NOVEL NEXT Chapter 13 – The Weekend
It’s always the quiet, unassuming ones that end up writing the rudest, lewdest stuff when given an outlet for their inhibitions. That is to say, the afternoon turned evening turned sleepover of playing Jackbox ended in a tie between me and Ellie. And although I say sleepover, it was mostly just everyone passing out where they were sitting, which for me was In Emily’s embrace. I was kind of expecting for that to feel somewhat different, now that we were girlfriends, but it still felt the same as when we had passed out like that as kids. Vulnerable in a good way, protected and cared about. Although getting comfortable with how my hair was now was a task and a half on its own.
I was the first to wake up when Saturday morning rolled around; my stirring made Emily instinctually hold me tighter, so I nuzzled into her neck while looking around. Were you to look at our group of misfits, you’d have no clue we were powerful warriors with magic powers, we were just completely normal teens in that moment. I heard Emily mumble, and turned to look at her face. Groggily opening her eyes, she looked down at me and smiled. “Oh, there’s a cute girl in my lap,” she whispered, leaning down to kiss the top of my head. “And she’s my girl.”
I reached up and rubbed her cheek with my thumb. “M-morning, Emily.” She leaned into it, smiling.
“Can this moment never end?” Her voice was sleepy and tender. A sudden stomach growl surprised us, waking everyone up as we looked towards Blake. Emily chuckled. “I guess not. Morning, cadets.”
“If you’re gonna make military jokes I’m going to call you a civvie, Emily, don’t think I won’t.” Clara stretched and stood up, yawning in the process. “Right. Is your mom okay with hosting us for breakfast, Daisy, or do we need to book it?”
“Let me go check.” I wriggled out of Emily’s embrace and made my way to Mom’s bedroom. She, however, was not in it, which surprised me a lot. So that’s when I went to check the garage, to find her sitting down in front of the work table, the shotgun reassembled in front of her, her arms crossed. It was only when I reached her side that I realised she was sleeping sitting up. Seeing her like that always made me feel guilty that she’d developed the skill for my sake. When I placed my hand on her shoulder, she didn’t startle awake, she just slowly opened her eyes, looked at me, checked her watch and stood up.
“Morning, Daisy; gosh, it’s been so long since you were the one who woke me up.” Mom stored the shotgun in the box and put it under her arm.
“Didn’t I wake you u-up a few days ago?” Mom wiggled her hand at my question.
“That was Potato Bun breaking and entering that woke me up, not you. Still surprised she snuck her way into my good graces.” She started making her way to the bedroom, so I followed right behind her.
“It’s because you d-don’t really have it in you to be a bully like that.” Mom snorted when I said that.
“Oh, sweetie, I was a right and proper menace in middle school, had a girl gang and everything; the high school seniors were scared of a thirteen-year-old.”
“Now that’s something I’m curious about, Doctor Cloudton. How’d you do it without social media?” Aleah piped up from the living room, and so Mom turned to her, smiling.
“You establish dominance day one and you hold onto it. Those were the days. I find it the height of irony that having a cheerleader for a girlfriend straightened me out enough to get into medical school.” Mom was at the door to her bedroom. “You kids sort out your own breakfast, I need some extra z’s before my shift.” And with that she walked in and closed the door.
Blake immediately jumped out of their seat. “It’s the weekend, and at my place weekend means pancakes;where do you keep the pancake mix?”
“Whoa whoa whoa, pancake mix?” Clara got up. “Come on, Blake, you think Daisy’s mom ever used pancake mix? I mean, what’s pancake batter even?”
“Flour, eggs, milk, sugar, pinch of s-salt, a-and you’re going for a specific t-texture,” I chimed in, walking towards the fridge, happy to find a blender jug already full of batter. “Looks like Mom was p-planning crepes.” There were two places I felt truly confident in: My dreams, and in the kitchen. Both because I had control over the outcome, I knew what to do to achieve certain goals, and so I shooed everyone out of the kitchen and got out the shallow pan designated for crepe making. Within minutes I was stacking them high on a side plate, one after the other, the rest of the team watching me as if I was hosting a cooking show.
“What is it with food prep that’s always so hypnotising to watch?” Aleah was leaning on the bar separating the kitchen and the living room as she asked the question, and I shrugged, using up the last of the batter. “Like, cooking videos and weird conspiracy theories are the most watched thing you can find, any idea why?”
“Grandma getting algorithm-ed after getting a tablet for Christmas?” Emily offered as an explanation; it was as good as any. I got out all the toppings I could think of and put them spread out on the table for everyone to build their own crepes as they desired. I had to stop Blake from putting hot sauce and ham on one of theirs.
“No no, these are crepes, sweet stuff, galettes are for salty stuff, th-those use buckwheat flour,” I stuttered out while taking the unfit toppings from Blake.
“Well, I didn’t know you were bougie enough to know the difference; your mom IS a doctor, though, so no surprise there,” Clara said while wrapping her jam and cream filled crepe.
“Mom and D-Dad had their honeymoon in France, sh-she taught me the difference.” I personally went for the classic Nutella strawberries mix.
“Yeah, that’s pretty bougie. Speaking of, though, where is your dad?” Blake asked, face full of innocence, despite the fact Emily was doing the throat slice ‘stop talking’ motion in an attempt to keep the subject under wraps. She was still treating it with baby gloves, even though I had grown past the hurt of talking about him.
“Mom divorced his soldier a-ass because he was abusing m-me while she worked her ass off a-at the hospital and he babysat me since he was in the r-reserve. I was five. We moved across the c-country to avoid him.” I took a bite before I continued, and felt proud at my accomplishment. “The nightmares I have are b-because of him. I’m okay, though. I shot him in my d-dreams the night Potato Bun showed up.” I smiled, but nobody else was smiling.
“Okay, first off, fuck your sperm donor, second off, the last bit may have been a bit TMI,” Aleah said, and her phone buzzed with a notification shortly thereafter. “Hold on, I need to check this.” And she did, her expression growing darker as she did. “That fucker. That piece of shit. I ignore my notifications for one night to have fun with friends and a Tiktok of one of said friends transforming goes fucking viral.” She slapped her phone down on the counter, groaning. “I’ll never catch them all now to get them taken down, who knows how many reuploads there are!” Rubbing her face in frustration, she started pacing. “Okay, okay, no prob, Aleah, you can still cover your friend’s ass, just use your army of alternate accounts to spread a message that it was all special effects, that should do it--” Her phone piped up with dozens of different notification buzzes “--OH WHAT NOW.” Aleah was transfixed to the screen, to the point that Ellie walked over and navigated her to sit down by gently holding her shoulders and nudging her in the right direction.
Mom stumbled out of the bedroom in that moment, yawning. “Kids, could ya keep it down a little, I’d still like some more rest.”
“Sorry, Dr. Cloudton, I failed your daughter; the video is out and viral, and people have questions and I’m trying to deflect them all, but it’s taking a lot of effort on my part.” Aleah was tapping away at her screen, faster than I could even register. “A lot of said questions also happen to be extremely transphobic, to the point I would fear for Daisy’s safety, had I not seen what she can do to a Nightmare.” As Aleah said the word Nightmare, Potato Bun started shaking in fear.
“Oh, that’s a big one, that’s a really big one, at school, its area of influence is covering the whole campus, oh no, fiddlesticks, shucks, fudge, cheese and crackers, darn it all to heck.” Mom rolled her eyes at Potato Bun’s cussing.
“Just say ’fuck’ like a normal person, Potato.” Mom sighed, closed the door to her bedroom, and emerged shortly thereafter in her most monster hunting-appropriate outfit: jeans, leather boots, flannel shirt and leather jacket over it, with shotgun in hand. All she was missing was the hat for that cowgirl look. “Okay, everybody get in the car, I have words for Little Shit Transphobia.”