmental, Madaline sounded honestly curious. She rose and stalked up to the TV, retrieving the scattered bits of snack.

  “Yeah, I love fanart of them, it makes me… like feel happy for some reason, you know?” She didn't think about the fact that once and a while the same images would instead cocoon her in an odd mencholy.

  Madaline sat back down, but was immediately distracted when her phone went off.

  She checked it; after scrolling through a series of images, she smirked and jumped to the end of the couch where she snapped a selfie while reclining against the arm, her knee propped up, looking cooler than God.

  She hopped back to the center with Amber and composed a short message while munching popcorn. The phone was once more pced aside after sending the image out into the digital ether.

  Madaline was always hungry:

  Popcorn was an occasional party favor during these sessions, so was fruit or candy or cookies, the sweets which had begun to magically popute the house soon after Madaline's move in.

  It took less than a minute for Madaline’s phone to begin a fit of vibrations that didn’t seem like it was going to stop any time soon. Madaline shook her head and silenced it.

  Madaline’s phone went off frequently, especially at night. It was the only real disturbance in what had fast become Amber’s favorite time of day.

  Not that she thought of it in those terms. She of course couldn't consider spending time with Madaline to be more rewarding than eating with or talking to or making love with her boyfriend, but… she just didn’t think of it in those terms, at least not during the day and when she had started to have that thought after just the first week, she pushed it so far below her level of awareness that it was like it never happened.

  But while she didn’t think of it in those terms, at night she could feel it, crashing waves of ease, rolling in like a tide for a few short hours.

  She was even discovering a noticeable residual effect left behind on the beach of her mind each morning, and the height the tide was reaching only seemed to be inching higher as the evenings went on.

  That's all it took, just the little bit of talk and watching anime, munching slight rations of snacks at Madaline's gentle insistence, having Madaline call her princess and once and awhile on wonderful occasions, she’d call her good girl, again.

  It was fun, she was no longer lonely in the dead of night and for the first time, that she could clearly remember, she was having fun.

  2.

  It took them about five nights to work their way through Dungeon Meshi.

  Amber had been worried that when they ran out of episodes, Madaline would grow bored and the nights would end.

  She remembered Madaline walking upstairs the first Saturday after she'd arrived, See you around.

  That fear had almost ruined the final few episodes, producing a sickly cwing feeling in her stomach as she struggled not to think about it, to not show her concern.

  But it was only 1 AM when they ran out of more watch time and when they were dropped back to the select screen, Madaline turned and asked, "Is that it? Is there more? I can pirate it for us?"

  "Um-" Amber began.

  But Madaline was off on her phone, scouring the internet like it was nothing.

  Amber yanked at the sleeve of her sweater and didn't mention how nervous the idea of pirating something made her.

  "Ah, fuck, looks like were waiting on more to be made," Madaline concluded setting her phone back down.

  "Oh, okay," Amber said, breathing an internal sigh of relief, but after a moment of thought, she began to warm up to the idea of Madaline acquiring something for them if necessary. She let go of her sleeve as she reflected on how Madaline's skill set would likely insute them from the variety of horrible outcomes she'd been taught to expect if she used the internet without the highest degree of reasonable paranoia.

  Madaline's next words were a blessed thing, "What else you got?"

  "More anime?" Amber asked, carefully, wanting to be sure.

  "Yeah. I've seen bits and pieces here and there, with friends and such, but I haven't watched a full anime since... I think the st thing I watched was the first season of Attack on Titan, I didn't know I wanted tits yet, that's how long ago it was."

  Amber made her choice and they began working their way through Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood; it was no great loss, as she'd already seen the series twice, but Amber couldn't concentrate on the first episode as her mind was whirring away:

  She knew it was better to py things safe, rather than make assumptions and ruin things as Amber had a history of doing. That said, two words Madaline had used in her offer of piracy were now ricocheting around her brain, lighting her up with dopamine. Madaline said she could pirate it... For us.

  The simple idea that there was on some level an us now, a Madaline and Amber...

  Even with the uncertainty this concept was such a contrast to the things that usually swallowed up Amber's brain. She was afraid she might be yanked out into the cold at any moment, but the idea remained and thinking it was like basking in a warm bath.

  For us.

  It was so pretty to think so.

  3.

  It took a little over two weeks after the ritual was established for the two of them to have an actual conversation, one in which Amber had to, on some level, decide how she would handle Madaline, how honest she would be with her.

  They were between episodes; it was just after midnight:

  "This show is cool, but I weep at the comparative ck of obvious lesbians," said Madaline, coming back in from the kitchen, tossing an apple up and down. "Though," she said, yanking the stem out with her teeth, "Have to love the inclusion of the shape shifting nonbinary vilin ."

  Amber ughed a little, shaking her head.

  Madaline fell back into her seat right next to her.

  Netflix popped up with its, are you still watching, message.

  "You have the remote," said Amber.

  Madaline gnced at it, she didn't pick it up, instead she rolled the uneaten apple between her palms and pressed her lips together in thought. "Right," she said, pursing her lips and blowing out a stream of air.

  “Everything okay?”

  "Yeah, it's, ah, it's fine." She passed the apple from hand to hand through the air. "Look, princes- Amber, there's something I've been wanting to ask you about."

  "Oh, yeah? Um, sure," Amber's pulse picked up, her finger found her pant leg and slowly began to drag back and forth.

  Madaline's eyes skipped down to Amber's gesture. She rolled the apple over one hand and caught it, before pcing her free hand on Amber's back.

  The warmth from Madaline's hand trickled inward through Amber's hoodie; her finger didn't stop, but it slowed from an average of one stroke every two seconds, to one stroke every three seconds.

  Though she had a few that were tried and true, Madaline didn't usually work on long thought out strategies, instead she tended to rely on what she thought of as inspiration. It's what guided her to this conversation in this moment and it's what would, for better or worse, guide her through the specifics of the talk she was now attempting to have.

  "So, look, I don't want to make you uncomfortable, okay, but I don't know-"

  The apple went up and nded in her palm with a little smack.

  She sighed, "Amber, I want you to feel like if you need to talk about something... you don't have to... bullshit me, right?"

  Amber stared at her.

  Madaline had been thinking about needing to have this talk since Amber had changed her bandages that first time, but she'd been waiting for the when and how to reveal itself. Befitting a bitch as tall as she was, it had come like a lightning strike in the kitchen, the basic approach and that there was never going to be a better time. "Like it's cool if you need to vent."

  Lightning struck again, punching four little words into her half written script, the obvious thing to tell Amber, "It wouldn't be..." She paused, the inspiration was good, but a counter inspiration appeared, the image of thick, owl like gsses fshed into her brain, along with a disapproving finger belonging to someone she should have consulted before attempting this.

  She wavered and finally struck out the word, inappropriate, from her script and instead went with, "It wouldn't be a big deal, you see what I'm saying? You can talk to me."

  Amber nodded and smiled in pleased relief. "Um, thanks Madaline, you can talk to me if you need to too, you know."

  And wasn’t that just half the truth, Madaline was sure she could rant and rave to Amber all day and night and Amber would happily console her about anything.

  "Right," Madaline clicked her tongue. "It's just that... I kind of feel if I just tell you that, you'll say something like what you just said and you'll kind of- it won't feel real to you."

  "I don't... Um?" Amber said, the scratching accelerated.

  "Just, let me... look, I don't know if the truth, whatever it is, is something you've told anyone about, I don't know if you've told Simon or how much and I don't know when else to do this," she waved her apple at the TV. "So, listen, I'm going to ask a thing, because I really don't know how else to handle this."

  "A thing?" Amber parroted.

  "Right, so, you can talk to me or you can not talk to me. You can tell me its none of my business. You can tell me to fuck off. Okay? And this is what's most important, Amber." It took her a little longer than usual, but she captured Amber's eyes with her own. "I promise, if you tell me something, I won't tell anyone, I won't tell Simon. And if you tell me something, whatever it is, it won't change how I think of you. I mean it, I work really really hard to try to keep my promises."

  Amber felt a little sick, it wasn't as bad as it often was, only it was also so much worse because she'd been getting used to her nights being so anxiety reduced.

  She took a deep breath and held it, before letting it out. She didn't want to nod in acceptance of the situation, but with no other recourse she nodded anyway.

  "Okay," Madaline licked her lips and she spoke carefully, "Like I said I don't- aw, fuck it, so... you're just totally disowned, aren't you?"

  Madaline watched her, waiting on bated breath for how this would go.

  To Madaline's surprise the scratching ceased.

  Amber cocked her head, peering obliquely, cautiously, at Madaline, eyes slightly narrowed, brow furrowed; like she was puzzled by the question, like she wasn't sure what Madaline was talking about. "I'm... disowned?" She pulled her hand away from her pants and set it on the couch, an inch away from the half empty bowl of popcorn.

  Madaline looked back at her, "Ah, yeah, like your parents, the mom you text every day, the dad you call once a week, cause he's a worryer... they disowned you right? They don't accept you."

  Amber's eyes bugged out; the look of an animal caught in a trap it hadn't seen and couldn't fully comprehend.

  Madaline raised the fingers she could off the apple, in a mollifying gesture, "It's okay, you have nothing to be ash-"

  And pop, just like that, the smile Amber wore around so frequently abracadabraed onto her face. "What? No," she began to ugh then, her hand scratching at the couch, nails flicking the surface of the popcorn bowl, making it ring slightly. "No, no, don't be silly. I'm not-" she shook her head, "I'm not disowned."

  "Alright, that's fine then, just as long as you understand that if you want to talk to me about something you don't have to lie," said Madaline, actively trying to meet her intended goal while rolling back the st thirty seconds.

  But Amber didn't seem to hear her. She shook her head again.

  "No, Madaline, it's- it's not like-," she took a huge shaky breath and held it for so long, Madaline almost shook her to get her to let it out. It finally emerged with a whoosh, followed by several more rounds of deep respiration. "It's not like that, you know."

  "Okay."

  "I'm not disowned, I can," the smile on her face faltered for a moment, but then it sprang back up. She produced a giggle that made Madaline’s bones shiver, followed by a little marionette shrug. "It's up to me, you know? It's- it's my choice. I can go home whenever I want." The scratching stopped again, Amber began to clutch her arm instead.

  Right right, fuck it, throw me in the deep end and throw on Pop Dell' Arte, cause there's no way back.

  Madaline moved her hand up and down Amber's sweater. "Can you?"

  "Uhuh," Amber whimpered. "Whenever I want, I can go visit and see them again and-" a big shaky breath, "and maybe if they still have my car they'll let me have it back and maybe they'd help me with school and- and they'll... tell me they love me again and- and…”

  Madaline put a little more gentle pressure on Amber’s back.

  “You know… they were very clear about that- that they love me, and I can always, always, always come back. I just... I'd just… I’d just have to go back to being a boy." The final word wasn't spoken as much as it was moaned and in its wake a dark expression fshed across Amber's face, one that was so unusual from what Madaline had seen of her; not feigned contentment, nor sadness, nor fear, instead for just a moment, there and gone so fast she wasn’t sure Amber even registered the emotional fluctuation, was a blistering expression of pitch bck rage.

  “But that’s never going to happen,” said Madaline.

  Each word of Amber's response climbed upwards towards a shout, “I’d rather be dead than go back." Her voice colpsed back into a near whisper, "I just can't.” She looked at Madaline with an imploring expression, a desperate petition for the perfectly understandable to be understood, as though she expected that Madaline wouldn’t, that Madaline would call her crazy.

  “I know.”

  Amber blinked at her, her cogs shifting with new comprehension “You do, don’t you?” For a moment there was such awe in her voice, as though the full meaning of sitting with another trans woman was finally passing through her. She shook her head. “If they could- if they could just see- I know... I’m not perfect, but I make such a better daughter than a son. If they could just see.” She waved her arms around, out at the room instead of at herself, at where she was instead of at who she was.

  Madaline pressed her lips together.

  “If they could just see,” Amber insisted again. A wild parade of emotions flitted across her face, several of their number were beautiful in their ugliness, but each was then mashed back into that pleasant little smile.

  It was such a perfect little smile, one seemingly b grown to signify happiness, but Madaline, through spending time alone with Amber, had become utterly certain that it was not at all a reliable indicator of its owner’s well being. In fact the less it appeared in Madaline's presence the better she felt.

  The smile slowly fell away, as Amber began taking sharp, short breaths, steadily moving down the track towards hyperventiting.

  “Okay, princess, I'm going to give you a hug, is that alright?” she turned to her and opened her arms.

  Amber stopped breathing and stared at her for all of half a second, before lunging to be held.

  At first, Madaline was a little stunned at Amber's sudden receptivity and she left her arms hanging open, with the small woman clinging to her with limbs that were like slender branches.

  For Amber's part, she hadn't realized what she'd done until her brain registered the scents of leather and spearmint and something ineffably feminine. Her face was pressed into Madaline's hair, which was twisted into a chain like braid today.

  Amber had just long enough to consider the idea that she'd made a mistake, that she'd misinterpreted something, but the consideration was silenced as the sharp pressure of Madaline's chin pressed into the top of her head and long arms crisscrossed over her, pulling her tight.

  Madaline waited for the tears to come. They didn't.

  It wouldn't come up in this conversation, but at some point during their friendship Amber would tell Madaline that she hadn't cried in over ten years.

  She'd already informed Madaline she'd not taken to lessons on tools and auto maintenance, that said, there were plenty of other teachings from her father that she'd absorbed, ones that remained in her to one degree or another, as though Greg Orlet had spent years intentionally feeding his daughter bits of lead while calling it medicine.

  Madaline works with what she has, inspiration, so she holds Amber in her arms and leaves the door open either for her to stop here or to keep going.

  Xoraxorel