Can I Make Her a Lesbian? Part 6

“So, she told you her story,” said Miss Georgia. “How much?” she asked.
I nodded. I was busy doing some last minute homework before my first class when Miss Georgia called me in for a little meeting. “She told me about her mom, and how she died, and her father forbidding archery.”
Miss Georgia frowned. “How did she say her mother died?” she asked.
“Well, internal bleeding after collapsing suddenly. She didn’t get too into it.”
“OK,” said Miss Georgia. “Can you come back here on your lunch break?”
I nodded. And so, the classes passed by. Before I knew it, lunch break arrived.
I grabbed my yogurt (this body couldn’t really handle much more for lunch), and went to the biology office. There, standing with Miss Georgia, was a person I had met once before. A person I hated with all my heart.
“What are you doing here?” I asked Alli’s father.
“Sit down,” he said. “Look, I’m sorry about the way I treated you the other day, but you have to see where I’m coming from.”
“Yeah, I know, you don’t want Alli to have fun with archery because she reminds you too much of your wife. If you’re going to be that selfish to deny your own daughter her dreams so you can feel a little bit at ease, we don’t have much to discuss.”
He frowned. “Will you not listen to me?” he asked.
“No. Now if you excuse me, I have to go to lunch.”
He nodded. “Then if you will not listen to me, at least read this.” He passed me an old newspaper. At least, the paper was yellowing. But the newspaper was laminated, as if it were an old memento.
And there on the top headline. “Former Olympian Killed in Tragic Accident”. Posted below it was a picture of a girl who looked very much like Alli. Yet I knew who this was.
“Natalie Fisher, 27, died this morning after being struck in the chest with an arrow. The police have completed their investigation and have ruled that the entire event was an unfortunate and tragic accident, and no charges will be filed. The perpetrator cannot be named as he/she is a minor.”
I looked up at him. “An arrow?” I asked.
He nodded. “Will you talk to me?”
“Yes,” I said. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
The father sat back. “Alli always was her mother’s daughter. She followed nearly exactly in her footsteps. She would want to practice all day long, but we couldn’t allow that. Natalie had a hard time making friends in school because of her practice schedule, so we didn’t want the same.”
“So we limited her to three hours a day. She didn’t take it too well, and tried to rebel against it, but we were firm. And then, when she was eleven, tragedy struck.”
“Alli was at the end of her three hours, and her mother came out to tell her to come inside. But she was too quiet approaching Alli, and startled the girl. Alli, who had a drawn bow, misfired and struck Natalie in the chest.”
“Naturally, Alli was completely horrified with what she had just done. She had a nervous breakdown while the police and ambulance came by. When she finally broke her out of it, she had changed. She had this blank expression on her face and wouldn’t talk to anyone. Even the day that Natalie finally succumbed to her wounds, all she could do was nod to affirm that she heard.”
“Alli went into this trance. All she would ever do was sit in a corner, arms around her legs, staring at nothing. The doctor said I should try to shock her. Give her something that may cause tears, but break her out of this funk. So, I tried to get her to practice archery again.”
“It worked. Alli managed to break out of the funk, but not how I expected. There were no tears. She just practiced archery, just like she had before. But something had changed. She was more rebellious to stopping. I didn’t want to be too forceful at the time, so her practice time increased. Four, five, even six hours at a time. She stopped eating, and stopped talking to her friends on the phone just so she could practice more.”
“It hurt me to see her like this, so you probably heard about how I’d cry every time I saw her practicing. So I had to limit her harsher than ever. More and more, she became restricted, until the day that I caught her in the woods practicing at the middle of the night.”
“Naturally, you could expect I was pretty mad. I yelled at her, asking ‘Do you think your mother would want this, after she died for you’? I guess I went a little too far there, but I thought it’d stick the point in. But her response shocked me.”
“’She died for me?’ she asked. ‘I thought she just collapsed and died from internal bleeding.’ Yes, Alli had completely blocked the truth out of her mind. She had forgotten how her mother died, and what risks she was taking. I had no choice, so I broke her arrows and buried her bow. And then when I saw you completely undoing all the steps I had taken the other day, I just lost it…”
I folded my arms. “This is a lot to take in,” I said. “But what do you mean you had no choice?”
Alli’s father pointed at the image in the picture. “I had two options. One was to do what I did. The other being to tell her the truth again, and watching her break down again. What do you think I’d want to do? Hurt her?”
I smiled. “You’re a weak man,” I said. “I may be in this body, but even I know that I am more a man than you.”
“What the hell are you saying?!” screamed the man. “I don’t care that you’re a girl! If you talk to me like that, I’ll…”
“Now now,” said Miss Georgia. “I’m sure nobody here wants a fight.”
I smiled. “I’m sure he does, and I’m sure I do.” I stood up.
Miss Georgia sighed and tried to step between us. But it was too late. My fist had already made contact with the father’s jaw. And he was there on the ground, rubbing his face.
He sighed. “I guess that’s my defeat,” he said. “Fine, what do you want?”
“I want to know where you buried the bow,” I said. “And I want you to stay out of Alli’s and my lives. Lastly, I want to borrow that newspaper for a bit.”
“Fine,” he said. “Just get out of my sight.”
I left the office with the newspaper and a little map in my hand. I pulled out my phone and sent Alli a text. “Hey, I’m going to have to miss practice today. But I’ll be there after practice.”
My phone buzzed in reply. “No problem. See you then!” That gave me three hours. Should be enough time.
After the school bell rung, I ran back to my house and grabbed a shovel. “Mom, can you take me to this location?” I asked her, showing her the map.
She looked at the map and nodded. “But why?” she asked.
“It’s for Alli,” I said. My mom didn’t ask another word and together we drove to the woods. I moved into the woods to the location marked. Right in front of the largest Oak tree, facing towards the setting sun, said the instructions. And sure enough, the dirt looked different there. It was slightly higher than the rest. So I put the spade into the ground and stepped on it.
Nothing. The ground was so hard, my spade hardly went in at all. I sighed and took another whack at it.
Chip by chip, I broke away that top layer of hard dirt. I checked my watch. 4:00. Great, I had hardly made any progress and I only had two hours left.
I continued to dig. The dirt became softer, but my arms grew weary. I don’t have the same strength as my male body! This was impossible!
The minutes ticked by as the lactic acid burned in my arms. I started using my back, pushing through shovel by shovel. Deeper and deeper I went, struggling against the forces of nature. The sky turned darker, and the winds grew colder. Yet still I dug.
And then I hit something. A wooden box of sorts. The box with the bow inside of it.
Something cold landed on my hair. I looked up, and there I saw what I feared. Snow was falling. They had predicted snow today. In fact, ten inches were predicted to fall between 5 and 7 at night. And the time right now is… Five. Great. So this is a race against the clock.
I dug faster than before. I had to get this box out. I expanded the radius around the box, uncovering more and more wood. And as I did, the box started to turn white as the snow landed on it. I dug down, and then finally under. I put my hand around the box and pulled. No luck. I pulled a little bit more. Nothing. More digging. More pulling. More snow to brush off. I started to shiver uncontrollably. I no longer cared about the snow in my hair. I no longer cared about anything. Just this box. The box for Alli. For she was the only one that mattered.
And then, a wiggle. I closed my eyes and pulled with all my strength. For then the box finally sprung free. It was a pretty big box, about five feet long. But that should have been obvious – there was a bow inside. I opened the box up, and there stood the bow. It was a beautiful bow. A recurve, just like I had always seen Alli use when everyone else used composites. But there was something else in there.
About twenty minutes later, I was back under the pavilion. Alli was sitting there, smiling, just waiting for me. And so I walked over to her.
“Alli,” I said, “I don’t care if you’re going to hate me for this, but there is something you have to see.”
She laughed. “How could I hate you?” she asked. “In fact, I think I like you more than I ever thought was possible.”
I dropped the laminated newspaper into her lap. “You know who that is, don’t you?” I asked.
Her eyes opened wide. “Killed?” she asked. “How? Who did it? I’ll find him and rip his…”
I shook my head. “You know who did it,” I said. Her hand went limp.
“No,” she said. “I couldn’t have. I wouldn’t! I loved my mom! I loved my family! How could I… No! No! NOOO!” Alli started screaming. The breakdown. I had been warned about this.
“Alli,” I said. Nothing. She was just screaming. “Alli, listen to me!” She kept screaming and crying. She grabbed her arms around herself, and started shaking. This was bad. I had to do something.
I leaned over and grabbed her shoulder. “Stop!” she screamed. “Or I’ll kill you too! Everything I love dies! Everything I want to hold forever just…”
She stopped screaming, as her mouth was closed. There, my lips embraced hers. I never expected our first kiss to be like this. Tears were flowing down both our faces, and her lips were trying to fight their way apart from mine. But I can’t lose this battle. Just like how I couldn’t lose to May, or Alli’s father, I can’t lose to Alli herself.
Alli let her arms go limp, and her mouth stopped resisting. There was no more urge to scream. Just an urge to cry.
I parted my lips from her and smiled. “Don’t say that,” I said. “Everything you love doesn’t die. I’m here, right? And thanks to you, I’m not dead. Instead, I’m more alive than I’ve ever been.”
I pulled up the box. “Here, Alli, there is something you might want to see.”
She crawled over to the box and pulled it apart. There was the bow gleaming in all its glory. But she didn’t go for the bow. No, she went to a sealed envelope. “To Alli,” it said on the front.
Alli looked at me. “Can you read this with me,” she asked.
I nodded, and tore open the seal.
“Dear Alli,” the note said. “I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you for all these years. Your dad and I should have never limited you from your dreams. We never should have forced my dream of being a social butterfly onto you.”
“Know that I and your father do not blame you for what happened. You are a nice girl, and have a brilliant future ahead of you. But, as your mother, I leave your with one last command, as I sit here in the hospital. Do not blame yourself. Play with your bow, make friends, find a boyfriend (he better be the same age as you!), and live your life. I am your mother, and my dream is your dream. Sincerely, Natalie Fisher.”
Alli collapsed into my arms and cried some more. But this was good for her. She could stay like this for hours if she wanted to. For a good cry was all she needed. But it didn’t matter. I love her, and she loved me, and that’s the way it would be for the rest of my life.