Chp50 Pancakes are not weapons.
It late in the morning. I slip quietly out of bed. crawl along the floor to the door. Quietly open and slip out to the hall. I don't want to wake my parents. MY PARENTS! Wow! Do I feel good. Maybe I can be normal now. I slide along the wall, quiet like the Shadow. Careful moves of every limb. I reach the stairs. Moving down, I check for sounds. The house is still and eerie, a quiet peace. The house is never this quiet.
I palm my knife, I put it on the floor. When I crawled into mom's arms last night. She doesn't like me armed, but I feel safer with the blade. She refused to allow me to have a gun in the house. Dad put a lock box in my room. Taylor got me a permit, I never need permit or license, or even permission before. Sometimes it feels awkward to have people restrict me, but it feels good they care. Besides Anna carries a gun, Christian doesn't like it, but It saved her and the girls life. I save Mommy.
I reach the kitchen, slowly I look in. Gail is sitting reading a book, some romance novel. She smiles. "Good Morning Mikey." I giggle, how did she know? "Morning Gail, Mom said I could have Pancakes." She smiles "OK, how many?" O' no a moral question, do I say ten and pay later or six and be satisfied. What to do. I try to think of a way around the issue.
"Six it is" she beams pulling the batter from the frig. "How did you Know?" She heats the flat iron skillet, Shawnee used a regular skillet. "Well its easy, four is normal. Six is special. So I know you sleep with the Grey's last night. So you need a special breakfast for my young gentleman."
I like when she calls me that. She is so good to me, and everyone. I hope Taylor can makes his daughter Sophie stay with us. She like Lego's. Taylor is going to see if she can come to San Diego. I watch my pancakes rise on the griddle, that what the flat skillet is called. "Is everyone gone?" "No, they're still in bed asleep." I look at the clock it's 10am. "Even now?" "Yes, it's been a terrible three weeks. They need to recover. How are you doing?"
How am I doing? Doing? I feel strange, happy. Yet lost. Like I know something, but can't place the though in the proper place. I am missing something. I have the clues; I just can't place them. Like that game Shawnee likes, where player kills the body. Then I have to solve who, with, where. I always lose. Shawnee laughs that I overthink the game. "If you're in Africa and you see a stripe Horse, it's a zebra, not a lion in Zebra skin." She says. I like monopoly better. Me and Christian tear up the game. I beat him ten times, he pouts, the billionaire tycoon.
I pull back to the question, how am I doing? Well, Luke is my brother, my real brother. But I don't want to be a Steele. I want to be a Grey. Anna is going to be a Grey. I like Anna. She's GOOD. I try to be good. I like Mommy, she's GOOD. I feel dread, anguish that Emm is in a coma, vegetable or worse. I need to find her. I need to know. I wish she was here. Like Elisa, she is grey, her aura shifts like sand. In the hospital room when she sat with Luke and me. she felt happy an angry. Yet she felt right. Like she belonged.
"Mikey, your pancakes." Gail says. I look down, the stack is in front of me. I look at the syrups. Apple syrup, YEA! "Apple syrup! Please Gail." She slides the syrup to me. "Elisa said it was your favorite on special days." I freeze like a stone. No one knows that. Not Luke, or Shawnee, or anybody. Only?
I leap from the table run up the stairs, the door is locked. I kick it in, charging into the bedroom. I leap on the body in the bed. ripping the back of her nightshirt. The light from the door shows the mountain and fish on her skin. She is fighting to get free.
I leap off and run. I run outside. Taylor chases me but I run for the peak. My lungs burn as the world tilts and breaks into pieces of glass. I lay on the ridge crying, and weeping for my soul. She didn't come for me.
A hand touches my face. I look up into the most beautiful eyes. Clear and blue. Like alpine lakes. Her face has a gentle glow. I look into a soul that is just as tortured as me. I realize that I love this girl. Before it was always theoretical, I always had sex with guys, it was just what I knew from the past. I never had a girl look at me like this. She is so GOOD. She smiles. pulling me up. She strong. I reach out and touch her face. She tilts and I kiss her. she melts into me. I hold her, she feels right.
"Hi, I'm Mikey." She looks into my eyes and "I'm Sammy" I kiss her again she melts into me, kissing me, are tongues battle. She breaks away. "Stop! I'm sorry I can't do this again." "Do what again?" "I'm not who you think I am."
"Who are you?" "I'm a man." She blushes and turns. Away. "So what." She turns back. "It doesn't bother you?" "No, I only had gay sex, I like you a lot. The first girl I ever wanted to have sex with, and that you're a guy. So what. Don't you want me?" She runs into my arms.
Latter we lay on the slope, hidden in the trees. She cuddles to me. She's seventeen almost a year younger, my birth day is in 20 days. We confess are secrets, dreams, desires. She has always been gay, but she always felt like a woman. She is transgender. She never planned on having the surgeries. She seems happy, ok with my disabilities. She's a freshman at MIT. She is staying with her idiotic stepmother and her family near the lodge. Her dad is a business man turn politician on some junket, what is that like a boat, or a plane?
I walk her back to her house. The security guys push me, insult Sammy. They moan on the ground, I take their cell phone and call Taylor. He is not happy. They are coming to get me. Her Stepmom dad comes down the drive. I stand in front of Sammy. He demands to know what's going on. Words come out wrong, broken, I feel angry well up inside me. Sammy touches my neck; I relax as she explains what happened.
"Who are you. I'm calling the police." He bellows. "I'm Michael Grey of Seattle. My Brother Christian is coming to pick me up." He blanches, like I hit him. "Christian Grey of GEH?" "Yes, my brother." He suddenly can't be nice enough. We wait inside, his wife is much calmer and nicer. The Step mother seem ok, a little reserved. Her Half-brother, Clay is all over us. He is like a mini Mia.
The doorbell rings. A Dad and Christian enter the house. I introduce them. Sammy is a delight. They take to her, inviting her to dinner. Grace is worried. I know the storm is waiting back at Christian new house in Aspen. We leave.
