Chapter 11

Jeff and Chelsea headed from the cafeteria to Wheeler. “It’s really mild today,” she remarked. “I think I want to change my clothes ... wear my denim skirt.”

“Wear comfy shoes. It’s a long walk to the public library.”

They reached her room. “I’m going to confirm our destination,” Jeff said. He pulled his phone from his pocket and reviewed the screen. “I have email from my mom. Spring break is coming up and she wants to know our plans.”

Chelsea rolled her eyes. “I had totally forgotten about spring break. I’ll text my mom and see what they’re planning.”

“Remember, the deal was, in order for me to spend most of winter break with your folks, you need to spend most of spring break with mine.”

“I remember. I promise not to have the sort of melt-down I had then.”

“I would hope not. Mom also says they liked that photo of you so much they’re having it printed and framed.”

“My coming out photo? Did you tell them I’m outed?”

“No. I thought we could tell them in person.”

Chelsea adjusted her outfit. “How do I look?” she asked.

Jeff scanned her from head to foot. She wore a denim skirt that came above her knees and a short-sleeved blouse. “You look great. I like seeing your knees after so many weeks of wearing jeans. Are you wearing a jacket with that?”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

“The temperature outside is upper forties.”

“I like feeling cool air on my legs and arms.”

“I suppose after the cold snap we had that forties feel downright balmy. You should at least bring a jacket or a hoodie.”

She grabbed a gray hoodie and tied its sleeves around her waist. “Let me get my bag.” She opened it and peered inside. “I’m fully equipped -- pepper spray, emergency whistle...” She made a couple karate chops. “ ... self-defense moves.”

“Then, why do you need me with you?”

“I don’t.” She kissed his cheek. “But, I like having you with me. Is that so wrong?”

“Not in the least.”

They headed out of the building and down the hill toward town. After crossing the bridge over the river they came to an intersection.

“We turn left here,” he said. They waited for the traffic light to change and crossed the street. “It’s a few blocks then a right. I’ve never been in this part of town.”

“Last year I patronized a couple of the boutiques on this street. This year all my allowance is going for books and supplies.”

“I guess it’s easy for a student to forget that this town has a life beyond the two universities.” Jeff consulted the map on his phone. “This is where we turn right. It should be at the end of this street.”

“I see it. Michaela said we should meet in the young adult section.”

They reached the building and went inside. Jeff looked around. “May I help you?” asked a librarian at the checkout desk.

“Young adult,” Chelsea replied.

“To your right.”

“There it is,” Jeff remarked and they headed through an archway. The area was deserted. He consulted his phone. “You said two o’clock. We’re a few minutes early.”

Chelsea glanced past Jeff. “This might be her, now.”

Jeff turned and regarded the approaching figure. She was slim and tall, a few inches taller than his fiancee. She wore a knee-length floral print skirt and a lightweight jacket that was unzipped. Underneath was a pastel blouse that revealed shadows of a black bra. Her hair was blonde but with conspicuous brunette roots. Her face was angular with dark eyebrows and brown eyes. She wore heavily-applied eye makeup -- thick liner and iridescent blue shadow with matching lip color. Her legs were skinny and she wore athletic shoes with no socks.

“Quinn? Chelsea?” she asked in a soft alto voice. “I’m Michaela Troyen.”

“Yes,” Chelsea replied, “pleased to meet you.”

“Shall I call you Quinn or Chelsea?”

“I answer to both ... but Chelsea ... Chelsea Lane ... is my real name.”

“I’ll call you Chelsea, then. Gosh, you’re pretty. May I look at you? If you don’t mind.”

Chelsea stood before her with her arms outstretched. “What you see is what you get.”

Michaela shifted for a side view. “Amazing ... You have been a role model for me, Chelsea. With your blog.”

“Let’s sit at that table in the corner so we can talk without being disturbed,” Chelsea suggested. They headed for the table and Jeff joined them. “Oh, this is Jeff, my fiance.”

“The wonderful, loving Mr J. Pleased to meet you.” Michaela looked toward Chelsea. “I’d like it if we could talk in private.”

“You can trust Jeff. He’s on our side.”

“For my comfort.”

“I’ll go check out what this place has to offer,” Jeff said. “If you need anything, just whistle.”

Chelsea smiled and nodded in acknowledgment. He headed back toward the library lobby.

“Are you looking for anything in particular?” the librarian at the desk asked.

“Just browsing. Can Tech students use this facility?”

“Yes, we accept Tech and State student IDs for checking out books and media.”

“I’m going to familiarize myself with the lay of the place.”

The librarian proffered a photo-copied sheet. “Here’s a map. We have study rooms upstairs and conference rooms in the basement.”

Jeff strolled past the fiction area and into non-fiction. The stacks were arranged using the Dewey Decimal system. He headed for the pure science section and scanned the stack. Pretty rudimentary stuff, he thought. In the technology section he noticed a shelf of automobile repair manuals, all for model years prior to the late 1990s. He flipped through one. If I ever need to know how to replace the brakes on a seventy-four Cadillac, this is the place to go.

Replacing the book he followed the map to the Media room. There he saw shelves of VHS tapes. I wonder how many working VCRs are out there these days. He walked past bins of vinyl LP records and approached shelves of compact discs and DVDs. He was looking through the movie titles when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

He turned and saw Chelsea. “So, here you are,” she said.

“I was checking out the place. They have an impressive collection of shop manuals for vintage cars and a nice collection of music and videos. We talked about watching Logan’s Run. They have a copy and we can check stuff out with our Tech IDs.”

“Maybe some other time,” she replied.

“Are you finished with Michaela?”

“Yeah ... Let’s go.”

They headed out of the library and toward Tech’s hill campus. “How did it go?” he asked.

“I am afraid for her. Very afraid. Jeff -- that would have been me if I hadn’t received the love and support I got from my parents. It drove home how very, very fortunate I am.”

“I could tell she hasn’t begun transition therapy.”

“She has had a miserable life, Jeff. Now she’s in the final stages of male puberty and desperate. Her home life is awful. Her mom is out of the picture -- the details she didn’t go into. She lives with her father and brother. Her father works for a farm machinery dealership and is a deacon for an evangelical church. Every time she tries to talk to him about transitioning he refuses to listen. God loves you how He made you, he tells her and, don’t make straight what He hath made crooked.”

“God made her a girl in a boy’s body,” Jeff remarked. “And, God gave mankind the brains to figure out how to deal with that, as well as how to know what needs straightening and what doesn’t.”

“Amen. She hasn’t been evaluated for gender dysphoria. She hasn’t had any mental health counseling at all. She’s dealing with her body the best she can.”

“Did you give her any advice?”

“She’ll be eighteen in a year and a half. I told her that if she can tough it through the next eighteen months then she’ll be the sovereign of her own medical care. I also told her that the hormone therapy drugs are old-school and not expensive and that I know of many trans-women from my blog who started reassignment therapy later in life with satisfactory results.”

“Did that help her?”

“I think it reassured her a bit. She’s also been bullied mercilessly, both at school and on social media.”

“That’s something I can relate to,” Jeff remarked.

“YOU were bullied? You’re such a sweet guy.”

“Maybe that’s why I was bullied. Dealing with social media is easy -- you turn off the fuckin’ phone. I deleted all my social media accounts -- still don’t have any. Twitter is for twits, I say.”

“I’m with you on that. I don’t have social media, either. Michaela’s life at school is miserable, also. They must address her by her assigned name and she must abide by her assigned gender. It’s school policy unless directed otherwise by her parents.”

“Which won’t happen.”

“Right. She has to wear boys’ clothes. In fact, she can only wear girls’ clothes at home when her father isn’t around.”

“She must have taken a chance wearing that dress here,” Jeff remarked.

“Her haircut is barely dress-code legal for boys. She hates gym class, she hates being in the boys’ locker room. Jeff -- she is a smart, gentle and sweet person. Like I said, that would have been me. Except I wouldn’t have lasted that long. I would have slit my wrists long before this.” She brushed away tears. “I must write a post in Quinn’s blog about her. Of course I can’t use any identifying information, but I can implore any local readers who can step in to help, to contact me so I can connect them with her. I don’t know what else to do. I feel so, so bad for her.”

Jeff sat beside Chelsea on the bus trip from the airport. “All in all a successful spring break, don’t you think?” he asked her.

“Yeah ... I had a good time with your folks. I really enjoyed getting to know Beth.”

“And, you now have your spring wardrobe. We got to watch Logan’s Run. What did you think of it?”

“I liked it, once I got into it. The whole premise is preposterous, but I liked the characters.”

What did you think of the effects?”

“They were cheesy.”

“By today’s standards, yes. That film was made in 1976 and won awards for the effects. Then, Star Wars came out and raised the bar.” Chelsea took her phone from her bag and manipulated it. “Still nothing?”

“Still nothing. I would have hoped by now someone would have responded to my bat-signal for help for Michaela. Now even the commiserating posts have dried up. And, nothing else from Michaela herself.”

“It’s noble you’re trying to help her, Chells. She is not your responsibility.”

“I know. I just feel so bad for her.”

“What time is it?”

Chelsea consulted her phone. “A little after ten.”

“About another twenty minutes. It’ll be late when we get in ... and I have an eight o’clock lab tomorrow ... which sucks.”

Chelsea leaned against him and he slipped his arm around her. By now he had grown accustomed to feeling her coarse curly hair against his face.

The bus stopped at the base of the hill occupied by Tech’s upper campus. They debarked and Jeff dragged her heavy case up the hill to Wheeler while she dragged his carry-on. They stepped into the lobby.

“Well, see you tomorrow,” he said. “We have that Pride group session tomorrow night.”

“Can’t you stay with me?”

“I have to be up early for that lab and I can’t be late for it.”

“I know...”

They embraced and kissed. “I love you, Chells.”

“I know I love you, too.”

Jeff dragged his case across campus to his room in the Quad. He saw Ted sitting at his desk.

“No staying with Chelsea tonight?” his roommate asked.

“No, I have an eight o’clock. How was your break?”

“Good,” Ted replied. “I hooked up with an old acquaintance.”

“Of the female ilk, I presume.”

“You presume correctly. Ol’ Teddy got his horns clipped ... clipped pretty short.”

“You going to see more of her?”

“We don’t do long-distance well. Close-up we’re great.” Jeff opened his case and removed an object. “What’s that?”

“It’s a DVD of Logan’s Run.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Sci-fi film from the seventies. We watched it at my place. Now I gotta remember to return it to the local public library.”

“This town has a public library?”

“Yes, and a rather nice one, too. I gotta turn in. Can you keep the lights low?”

“I’m gonna turn in, too.”

Jeff placed a call to Chelsea’s cell number. No answer. He sat behind his desk.

Ted stepped into their room. “Surprised to see you here.”

“I’ve been trying to get hold of Chelsea all day. No answer, no replies to my texts.”

“Are you worried?” Ted asked.

“Not worried. We usually check in with each other during the day.”

“Check in? Dude, are you whipped? I’d say pussy-whipped except she doesn’t have...” Jeff glowered at him. “Just kidding.”

“It’s how we keep our love going. Anything wrong with that?”

“Whatever works.”

“It is odd...” He checked the time. Almost four. “We usually have our evening plans laid out. We have that Pride group session tonight.”

Jeff’s phone rang with Chelsea’s ringtone. “Speak of the she-devil,” Ted remarked.

Carrying the phone Jeff stepped into the bathroom their room shared with the one next door. He closed the door and answered the call. “Hey...”

“Can you come over to Wheeler? Right away?”

“I’m on my way. Anything wrong?”

“Oh, I’ll say something’s wrong. I’d be crying my eyes out except I’m too angry and upset.”

“I’ll be right there.” Jeff canceled the call and headed out the door.

“Something up?” Ted asked.

“Sounds like it. She sounds upset.”

“Doesn’t she always?”

Jeff sprinted across campus to Wheeler House and found Chelsea in the lobby. “What’s wrong? I was trying to get hold of you all day.”

“I am seething angry. I have never been so upset. I want to be having a crying, screaming, foot-stomping, fist pounding fit. But I know it won’t do any good.”

“Let’s go upstairs.”

“Yeah, let’s.”

Jeff followed her into the stairwell. “Does this have anything to do with Michaela?” he asked.

“Yeah, it has to do with her.” She unlocked the door and they stepped inside. Chelsea closed the door and stood with her back against it. “Michaela ... is dead.”

“Dead?”

“Along with her father and brother.”

“When? How?”

“Last Thursday or Friday ... murder-suicide.” Chelsea closed her eyes and drew in a breath. “Jeff -- I am barely keeping it together. Sometime between Thursday night and Friday morning Michaela put on the skirt and blouse she wore to the library. She took her father’s gun and shot him and her brother. And then she shot herself.”

“While we were on break. Holy. Poor Michaela. How did you learn about this?”

“I’ll tell you the whole crazy story. This morning I was about to go to my nine o’clock when there was a knock on the door and then the sound of a key in the lock. The door opened and I saw Becky.”

“Who’s Becky?”

“One of the Wheeler RAs. She opened my door with a master key. With her were a police officer and a plain-clothes detective. They had search warrants for my laptop and phone and they asked me to go with them. I asked what this was about and the detective asked if I knew Michael Troyen. He showed me a photo and it was Michaela. They told me what happened and gave me a ride to the police station where I was interviewed by the detective and another officer.”

“How could they connect this to you?”

“She left a suicide note. At the bottom it said, ‘Quinn, I am so sorry I let you down’. They had looked at her computer and saw the posts to Quinn’s blog, my coming-out post and the posts where we set up the meeting at the library. They connected us that way. They said they were going to make images of my laptop hard drive and my phone and then I could have them back.”

“How did the interview go?”

“They said they were trying to understand her mind set ... determine a motive. I told them what she told me -- what I told you -- about being trans-sexual, not getting therapy ... the bullying, having to go to school as a boy ... all that.”

“Did she indicate to you any intent to harm herself or others?”

“You sound like that detective. No, she did not and if she had I would have tried to stop her. I don’t know how but I would have tried somehow. And I told them that.”

“Then what?”

“Finally they thanked me and said they were done with me. They gave me my stuff back and drove me here.”

He reached for her but she jerked away. “Chells ... Do you need a shoulder to cry on right now?”

She looked at him, her lip trembling. “YES!” Jeff held her as she wept and wailed. “She came to me for help,” she said between sobs. “I failed her. Do you know how that feels?”

“Chells ... you did not fail her. Her father failed her. The school failed her. Society failed her. She came to you for advice. You gave her advice. You gave her support and you gave her love. This was not your fault. Do you understand?” She nodded. “Then say it. This was not my fault.”

“ ... not my fault.”

“Say it again.”

“It was not my fault. It was NOT MY FAULT!”

“That’s the girl.” He eased her glasses from her and kissed her cheeks.

“Oh, Jeff ... I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t been here.”

“Maybe we should skip the Pride session tonight.”

“Oh, no. I want to be there. I don’t think they have a trans person in the group.”

“Except you.”

“I don’t feel like a full member.”

“You hold back and don’t participate.”

“I’m not good in social situations, Jeff. You know that. I’m getting better but it’s still outside my comfort zone. I want to tell them what it’s really like being trans-sexual. I hope they have an appetite for it.”

“If we’re going there we should have some dinner.”

“I don’t have an appetite for that.”

“You need to eat. You don’t want to swoon from low blood sugar while delivering your tirade, do you?”

“You’re right. I didn’t have lunch either. Let’s get some dinner.”

Jeff held the door to the State student center and they headed to a meeting room. About two dozen men and women were present. A middle-aged man approached them.

“Hello, again. Come in. Penny brought some cheese straws and Eric some home-made cookies. Oh, and Megan brought her Nespresso machine. Help yourselves.”

“Thanks,” Jeff replied. Chelsea found a seat on a sofa near a corner. Some more attendees entered.

“Looks like nearly everyone is here,” Jeff whispered to Chelsea. You okay?”

She nodded and tapped her upper chest in a gesture that indicated she was experiencing palpitations. “Here goes...”

She stood at the front of the room. “May I have your attention ... Please, may I have your attention.” She surveyed the room. “We’ve been coming to these sessions for a few weeks now. I don’t think I’ve properly introduced myself. My name is Chelsea Lane. I am twenty years old and a sophomore pre-med over at Tech. With me is Jeff.”

Jeff stood. “Hi. I’m Jeff Brooker and I’m also a sophomore at Tech. I’m a chem major, and I am Chelsea’s fiance.”

Chelsea continued. “We started coming here because I recently outed myself. A friend and mentor suggested attending as a way to ease my way out of the closet. Coming out can be a scary proposition, as I’m sure many of you know. I’m glad I’m out of the closet because it is dark in there.” She paused and drew in a breath. “I’m glad I’m out and in the sunshine. I want to share with you a tragic consequence of me coming out. But first, I want to tell you a little about me.”

She paused for another breath. “I’m trans-sexual.”

Jeff noticed that remark drew the attendees’ attention.

“I represent the T in LGBTQ. Are there any other Ts in the group?” She scanned the room for a response but heard none. “How about Q?”

A young female with hair in a page-boy style and a nose piercing stepped forward. “My name is Scout. I’m a sophomore Journalism major here at State and I identify as non-binary.”

“Pleased to meet you, Scout.” She addressed the group. “Scout knows their terminology.”

“Chelsea knows her pronouns,” Scout replied.

“Scout, I want to get to know you better. I think you and I have more in common than we have with most of the folks here.”

“I would really like that, Chelsea.”

Chelsea continued. “I was diagnosed as trans-sexual at age eleven and started reassignment therapy right away. At first I was on puberty blockers. This is the ethical way to treat pediatric patients like me. The drugs are safe and reversible. They permitted me to experience adolescence as a girl. Many patients -- in fact, most, grow out of it -- they decide the trans lifestyle isn’t for them. In those cases the blockers are discontinued and normal puberty ensues. I was one of those who didn’t grow out of it and at age sixteen I started. hormone therapy, and I’m still taking maintenance doses of estrogen.”