Chapter #6He feels great by: Yote   "Honestly? I feel amazing. I mean physically I feel like shit y'know, slow and fat and bloated and I can barely lift myself out of bed in the morning I feel so weak but up here where it counts-" He taps his temple, leaving a gooey smudge. "- I feel better than I've ever felt, like I've run a marathon every day. My wellness coach says I'm the most centered guy she's trained."
"That's great! Uh, what does centered mean?"
He shrugs. "Hell if I know but it works, my head feels so clear. I'm not having intrusive thoughts about women anymore, I don't get inappropriate urges around Angelina." He grins wistfully as if reminiscing on the distant past. "Man, I used to hound that woman day and night for sex. Now I barely even notice when she's wearing that tiny little jogging outfit, can you believe that?"
"What jogging outfit?" you blurt unconvincingly.
He lifts the lid on the cookie jar and pulls out one of the flat rye biscuits, biting into it with a hard crunch. "Things have really started to get better around here. Angelina has been so much more relaxed without me pestering her, and when she's happy, I'm happy. It's worth the changes."
"'Worth the... changes'?" you repeat. "You mean the food?"
"Yeah and the..." He stutters off, eyes going wide as if he said more than he meant to. "Yeah, the food." He shrugs. "Change is good. You want one of these?" He pushes a rye cookie into your hands. "I've been doing a lot of baking these last few weeks. Really started getting into it. See the trick is to heat the butter up before you put it in the..."
Was he changing the subject? He continues to ramble about recipes for a few minutes as he shifts the used cutlery and crockery to the sink and begins to wash up, while an uneasy feeling growing in your stomach. If nothing else, he has picked up the womanly skill of talking without pause, without breath. Finally, spotting an opening as he takes a mouthful of biscuit, you say, "But this was your idea, right? The transition. You decided this."
He takes a long, slow gulp of the biscuit and clears his throat lightly before answering. "Of course it was. Absolutely my idea, more or less."
"More or-?"
"Definitely more! Absolutely more. It was totally... sixty percent my idea."
"And thirty percent Angelina's?!"
"No! It was our marriage counselor. Angelina just suggested it." He cocks his ear to the ceiling, listening for the sound of his wife in the shower before he says, "I probably shouldn't tell you this but me and her had a little rocky patch after the "affair"," he whispers with air quotes. "We were close to a divorce and she suggested we see a marriage counselor to see if there was anything worth salvaging, if my problems could be fixed. Of course I signed up. I love her, Mike, I'd do anything. Anyway we got sat down at this shrink and started talking, and then Angelina said maybe the reason I was cheating around was because I was compensating for something, compensating for the insecurities I felt inside as a man. And the marriage counselor agreed, she said I showed all the classic signs of gender dys-dys-"
"Dysphoria?"
"Yeah. Obviously I thought it was a load of bull but they ran all the psych tests and they came back positive. All my behavior was just me acting out. Angelina said that if I was willing to undergo treatment, she'd be willing to delay the divorce until it was over."
This time it's you glancing to make sure she is out of the room. "Sam, that doesn't sound like this was your idea at all. It almost sounds like this was Angelina's idea. It almost seems like she came up with this to punish you."
Then the most horrible thing happens. Sam's bottom lip begins to quiver. When he'd broken his leg as a kid, he hadn't cried then, but now his eyes are glistening wet and welling with tears. You try to take back what you said but it's too late. "She's not punishing me!" he chokes. "What a horrible thing to say, Mike, she's been helping me every step of the way. She loves me. Just because you've never had a relationship that lasted longer than a month, you can't understand what it's like to commit yourself to somebody else."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it," you exclaim. "I just wanted to make sure that you went into this for the right reasons."
"What I felt when I went into this doesn't matter," he says, wiping the tears away on the sleeve of his blouse. "What matters is that I'm happy now. I'm happy with this and I want you to be happy for me."
"I am!"
"You're supposed to be supportive, you're my brother!"
In a desperate act of supportiveness, you dive for the kettle with a cry of, "I'll make you a cup of tea, that'll make you feel better,", ushing him out of the room as you do. By the time it is brewed he has dried his red eyes and calmed down.
"Sorry, I get so emotional these days," he sniffs, taking the cup and dunking her rye-biscuit. "I can't help it, it's these drugs I'm on. I shouldn't have snapped."
"It's okay, that's what I'm here for. Whenever you feel like you want to vent, vent all over me."
The old Sam, at this point, would have let lose an outrageous fart and made a joke about that time him and his friends held you down on the camping trip and "vented all over you". But he doesn't. The silence hangs in the air like a non-existent fart. Sam really has changed. In the case of stinky fart jokes, at least, for the better.
You still dont like how much Angelina has had a hand in this. At the christmas party she had only ever indicated that it was her husband idea. If Sam is being pressured into this, be that emotionally, financially or otherwise, it's your duty to challenge her. Sam always looked out for you and, looking at him now, with his tears making a mess of his make-up, you feel the same swell of protectiveness he felt as the older brother rising in you now.
But it might be better to raise it over the phone with Angelina's wrath modulated down a hundred miles of phoneline.
Like a switch being flicked, Sam's mood suddenly brightens. "I forgot, there's something I wanted to show you," he says.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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