A/N: The new chapter of "We Three Hearts" is now available!
April 29th 2022
Chapter 119
Our Transformation Into Peace
"Don't you have a job?" Maya smiled when she saw him come into her classroom, midway through her free period ahead of lunch break.
"Hey, the boss said it was okay," Lucas shrugged as he smiled back. "Plus, she's helping me take up my position as her replacement, and she's always telling me that I need to learn to delegate… within reason, when the occasion demands it."
"Right…" she slowly nodded, letting out a breath as she carried two handfuls of materials from the previous period back to the supply closet. "I'm assuming in this case that the occasion that demanded it had as much to do with what today is as with the way last night ended. Put it all together, and I get visited by the one and only Dockleberry… Hi," she smiled again as she approached him and he kissed her, loosely locking his arms around her waist.
"Good morning again," he replied, his expression echoing hers. "It was a good morning?" he asked after a beat, and Maya reflected.
Today was their anniversary, the very first one they'd had. November 1st, when they had gone from best friends to boyfriend and girlfriend. Seventeen years… It was also Wednesday, which sadly limited their options to celebrate on the day, but only so far as their imaginations would or wouldn't compensate… Luckily they were both very good at working around limitations. Either way, they had the girls, and he had the ranch, and she had school, so technically speaking their 'moment' wouldn't get to come until much later today, after everyone was off to bed except them, but then… It helped that her job came with scheduled breaks like this, and his job allowed him to… take detours. All of it was part of how they functioned, but there was the other thing hanging over their heads. Halloween night… and the Hex.
Talking about it now, or even just thinking about it, sort of required for them to stop and be mindful of how they proceeded. They had come away from that night with what they might call a confirmation of assumptions. It had been one thing to look at everything they knew, what Maya had seen and experienced, and equate it to a possible solution, but until very recently, it had still been vast speculation that could have turned out completely wrong. And then last night had happened. Several drinks at a party happened, and a release happened, until the student she had known as Cody Marshall set the record straight. Would it have happened like this, surrounded with Maya, Lucas, those five girls all in audience without the push of 'liquid courage?' They would never know. All they did know was that inside the body of this sixteen-year-old boy beat the heart of a sixteen-year-old girl who called herself Echo, who had been pushed down and denied for so, so long.
Once this revelation had been made, to discuss what had happened next, a change had to occur, because it was the teenager's truth. She was here, and she had shared her secret with this small group, in the privacy of the studio. The more she spoke, no longer under the mask of what she called her Cody costume, it really felt like they were getting to know her for the first time. Oh, she was still far from sober, though she was slowly but surely coming down from her drunken state, but it made her no less honest as she confided in the group that surrounded her. Every last one of them there had showed nothing but support and understanding in this revelation, and it was just what she needed. As she told it, 'Echo' was what she'd called herself on the inside, but it felt more like a nickname. As to her true name, it felt so monumental, and she didn't know what else to call herself.
"Then for now, you're Echo," Ava had been the one to speak up, with confidence offered on the wings of words, and the girl, one year below her, took it with a smile. Everyone else in the room recognized this quality in Ava and knew it for what it was.
In all the turmoil of her life back when she'd lived at home, with her father, the one 'escape' she'd had was her uncle. Owen Nash was and had always been her safe space, and through him she had become very familiar with and attentive to the transgender community, his community. Once upon a time, that connection had forged a fast bond between her and Bodhi Thompson, opening the way for her to be welcomed into the quiz team when the others had been doubtful, and now it meant a glad hand of friendship extended to Echo.
Maya and Lucas had spent the better part of the in-house party over in the Hex with the girls, looking after Echo, making sure she would be able to head home that night with Carina without getting into any trouble. Under normal circumstances, it might have been that they would have simply called the Marshalls and let them deal with this, but that could have meant Echo having a heavy conversation when she was not ready for or while in total control of her capacities. It was up to her to decide when she'd want to talk to them about who she was. So, a lot of that time they spent in the Hex was spent either in quiet or brief exchanges. There were just a few things they had no choice but to address.
The big one had to do with next steps. Echo had shared her truth with this small group, but that was as far as she was going to go, at least for now, so what would happen when they all saw each other again in the morning, at school? If Echo was to remain a secret, then they would have to interact with her as Cody again, to treat her as the boy they had known up to now. It wouldn't be easy, not when they knew that wasn't who she was, but if she could do it, then so would they. The one consolation would be that now, whether they could say it or not, she would have friends in there, trusted allies who knew her and would support her.
Eventually, Echo had recovered enough that she could go around and pass off what remaining symptoms she had off as exhaustion. Lucas took up the task of driving everyone home, ending off with the three on the same street, leaving Olivia at the Zhu house and then Echo and Carina at the Marshall house.
After waking up this morning, with all the sweet and affectionate attentions that came with waking up on their anniversary, the Friars had started off their day, doing their own things until he came and joined her at school. So, how had morning gone? What that meant, naturally, was 'how was Echo?' Maya would have seen her… seen Cody… in third period, with the other sophomores.
"Did it go alright?" Lucas quietly asked, and Maya nodded.
"For the most part," she amended after a beat.
As Maya had pieced together from what she'd seen and heard, the arrival back at the Marshalls' had gone off without a hitch. Everyone had gone off to bed… only to wake up again in the middle of the night when Echo got sick. It hadn't taken a genius to figure out that 'Cody' had been drinking at the Halloween party. The Marshalls had been upset at this and had grounded him for an undetermined period of time. Going by the way the story was passed on, Maya guessed that the secret had been protected in all this, so at least their efforts had been successful… Echo looked like she would gladly bear the grounding if it was as bad as it would get.
"It was so strange though…" Maya quietly confided to Lucas as they sat together at her desk. "I look at her now, and it feels so clear all of a sudden. I had her wrong the whole time, and I know that it was hard not to when I was missing this… most crucial part, but… I don't know, it feels like I should have noticed something, or…"
"You weren't there for most of freshman year with her," Lucas reminded his wife, and Maya nodded. "The important part is things are changing now, yeah?"
"They are," Maya breathed out with a smile. "You know, aside from being a bit green around the gills, I've never seen her get so involved in class. When she applies herself, she's actually pretty good as an artist. Oh, and Nika invited her and Carina to sit with her and Lara and Maggie at their station. Normally I never have more than four together, but I pointed out that Carina counted as an exception. If anyone's got a problem with that, well, I don't, so…" Maya waved off the notion, and Lucas chuckled. "I think your cousins are under the impression that Nika has a crush on 'Cody' now though…" she went on. "Not sure how that's going to shape up, but they can handle it."
"I'm sure," Lucas agreed.
As hectic as their night had ended up being, once she'd gotten that call and gone to pick up the girls, filling the year's quota for the inescapable Halloween teen drama, it genuinely felt as though the outcome had been good for all of them. It had been very good for Echo, and that would be the most important part, as far as Maya was concerned, but Lucas could see it had been good for her, too, and he would always be thankful for that, especially these days. The less stress on her and the baby the better. And it made it easier for them to turn their focus on to their anniversary once they'd caught up on the morning's Halloween aftermath.
"Right," Lucas moved to rise, when the lunch period was nearly ended, as he had to go. "I'll see you in a little bit." She opened her mouth to speak, then paused and squinted at him.
"You're coming back for the long break, aren't you?"
"Of course," he smirked.
"No. No, no, get back here," she reached out her hand and caught hold of his. "If you can skip off on work like that, you might as well stay here. Oh! You can play model for my freshmen. I might break out my pencils and join them," she grinned.
"You know, there's all the horses…" Lucas pointed out the door like he was remembering he'd left the oven on. Maya gave him her best 'but it's our anniversary' eyes, set her hand to her baby bump for good measure. Lucas gave a defeated sigh and she grinned.
"Oh, thank you…" she told him. "My sisters are going to get a kick out of this…"
"I'm sure they will, so long as you don't go overboard with the kind of pose you've got in mind."
"Hey, they're ninth graders, I'm not going to have you take your shirt off or anything… That's for tonight," she gave a sharp nod, followed by a wink, which finally made him laugh. He dropped back into the chair, facing her, and bowed to kiss her belly.
"Your mother is such a weirdo," he whispered. Maya made a small 'wounded noise.' "It's one of her best qualities," Lucas added, and now she snorted.
"Yeah, well, your father's got some pretty great qualities, too. I'd list them, but he'd blush, and what would those portraits be like?"
If they wanted a memorable afternoon, they absolutely had one. The freshmen cracked up at having their teacher's husband as their model for the day's class, and Maya and Lucas spent the better part of the extended afternoon break going through everyone's finished works. Lucas might have stayed to see what the juniors would make of his presence, but he really needed to get back to the ranch and actually go back to work before time came for him to pick up Marianne and Winnie from preschool and bring them up for green group. Meanwhile, Maya had her juniors for last period. Though they definitely didn't start talking about what had happened the night before, she could tell that the trio of Ava, Olivia, and Kelsey were still thinking about their encounter with Echo. It was there in their faces, how much they were still thinking about her. Had they been in the same year, she was sure they would have wanted to invite her and Carina to their station, just as Nika had done that morning.
When she left school, Maya was directed to go to the ranch, and there she found the triplets had been brought over by the elder Friars. It made it so that the family all got to have dinner together, after which Lucas and Maya were encouraged to go off and enjoy a bit of that evening on their own. Thomas and Melinda would take care of getting the kids home and off to bed when the time came. By now, they at least knew better than to turn away an offer like that when it was granted. They went and got ice cream, walked around a while… They may have ended up browsing some baby things at one of their favored stores, but they couldn't help themselves. In time, they headed on home, where they found Lucas' parents had done as they'd said they would before placing their sleeping granddaughters in their aunts' care and leaving. Eliza and Emma went back upstairs, where they'd been studying, after returning the baby monitor and asking how the evening had gone.
"Everyone's still sleeping," Maya reported when she came back to their room after checking on the girls. "Marianne's got…" Her chuckle over the five-year-old's canine sleep companion got stuck in her throat when her eyes landed on her shirtless husband, stood there, looking at her with a smile that rode the line between Huckleberry and his entirely less… wholesome… counterpart. The expression grew as he took in her flushed reaction and tipped his head for her to notice what was sitting on the bed. Sketchbook, pencils… He shrugged. We did say 'later'… Maya had forgotten how to blink. She wiggled her finger toward him. "I do love anniversaries…" she commented. Her face finally breaking into a grin, she moved to shut their bedroom door and got ready to sketch her suddenly much more willing model.
"You're really going to have to lock these up," Lucas suggested, as he sat by her and looked on when all was said and done.
"Sure, sure," Maya absently agreed, never tearing her eyes from the pages. "Not yet though, okay? Five more minutes?" she pleaded innocently.
"Am I understanding you'd rather look at the copy than the original?" he spoke at her ear, pressed one, two, several small kisses at her throat, and her inward grin turned outward.
"You make an excellent point…"
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
