Page 30 of Teddy Tea Time

After a sip of coffee, it’s obvious that I owe him an explanation… a full one for a change.

“Remember how I told you my mom is one of those Pride moms that goes all out for the parades and stuff?”

His nod is careful as he takes the seat on the other side of the corner of the sectional, our knees barely touching.

“She was honestly the best mom a trans girl could ever have in her teenage years.”

“But you’re not trans,” he interrupts before shoving a bite of dessert into his mouth. The corners of my lips lift slightly at his lack of restraint when it comes to tiramisu before I continue.

“But I’m not trans,” I agree. “I started having the dissociative episodes when I was sixteen. Dad took me to the doctor behind my mother’s back because she insisted it was hormonal and normal for a teenage girl.”

I shove a forkful of the cake in his mouth when he tries to interrupt on my behalf again. He narrows his eyes at me but chews instead of trying to talk.

“The doctor ran tests and even sent me to a neurologist because he was concerned it could be absence seizures. It wasn’t. Then he sent me to a psychiatrist to determine if I was schizophrenic. I’m not.”

Jace’s shoulders relax a bit, and the smile on my face comes a bit easier even though I know what I have to say is not a happy memory. It also is one that I haven’t shared with anyone else before.

“I was diagnosed with stress induced disassociation and given anxiety medication. For a few weeks, everything was better with the pills. I could think. I could reason things out… and that became a bigger problem. Because that was when I figured out my mother was planning to force me into physically transitioning.”

It figures that the only thing that could make Jace Franklin – I guess Whitetower, really – put down tiramisu is my fucked up mother.

“The anxiety medication lifted the panic enough to see that she had been emotionally manipulating me to be more feminine than I felt. She was tying her love for me to how well I passed as a girl in my mind. So every time I felt more masc than femme, it was triggering the disassociation. And she knew it. Every time I had an episode, she would blame it on hormones to try and convince me and Dad to start me on HRT.”

“That’s…” he takes a swig of coffee before continuing his thought. “I thought my mom was a piece of shit, but damn. At least she just neglected me. Fuck, Ash. Your mom’s a bitch.”

Chuckling, I pick up my own mug and take a sip. “Yeah. Yeah, she is.”

Jace listens attentively while I tell him all about how my mother turned her entire life into curating the image as the perfect public face of a mother to a trans girl in southern Georgia. He sneers when I mention all of the town hall and school board meetings where she was loud and disruptive, demanding I get access to the girls’ locker room and bathrooms; demanding that I be allowed on the girls’ sports teams. She never even cared that I didn’t play any sports and that the teachers let me use the bathroom in the teachers’ lounge. She thrived on the attention while I did my best to separate myself from it.

“When I got accepted to Wrenshaw University, I begged Dad to let me come up here. Mom didn’t agree, obviously. Those four years let me meet Justice, who introduced me to Eli, and brought you into my life. So when I graduated and Mom tried to get me to come home and work for my uncle’s factory, I had enough of an anchor to not get swept away.”

27

JACE

It was a bit much listening to all of the fucked up shit Ash’s mom did to them as a kid. I will admit, in the beginning, I though they were so lucky to have a mother that was super supportive. All of the pictures I had seen of the woman show her smiling with Ash at various events: birthdays, school dances, graduations, and even obvious pride parades. Thinking back, now that I’ve got more of the story, every photograph was Ash at their most feminine looking: dresses, high heels, styled hair, makeup, and nails done.

The Ash I know and love is usually feeling her most feminine when wearing yoga pants and a baggy sweater. Their mother should have known that about them. Damn near everyone living up here on the hill and at least half of the people who come into Mac’s or the Devil know that about them. For us, the pins on their chest are just for confirmation, not for information.

“I know I am extremely glad you stayed after college,” I tell them and open my arms for a hug. “Life without you would be a hell of a lot darker for me.”

Ash sighs and moves over to the corner of the sectional so that I can wrap my arms around them. For a while, we just sit in silence. It’s heavier than usual, but not uncomfortable.

“Imagine if you had to recruit Eric to watch Gerry,” they muse after a while, catching me off guard and setting off a case of the giggles in both of us.

With the mood lightened effectively, I gather up the empty dishes – lamenting that Ash got the last bite of the tiramisu cake – and grab the package I left on the counter.

It’s now or never…

They eye the box warily when I hand it to them. Instead of opening it right away, they look to me first. I’m sure my anticipation is showing on my face… or maybe it’s anxiety. Either way, they eventually flip open the top to put me out of my misery. My panic sets in when they don’t say anything.

“Over the last few months, you have become essential in my life.”

They flinch. Shit, what did I say wrong?

“I mean, not just because of Gerry. I mean, Gerry loves you. I love you. And not just as a friend. I mean, as a person. I mean, of course you’re a person. I mean, I love love you.”

Fuck me. I’m rambling. I need to stop.