alphabet challenge - w

[felicitygs]

 W. Mind OR Soul OR Heart

 

“Bright boy, takes after his father.”

 

She keeps her head down and pretends she didn’t overhear.

 

Not a boy, she thinks fiercely, quick to smother it before it shows on her face.

 

Not a boy, but best pretend to be one; easier than dealing with her father.

 

“Orpheus,” her mother calls from the kitchen.

 

Phee, she thinks, but she goes to the kitchen.

 

“Here, help set the table, dinner’s nearly ready,” her mother says with a smile. “You’re not causing any trouble are you?”

 

“No, Mother,” she says.

 

Her mother smiles, relieved; one less fight she’ll have to stand watch to, helpless and caught between the man she married and the son (daughter) she carried.

 

“Be a dear and say hello to Lucas for me when you leave,” her mother says, leaning over to peer in the stove.

 

“Yes, Mother,” Phee says, gathering up the nice silverware to set on the dinner table.

 

(Sometimes, at times like this, with everyone saying Orpheus and he and his, she starts to feel disoriented and nauseous, hating everything about herself, hating the clothes she’s in, and a part, quiet and vicious and self-doubting, whispers this is all in your head.)

 

“Pheeeee,” Luke says when she sees him later, slipping out with some dessert pressed into her hands by her mother, and she smiles, relieved as Luke drops a kiss on her lips, eyes sparkling and hands running soothingly down her arms. “That your mom’s famous cheesecake?”

 

“She wanted you to have a piece,” Phee tells him, and Luke’s grin widens, brillance and fire.

 

“Wicked,” he says, snatching the tupper from her. “Get changed, we’re going out, there’s a party by the riverbank, we’re going.”

 

Phee grabs the dress off the bed, holding it up.

 

“Your best told lie,” she says.

 

“The only truth,” Luke says around a mouthful of cheesecake. “The rest are just blind. C'mon, stop being all thoughtful, you’re out, let’s go be free for a while, yeah?”