Valor [Eon] pt. 2

I step into the room with a smile on my face, head held high, and --

Raxar coughs mid-way through taking a sip of tea.

”Holy fuck, Eve," he says, setting down his mug to avoid scalding himself further.

”What do you think?” I ask, an odd mixture of nerves and confidence taking hold.

This is a moment of uncertainty. One of those important moments that I can’t take back. It’s stepping into something new and asserting myself and saying…

.Saying what?

I’m not sure what this means, the haircut. My smile falters. Raxar keeps staring at me, his mouth downturned and his eyes not quite looking at me but at the chopped hairs on my head.

Now’s the time for saying something, but I have no words. There’s just a tangle of wrongness and rightness and pure feeling, and it’s the kind of emotion that can’t be explained to concerned brothers.

I take in the look on Raxar’s face. He’s trying to figure out what to say, making a point to hold back his thoughts to keep from hurting my feelings. I can tell.

I can tell he doesn’t like it.

He doesn’t like it.

I like it.

But he doesn’t --

Mom and Dad notice me for the first time, turning away from where they’re chopping vegetables at the table.

”Oh, honey…” Mom begins.

She doesn’t like it.

Dad sets down the potato he was peeling.

Silence permeates, and a rush of spite keeps me going. It’s the same fight that drove me to protect Temple and Bette on that last day. This time I’m fighting for myself.

A very small, quiet fight. Caught in this moment of silence.

.This moment is the future, hurtling toward the truth.

I know what’s right for me, I know what I believe, and I know…

Who I am.

Not true.

The word ”Sweetie…” out of my father’s mouth well and truly breaks me, and I don’t know why. The doubt of my family sets in, and I clutch at the strands of my hair. This is a quiet moment, but I can feel the tension of uncertainty pulsing through my veins, the quick uptick in my heartbeat, the drop in my stomach.

”It suits me,” I say in a small voice. ”Doesn’t it?”

Their hesitation is my answer.

I don’t wait to hear what they have to say. I bolt from the room, footfalls pounding against the wooden floor, darting for the entryway. Raxar walks after me.

”Eve,” he says, but I shake my head.

Eve.

Eve.

Eve.

(There’s a wrongness, somewhere buried in my thoughts.)

”Don’t.”

”But--”

”Leave me ALONE.”

My tone startles him. There’s something in his eyes. A memory, playing on a screen. Is he remembering the Games? The people I injured? The fight that’s been in me all along?

He backs off, and I throw shoes on my feet and rush out the door.

I start out walking, steps hurried against pavement. Then I can’t bear to walk anymore, and I’m running. The wind doesn’t rush through my hair like it used to, and that feels right. It feels right, and it’s just… it’s just hair. They shouldn’t care. They shouldn’t care at all. I shouldn’t care at all.

It’s so small. I’m so small. It hurts and I hurt, and I’m running and running and running.

I want--

(Running, running, running)--

Comfort? Understanding? Certainty?

I don’t know. Ripred, I don’t know what I need.

I don’t have it, whatever it is.

So I run and run and run,

until there’s nothing left to feel but tired.

------

The sunrise glows red when I walk to school the next morning. A new day makes everything feel a little better, but I know everything will get more difficult as the day wears on. Since the Games -- since always, really -- kids haven’t spoken much to me. I’ve always been the kind of person that people ignore at best and treat badly at worst, so I take the days where nobody bothers me as victories.

The Games haven’t helped things much. Maybe it’s just in my head, but people keep a wider berth than they used to, like I’ll fight them if they get too close. I don’t know how to feel about that, but that’s the way things are lately. My thoughts are a big jumble of worries that don’t make sense, and I can’t tell if I’m being logical or if I’m just overthinking it.

For example:

Are people afraid of me, or are they avoiding me, same as always?

Am I going crazy, or is it normal to feel this way, and I just can’t handle it?

I could see the way Mom and Dad and Raxar looked at me, and I wonder: did that hurt because everything hurts, or because…

I don’t think it.

I don’t know what this means.

I don’t --

”Hey,” someone says, voice booming. I jump out of my thoughts and into the present.

There’s a group of kids in front of me. Well, kids… people older than me.

(We were all kids.)

I don’t say anything. I stop in my tracks, and they seem more than happy to fill the silence that stands between us.

”You’re the one who came back to life,” one girl says.

”Of course she is, look at the scar--”

She.

I don’t know these kids, but they know me. Everyone knows me but me.

”I--” I begin, not sure what to say or what to do. They’re standing in my path, and we’re at an impasse.

There’s a beat of silence. I think they’re waiting for me to say something, yes or no, acknowledge their attention. I just stare at my feet.

”Hey,” one of them says. I look up, lips pulled tight together.

”What’s it like to die?”

”Yeah, tell us. We’ve been wondering.”

”Did it hurt? Did you know you were dead?”

”I--” I begin again, stammering. I can’t tell if they’re curious or just mean. ”I’m alive,” I say, no other words popping into my brain. There’s only worry and urgency and the drive to step forward and keep going.

”Excuse me--” I say, stepping around them.

One of them grabs my arm. A boy.

”No. We want to talk.”

They’re older than me. Bigger than me. Even in the few years that have passed since the Games, I haven’t grown much. I think I’m destined to be short like Mom, and right now I wish I could stand tall.

I hang my head low. Quiet, like a turtle pulling into its shell. The boy doesn’t let go of my arm.

(It’s a different kind of hurt from the Games. It’s not a blade, it’s not the piercing of my lungs, it’s fine, I’m not dying, it’s fine, it’s --)

“God, she’s stupid. No wonder she lost.”

She.

It’s not the losing, the dying, the scars, the memory, the hurt.

It's...

She.

”EXCUSE ME,” I urge, a warning, a threat. I try to wrench my arm from the boy’s grip, but he’s stronger than me.

In that moment, Valor descends from the skies, talons extended. His cry overwhelms all of my senses, taking over the scene. There is nothing except the bird’s fury and my fury and my hurt and his hurt and the need for freedom from something that neither of us understand, and he plunges forward. Right now, all things considered, he is what I need. Defense, loyalty, boldness.

The kids scatter quicker than a breath, backing away, stumbling over themselves in their hurry. I don’t smile because everything still hurts, the memories and the present both, but the tension eases.

Valor chases them off, circling above their heads.

I breathe deeply and continue my walk to school.

------

This is my nightly routine:

I get home from school, and everything’s silent. It takes awhile for Mom and Dad to get home from their work and for Raxar to get home from… whatever it is that Raxar does. He hangs with friends, I guess. This is my quiet time, and I use it for homework and reading and being solitary.

I’m quiet and I’m shy and I’m unsure of myself, but I like spending time with people. So my quiet time feels lonely, but I’m always assured that I’ll have the support of my family at the end of a long day. Even when homework confuses and studying medicine overwhelms and the quiet weighs down on my thoughts, I can be sure that Mom and Dad and Raxar will be there for me at day’s end. And Potato Chip, of course.

They’re all I have.

I try not to dwell on it.

I run into a problem in the late afternoon, when Mom and Dad and Raxar get home and the house is alive again with chatter and gossip. Mom and Dad will chop vegetables and prepare dinner while Raxar and I recount our days, but that’s usually Raxar explaining the newest drama with his friends. I don’t share as much, and that’s the ongoing assumption with my family. They understand there are things I don’t want to talk about.

Even in contemplative silence, it’s difficult for me to sit with them sometimes.

”Eve, sweetie”

”Aww, she’ll be a doctor before you know it”

”Like she said...”

”Eve, what do you want for dinner?”

”I bet all the other girls are jealous.”

”The cat really does favor her, huh?”

”She can go to school early”

It’s nothing they mean to say. It’s everything they’ve always said, the same way they’ve always referred to me. Sweetie and she and her, but the words feel wrong.

And Eve.

I feel wrong thinking it. Eve feels weird, but we’re the palindrome family. It’s my name. My parents picked it for me and they love me and worry about me and it’s not a bad name.

So why does it hurt so much?

That’s where I get caught, in the afternoons. I sit with my family for awhile, chatting and listening and watching my parents peel potatoes, but it hurts. It’s mundane and normal and the words hurt.

After awhile, I usually drift outside to read, living in characters and places and stories outside of myself. Or I go to my room and fall asleep early, staving away the difficult thoughts by sleeping off the anxiety. Sleep never hurts, not unless I dream. It’s comfortable and friendly and warm where everything else feels cold.

And then I wake up. Greet the cold morning.

Keep going.

------

Months pass, and I realize after a while that I can’t keep going on like this.

It’s not that I’m small.

It’s not that I’m shy.

It’s not that I’m scarred.

It’s not that I should have died.

It’s something else.

This is a feeling that’s only indescribable because admitting it to myself is difficult.

If I describe it, I make it real.

.If I make it real, I have to confront it.

This isn’t the kind of feeling I can ignore. This is omnipresent, always lingering, a twinge of pain every time I hear my name or walk into public. Whenever people see me or refer to me, I feel myself becoming small like an animal playing dead. The longer this goes on, the more I realize that it isn’t going away.

This feeling persists, even though I refuse to put words to it.

It isn’t a side effect of feeling bad. It’s the cause.

I refuse until I can’t.

I refuse.

I refuse.

I refuse.

Until I say it to myself, out loud, into a bathroom mirror:

I’m not a girl.

”I’m not a girl,” I say, staring into my own reflection. There is a scar on my cheek. My hair is cut short.

I’m a boy, plain and simple.

I start to cry.

Tears flow down my cheeks, the release of truth pulling forth all the feelings of months I’ve pushed away. I think of Wander and vis easy acceptance of gender, and I wonder if it’s okay that I’m not a girl. I mourn for the self that’s lived life thus far as anything but himself, and I worry if I’ll be okay if I move forward.

I’m short, and scarred, and my voice is high-pitched. I don’t have any muscle to speak of. Everything about me is feminine, but I don’t want it.

I don’t want it.

I don’t want this body.

Ripred, please, this is wrong.

There was a mistake somewhere. Please.

Staring at myself in the mirror, I recognize the wrongness.

But there’s nothing I can do about it.

------

The wrongness stays with me, but I learn to live with it a little.

I spend my time looking at names in a book I found buried in my parents’ closet. There’s hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of names for boys and girls, and the name Eve is highlighted under the E section.

I try not to dwell on the fact that they chose a name for me. They put work and care and love into that name, but it doesn’t fit. I can only hope that they’ll be okay when I pick a new one.

(Has Wander always been Wander? It makes me sad to think of it. It’s so difficult to talk  to ver now, and I push the thought away. I want to write and ask, but I don’t know if ve would even care enough to answer, or if my letter would even make it there.)

I push past the worry, consuming names voraciously for weeks. I make a list for myself, trying to think of what might sound right. All I know now is wrongness, so detecting the correct is tricky.

But I found one.

I found a name for me.

That’s how I tell my parents and my brother.

I walk into the kitchen and I tell them:

“I need to talk to you.”

Which is abnormal for me. They know it; I know it. I don’t talk much, certainly not in such a serious tone.

I breathe, taking my time.

And I tell them in a roundabout way.

”You know how… Wander isn’t a boy or a girl?”

And they stay silent, listening, thank Ripred. Maybe they understand that there’s something I have to say. Maybe they understand that it’s better to stay quiet right now.

”Well I’m.. sort of like that. I mean, I’m not a girl.”

This is, I think, the most I’ve spoken in a long time. This isn’t quiet or shyness or hiding. This is asserting myself to people who may not understand, and it’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever done.

And I’ve died.

”I’m a boy,” I tell them, holding my head up, heartbeat steady.

There’s a pause, inevitably, but I continue.

”It feels wrong when people call me she and her, and… and Eve.” I explain. ”And I don’t feel like a girl. It feels like... “ I pause.

”Like there was a mistake made somewhere along the way. Like someone said I was a girl, but they were wrong.”

This is the part where I could say something like “Is that okay?”

But I don’t.

I am me.

This is either okay now, or they learn to accept it.

The pause lengthens.

Raxar looks at me with a strong gaze. He smiles.

Mom and Dad look at each other.

I bite my lip, waiting for someone to say something.

Mom pipes up, steady and supportive.

Time passes so slowly in worry.

”What should we call you, if Eve feels wrong?” she asks, holding her arms out for a hug.

I breathe a sigh of relief.

I let her pull me into her grasp, and Dad’s and Raxar’s arms surround me too.

This is warmth and comfort and certainty for the first time in a long time.

”Eon,” I say, smiling into the hug. ”It feels right.”

”Eon,” Dad says, pulling us all tighter. ”Sounds cool.”

”It’s not a palindrome, you know,” Raxar chimes in.

We all laugh, and I wipe tears from the corners of my eyes.

For the first time in a long time,

I feel correct.

I feel happy.

I feel loved.