Chapter 15: 15 ~ A Life Less Ordinary (Need a Little Help)

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

As soon as I registered the meaning behind the words, I reacted like I had touched a hot stove, cutting the connection from the trojan program.

Fuck.

But even having scrubbed the words from my monitor, they still felt seared into my eyes. 

who are you and what have you been telling my son

I couldn’t take back what I said. I couldn’t undo this. I had monumentally fucked up.

…And Cerise specifically told me her father wasn’t supportive. That she didn’t want to come out to him. Whether I had meant to or not, this was bad. Very possibly the worst thing that I could have done, whether inadvertent or not. I had to fix it. Even if I didn’t know how. I had to do something.

After a few panicked minutes of indecision, I opened the trojan control program back up again. But now there was no indication that her computer was on and connected to the internet.

And that didn’t change, no matter how long I waited.
 
 

---

 
  

The next day I hadn’t gotten much sleep, and I clearly looked like hell. At least enough that when I left my vigil at my computer and ran into Jenn in the hall on the way to the bathroom, she did a double-take. Of course she would immediately notice that something was up.

“Hey, are you okay?”

I couldn’t meet her eyes. Instead I just mumbled something and pushed past her. As usual, however, I underestimated her tenacity. As soon as I finished my business and stepped out of the bathroom again, she was there waiting for me. The next thing I knew, she grabbed me by one arm and pushed me up against the wall where I couldn’t escape.

I, uh, didn’t realize she was that strong, honestly.

“Wh-whoa,” I said, still staring down at my feet. “Jeez, Jenn, take a girl out to dinner first.”

Surprisingly, my weak attempt at humor worked, because she suddenly backed off, letting me go for just long enough to escape. I immediately took the opportunity to flee to my room, slamming the door shut behind me.

But then she was knocking at it. Great.

“Hey! I know you’re in there!”

“Um, yeah, obviously,” I muttered.

“Have you been crying? What’s wrong?”

I stayed silent.

…Was it that obvious? I rubbed at my eyes some more. Fuck.

“Talk to me, Grickett. Is this a dysphoria thing? Are you spiraling again? I want to help, but you have to talk to me.”

“I’m fine,” I said, raising my voice so she could hear me through the door. “Leave me alone.”

She was silent for long enough that I was beginning to hope she had left. But I wasn’t quite that lucky.

“Okay,” she said, “I want to believe you, but I suspect that you are not, in fact, fine. You’re just too stubborn to actually ask for help. So if you really really mean it, I’ll leave you alone, but first you’re going to have to do something for me. Open this door, and tell me to my face that you’re okay.”

I buried my face in my hands. Then I took a deep breath, turned around and opened the door.

“Hey, Jenn.”

She watched me carefully, her eyes narrowed. “Hey.”

“Jenn?”

“Yes?”

“I really, really fucked up.”
  
 

---

 
  

It took a while to explain everything to Jenn, and I started from the very beginning, leaving nothing out. As I talked, I watched her go on a lengthy face journey that kept switching back and forth between surprise, anger, and pity, before ending up just looking exhausted.

“Grickett,” she finally said. “You are the most colossally dense girl on the entire planet. I’m certain of this.”

I rolled my eyes. “Look, I admit that some mistakes were made, and trust me, I regret—” 

“No, but, like: You decided to help someone on the internet transition as a joke? As trolling? And in order to do that, you decided that you basically had to transition, yourself?”

I swallowed nervously. This wasn’t the angle I expected her to take. That didn’t have anything to do with Cerise. That was more about… me?

“Yeah,” I finally said, fearing the trap she had laid for me.

But she was just staring steadily in my direction, looking at me like I was some alien creature that she couldn’t quite figure out. “How is that a joke? Please explain to me how it’s funny in any way whatsoever.”

“Well, I mean…” I paused, thinking. “Okay. Um. The way you say it makes it sound weird.”

She raised an eyebrow. “No, really?”

“I— I was just…” I swallowed. “Like I said, mistakes were made, okay?”

“It sounds to me more like excuses are being made.”

I shook my head. “That’s not important right now, okay? The point is that I fucked it all up. Now Cerise is… I don’t even know! She could be thrown out onto the streets, or shipped off to a conversion camp, or worse! I’ve got to do something, but I don’t even know who she is or where she might be.”

She sighed. “Okay. Yeah, that takes priority. But we’re going to have another therapy session when this is all over, so help me god.”

“Whatever,” I muttered.

“So where did you get this program?”

I shrugged. “I downloaded it off the internet. There’s a corrupted .exe and then it sticks in the registry and stuff. I dunno.”

“And how did Cerise get that .exe? Did you upload it somewhere or send it via email or what?” 

“Well it’s kind of advanced stuff.” I smirked. “There’s this other hack that works on an unsecured wireless network, giving you temporary, limited access to vulnerable machines. Usually just older machines, but it’s enough. You use that as a gateway in, and then install the more sophisticated virus. But it’s still— What?”

Jenn was practically vibrating with excitement. “Don’t you realize what you said?”

“That I’m good at computers? Trust me, I know.”

“No, you idiot. Do you really just need me around to point out obvious things to you?”

I pursed my lips. “…Yes?”

“If you did this through a wireless network, it means that Cerise’s computer was also on that network. Meaning she was in range.”

I blinked. Then I slapped my forehead. “You’re right.”

“Where were you? What network was this?”

“On campus, because their security is nonexistent.”

Our eyes met, and we spoke at the same time. “Cerise must be a student!”

“Okay.” I was pacing now again. “Okay, okay, okay. That narrows it down from eight billion people to… still a few thousand, which is way too many.”

“What else do you know?”

“I think I told you everything I can remember.”

“Fuck,” she muttered. “But this is progress.”

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I let out a frustrated sound. “But not enough. So what, then? We roam campus with a megaphone? We put up flyers? ‘Lost: one trans girl who answers to Cerise, she’s shy and probably doesn’t like strangers, monetary reward!’”

“No,” Jenn said. “But I do have an idea. We’re going to have to tell Avery, though.”

“Why?”

Jenn smiled. “Because we’re going to ask his boyfriend for help.”
  
 

---

 
  

Finding Avery was a bit trickier, and sort of lucky on our part too. I had started by blowing up Avery’s phone with texts, but after a few minutes with no response at all, I was seriously about to throw my own phone through a window. That’s when Jenn mentioned that he and Mark were probably getting lunch at this time of day, and then I basically dragged her across campus to check and see if they were at the cafeteria.

We found them at the outdoor patio seating outside, sitting close together on a bench in a shady corner. I was about to storm up and demand their help when Jenn grabbed my arm to hold me back.

“What?” I snapped. “We don’t have time for this.”

“Chill,” she said firmly. “Doesn’t that strike you as… weird?” 

She pointed at the two of them, and I narrowed my eyes, trying to see what she was seeing. They were next to each other, Avery doing that thing where he was rubbing Mark’s back in a reassuring way, which I sort of knew from experience was particularly soothing. They were talking quietly, and Mark looked… well, he looked a whole lot less energetic than usual. Closer to straight up gloomy, to be honest.

Jenn pulled me by the arm over behind a planter, and as we got a bit closer, I could kind of hear what they were saying.

“It’s just not like him to ghost me,” Mark said. “Or… them? I halfway thought that was what we were going to talk about, because why else ask me to meet up in that kind of weird stilted way? But then instead, nothing. And when I tried to call, it went straight to voicemail. It’s worrying.”

“Maybe they just need some more space?” Avery said. “If they were going to tell you something important, maybe it was just too scary in the end, and they need a bit more time first.”

“But I really thought we were closer friends than that!”

I looked over at Jenn, who looked positively perplexed. Then I sighed. I didn’t have time for this. The longer I took to find Cerise and make sure she was okay, the greater the chance that she could be in serious trouble. I needed to fix this problem that I created before it spiraled even more out of control. I couldn’t worry about Mark’s problems or whatever.

“Avery!” I said. “Mark!”

Avery practically fell over in surprise. 

On the other hand, Mark looked more annoyed than anything else. “Did you just jump out of a bush?” he asked.

“Not important. I need your help. And Avery, why aren’t you checking your phone?”

Avery had managed to recover by that point, and he reached into his pocket. “I had it turned off for class.” He pushed a button and the screen lit up as it turned on. “But look, now’s not—”

ding

He sighed. “Now’s not the—”

ding ding ding

“Now is not the best—”

ding ding ding ding ding ding ding

“Oh my god how many texts did you send me.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Obviously not enough.”

“Look, Mark is dealing with some problems with a friend of his. Why don’t you get Jenn to help out with whatever you need?”

She sidled up, looking sheepish. “I was the one who suggested asking Mark actually.”

Mark raised an eyebrow.

I took a deep breath. And then paused for a long moment as everyone stared at me and I tried to figure out how to explain the situation. It really was a very straightforward sequence of events that any perfectly normal person could be involved in, but Jenn had gotten into my head, and I didn’t want there to be any strange assumptions about me.

“I’ve been talking to a person over the internet,” I said. “Anonymously, due to… reasons. And then due to an unfortunate series of mistakes, I am concerned that I may have outed her to an unsupportive family. I’m pretty certain this person is a student, and so I wanted to talk to you as someone connected to the LGBTQ group to see if you could help me figure out who they are, so I can make sure they’re okay.”

“I see.” Mark frowned. “But even if I could help you, that sort of feels pretty invasive of someone’s privacy. And I don’t have time to deal with this, not while I’m worried about Bex.”

My eyes went wide. “Wait, what happened to Bex?”

“I wish I knew. Last I heard from them, they wanted to meet up to discuss something big with me this morning, but then they never showed up. And they weren’t in class this morning either. No matter what I try, I can’t get in touch with them. I’d go show up at their house, but their dad hates my guts - he’s kind of a bigot and when he found out I was gay he told Bex to stop associating with me and my ‘moral degeneracy.’ Thankfully, Bex is too good of a friend to ditch me over something like that. But that’s precisely why I’m worried… Bex would never just disappear like this, not without saying something. So I’m worried that something bad has happened.”

I bit my lip. God, it sure was a rough week for queer people on campus, huh? But… Bex had Mark, who I begrudgingly had to admit was a pretty okay friend. On the other hand, Cerise just had me. If I had to prioritize, I had to do what I could for Cerise first. I owed her that much.

That’s about when I noticed Jenn, who had her hands clasped around her mouth like she was holding something inside. And Avery was as pale as a ghost. What was up with those two?

I shared a look of confusion with Mark. But then shook my head. “Okay, look, help me first,” I said, “and then I’ll also help you with Bex, okay?”

“How about you help me first?” Mark said. “I actually know where Bex is, unlike your mystery internet girl.”

“But you don’t know that Bex is in trouble, just that she blew you off. And that seems pretty reasonable.”

Mark gave me a strange look, but then the back half of the sentence caught up with him, and he jabbed a finger in my direction. “Hey! Keep talking that way and maybe I won’t help you at all.”

“Oh my god,” Jenn cut in. “Are you two serious?”

We stopped glaring at each other and turned to her instead.

She looked at me, her mouth wavering on the verge of a smile. “You really do just need me to point out utterly obvious things to you, huh?”

I stopped, running the past conversation through my head again. Was there something I had missed? What could she have been talking about? It’s not like we had said that much. I was just trying to express the importance of figuring out who Cerise might be, because even now she could be in serious trouble and no one would necessarily even know. Except maybe that one close friend that she had mentioned about maybe coming out to, the last time we talked. But I had barely been able to explain the magnitude of the situation, because Mark was so hung up on Bex’s sudden disappearance or whatever.

And I have to admit, I was maybe a little bit worried about Bex too. Sure, we had only met a few times, but I really liked her and wished I had the opportunity to get to know her better. If it wasn’t for needing to fix all the things I fucked up with Cerise, I would be there to help Mark in a heartbeat. Because it did seem kind of atypical for her to not show up if it was for something important. And if Bex’s father had a problem with Mark being gay, he’d also probably be awful if he knew about Bex wanting to be herself, too. Ugh. Why did both Cerise and Bex’s parents have to be so shitty? Honestly, their situations seemed quite similar.

Almost as if…

Wait.

No, there’s no way.

It couldn’t possibly be.

“Hey Mark,” I said, trying to stay very calm and not scream.

“Yeah?”

“Did Bex ever mention watching a show called Twinkle Witch Academy?”

He tilted his head to the side. “Like a kid’s cartoon? But not anime?”

I nodded.

“Yeah, there was something like that that they made me watch a few episodes of but I honestly didn’t get the appeal.”

Jenn was giving me a rather smug look. I was too busy staring off into the middle distance, suddenly reconciling some things in my head.

Holy shit.

Holy. 

Shit.

And if that was the case...

“Avery,” I said. “Get your car. Mark, we’re going to save our friend.”

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