Needing Leah

The story so far:

Last chapter saw Leah carrying out community service, during which Jess confessed her feeling to Leah. The two kissed, leading to an awkward, passionate sexual encounter that Leah stopped at the last moment. Yearning for the romance, yet realising it would mean Jess discovering her secret, Leah had no choice to stop. She was left feeling worse than ever.

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14: Confrontation

Ellie had a better Sunday than I did. Kiara had invited her on a visit to Otter's Drift, where they even met Kiara's boyfriend, James. From what I could gather, Ellie had a good time, although she came back early when Kiara and James started drinking in the pub. I was glad if she was getting along with Kiara. Were I to drop out, she would need another friend, and Kiara was nice...a bit dull, perhaps, but nice.

I didn't tell Ellie what had happened at community service. Despite returning in tears, I avoided telling her much of anything at all, and there were a billion other reasons and excuses I could offer for my upset. Would Ellie be angry if she knew about my kiss with Jess? It was more than a kiss, in truth. Had I not feared Jess discovering I was a girl, I might never have even stopped. What did that say about me as a person? Largely, I decided not to tell Ellie simply because I didn't want to think about it. I just wanted to collapse, and even napped for an hour. It was hard not to think about it, however. It was weighing on me heavily the rest of the afternoon.

We both spent some time studying. I also tried calling my mum several times. When she didn't answer any, I settled on a text.

Hey mum, just called for a quick catch up, nothing too urgent. When is a good time I could ring again?

.

It wasn't unlike her to not answer, not at least when she might've been working. By 6.30pm, however, I was starting to worry. The sun had fallen but the air still felt warm. Our dorm room was wide open. We could hear the faint sound of a group of girls, playing with a frisbee and laughing. Ellie was watching them from her desk by the window.

"How come we never do anything like that?" She asked. I was lying in bed, having given up on studying. I was facing down the barrel of another week of classes. Technically, that shouldn't have been too bad. I'd enjoyed some of them last week, only everything felt different now. I was an impostor. I couldn't ignore it. I was worse than that, even. The wordpatheticno longer felt a strong enough word. Ellie couldn't fail to notice my mood, though I tried to mask it.

"We don't have the free time." I answered her. "You use most of it up teasing me." I wondered if my mood was wearing on Ellie.Disgust, I thought. That was the word for my feelings. I hated myself for even feeling that way.Disgust. It crawled through my skin. I tried a brave smile.

"I do tease you a lot." Ellie admitted, still staring out the window. "We still have free time, though. We read, we watch films. You keep up with your Bundy's Liga."

"Bundesliga."

"We should go out and join them. It'd be fun."

"No." I couldn't do that. It was hard enough trying to contort myself into a pleasant mood, let alone play frisbee with a bunch of other girls. Ellie turned to frown at me.

"You liked it when we hung out in the common room. It put you at ease. It madeLeahfeel more natural for a while."

"Well it's not natural, is it?" I said. I intended it to sound half-joking but it spat from my mouth with bitterness. Ellie didn't like the comment. She took a moment to run a hand through her red hair. It felt like the Ellie-equivalent of someone rolling up their sleeves before a fight.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She said.

"It's not natural. It almost felt natural in the moments where I could kid myself, but I shouldn't be doing that."

"Loads of boys dress as girls. It's perfectly natural, going back hundreds of years. You know there's even myths ofmanly, old Thor dressing as a woman?"

She'd obviously been researching at some point, hoping to cheer me up. I rolled my eyes, which was enough to earn me a playful slap. I found myself pinned to the bed. My wrists were pressed down by her hands, and her body straddled over my waist.

"Have you never even spent ten seconds googling gender identity, Liam? Do you not understand how much of a spectrum it all is?" When I didn't answer, she freed my left hand long enough to brush her hair out of my face. "Sometimes I wonder if splitting everything into Liam and Leah was a mistake. If that makes it hard to see how the two overlap. Something big is bothering you. Something you haven't said."

I didn't want to get into that. I couldn't tell her about Jess. I tried redirecting. "I just meant being at Bryner isn't natural. Gender identity is one thing, fraud is another."

"No, you weren't talking about fraud, you were talking about a game of frisbee."

"Well, can we talk about something else?"

She frowned. My wrist was still free, where she had let it go. She tried to pin it down again but I moved it away to my waist. She tried adjusting to grab it but I wriggled free. "Give me your fucking wrist, Liam!"

"No!" I rolled away from her. She pulled me back and then suddenly we were wrestling. Giggling. It felt fun, for a moment. I had more strength but she was more persistent. In our struggle, she called out.

"Good girls stay still!"

It knocked the laughter out of me. I tried not to grimace. She took control again and pinned me down with a quick kiss to my neck. She hadn't noticed my mood change, and talked as though nothing had happened.

"If not frisbee, we should at least hang out in the common room again. Maybe this time I'll win at Mortal Kombat. You'll be banned from picking Raiden and spamming that fucking attack he's got."

My nose tickled where her hair had brushed it. When I asked to be allowed to itch it, she shook her head and pressed my wrists even harder to the mattress.

"No, you suffer. We're busy talking about ways to cheer you up, right now."

"You want me to suffer...and to cheer up?"

She laughed at that. She thought it summed up our relationship. I tried to laugh, too. This time, she spotted my unease. Concern flickered in those deep brown eyes I had come to adore. It made her even more keen to talk seriously. She kept pushing. Why couldn't we do more things? Why did I think Leah was unnatural? I tried to deflect through humour but it didn't work. She kept pressing until, eventually, she lost her cool. She stormed back towards the window.

"Do you remember me telling you that Leah might be a good thing? That you might one day reach a point where it could become more meaningful and empowering than you realise, if only you let go of all this shame? Do you remember me making you promise you'd talk to me when you felt angry or upset or weak. Do you remember that?"

I did. It had only been a few days ago, and yet it felt like a lifetime had passed. I didn't respond. It made her sigh, then soften her voice. "I promised I'd tell you, as much as you need to hear it: you're not weak. Leah isn't weak, either. She gets anxious, she cries sometimes. With me, she lets herself be submissive, sure. Have you ever considered that's a good thing? What if Leah has been your way to express your anxiety? Your vulnerability? Would you have dared run back to the room crying, had you been Liam? What if all of these feelings were always there? You were just so hung up on trying to be amanbefore, that all of it got buried?"

"I wish it was buried."

"Yeah, well it's not anymore." Her voice wasn't stern or unkind, but there was a grit to it. "Life happened. You've been put through bad shit, and anything that was buried has been brought to the surface. All this stuff about weakness and humiliation and all that. You can't just bury it again. You've got to do something with it."

"Who are you now, Freud?" I slid backwards until I was sitting on my bed with my back against the wall.

"This conversation is important, Liam!"

"It's pointless!" There was no way of resolving it. I was trapped in a place I fundamentally did not belong, forced to be a person I fundamentally should not be.

"And moping, banging on about how badly you need to get away; you think that's less pointless? You think wallowing helps? At some point, you've got to stop pussyfooting around whatever it is that makes Leah feel so humiliating, and actually fucking confront it. If you can do that, god damn I will proud. If you never do that, I might just lose a little respect."

I fell silent.Lose respect?I looked into her eyes.

"You're still mine, ok?" She said. "Whether Liam or Leah, or both at once." She looked sheepish. "I want to support you. I'm trying to, but you need to try as well. Make me proud." She kissed my forehead, then caressed the tops of my hands for a moment. She did care. All her hassling made me angry, but nobody else cared. Suddenly, I felt guilty I hadn't told her about Jess. Would she still care about me, then? I sat considering it all, for a moment.Disgust. How could I voice that? Just then, my phone started ringing.

"Shit. Ellie, it's my mum."

As though it was an emergency she had trained for, Ellie slipped into a calm state of certainty. She kissed me good luck, said she'd take a walk around the meadows, then to call her when I was finished. The next moment, she was gone. I was left with my phone ringing in my hand. My heart beating in my chest.

.

When I next looked at my phone screen, it showed the call had been going eighteen minutes. Eighteen minutes and somehow neither of us had said anything of worth. She seemed oblivious to my meeting with dad. That meant I would have to get the ball rolling. It terrified me. I couldn't bear the thought she might side with him.

"Mum." I began. The pause that followed on the phoneline was suffocating. "Mum, I...I'm thinking of dropping out." That was a beginning, at least.

"Oh, Liam. Don't say that."

"Yes. This place isn't right for me. I mean..." I wish I could see her face, gauge her expressions. It had been hard to talk to my dad in person but this was worse. "Dad was keen for me to come here. Were you...I mean...would you mind if I dropped out?"

"I think it would be a mistake, Liam. Did you talk to your father about this? He's the best person to speak with."

"I'm talking to you, mum. You know what he's like. He never listens. He just pushes and insists he knows what's best...but he never does. If I said I wanted to leave, if it really mattered to me...would you support me on it?"

The pause that followed was agonising. I could hear nothing but the loud buzz of her phoneline. Her breath.

"You should talk with your father."

"Mum!" I felt angry now. I needed her. "For once can you not just duck out of it? All my life, you've been telling me to talk with him. He's an idiot!"

"Liam!"

"He is. You know he is!"

I heard her suck breath in through her teeth. "Your father is the best man I know. He isn't always easy, don't think I'm blind to that. He could be hard on you, when you were young. Don't think I ignored it."

"You never stopped him."

"I did. Sometimes." She took a deep breath. "When you were four, maybe five, I came very close to leaving him."

I hadn't known that. Why had she never said this before? Why was she saying it now?

"He pushed me as well, Liam." She continued. "It wasn't always nice but...you have to understand your father. He was the eldest of his siblings. His brother Lars fell heavily into drugs. It wasn't an easy time for him. I considered leaving only because I didn't understand the pressures he was under. He pushes because he knows how easily a good person can derail. He just wants you to succeed. He was never abusive. He never hit you once."

Suddenly, it sounded like she was trying to convince me, or was she convincing herself?He never hit you once.The fact that was her best argument was pretty damning. "I've never heard of an uncle Lars."

"He died of an overdose. Don't mention him to your father. I'm just making it clear that he wants to see you do well. He told me Bryner was the right place to go, that you needed SLDs, so I trust that."

My heart sank. Was that it?Trust. Was there a difference between trust and blind allegiance? Would the truth shake her out of it? Would she ever be strong enough to stand up to dad?

"Ok..." I felt barren.

"Having doubts are understandable, Liam. Leaving your father would've been a far bigger decision than dropping out of school. I chose to trust him, in spite of his faults, and our marriage blossomed. If school is hard, don't run from it. Don't give up on yourself."

Right.She was trying to be encouraging. "Do you ever wonder what life would've been like if you had left him? Do you ever feel like you made a mistake?"

The pause was a long one.

"Speak with your father, if you need to. He'll be home soon."

"You speak to him." I wasn't going to tell her. I couldn't bear to, but she had to know. "Ask him why I hate it here. He knows. See if he'll tell you."

"What does that m..."

I hung up before she could finish. I hoped that would make my dad's evening uncomfortable. I hoped he would squirm when she asked him what I meant.

.

The rest of the evening wasn't great. When Ellie came back, she tried to get me to talk about the phone call but I didn't want to. She accused me again of wallowing, rather than confronting my issues. She even ended up punishing me. She started off by spanking me hard on my cheeks but it drew little reaction. I felt numb, if anything. She tried edging me. I wanted it to be fun but, after a few minutes, my erection started to fade. The punishment fizzled out soon after that, with Ellie trying to hide her concern. "Well, if you don't want to talk tonight, then it's a good thing you have counselling tomorrow." She eventually concluded. I had forgotten about that. I was more worried about bumping into Jess.

.

"Leah, can we talk?"

It was easy for Jess to seek me out. Ellie wasn't with me at breakfast the next day because of her morning detention with Miss Daphne. I sat with Kiara in the canteen but struggled to muster much conversation. Jess waited for me to finish my omelette, then invited me to follow her out to an empty staircase of the main building.

"I wanted to explain." She began, which surprised me. "You're with Ellie. You practically admitted it. I should've taken that as your answer. Instead, I chose to put you in a difficult position. I was rather forward, when it was clear you didn't want to..."

"I did want to." I blurted, then seized up. Jess was sweet. She felt genuinely bad to have seen me so upset. I wanted to reassure her I was fine. I wanted to press my hand softly against her cheek. I couldn't, though. I had been toying with her emotions before, I couldn't risk doing it again.

"Jess, I...I'm not right for you. I'm not the person you think I am."

She took a moment to adjust her glasses. "If I've put you in a pickle with Ellie, that's my fault. I'll tell her we just kissed. I'll say I pushed you into it, and that you stopped me. I won't mention the bit where we almost...we almost..." She started blushing. Bright red. That moment had clearly meant a lot to her. I could practically see her mind trying to relive it, until she shook the thought away. "Ellie should be mad with me, not you."

"No." I said. "We shouldn't tell her anything. Things are complicated with Ellie. We're not together but we're not...not together, either?" Jess looked confused at this. How could I explain? "It's not even really about Ellie, and it's not that I don't like you or anything. I think you're great but I don't want to lead you on. You wouldn't like the real me. I would disappoint you. You don't deserve that."

She took a long pause. I can only imagine how weird it must have all sounded. "I think I should tell Ellie, I feel really bad. I don't want to seem like a woman of ill repute."

"No!" I pressed. "Please, don't. Please. Just...let's just forget anything happened, ok?"

"I can't possibly forget." She looked ashamed. There was so much warmth behind those downcast eyes. "You say I wouldn't like the real you, but...if that is all that's holding you back...can't we try anyway?" Suddenly, she was pleading. She looked so vulnerable. "Couldn't you tell me who you are?"

There was no clean way out of this. Either option meant breaking her heart.

"I'd rather not. Let's pretend all of this never happened, ok? Let's just bury it."

.

Bury it.The exact opposite of what Ellie wanted me to do. The exact opposite of what my counsellor would try to do. Maybe Ellie was right, maybe things can't be properly buried but it couldn't be my focus right now. I was having enough trouble just getting through the day and trying to figure out a way to leave Bryner. Opening a can of emotional worms could wait. I just hoped Jess didn't decide to open it for me.

The Lemon Roomwas right next to the stables. Confusingly, it was a lime green colour, rather than yellow. Everything was designed to look calm. Faintly-dimmed lighting, inoffensive green walls, paintings of forests, driftwood ornaments. A coffee table sat between the two yellow-cushioned chairs. A single glass of water. A box of tissues. Was that as a precaution in case of tears, or was I expected to cry? Even Roisin herself was the embodiment of a lava lamp. Mellow, composed, soft-speaking. She was wearing a dark-blue jumper and jeans. I would've guessed she was Irish, but my grasp of the different British accents was still weak. In age, she looked about 23 which seemed far too young for a therapist. Straight, dark-blonde hair with a smooth complexion and vivid blue eyes. I awaited her questions like the swing of a guillotine.

"So, again, my name is Roisin." She began, smiling. She'd already told me twice. "Do you understand how counselling tends to work?"

"You ask me questions and I talk about myself?"

She smiled again, though I couldn't gauge what it meant. "You talk about whatever you want to talk about. Maybe that means serious things, maybe simple things, maybe it means your favourite character from Star Wars. We have to go at a pace that you're comfortable with, so that means you take the lead. If you don't want to talk at all, then that's also fine."

That confused me. "What do we do if we don't talk?"

"Sit in silence, if you like. I know some people find silence nerve-wracking but others quite like it. Alternatively, there's some art materials over there. A deck of cards, a few other bits in that cupboard." She said, pointing. I looked at it a long moment, using it as an excuse to avoid eye contact.

"My job is to help you figure things out. I'm not here to sit down and tell you who you are or diagnose or any of that fluff. How would I even know who you are? If I can helpyoudo the figuring out, though, and if I can help you better contain some of the difficult feelings we all have, then I think that would be a good start."

She had offered the possibility to sit in silence. That was a mistake. If I didn't have to talk, I wouldn't. She spoke of confidentiality, but I couldn't trust that. I couldn't risk it. Occasionally, she would ask questions, or waffle some therapy talk for quick moments, but I would kill all conversation with a short nod or a blunt no. The most I opened up about was recent marks back for my Literature and Classical History essays. Miss Anderton had added the noteyou should consider a future in writing.Ellie would be disappointed with me, I knew. I hoped she wouldn't lose respect. It was all very well her telling me toconfront my problemsbut it wasn't as simple as that. Ellie and I were totally opposed on that point. Perhaps it was inevitable things would lead to a showdown.