June 18th 2022
Chapter 169
Our Time to Play
Dear Mrs. Friar,
The last time I wrote to you, I mentioned how Mariah got this amazing opportunity for herself and Dani and she wasn't sure if she was going to take it because it would mean moving overseas. I told you how I didn't know how to advise her on this, because I hated the thought of her or Dani going away. Your response was just what I would have needed to hear to find the next step, but the truth is I wasn't completely honest with you about how that was all going. I left out a part of it, and I'm not sure why. When Mariah was still trying to decide, I got it in my head like she wanted me to convince her not to go, to give her a reason to stay. So, I made my play for her. I told her how I felt about her, all of it, didn't hold any of it back.
It didn't go at all how I thought it would go. I was ready for her to say I had her all wrong and she didn't feel the same way, but… she did, or at least my telling her everything sort of helped her realize how she felt, too. But that didn't make things better. It only made things worse, because suddenly she was having to choose between passing on something that could mean she and Dani would be set, that would change their lives for the better, or not taking this chance with me… She was so upset, and so was I. I should have told her sooner or not at all, not like that. So, I told her she should go, that it was the right thing to do, because it was. And they went, her and Dani.
It's been so hard, not having them around. I never realized just how much having them in my life made being out here what it was, especially with everything else that's been changing for me. Moving into the nursing program, retiring from basketball, I haven't regretted it for a minute, but without them, I've just been trying so hard not to get lost in my own head, so I've been putting all my energy in my studies, on learning everything I needed to learn, to make it all worth it. And I'm making it happen right now, I am. Everyone's so proud. But a lot of it just feels hollow now. Like I'm not doing it for what's going to be at the end of that road anymore, I'm just doing it to pass my finals, to be top of my class.
After I got to go back to school for senior year, all I wanted to do was to make sure that I would take this second chance I'd been given in getting healthy again and not waste it, but I think that's what I'm doing. I've got the grades, but I can't even be happy about it anymore. Maybe I just need to come home to Texas.
Helena
.
Dear Helena,
I think I might be right to assume that I'm not the only one you haven't been completely honest with. Have you talked about any of this with Mariah? Does she know about what you've been going through lately? Whatever the two of you will or won't be, what you've always been was friends. She was there for you when you had your health scare, and this might be as close to that as anything else that might have happened in the time that you two have known each other. Be as honest with her as you can, let her in. Of the two of us, she'll have the answer, not me.
Whatever happens next, you can always reach out to me. And if it ends up that you chose to return to Austin, well, I'll be there for you then, too.
With love,
Mrs. Maya Friar
X
The year's basketball season for both the boys and the girls was fast drawing to an end, and it had been another great and memorable one on both sides. Plenty of players had displayed their skills and made themselves noticed, but in the last several games, the one name on everyone's lips was Cody Marshall.
The sophomore player was simply on fire lately, helping secure win after win for the boys. It wasn't as though the team had been struggling before, far from it, but this was something else. Marshall was doing so well that some players on an opposing team had tried to make a play for suggesting the player was on something to improve performance. The allegation had fizzled out and quick, shown to be nothing but desperation from sore losers.
For all that, Maya had been noticing it and wondering about it, too. How could she not, with all that she knew about 'Cody?' Was it just a matter of Jenny Marshall being happier now, getting to live as herself at home, considering her options for the future even as she continued to wear her 'Cody costume' and pretend to be the boy she'd been born when she was not him? It didn't feel like that to Maya, or at least… There was far more to the story than what she could see with her eyes. Finally, a few days back, as Jenny joined her bandmates for practice up at the Hex, Maya had pulled her aside to talk.
She had been at her best on the court recently, no doubt about it, and the only thing that was driving her this way had nothing to do with substances. The plan remained that, when school started again in the fall, Cody Marshall would be no more, and Jenny Marshall would officially step out into the world. After starting out thinking that she was going to keep her truth a secret until she was out of high school, she had changed her mind, and she was looking forward to starting up again, as herself. She wasn't under some delusion that it would be smooth sailing. As she'd said before, her existing in the midst of a student body who, for the most part, had no idea that she was a transgender girl, meant that she got to hear and see a lot of how some of her class and schoolmates would speak and act toward people like her, and she didn't assume that they'd spare her once they knew the truth.
That wasn't going to stop her, even if it meant losing the thing that meant the most to her at school. Did she want to stop playing basketball? Clearly not. The team, the band, they were everything to her, that, and her new friends, but… They were never going to let her play with the other girls. She could see exactly how it would go, and sadly Maya did, too. There would be those who'd be on Jenny's side, she was sure of that, too, but it wouldn't be enough. And as Jenny told her as they stood outside the Hex together, she'd at least spare herself that pain, of watching this sport she loved being soured for her forever. The rest would already be hard enough. She'd still get to play, just not on the high school team. Somewhere in the future, she hoped to find a way to change all that, but for now… that was just how it was going to be.
As to her performances lately, with the boys' team, it came down to… a last hurrah. If this was going to be the last that she got to play as part of a team, then she was going to go out swinging.
"Go, Marshall!" Marianne hollered, climbing on to her feet on the stands where they were watching the game. Sitting in the row just behind her and her immediate family, her Nana Katy reached around her waist as a safeguard in case she ended up slipping over the edge and falling into the rows below. "Go! Go!" The crowd's cheers buried her own squeak as Jenny scored.
Sitting on their father's lap, Kacey and Remy matched their big sister's energy, and sitting over in Ella's lap, Lucy was smiling despite the fact that she'd pressed both her hands over her ears when the noise had erupted. Meanwhile, Maya had done the best to shield Mackenzie's ears as much as possible as she attended her very first game, or she would absolutely pierce through that roar from all around the gym with her cries. Of all their babes up to now, she just won the award for 'the lungs on that girl.' Luckily, she did very well with the noise cancelling and mostly slept through the game.
The game did not end how they would have expected it to go. Oh, the boys still won, but not before one of the players on the other team – one they now suspected may have been the one to anonymously accuse Cody Marshall – had gone and body checked the star player. The audience had fallen silent for a few seconds before erupting the other way, expressing outrage over the foul move while Dylan and several of the other players hurried over to check on their fallen team member.
Jenny was okay. She was a bit stunned and wobbly on her feet as she was helped out of the gym, but she was able to walk, no injuries so bad that she wouldn't be able to recover without medical intervention. It took a couple minutes more, in which time Dylan spoke with his team to try and get their heads back to where they needed to be to finish the game, but the play resumed, and if the player from the other team – who sat out the rest of the game – had wanted to tip the odds in his favor, he did the opposite. Jenny's team rallied in the best way they knew how, and they won by a landslide.
"I'm gonna go make sure Marshall's okay," Maya told Lucas after passing the baby to Shawn.
"Yeah," Lucas understood. He still had the twins to hold on to while everyone started to move off the stands, and he also had to keep an eye on Marianne so she wouldn't get carried off by the energy.
"That was really mean, what the boy did," the five-year-old declared, her frown set deep in her brow.
"Yes, it was," Lucas agreed.
"Why did he do it?" she wanted to know. Lucas sighed. Why did anyone do anything, right? This one at least was not too hard to explain, senseless as it was.
"Some people, they don't like it when other people are doing better than them at something, and they'll respond by trying to break it or break them. Neither way is right."
"Like when Adam Gray broke Winnie's wings once?" Marianne asked. Lucas still remembered, a year and a half later, the look of utter sadness on his daughter's best friend's face when he'd shown up and seen the state of her butterfly wing, for her Halloween costume.
"Yeah, exactly like that."
"Is Marshall going to be alright?" Marianne asked hopefully. She didn't exactly know what was going on with the Jenny/Cody of it all, but Maya had taken to referring to her student by her last name, and Marianne had picked up the habit, which worked.
"Oh yeah, I'm sure," Lucas promised.
"Daddy," Remy caught his attention… and his face… with her small hand at his chin. "Play?" she pointed out to the court while Kacey tipped her head back and looked where her twin pointed.
"I haven't played here in a while," Lucas chuckled. "But you girls can someday, if you want to."
"Play!" Kacey threw out her arms and nearly slapped her father in the process.
"You know what…" Lucas considered things. "We should wait for your mother somewhere… And we do have an in with the coach…
"Uncle!" Lucy chirped, from Ella's hold.
"Yes, Uncle Dylan," Lucas laughed. "Let's go see if we can't get you some time out there."
They may not have been able to throw the ball and expect it to go anywhere near the hoop without some direct help, but they could run around the gym floor, and that was good on its own.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
