Rising Shards

I decided it was a good time to meet up with Marmalade when I got back to school. I needed some support, and we both agreed we needed a trans girl hangout. We met up at the cafeteria, where they were serving hot cocoa in paper cups, which made me feel very adult. As we sipped the super hot drinks, we did slow laps around the cafeteria.

“Yeah, she said main character like five times,” Marmalade said. “I dunno if you’ve talked to her before, and it’s probably jerkish of me to say, but yeah I dunno. Weird vibes.”

“I haven’t really talked to Caeda much,” I said.

“Hey, I heard it on the phone a bit,” Marmalade said. “And I can hear it in your voice right now. You don’t have to say so, but are you good?”

“I…” I said. “I’m just…unpacking trauma, I guess. And I wanted to talk to you about it because. It’s a war story, you know?”

“Yeah, I get ya,” Marmalade sipped her hot cocoa.

“I’m just…I got the pit in my tummy again,” I said. “I think seeing my ex and my dad last weekend messed me up good.”

“Your ex, huh? Alright, you’re gonna have to give me a few details here to follow,” Marmalade said. “I promise I’m not just trying to learn all the drama. If you’ve told me and I forgot, uh, my bad? Just tell me like you never told me. I’m pretty sure you haven’t told me this.”

“Alright, that’s fair,” I said. “My first girlfriend was a girl named Jeans. She was really awful and was an emotional abuser, basically. I found out later she was dating Ovie Chirhart prior to dating me, and I was just her side girl.”

“Oh damn,” Marmalade said.

I gave Marmalade a brief rundown of the rest of my relationship with Jeans.

“So yeah, that girl on the throne was her.” I said. “Like I said, I’ve been unpacking things, and seeing her again has me thinking about how she didn’t…well, she didn’t dislike it, she just didn’t want to hear about it. About my transgendering. Ya feel me?”

“I feel that your ex is a total, uh. Can I say bitch?” Marmalade said. “Because yeah. Her not wanting to hear about it sounds like she didn’t like you being trans, Zeta.”

“Yeah…I guess…” I said. “I’m torn between thinking about that and guilt that I’m blaming her too much for me feeling bad now.”

“I get that,” Marmalade said. “It was bad, but you don’t just wanna pawn off the bad feelings on ex.”

“Right, like. I want to own up to my mistakes, too.” I said.

“I think you could do both,” Marmalade shrugged. “Acknowledge that your ex imprinted significant bad feelings onto you that bled into other aspects of your life. As well as regret…what are you regretting, exactly?”

“To get into that I think I should probably say the other half of what’s up,”

“Seeing your dad again.” Marmalade said.

“Yeah,” I said. “This gets kinda…heavy, warning you now.”

“The emotional abuser that helped condition you to not want to talk about being trans is pretty heavy already, I can handle this.” Marmalade said.

I explained the deal with my parents. How I didn’t grow up with them around. How I never knew what their deal was. How I saw Dad’s retention sprite. When I saw it again in the void. When I followed its trail to my actual parents. How they tried to turn me into a monsters with the Sharai Daggers. I tried not to sound like I was casting judgment on Marmalade when she was tempted to use the daggers, but she still stared deep into her cocoa when I got to that part.

“I feel stupid again for not…not even thinking about it,” I said. “I talked to my sister about it and she said they were the ones manipulating it so I shouldn’t feel bad. But it’s so confusing and doesn’t…ugh. It doesn’t add up and I feel like that’s my fault. If I just thought about being trans for one second when I saw them, I could have avoided it all. Maybe I threw myself away for a while there. I mean, I talked to people about it. But if I was more about it when they had me…”

“Isn’t that…I don’t think that’s entirely a bad thing?” Marmalade said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You were so good with yourself that you had so little dysphoria at that point,” Marmalade said. “It popped up obviously, but I’d freaking love to have such a low level of dysphoria that I basically forgot I was trans.”

“I…huh.” I said. I took a big sip of my cocoa. “I. Can I think about that one for a bit?”

“No,” Marmalade said.

“Wh—” I started, almost immediately at cry-meltdown mode when I noticed Marmalade was laughing. “Oh. You’re kidding. You know, you’re taking this pretty well. Sorry to invite you to hang out and then just throw my traumas at you.” I tried to sound like I wasn't just about to cry, but I think my quivering lip gave away that I was.

“They’re war stories, I get it,” Marmalade said. “You sound like people in my trans groups on Dynne.”

“Oh, right,” I said. She had mentioned online friends before that were her main source of trans contact. “Wait, I do?”

“Uh huh,” Marmalade said. “I’ve heard all kinds of stories like that on chats. Lots of us figuring things out, freaking out about figuring things out, second guessing ourselves all the time. You’re not the first person I talked to who felt guilty about passing. Not even the first trans Cani I’ve talked to who felt guilt about the pills working so well for them.”

“Wow,” I said. “You could be a therapist or something if you’re helping all these people out.”

“Well, sometimes I was just lurking and not giving any advice,” Marmalade said. “But yeah, I can send you an invite if you want. And you’ll so fit in.”

“That’d be cool!” I said. “As long as they’re cool about Raina Starlight.”

“I think they are?” Marmalade said. "At least I don't think I've seen Raina come up. I don't think they'd be uncool about her, at least."

We finished our hot cocoa, but I didn’t want to just unload a bunch of my bad vibes onto Marmalade and then leave. I hadn’t really had a one-on-one talk with her since the Sharai Daggers incident, either.

“OK, you listened to my war stories,” I said. “Do you have any you wanted to share?”