“What do you mean?”
“Well, how am I supposed to go to practice?”
“...by walking?” Aoife answered, narrowing her eyes at Owen.
“But, what do I say to everyone? I don’t know what I’d say to my classmates, let alone my teachers on Monday!” Owen waved her arms about in exasperated panic.
“Are you coming out to everyone already?!” Aoife asked, completely stunned by Owen’s immediate decision to come out to classmates and teachers.
“I thought you had to… I mean I told you last night? Am I supposed to just not tell anyone else?”
“...yes? No? I’m so confused! Do you think you have to declare it to the world the second you realize that you’re trans?” Aoife had the urge to laugh, but held it back under the consideration that it might trivialize some of the genuine concerns that Owen was having.
“Uh. Yeah. Are you telling me you didn’t tell everyone?!” Owen had to resist the urge to not refute Aoife’s description of herself. Trans still didn’t feel like it was something she could claim herself. If Aoife said it, then maybe it was fine, but she had yet to acknowledge it as something that she could call herself.
“No, you weirdo! I mean… I did tell everyone, but when I was ready to! You have the weirdest preconceptions, Owen.” Aoife replied with a soft laugh exhaled through her final words. Soon after her statement, she took notice of Owen’s reaction. The name didn’t feel right to Owen, but the two roommates had yet to address the topic of conversation. Last night, as the two played countless hours of UMDK, Aoife referred to Owen through a simplified version of her username. Witch.
“I’m sorry.”
“For?”
“The name?”
“It’s mine, isn’t it.”
“Doesn’t have to be…”
“I don’t know, my parents were pretty happy with what they picked out.” Owen said, flopping back down in her desk chair, still wearing the clothing from the previous night. “Ah… my parents.”
Aoife made the same realization as Owen. What would they think? Owen didn’t feel like they would react poorly, but she also lacked any sort of precedent for this. They’d told her a long time ago they’d be fine if she was gay, but that was a completely different thing. Though in a way, if she still likes girls, that made her gay. Would that be a better way of bringing it up to them?
“We’ll figure it out later, girl. Either way, you’re sure as hell not going to have to do any of this alone. I’m gonna be here every step of the way, or my name isn’t Aoife Sexmachine Allanach.” Aoife gave a devilish smirk as she moved towards her wardrobe.
“Ew.” Owen laughed and rolled her eyes. “I really appreciate it though. This whole thing is scaring the shit out of me. I don’t know what to do now. It feels like I’ve opened the floodgates and now all I can do is float in the water. There’s just too much to think about all at once. We still have a team to participate in! How am I supposed to process all of this gender shit when I’m listening to computing lectures on Monday! How am I supposed to focus on the game at all!”
“Don’t forget your classwork.” Aoife added, eliciting another groan from Owen.
“Gender is a full time job and I want PTO already…”
“Hah! You don’t even get overtime. But it does come with some other notable benefits.” Aoife smiled as she picked a shirt from her wardrobe to toss onto her bed where a previously picked pair of prostrated pants lay.
“Benefits?”
“Being called pretty. I’d call that a benefit. A benefit to me at least.” Aoife muttered the last part under her breath as she turned around to look at Owen once more, even deigning to send a wink her way.
Owen looked back down at the clothes that she had worn to bed. The same clothes that she had been caught wearing when Aoife came home. Aoife’s words burned themselves onto Owen’s face in a bright blush. As far as benefits went, feeling pretty was fairly high on the list.
“I should probably get dressed.”
“Ah, right. Well let me know if you need any help with getting past that Faun magic or whatever.”
“You wanna help me get undressed?”
“I’m just saying if the clothes are difficult to get off, I could always lend a hand.”
Owen laughed at her joke as she pulled out a change of clothes to take to the shower. At least… She thought it was a joke. The alternative is that she was being very flirtatious this early in the morning. It was probably just a joke, she thought, grabbing her towel on the way to the door.
“Did you have anything in mind?” Aoife asked, just before Owen’s hand wrapped around the doorknob.
“About?”
“Your name. It looks like you’re interested in an alternative. I was just wondering what those might be?”
“Oh. I haven’t really thought about it to be honest.” It wasn’t entirely true, but Owen’s mental list of half-considerations wasn’t something that she wanted to voice at the moment. “Have you?” Owen asked, feeling like the only reason she brought it up was because she had some thoughts of her own. New chapters come out on novelping.com first.
“Not really. I just wanted to see if you had any names swirling around in that head of yours. I was just asking because I’m not sure what to do with the name Owen. Do you want me to avoid it or…?”
“I mean, if it isn't too much trouble. It’s not like it’ll kill me or anything, but I’d certainly like to avoid it while I think about things.”
“It sure as hell won’t kill me to avoid it. Have a good shower, Witch. I’ll have a surprise for you when you get back.”
Owen smiled to herself and opened the door to walk towards the shower. It seems Aoife had already found a replacement in the meantime. If she had grown used to it through playing games together, it was no surprise that it would act as a good surrogate until a new name was found.
Owen’s morning shower was uncomfortable. In all the ways she’d barely considered until now. She couldn’t help but think back to what she had said earlier with Aoife. The floodgates were open, and Owen was treading through waters that she’d barely considered until now. Before, there had never been a “goal” to reach with her appearance. Why try to look like anything at all, when it would amount to the same disinterested stare in the mirror. There were no expectations to meet or reach for, because there had been no expectations at all. With Pandora's box of gender wide open, Owen had aspirations for her appearance for the very first time. Unfortunately, none of them were being met. Nor were they anywhere close to being met. That was the source of the discomfort in the shower. It was like taking a blacklight to your bathroom to finally see all of the disgusting grime and germs you’d never considered up until that moment.
All of those problems were visible now. The upside to Owen’s disgusted revelation was that problems could be solved. She was aware of the issues now, and could finally take actions to deal with them.
Not that she knew what to do about them, but these were all questions that she could ask Aoife about. Possibly even Castle, if they were willing to hear her out.
* * * * *
[DO NOT ANSWER: Are you feeling any better this morning? I’ve had some time to think about everything a little bit more. I’m sorry for the way I handled things yesterday. I was truly afraid you wouldn’t meet with me if I told you things directly. Your father is truly not doing well, however. If you’d like to meet up again before you talk to him, I am more than willing when you are ready.]
Aoife grumbled to herself as she read the message. It was unfortunate to have to admit that Jen was right. If the message to have dinner had come directly from her, she’d have dodge that message instantly, opting for any other way to spend her evening. But it hadn’t been nearly as bad as she expected it to be when her stepmother sat across from her.
In a way, that scared her even more. It presented Aoife with the idea that if Jen was truly sorry, and had come around in the time she distanced herself, that she’d unfairly kept her away. But what if her gut was right? If Jen had used her father’s medical condition as a sort of leverage to wrench herself back into Aoife’s life. It sounded ridiculous as she thought it, but it didn’t stop her from being fearful. She’d learned her defense mechanisms because of her parents, so it wasn’t unheard of that they would repeat past mistakes again.
It felt deeply unsettling to be lowering the guards that she’d held so firmly for years. But out of an inkling of hope that things might be restored, that she could once again call her parents her family again, she lowered her guard.
[Contact changed: Jen]
[Aoife: we can chat on sunday. no high class shit though. If you pick a place steeped in marketing execs i’ll be out of there in an instant.]
Aoife locked her phone and threw it onto the pile of clothes that she had slept in the previous night. Having already gotten dressed and applied a modest amount of makeup, she was mostly waiting for Owen to come back into the room. It wasn’t like she had anything else going on during a Saturday. There was homework she could theoretically work on, but it could also theoretically fuck off in her opinion. The past few days had put her into such an elevated state of anxiety that there wasn’t even a chance she could get work done.
Today would be her break from it all. It would also be the perfect opportunity for Aoife to unravel her tangled emotions about Owen while helping to ease some of the anxieties that she had. One of those plans had already been put into motion for later.
[Jen: Sounds good, sweetheart. I’ll look for a casual coffee shop for us to meet at. I’ll text you the address later. Have a good Saturday.]
Aoife read through the message a couple of times, as if subsequent reads of it would uncover some secret message. There was no secret message, no lingering hints that would give her an excuse to be frustrated with her. The absence of a reason almost made her more frustrated.
A gentle knock on the door brought Aoife back out of her thoughts. Owen walked into the room, with her t-shirt sticking to her wet skin, clinging to creases and bunching in folds. It was the first time she’d come back from a shower like that.
“Mmmm… the shower shirt. I remember that.” Aoife giggled as she locked and slipped her phone into her pocket.
“Oh god, am I just filling out your bingo already?” Owen rolled her eyes as she walked into the corner of her side of the room where she was obscured enough by the desk to feel comfortable getting dressed in clothes that weren’t wet and stuck to her chest.
“Ohhhh that’s such a good idea! I’ll get started on drafting one up. ‘Shower shirt’ will be one, and we gotta have the free space so I’ll put ‘plays women in video games’ as that free space.” Aoife’s eyes brightened at the suggestion. The instant excitement that crossed her face almost scared Owen.
“What have I done…?” Owen lamented as she changed clothes in the corner of the room, overhearing the rapid scribbling of pencil on paper. Aoife hadn’t just been joking, it turned out. An actual bingo card was quickly being filled out on the other side of the room.
“What are you even writing on there?” Owen asked incredulously as she looked over a selection of shirts from her drawer.
“I can’t tell you, Witch, that defeats the entire purpose of this game.” Aoife replied, filing a few more blocks of the card out.
“Wha- It’s not even a game! You don’t play bingo with just one person!” Owen exclaimed, snatching the rightmost shirt in the drawer. It was a pity, she thought, to have to settle for such a boring and unappealing shirt after yesterday. But she knew she couldn’t go to the practice wearing those clothes.
“You’re right! I’ll tell Castle to get to work on their sheet and we’ll see who fills it out first.” Aoife laughed with the eraser end of the pencil pushed into the corner of her mouth while she thought of more bingo prompts.
“Castle? They don’t even know about any of this!”
“...girl. Are you serious?”
“What?”
“But I didn’t even say that-”, Owen thought through the final part of their conversation together in the student union, more specifically, when Castle had ended the conversation out by asking about her smurf account. “Okay… maybe Castle knows. But that’s just because they’re my gender Yoda! I think I was very… tactful in that conversation. Cards close to the chest, y’know?”
“Gender Yoda?” Aoife asked, squinting over the top of the desks to look over at Owen.
“Long story. Or, maybe not? It wasn’t even a long talk but it sure felt like it went on forever.”
“I don’t understand how brevity and gender Yoda can exist in the same conversation, but sure. Either way, I’m messaging Castle about the bingo card.” Aoife snickered as she pulled out her phone to start writing up a message to Castle.
“I feel like I deserve some compensation for being the unwitting subject of this game.”
“Can’t be unwitting if I’ve just told you about it.” Aoife smirked to herself as she filled out the third box in the second column of the bingo card.
“Oh please, you know what I meant.” Owen huffed.
“Sure, but it was worth seeing you get frustrated.” Aoife looked up from the card just in time to see Owen groan and sink into her chair. The simple, but effective teasing made her decide to fill out one of the blocks with a relevant situation. ‘Make Owen flush royally with teasing’.
“Anyway… what are you planning on doing until practice?” It was a leading question, something both roommates were painfully aware of. With the way that Aoife’s words rolled off of her tongue, it was clear she had her own plans for the day that she would inject into Owen’s schedule.
“Girl I don’t know. I feel rattled to all hell today. I have so many thoughts, and only a couple of hours before I need to get ready for practice. I don’t even know where to begin! The more I start digging through my feelings the more I’ll have floating around my head during practice. I don’t know if I really want that. I’m starting to wonder if it’s better to just ignore all of this and not think about it until I’ve got more time to think about it.”
“Ah, there it is. For such a scrawny girl you can sure move a goalpost a lot. What happens after practice? Genuine question.”
“I… I’m not sure. At least then I’d have some time to think about it. Until Monday that is.”
“Exactly. So if you put it off to focus on classes, when will you get around to exploring and processing these feelings? When you finish the semester? That’s great and all unless you have a summer job that will take up all of that focus. When that’s over you’re right back to worrying about classes. I’ve seen this before, Witch. Hell, I’ve done it before. If you’re worried about finding the perfect time to start unpacking those feelings, you will always find excuses to put it off. I don’t want you running away from this.”
“I’m not running I just-”, Owen paused as she waited for the correct words to come to mind. When none came, she exhaled with a labored sigh and stood up from her desk to walk around towards Aoife. A conversation like this was best held face to face rather than over the thick polished wood of the desks. “I just want to be able to sort through these feelings in peace. Is that so much to ask? Just like… two weeks where I figure out what I want for myself. When I want to come out to people. If I want to come out to people. Right now these feelings, this piece of me, it’s so infantile and nascent. I feel like even though it’s almost bursting out of me, I have some control over it. You’re the only person that knows about this-”
“Gender Yoda.”
“-okay, so you’re one of two people that know about this. That’s few enough people that I feel like I can still hold onto this for now. But the moment, the very second I start coming out to other people, I can’t take it back. If I tell someone about this, and decide a week later I’m just going to cozy up back in Narnia, they’ll always know. Every time that person looks at me, they’ll know I’m trans. Once I let this part of me out, there’s no putting it back in the box. At least not in a way where people will look at me the same way. Does that make sense? I feel like right now, this is the last frontier for me before I cross the point of no return. If I just keep things where they are right now, no one has to know, and I don’t have to process it.”
“...alright, little miss Schrodigner. I understand where you’re coming from. You’re worried once you get this train in motion, it won’t ever come out of motion. I get that. But what I was trying to say earlier is that it’s not that simple. Holding things where they are right now keeps you safe and cozy, but you might run into the same issue you had with playing women in video games. It’ll let you become complacent. You’ve got some emotional closure by realizing a part of your identity, and then you’d be totally fine to just keep it that way and never act on it.”
“But now is a terrible time for this! It’s not complacency if I’m just waiting for a better time to deal with this. A time where I’m not swamped with all of the stresses of my life right now.”
“But it is complacency if there’s never another time that works better. If you convince yourself it’s not the right time over and over then you’ll be waiting for as long as your mind can keep up the mental gymnastics.”
“So you’re just saying to just buckle up and do it all now? Why is it so bad for me to want to avoid processing these feelings in the middle of my college semester while participating in an esports team? I don’t even know how I’d juggle all of that. You’re asking me to do this difficult task just to avoid the possibility that I wait too long to address this.”
“But it is a difficult task, Witch! It will always be a difficult task. I’m sorry, but confronting this head on, especially with the weight of everything else in your life, will always be difficult.” Aoife paused to give Owen the time to process her words. Aoife was sure that these words were hard to hear, but she was also sure that it was what she needed to hear.
“But I did it.” Aoife followed up with a quieter tone of voice. “And to be perfectly candid, I don’t think I’m that strong. I think you’ve got a lot more guts, and a lot more zhuzh than I do. So I won’t go around telling you it’ll be sunshine and rainbows, but I’m here to make the hard parts slightly less hard for you.”
The conversation had felt like the weight of an especially pleasant elephant had been placed firmly on Owen’s chest. It was enough to cause her to move towards Aoife’s bed to sit on the edge. All she could do for nearly a minute was just breathe steadily and think about the difficult decisions she weighed between each other in her mind. Aoife, seeing the obvious difficulty Owen was having with her tough love, opted to move from her chair to accompany Owen. Aoife sat next to Owen and slowly wrapped an arm around her back to rest on her shoulder.
“Zhuzh…” Owen smiled.
“What about it?” Aoife replied, tilting her head to the side.
“I can’t have more zhuzh than you. It means stylish, and I’m nowhere near as stylish as you.” Owen smirked, relishing in the opportunity to tease Aoife.
“Oh come on, you know how I meant to use the word.” Aoife huffed.
“...maybe. But it was worth seeing you frustrated.”
Owen laughed, watching as the realization dawned across Aoife’s face. Her face lit up when she found herself led on perfectly into Owen’s trap. But Owen’s laughter quickly melted into a warm smile. Aoife’s flushed face had also started to soften into a tender smile. The two were left face to face, eyes dancing across each other's faces in the silence, in a desperate attempt to read each other’s intentions. The warmth between them invited movement while fear of misreading the situation invited hesitation. It seemed a standstill for the two roommates as the silence stretched on. Eventually, with an initiative that surprised even herself, Owen started to lean forward with half-lidded eyes and half-panicked nerves. All of the questions that Owen expected to be faced with, like “is this a good time to go for a kiss”, were all silenced. In the absence of fears and anxieties, there was a buzzing white noise in the back of her mind as she awaited the contact of their lips.
Knock Knock
Owen shot back from Aoife before their faces reached one another. Owen glanced at the door, and then towards Aoife, as if to ask why there’d be any kind of knocks on their dorm room on a Saturday. Aoife sheepishly smiled in response, a marked stain of red spread across her cheeks.
“Seems the plans for today have arrived.”