Whispers

Part Eleven, by Michelle Wilder

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
ӬBut I have promises to keep,
ӬAnd miles to go before I sleep, Ӭ
And miles to go before I sleep.

(This is almost the first story I ever wrote. It's the apple seed from which many grew. Reposted with grammatical revision only.)

-----

Mom and Dad took us out for breakfast again, after we left a note for Jarrod and Anne that we were okay and I called so I could see Ben for sure and Dennis could see someone too, at noon.

It wasn’t as noisy at the restaurant as the morning before and I wasn’t scared like then, but Dennis was way worse than normal. I guess he noticed we were worried about him and said about the only thing since he'd sat down..

“Sorry...”

Then he went back to quiet. He didn’t eat much either, just pushed stuff around the plate.

I tried to think what he was thinking. All month he'd hoped Justin would write or stuff, but he never said so, and today he found out he was depressed and that was why, and he was way worse.

I reached around his arm and held his hand with both mine under the table and sat closer and talked as quietly as I could.

“Did you think it was his fault... and now, you think it was your fault?”

He kinda sat still.

“But he was depressed, and you were helping me... and so then it’s my fault?”

He made a movement.

“But you saved me.”

He made a noise and turned but I looked at just his hand, kinda counting his fingers.

“And you called him and he’s going to go see someone... and maybe you saved him?”

He pulled almost away, he turned so much towards me, but I kept his hand, and I thought of a best way to say what I meant.

After that, I looked at his face.

“So you saved us both and we’re your fault.”

I had to smile. He looked so surprised, and trying not to cry, and to think... all at the same time.

Mom made a noise and I looked over. She was smiling at Dad. *He* was staring at us and I think trying not to laugh or something.

I looked back and Dennis was looking at our hands. He peeked up at me and his voice was all rough.

“When did you get so smart?”

He didn’t say it like an insult, but more like I really was so smart. Then he smiled like, like... I had to smile too, and tried to look smart. And that made me almost laugh.

“Who, moi?” I looked at Mom and Dad. “I’ve always been smart, haven’t moi?”

Mom started to laugh.

“C’mon, guys! Back me up here!”

Dennis made a laugh and pulled me over in a hug as hard as he could.

-

After we'd finished but before they brought the bill Dennis made like a sigh, and pulled me closer, but gently.

-

Dad told us we should both come next weekend, and he’d see if Carol and Barry could make it back too, but for sure my sister'd be there and he knew everyone would like to see each other, or meet and stuff.

He said it better.

Dennis said he could drive us, and he’d make sure as soon as he phoned his parents. Ben came out then and I introduced him to Mom and Dad. He already knew Dennis from other times.

-

I told Ben all the stuff that'd happened and especially about Saturday night and the hospital and I showed him the prescription and said it was like so much was better, just in a day, and about dressing up, and my nightie (even if that part was hard) and about if maybe I was transgendered and what Dennis said. I asked him what he thought?

He said he thought I probably wasn't happy in a traditional male role...

And he thought I had very good friends, and that Jarrod and Dennis and Anne and Patty were good people to keep me safe.

When I asked, he told me the study thing we all filled out at the beginning of the year was to see if people could be found and gotten to counseling and support and stuff, but that my stuff from high school and from my parents had already kinda done that too.

That’s probably why Ellen kinda knew me at the newspaper too, he thought, maybe: because I told Mom and Dad I was going to volunteer there and they might've told them to watch out for me. Just to watch out.

But the university wouldn’t have done that. He suggested I could ask?

I told him about the safe walk stuff Gary said...

And how he was...

Ben smiled and said maybe Gary liked me?

-

It was a really long visit, almost two hours, and he made me tell him all about the cutting, and the suicide stuff and how I felt and all that, and he gave me a number to put on Mom’s phone that I had just then that was a crisis line that was the same place the hospital counselor was from (I checked her card later) and said he wanted to see me the next day too.

There were lots of things to talk about. And he wanted to talk with Mom and Dad.

Dennis was finished too, and had been for over an hour. After Mom and Dad went in I told him about what Ben said about thinking maybe Gary liking me, and for a second he looked odd, but then he got all dense and said of course Gary liked me, I was *nice*...

I had to say that he meant maybe Gary *like*-liked me.

“That’s what I just said...”

I was going to try to say it again, different, but he looked too innocent and I figured it out.

So I pretended to not get it either.

-

He told me he saw a counselor for about a half hour that he talked to about Justin and then he saw another one that his counselor said was in charge of the 'sexuality and gender project' that he said was the one with the study we were all in, and it was the same one as in the calendar, in the school registration stuff he'd filled in.

I told him Ben just said it was to find people who needed counseling. He said maybe Ben wasn't allowed to tell me any details about other people's stuff?

Anyway, Ms Harbison, the project coordinator or whatever, told him he had to see her about every two weeks from then on and I'd keep seeing Ben and the study group because they were all doing different stuff.

But he was supposed to see her so he could feel safe being my roommate, about me. He almost didn’t want to talk about what that meant but he finally said it was supposed to make sure he didn't get too stressed.

I must've looked like that was bad, because I thought that it meant I was going to be a problem for him, and I guess I started to think about moving, or him leaving, and he kind of interrupted.

“But *I* told her I’d see her for you, not me, and *just* ‘cause you’re in the project.” He made me give him my hand even though it was pretty busy in the waiting area, and held it with both of his and the receptionist guy smiled really big at us. I think Dennis never noticed him even looking.

“She wants me to see her just *because*, as part of the whole thing, and *not* because you’re any problem, okay?”

And he looked okay. Not stressed-out.

And he said he wouldn’t tell her anything private, but he was supposed to see her and make sure nothing was too hard, or too different than he was okay with, and it was *just* for the project.

Ms Harbison told him they were just starting it all up and wanted to make sure nothing bad would happen to anyone. And Jarrod and Anne were already seeing her every week anyway. Too.

He said he was okay. I said I believed him. But then I thought of something. That he'd called it a gender and sexuality thing.

“Do you think there’s someone else sort of like me in Anne’s hall? Or our side?” I looked in his eyes and he hardly even thought about it.

“No, I don't think so... there's really not anyone like you." He smiled. "I'm way more what the project's about than any of them."

I smiled a little at that, too.

"But I bet the project's why everybody on our floor is there, even if they don’t even know you’re the reason, and even if Ms Harbison planned for more. But I bet lots of rez applications didn’t even get filled in, that part, about if they were gay or trans or whatever.” He thought for a few seconds.

“And I bet except for Ann and Jarrod, they don’t even know there *is* any project, or that they’re on our rez floor because of it...” He looked more at me.

“All the other guys... they’re just on our floor ‘cause they’re nice people and said they were tolerant. And if some of them are gay or whatever, then great!”

I had to think about that, just to fit it in with everything. There were three rooms that weren't filled on our two wings.

“So you think no one else's like me? In all the rez?”

I guess that didn’t make too much sense. “I mean, not like me, or not really, but because they wrote they were more than gay and lesbian-friendly? Or the school knew?”

He thought more.

“I dunno... but... Jarrod and Anne might..." He made a strange expression.

"But I think our floor is..." He thought. "I bet there're other proctors who know... or were at least told to keep an eye out? But I bet our floor is all of it, the project people, really."

He rubbed my hand a bit. Then he smiled really big.

“When we moved in, the only one on our floor not in on the project in some way was you.” He snorted a bit and smiled even bigger. And bumped my head with his, gently.

“And now you are.”

-

When Mom and Dad came out it was almost two o’clock and they had to go home before suppertime and wanted to sit down with us before, so we went to lunch in the campus centre food court.

-

They were sort of serious and a lot different than at breakfast and I worried that Ben told them something bad or scary about me, or even told them I should maybe leave. I was afraid to ask.

Then Dad sat up and looked like he does.

“Boys.” He stopped.

“Sorry. Bobby, Dennis.”

He looked like it was bad, but Mom was just serious. She put her hand on his arm and Dennis put his on mine, on the table.

Dad started again.

“Mrs. Harbison said that you are both doing really well... they thought so...”

He kind of slowed down and thought for a second.

It was really noisy, with rattley music and a tons of people talking and walking by, and some carts or something clanking. And I think Dad was trying to be quiet too. He had an odd look.

“I... we, want you to be careful, about... if you... I mean, if either of you have...”

Dennis squeezed my arm and smiled really big when I looked.

“If we have sex?”

“WHAT!?” I grabbed my hand back to my lap and almost shouted at Dad, or Dennis. At someone.

Dad, probably! It was for sure what he meant from the way he looked!

“Dad!”

Dennis almost snorted, but he just laughed a small noise.

“We talked about it... remember?”

“We did not! I mean, we said we wouldn’t! You said! *You* said we wouldn’t! Shouldn’t!" I had to look at Dad again!

"DAD!!”

I was *really* freaked that he would ever talk about anything like that in the student union and in public, and with *Dennis* with me!

I didn’t know what. Or... WHAT!

I pulled my arm further away from Dennis and tried to look severe or something.

Dennis waited to see what I meant, he said after, and then he scootched forward a bit and spoke really quiet and reasonable. I think at everyone, because we were all just staring at each other, all different ways.

Even though he moved to the middle, closer to everyone, he looked at me.

“So we *don’t* plan to have sex, and even if we ever *did* we’d make sure it was safe and that we’d both feel good, right?”

He smiled at me, and Mom and Dad too. Dad looked like he'd had a heart attack and Mom was almost laughing. At Dad, I think. But I was still mad. A least a bit.

And maybe a bit... I didn't have a word.

-

I had to keep peeking at Dennis.

-

Mom said Mrs. Harbison just said that I *might* have sex sometime, and I was almost 18 and all...

Dad said that he just wanted... to make sure... or something...

Dennis just smiled. I saw him smile a couple of different ways. I saw him look at me, too. Or catch me peeking.

-

Dad didn’t talk about it any more. Instead they asked us where, and we chose some basic phones in the bookstore and set them up with the right numbers.

Then Mom asked, just like it was normal, since we were shopping mode, if I wanted to go shopping for some girl’s clothes and I got mad again, even if Dennis still said I was really just embarrassed.

Again.

-

And Mom never acted like I was ever mad.

-

I didn't want them to go, and Mom cried almost as much as I did, but after Dad said they'd see us the next weekend and Dennis could meet Carol, Mom and Dad left.

-

About eight o'clock, Dennis finally got me to show him what Mom bought me.

After he promised not to make any jokes or tell. And after he asked about a hundred times.

And I *really* wanted to show him, I was so happy.

-

He said he liked the shirts and tops and sweaters and asked why I didn’t get any skirts or anything and I finally showed him the one we bought, but it was really scary and he smiled and said it looked nice and I said I’d probably never wear it, but it was... sweet... that he said that.

I really meant I’d never, ever show anyone. Anyone else.

And he gave me a present from Dad.

It was wrapped up in silver paper. He said Dad wanted him to wait to give it to me 'til after they left.

It was the three books in the series that we’d read, even the first one I'd lost, and another one by the same author. So it was from Dennis, too...

And a tiny box.

The little plain card said, “I love you very, very much. Your Dad.”

I started to cry a little even before I opened the box, and then I really got going.

Dennis sat over and hugged me and I guess he already knew what it was.

Little diamond studs.

Dennis said that I could go and get my ears pierced any time, for free, that it came with them, and they were really good ones. And he used his t-shirt to wipe at my eyes so I wouldn’t get tears all over my new top, he said.

-

We went over to see Jarrod and Anne, and Dennis said I should leave on my new stuff and I looked just fine and very nice and I wasn’t just going to hide in our room, was I?!

He made it sound silly and okay, I guess, but I was still really scared and he held my hand and pretended to pull me. But he was really just holding my hand.

Jarrod wasn’t in but Anne was when we went down there, and she almost screamed at my new earings and made me show them to all the girls who were in and they all made a big deal over them and said I *had* to get my ears pierced as soon as I could and I could get more than one in each ear and most of the girls had just one but some of them had more and Patty had *three* in each ear. But she had her nose and an eyebrow and her navel pierced too...

They all thought the new top I was wearing was nice and asked what else I got, too, and Dennis sort of made me show them and they said it was all really great and I could borrow some of their stuff sometimes and asked if they could borrow my green sweater, especially.

I said almost nothing the whole time, I was so scared they would say something bad, maybe, or something that would hurt.

But the only thing that hurt the whole evening was when they left. And that didn't, really. Or it wasn't them.

-

When the door closed, Dennis sat on his bed and looked at me and smiled. I don’t even know why, but that’s when I felt like everything was wrong again, and that it was all going to get worse, or like it had already started to. And I was scared again that Mom and Dad even knew, or even Dennis.

I still don’t know why, but I felt all the bad stuff then. After it was all good stuff.

Dennis got up and sat beside me and hugged me and rubbed my back and didn’t really say anything and I think that was good, because I didn’t know what he could have, or what I could say either...

-

I felt a lot better after a while and he hugged me even harder for a second and kissed my hair and said it was a lot to deal with, wasn’t it?

Maybe that was it, because I nodded and it felt like he was right.

And because it was still pretty early he said we could read some of the second book, after we got ready for bed, if I wanted?

-

He did all the reading, and except when I closed my eyes and imagined, I just watched him.

His face.

He looked at me sometimes too, even when he was reading, and he smiled every time.

----

End of Part Eleven