Becca seeks answers

“Alright, spill the beans. What do you know?”

Jay just stared at Becca in disbelief.

“Really? That’s how you start this off?”

“What?”

“You could say hello, how are you doing, that sort of thing.”

“Ugh fine. Hello. How are you doing? Now spill the beans!”

“Whatever. Look, I don’t know much, but I do know that some freaky supernatural shit is going down at our school. Did you know that St. Barlowe’s lies on an intersection of lay lines? And on a fault line. And it was built on an old crossroads.”

Becca yawned and tried to find something in the restaurant to occupy her mind. She came to learn about the sex demon and how to help Mary (if she even needed help), not get a boring lecture.

Come on, Mary. Answer my friggin text!

“Are you even paying attention?”

“Can you get to the point? I’m here to help my friend…maybe.”

Jay crossed his (her?) arms over her chest and let out a loud harrumph. Becca realized she had no clue the sex of this individual. They were fairly tall, with a slender body without any trace of female curves. However, their voice was soft. It was dark, but not deep, and they did not have an Adam’s apple. Their skin was smooth and pale. Their face a tad bit long, but delicate and soft, with big blue eyes and plump, pouting lips. Their hair was black as night, long and straight.

“I’m getting to the point. This is all very important information!”

“Are you a girl or a boy?”

Jay started, “what kind of question is that?”

“You say that like it should be obvious. Boy or girl?”

“We have been in class together for years!”

“Boy or girl?”

“Boy!”

“Huh.”

“What do you mean, huh?”

The waiter came by and deposited their ramen. Jay had ordered a mild chicken ramen, in stark contrast to Becca’s extra spicy volcano tonkatsu. Becca took a deep slurp and didn’t so much as break a sweat.

“I mean you don’t really seem like a boy. Your voice is kind of soft, and,” Becca looked Jay up and down. “You’re kind of pretty!”

Jay turned bright red as if he had gotten the spicy ramen, “shut up! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Easy! I’ll drop it.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, with the sound of slurping being the only form of conversation among them.

“I have a glandular problem. It interferes with puberty. That’s why…I look like this,” Jay averted his gaze. “Like a freak.”

Becca took inventory of the boy’s smooth skin, his austere, feminine face, his soft lips and big eyes. His dark hair looked like it had been handled by a professional stylist it was so voluminous and shiny. Jay certainly looked girly, but he wasn’t a freak. If anything, Becca found herself getting a little jealous of his beauty. Just like Mary, he had an effortless physical charm despite himself.

“You’re not a freak, don’t say that.”

“I feel like one. Girls snicker at me. Guys push me around. Because of my…condition, I basically have no muscle mass, so I’m a sitting duck.”

“Well girls are just jealous of your pretty looks, and guys are assholes.”

“I don’t want to be pretty, I want to be a man! I’m eighteen, for Christ’s sake! I shouldn’t sound like I did in eighth grade still.”

Becca picked up a pepper from her bowl of soup and popped it into her mouth. Jay seemed queasy just watching her munch on it.

“Are there any treatments?”

“I tried them all. Testosterone therapy was supposed to fix this, but all it did was make me feel horrible and sick for weeks with no progress. I’m stuck like this.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Whatever. Let’s get back to the topic at hand.”

“Fine, but can you cut to the chase? All this lim line—“

“Lay line.”

“Yeah sure. None of this helps me.”

“Can I ask you a question? Why are you so worried about Mary? You said yourself that you pissed her off. Maybe she’s just avoiding you.”

“On paper, I have no reason to be worried. Still, my gut keeps telling me something is horribly wrong. I know it sounds stupid. I’ve said mean things to Mary in the past, but she’s never iced me out before. Besides, if she were pissed at me, she certainly wouldn’t skip out on the library. It’s the place I’m least likely to be, and studying is basically a coping mechanism for her.”

Jay sighed, looked around the restaurant briefly, and then leaned in as if to tell Becca a secret.

“If you’re really worried, I can try to help…I want to help. Mary is my friend too.”

“You’re friends?”

“Of course! We’ve talked nearly every day outside the school in the evening for years. To be honest, I was worried when I didn’t see her tonight.”

“So what’s the next step?”

“For now, just keep trying to get in contact with her. I’ll get some things ready on the supernatural front and we’ll touch base in the morning outside the cafeteria. Sound good?”

“As good as it can be.”

The pit in Becca’s stomach felt deeper than ever.