Miasha: Secret Society

“Forever was too short,” I said as I clutched against my chest the diamond choker she had given me to wear at her wedding. My heart was crushed. I broke down into tears. Derrek held me in his arms and we cried together. I could not believe that I would never see Tina again. Every time I thought about it, I prayed for Khalil’s death. And my prayers were answered.

I got a letter from the police, letting me know Khalil’s sentence. One of my neighbors called the cops right after he heard the first shot. See, Khalil thought he would get away with it because it was New Year’s Eve. He thought people wouldn’t call the cops when they heard the shots simply because that’s what people did on New Year’s Eve-they bust guns in the air. But he forgot he was in the suburbs. They don’t play that shit out there. So by the time he got into his car and sped off, the cops were already en route to my house. They caught up with him and attempted to pull him over, but he led them on a seventeen-minute chase that ended with Khalil crashing into a telephone pole. He was immediately charged with resisting arrest and violating his parole. They didn’t charge him with murder because he didn’t have any guns on him. But they found a gun a couple blocks from where the chase ended, and when they ran tests they found his fingerprints all over it. Ballistics tests proved it was the gun that had wounded me and killed Tina. He was later charged with premeditated murder, one count of attempted third-degree murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, illegal use of a firearm, unlawful possession of a firearm, and the list went on. He was sentenced to life without parole for Tina, an added twenty-five years for what he did to me, and an additional six years for violating his parole and other charges. I was relieved.

I spent my days surrounded by doctors and nurses and Ms. Carol, my shrink, who all made frequent visits to my house for our sessions. I spent my nights watching reruns of I couldn’t sleep for more than three hours without nightmares reliving the night Tina and I were shot. And when I wasn’t having nightmares, I was having migraines.

My doctor prescribed morphine, but I could only get dosages whenever he or my nurse came to my house. He said he didn’t feel comfortable leaving that strong a medicine with me until I was more emotionally stable. My life was so different. My living room looked like a hospital room. I had a hospital bed in there and everything, and a doctor or a nurse came by at least four days a week. I opted for house visits because at the time I didn’t have anyone to drive me to my doctors’ appointments-well, at least that’s what I told Ms. Carol. The real reason was that I didn’t want to be seen in public with my face wrapped up like some mummy. And even now, after my doctor removed the bandages, I still don’t want to be seen. I haven’t looked at my face yet, but from what the doctors said about reconstructive surgery, I know it has to be bad. Shit, he was talking about cutting places I didn’t even know existed on my face. I’ve been thinking about it and I really want to get it done because God knows I can’t live the rest of my life with a disfigured face. I’d die first. The only thing is, I’m heavily contemplating whether or not I’ll go back to living as Celess or give that up, because that decision weighs heavily on what types of surgeries I will get on my face. Ms. Carol said if I decide to live as a woman I might as well let the doctors give me feminine traits while they’re reconstructing my face, like go in and raise my eyebrows and stuff. Of course, she said the only way she would allow me to do that was if I planned to get the complete sex change. I either had to be a woman or a man. It was too risky being both. She said she was all for me being happy but not if it would cost me my life, like it almost did.

I swear, I’d only known that lady for a short time but it felt like I’d know her all my life. She was like a mother version of Tina. She treated me like family and always gave me advice, but in a way that a mother would. At first, I wasn’t feelin’ her. I just knew she was goin’ walk her glasses-and-suit-wearin’ ass in here and start judgin’ me, but she didn’t. She actually started our first meeting off with a story about a friend of hers she went to college with, who went through similar situations as me. Not taking it as far as me and Tina, but he was a transvestite and often went back and forth about telling men that he used to be a man himself. He died of brain cancer, though, several years after completing his sex change. One thing had nothing to do with the other, but it was ironic that he was diagnosed with the cancer after all his surgeries. He was only thirty-six. Ms. Carol told me she understood me and could relate to my desire to be a woman. She said her desire to have children was just as strong if not stronger and if she had the opportunity to pretend she had any, she would jump at it, so she understood my taking the opportunity to be a woman. At the same time, though, she let me know that when it came down to hurting other people, that’s when it should have stopped. She used herself as an example. She said as bad as she wanted children, she knew it wasn’t an option for her to kidnap someone else’s. It took me a little while, but I came to respect her point of view. Everything she told me was right. I just wish I didn’t have to find out this way. I wish my mom was as capable of communicating with me as Ms. Carol was. Maybe then things would have played out differently for me. But then again, maybe it wasn’t all my mom’s fault. Maybe I could have been a better listener.

Ring! Ring! Ring!

Hello, you have reached me at a bad time. Please leave a message and I’ll call you back at my earliest convenience. God bless. Beep.

“Hello, Mom, it’s me, your son,” I began.

“It’s been a while, I know, but now is the time. Mom, a lot has happened since I last heard your voice, and none of it good. Mom, I can’t change who I am and what my sexual preference is, but I can be honest in my appearance. And I wish it wouldn’t have taken a tragedy to get me to realize that, but it has. I wish I had been fair and considerate of people’s feelings, starting with yours. I’m sorry, Mom. I love you. And despite what I’ve said in the past, I want to hear from you.”

I had taken Tina’s advice. I tried to make amends with my mom. Even though she apparently wasn’t going to call me back, I felt better. I did my part, and that was all Tina asked. I wasn’t bitter about my mom’s decision to ignore the message I left on her phone. She would have that to deal with later on down the line. I had too much to concentrate on as it was. I had to worry about reconstructing my life. Besides, God worked in mysterious ways, and people who were without parents were usually brought together, in one way or another, with people who were without children.

Ding-dong! Ding-dong!

“I’m coming,” I said as I walked slowly to my front door.

“Somebody has put on some pounds,” Ms. Carol said as soon as I opened the door.

I rolled my eyes bashfully and let her into my house. It was a sunny June day. The kind of day I used to say I would die for. The kind of day that Tina and me would have pulled up to a basketball game in a hot car, dressed fly as shit, and preyed on niggas.

“I left the office a little early,” Ms. Carol said, smiling, holding a DVD in her hand. “Sit down, I’ll put it in. It’s Hilarious movie. You’ll like it,” she said as she placed the disc in the DVD player.

I took a seat on the couch. After getting us both a glass of juice and paper plates full of sour cream and onion chips, Ms. Carol joined me. We watched the movie until the credits rolled. Ms. Carol said a few uplifting words and left me with some poetry. Poetry became one of my coping mechanisms. I had even started writing it. I wrote a poem for Tina that I had recited to her at least once every day. I looked at her in the painting of us she gave me for my birthday and read: