Allie's Secrets
May. 2nd, 2011 08:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
clare_dragonflyTitle: Allie's Secrets
Word count: 1511
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Original fic commentfest prompt here
Notes: I really had difficulty deciding whether or not this was a heterosexual relationship. I hope the solution I came to works. As always, concrit welcome. Someone else wrote a response to this prompt but I haven't read it yet because I didn't want it to mess with my head!
Allie’s first memory of this life is noticing something’s wrong. She’s pretty sure she must have been potty training; her dad was showing her how to hold her “peepee.” She suddenly realized that’s not how she used to do it. She’s not sure whether she expressed that to her dad, but if she did, he probably misunderstood.
When she was five, they went to the natural history museum. The minute the walked in she asked her mom, “when did I go here before?” Her mom said they’d never been, but she was able to guide them unerringly to her favorite dinosaur skeleton, the stegosaurus, and from there to the gift shop. Her dad, bemused, bought her a stegosaurus mug.
By the time she was eight, she had mostly figured out how to separate the old memories from the new one, and she had definitely figured out not to tell anyone else about the old ones. It should have been easier than it was; after all, she was in such a different body this time. But maybe the body isn’t as important as she used to think.
At eleven, Allie was figuring out that it wasn’t just one set of old memories. It was lots of sets. Five, at least. She begged for, and eventually received, a journal to write in—not the one she really liked, with the unicorn on the front, but her mom said that was too girly. At least it was a stegosaurus. She used her colored pencils from school to write down the memories, one for each different set.
That was how she figured out that it was four sets, and at least nine others like it, that weren’t complete memories but glimpses, thoughts, feelings, smells. That was how she figured out that there was someone else who was in most of them.
She went through the stegosaurus journal (and, later, the rose garden journal that she’d bought with her allowance money, forgoing candy bars for almost a week), underlining the descriptions of that person in black. The memories were consistent; in the Cerulean memories, he was a tall man with dark hair and charcoal grey eyes, who never did anything more than touch her hands. In the Mahogany memories, he was short and fat and blond with transparent eyebrows but she can’t read over the memories in public, that’s how intense the memories are. In the Violet memories he always seems far away, and someone else is holding her hand, but when they look at each other everything is all right.
She begins to realize, as more memories surface and she dutifully chronicles them (she starts to buy a new journal every couple of months, and she’s outgrown the dinosaur and unicorn journals into narrow-ruled Moleskines, and she buys new colored pencils only to keep the shades consistent), that even in the wisps and shadings of other lives he’s there. The smell of musk that she can’t reliably connect to any other life is him. So is the feel of a rough palm. So is the thought, Will he ever forgive me?
She’s sixteen and just finishing an appointment with her fourth therapist—she likes this one, Mrs. Keane, and hopes her parents will let her stay with her—when she realizes she has to find him.
But how? He doesn’t look the same in this life. Her heart sinks into her stomach while her face stares out the window, she and her mother in customary silence as she’s driven home. He’s not going to recognize her either, is he? Not while she still looks like a boy. Tears prick her eyes, wavering the image of the horse in the field that usually makes her smile as they pass. Please, she begs inwardly. Let me be who I am. I have to find him.
And, miraculously, it works. Or maybe it’s sheer persistence: this is, after all, the fourth therapist who’s told Allie’s parents that she should be able to dress and express herself however she likes. Her mother takes her bra shopping, and she finds one that fits with the pads she bought two years ago with the credit card she was allowed to get on her birthday. Then her mom retreats to the bookstore, unable to face shopping for women’s clothing with her son.
That’s all right with Allie. At least she gets to go shopping for women’s clothing. The first thing she tries on is a pink dress, and it clashes horribly with her hair, but it fits so well (even with the bra!) and it makes her laugh out loud and twirl, again and again, in front of the dressing room mirror.
It makes high school hell, of course. But high school was always hell.
Anyway, it’s only a year and a half left, and then there’s college, where no one has met her before. It helps that she’s going to a school six hours away. Mrs. Keane gives her a tearful goodbye and a referral to a new therapist in the area. No one at her college will know she wasn’t always a girl except the few administrators her family had to work with to get her a single room.
Allie is a little afraid, even though things are still uncomfortable with her parents and she’s looking forward to a fresh start. It takes a long journaling session in her room on a hot August day with the air conditioner on and all the curtains drawn for her to figure out why. She’s worried that if she leaves, she’ll never find him.
She lays back on her bed and closes her eyes and tries to persuade herself that he’s not here in her hometown, but she’ll be able to find him once she’s at college. It doesn’t work, but she falls asleep and forgets about it for a little while.
Then in her first college class she sits down next to a girl with short-cropped hair and a baggy T-shirt and her stomach does a twist. She doesn’t understand why. It’s just an empty seat. Then the girl looks up at her, her mouth thin and pinched but her eyes deep, deep brown, and Allie feels herself falling.
“It’s you,” she whispers.
“Me?” the girl says, her voice harsh and judging. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I—I mean—” Allie fidgets, flustered, trying to figure out what to say. Is it possible that he—she—whichever—doesn’t remember her? She feels a chill run up her spine and all the way down to her hands. She’d never considered this possibility. Is she the only one who remembers? She can’t just come out and say “we’re destined to be lovers, we have been in every other life,” not if he doesn’t remember her. “I just mean, haven’t we met before? At orientation or something?”
The girl continues to stare at her, then shakes her head. “I didn’t go to orientation.” Her voice is angry and sullen but her eyes are still so deep, and her eyebrows are pushed together just a little bit in confusion.
“Oh. Sorry. Must have mixed you up with someone else.” Be brave, Allie reminds herself. This is a new place. No one knows her. She holds her hand out. “I’m Allie.”
The girl lowers her eyes to the hand, seems to consider it for a long moment, then lifts her own hand and shakes it. “Shannon.”
Then class starts, and they have to pay attention. It’s hard. Allie is constantly aware of Shannon’s presence, just inches from her, of the warmth of her body and her faint soapy smell. She’s aware of her own awkwardness, her too-long legs, her too-broad shoulders, her too-short hair. Could this, being born into the wrong body, be the reason Shannon doesn’t recognize her? But in all her memories, Shannon is a man. Or maybe she’s wrong. Maybe she’s just missed some because she didn’t expect that one special person to be a woman.
Shannon doesn’t speak to her as they leave, or the next time they have class together. But on Saturday there’s a club fair, and after Allie tracks down the LGBT group—if she’s going to find any friends who will accept her despite everything, that’s probably the best place to start—she finds herself handing the clipboard with the sign-up sheet to Shannon.
They just stare at each other for what feels like an hour. The buzz of the gym around them fades away. Then, amazingly, Shannon smiles. “I like your butterfly necklace,” is all she says, but Allie smiles back and feels as light as air.
She makes friends. She tells them the truth. They don’t care.
Shannon especially doesn’t care. She always thought of herself as a lesbian, she tells Allie, “but it’s not like you were ever anything other than a girl, were you?”
“No,” Allie agrees, and smiles. Someday she’ll tell her the rest of the secret.
Word count: 1511
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Original fic commentfest prompt here
Notes: I really had difficulty deciding whether or not this was a heterosexual relationship. I hope the solution I came to works. As always, concrit welcome. Someone else wrote a response to this prompt but I haven't read it yet because I didn't want it to mess with my head!
Allie’s first memory of this life is noticing something’s wrong. She’s pretty sure she must have been potty training; her dad was showing her how to hold her “peepee.” She suddenly realized that’s not how she used to do it. She’s not sure whether she expressed that to her dad, but if she did, he probably misunderstood.
When she was five, they went to the natural history museum. The minute the walked in she asked her mom, “when did I go here before?” Her mom said they’d never been, but she was able to guide them unerringly to her favorite dinosaur skeleton, the stegosaurus, and from there to the gift shop. Her dad, bemused, bought her a stegosaurus mug.
By the time she was eight, she had mostly figured out how to separate the old memories from the new one, and she had definitely figured out not to tell anyone else about the old ones. It should have been easier than it was; after all, she was in such a different body this time. But maybe the body isn’t as important as she used to think.
At eleven, Allie was figuring out that it wasn’t just one set of old memories. It was lots of sets. Five, at least. She begged for, and eventually received, a journal to write in—not the one she really liked, with the unicorn on the front, but her mom said that was too girly. At least it was a stegosaurus. She used her colored pencils from school to write down the memories, one for each different set.
That was how she figured out that it was four sets, and at least nine others like it, that weren’t complete memories but glimpses, thoughts, feelings, smells. That was how she figured out that there was someone else who was in most of them.
She went through the stegosaurus journal (and, later, the rose garden journal that she’d bought with her allowance money, forgoing candy bars for almost a week), underlining the descriptions of that person in black. The memories were consistent; in the Cerulean memories, he was a tall man with dark hair and charcoal grey eyes, who never did anything more than touch her hands. In the Mahogany memories, he was short and fat and blond with transparent eyebrows but she can’t read over the memories in public, that’s how intense the memories are. In the Violet memories he always seems far away, and someone else is holding her hand, but when they look at each other everything is all right.
She begins to realize, as more memories surface and she dutifully chronicles them (she starts to buy a new journal every couple of months, and she’s outgrown the dinosaur and unicorn journals into narrow-ruled Moleskines, and she buys new colored pencils only to keep the shades consistent), that even in the wisps and shadings of other lives he’s there. The smell of musk that she can’t reliably connect to any other life is him. So is the feel of a rough palm. So is the thought, Will he ever forgive me?
She’s sixteen and just finishing an appointment with her fourth therapist—she likes this one, Mrs. Keane, and hopes her parents will let her stay with her—when she realizes she has to find him.
But how? He doesn’t look the same in this life. Her heart sinks into her stomach while her face stares out the window, she and her mother in customary silence as she’s driven home. He’s not going to recognize her either, is he? Not while she still looks like a boy. Tears prick her eyes, wavering the image of the horse in the field that usually makes her smile as they pass. Please, she begs inwardly. Let me be who I am. I have to find him.
And, miraculously, it works. Or maybe it’s sheer persistence: this is, after all, the fourth therapist who’s told Allie’s parents that she should be able to dress and express herself however she likes. Her mother takes her bra shopping, and she finds one that fits with the pads she bought two years ago with the credit card she was allowed to get on her birthday. Then her mom retreats to the bookstore, unable to face shopping for women’s clothing with her son.
That’s all right with Allie. At least she gets to go shopping for women’s clothing. The first thing she tries on is a pink dress, and it clashes horribly with her hair, but it fits so well (even with the bra!) and it makes her laugh out loud and twirl, again and again, in front of the dressing room mirror.
It makes high school hell, of course. But high school was always hell.
Anyway, it’s only a year and a half left, and then there’s college, where no one has met her before. It helps that she’s going to a school six hours away. Mrs. Keane gives her a tearful goodbye and a referral to a new therapist in the area. No one at her college will know she wasn’t always a girl except the few administrators her family had to work with to get her a single room.
Allie is a little afraid, even though things are still uncomfortable with her parents and she’s looking forward to a fresh start. It takes a long journaling session in her room on a hot August day with the air conditioner on and all the curtains drawn for her to figure out why. She’s worried that if she leaves, she’ll never find him.
She lays back on her bed and closes her eyes and tries to persuade herself that he’s not here in her hometown, but she’ll be able to find him once she’s at college. It doesn’t work, but she falls asleep and forgets about it for a little while.
Then in her first college class she sits down next to a girl with short-cropped hair and a baggy T-shirt and her stomach does a twist. She doesn’t understand why. It’s just an empty seat. Then the girl looks up at her, her mouth thin and pinched but her eyes deep, deep brown, and Allie feels herself falling.
“It’s you,” she whispers.
“Me?” the girl says, her voice harsh and judging. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I—I mean—” Allie fidgets, flustered, trying to figure out what to say. Is it possible that he—she—whichever—doesn’t remember her? She feels a chill run up her spine and all the way down to her hands. She’d never considered this possibility. Is she the only one who remembers? She can’t just come out and say “we’re destined to be lovers, we have been in every other life,” not if he doesn’t remember her. “I just mean, haven’t we met before? At orientation or something?”
The girl continues to stare at her, then shakes her head. “I didn’t go to orientation.” Her voice is angry and sullen but her eyes are still so deep, and her eyebrows are pushed together just a little bit in confusion.
“Oh. Sorry. Must have mixed you up with someone else.” Be brave, Allie reminds herself. This is a new place. No one knows her. She holds her hand out. “I’m Allie.”
The girl lowers her eyes to the hand, seems to consider it for a long moment, then lifts her own hand and shakes it. “Shannon.”
Then class starts, and they have to pay attention. It’s hard. Allie is constantly aware of Shannon’s presence, just inches from her, of the warmth of her body and her faint soapy smell. She’s aware of her own awkwardness, her too-long legs, her too-broad shoulders, her too-short hair. Could this, being born into the wrong body, be the reason Shannon doesn’t recognize her? But in all her memories, Shannon is a man. Or maybe she’s wrong. Maybe she’s just missed some because she didn’t expect that one special person to be a woman.
Shannon doesn’t speak to her as they leave, or the next time they have class together. But on Saturday there’s a club fair, and after Allie tracks down the LGBT group—if she’s going to find any friends who will accept her despite everything, that’s probably the best place to start—she finds herself handing the clipboard with the sign-up sheet to Shannon.
They just stare at each other for what feels like an hour. The buzz of the gym around them fades away. Then, amazingly, Shannon smiles. “I like your butterfly necklace,” is all she says, but Allie smiles back and feels as light as air.
She makes friends. She tells them the truth. They don’t care.
Shannon especially doesn’t care. She always thought of herself as a lesbian, she tells Allie, “but it’s not like you were ever anything other than a girl, were you?”
“No,” Allie agrees, and smiles. Someday she’ll tell her the rest of the secret.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-03 02:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-03 12:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-03 05:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-03 05:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-03 05:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-04 06:59 pm (UTC)