#i had a whole rough draft in my head about a entire massage scene but i honestly didn’t feel like writing that so you guys get this

[morticiankisser]

tlc

pairing: stanley pines x kayla

warnings: mentions of period/menstruation in case anyone is uncomfortable with that kind of thing!

description: literally wrote this out of a need for comfort since i woke up and everything was out of wack for me this morning. this is completely self indulgent i just wanted stan to take care of me while i was going through it. ✌️

divider credit: @/sweetmelodygraphics

( ok to rb! )

“Geez what happened to you? You look like you got hit by a truck.”

The familiar rough, gravely timber of Stan’s voice catches her attention as she languidly blinks turning her head towards the direction of her boss turned romantic partner hands still clutching the cup of coffee Wendy had been kind enough to bring her. She stares at him for a long moment before shifting her position from behind the cashier counter feeling her joints shift and pop in the process. How long had she been just staring off looking miserable? She honestly wasn’t sure she hadn’t been herself since she had woken up to her period staring. She glances back down at her coffee and then back up at him concern clear on his face fingers rubbing at her eyes from behind her glasses. At least the coffee was helping.

“Mm. I certainly feel like it.”

“So you gunna tell me what’s wrong or do I need to drag it outta ya?”

She smiles a little at that and pauses wondering how to even broach the subject with him. Stan didn’t exactly seem the type of guy to react normally to the news of menstruation and while she was used to downplaying and softening the blow for people who didn’t deal with this every month she was honestly in too much pain to care at this point to sugar coat it.

It certainly didn’t help that every single time this happened it made her scoliosis and cerebral palsy ten times worse combined with the usual period pains and symptoms. One of the joys of being born with chronic pain conditions.

“I’m on my period.”

She could see the way Stan tensed his body language still holding concern but also having that usual sense of uncomfortable weirdness whenever she was candid about it around men. She almost regretted being so blunt. Almost.

She watches as Stan shifts uncomfortably on his feet hands going up to rub at his neck, something she’s picked up that he does when he’s nervous, and she can’t blame him she did just dump that information on him without warning and he’s clearly having trouble knowing how to respond to the situation.

She takes this time to stretch hoping to at least relive her stiff and sore body just a little bit even though she knew it wasn’t a permanent solution. Her body was always like this that’s just how it was. It was just worse in this particular circumstance.

“Oh. Uh can I do anything to help?”

He’s still fidgeting, very much still uncomfortable by the situation, but he’s looking her in the eye which is good and the earnest sound of his voice causes her to smile.

“That’s sweet of you to offer, Stan, but I’ll be okay.”

“You don’t look okay you look like you’re about to keel over any second. C’mon. You’re takin’ the rest of the day off.”

His hand reaches for hers, still clasping the paper cup of coffee, but leaves it and allows him to lead her from behind the counter and towards the main part of the Shack.

She smiles enjoying the warmth his hand provided around her much smaller one her voice taking on an amused quality as she responds.

“Oh? Is this a benefit of being your girlfriend? That’s a bit unfair playing favorites with your employees don’t you think, Mr. Mystery?”

Stan makes a non committal bah in response rolling his eyes.

“Nah you’re just not making any money standing around like that shuffling around like some zombie.”

Even so he doesn’t let go of her hand and makes a big show to have Wendy cover her shift much to her displeasure so she knows it’s probably just half true.

He practically shuffles her into his bed after insisting she get into something more comfortable and tucking her in like a baby which causes her to laugh.

Stan gives her a look quirking his brow.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just sweet that you care.”

He gives her a warm, gentle smile and presses a kiss to the crown of her head.

“‘Course I do, sweetheart. Always do.”

He surprises her again when he spends who knows how long making sure she has whatever she needs. Water, pain medication, chocolate. He even offered to massage her at one point which almost made her burst into tears it was so sweet.

It has been quite a while of him being at her beck and call before she realized he had probably missed plenty of tourists during that time. He notices her staring at him and he gives her a funny look.

“Did you really think I’d leave ya when you were feeling so miserable?”

She smiles shrugging.

“Dunno. It’s a huge possibility. You are always saying: ‘Time is money. The more time you waste is less time spent makin’ me money!’.”

Stan responds to this by gently flicking her forehead.

“Don’t be stupid. You know you’re different.”

“So you are playing favorites! I knew it!”

He laughs at that and settles in beside her pulling her close smiling when he feels her settle into his side comfortable cuddled up close.

“Okay, yeah, maybe I am.”

[abeautifulblog]

On editing

Gremble's self-draft of chapter 5 is done, has been sent to betas. 🎉

My editing process, for them that's interested -- what I do myself, and what I have beta readers for:

1. First draft, ie, just getting the scene on the page. I have accepted that my first draft is always going to be not-readable, the real question is whether the bones are good. If they're not—if I've somehow done the scene itself wrong—then odds are good it will get cut entirely, and I’ll have to write another first draft.

This was something that I had trouble wrapping my head around for a long time—that if you're rewriting from scratch, that's not a second draft, that's a second first-draft. Sometimes you wind up writing multiple first drafts of a scene, and then that scene may be behind the curve -- that the other scenes in the chapter have already been polished near-to-done, but this one is still at the beginning of the process.

On a line level, the first draft is not going to be good. A lot of what I do in this step, especially for high-key emotional scenes, is just throwing feelings and impressions and imagery onto the page—I’m getting those turns of phrase down on paper before I lose them, so it's full of run-on sentences, redundancies, mixed metaphors, melodrama, and overall reads like a fanfic.net author's first overwrought attempt at writing. That's okay! That's why we edit.

(1a. When I absolutely cannot make a scene come together, that’s when I’ll bring beta readers in early -- to take a look over the draft that’s not working, to be a sounding board for my thought process and someone to bounce ideas off of. They can frequently help you identify where the scene is breaking down -- for me, it’s usually trying to force characterization in a way it doesn’t want to bend -- and then you can figure out how to fix it.)

2. Self-edits. There's no numbering these drafts for me, because I just work on the whole document, starting and stopping and skipping around, reading and rereading until I've decided it's no longer cringe. I don't tend to let anyone else see it at this stage, unless there’s a part I’m too excited about not to share -- and even then I’ll tell them “no line edits plz,” because I know the prose is rough right now, they don’t need to waste their time trying to fix it, that’s still my job.

I massage the draft until I'm reasonably satisfied with it (and you don't have to aim for higher than “reasonably” at this point, because you'll be making more changes later), until there's nothing I'm embarrassed by. (Or if there is, I know full well that it's embarrassing but I can’t figure out how to fix it, so it’s highlighted and flagged with PLZ HALP.)

3. Beta edits! This is when I send it off to my beta readers, and when all writers are really really hoping they'll say “it's utter perfection, don't change a thing, post it right now, you rad genius you!” and what they actually say is “this, this, and this need fixing” and you go GODDAMN IT and have to go breathe into a paper bag for a bit. I thought I was DONE, you seethe, clawing at your eyes and glaring at the page because motherfucker, they are absolutely right.

Other people will see shit you missed—that is simply how this works, it takes a village, etc, and you're not going to produce a better story by being too proud to admit that. Every beta is going to bring unique insight and expertise to the table, and their feedback is going to generate additional work for you -- parts they want you to flesh out or tighten up, scenes they want you to add, parts you may realize have to be rewritten entirely from scratch, which is the literal werst, utterly demoralizing. BUT! if you and your betas are on the same wavelength, then you'll want to make those changes, because you can see that they'll be good for the story.

4. After I've made the suggested changes and gotten my betas' blessing, I usually wind up hanging onto it for at least another day before posting, to let it rest while my brain resets so I can have fresh eyes for the final readthrough. If I have time, I'll do this one aloud or semi-vocalized, because that is HANDS DOWN the best way to identify awkward and unlovely turns of phrase. (Your podfic readers will thank you for this.)

5. ...And then I post it and my mom reads it and points out three typos that somehow managed to survive this entire process intact.

Oh well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[morrisondauthor]

“By Any Means Necessary”

           The day my best friend Latasha committed suicide was definitely the worst day of my life. I had just talked to her that morning and then at around three-thirty that afternoon, there was an alert sent to everyone’s phones and email addresses on-campus saying to stay away from the campus library. I didn’t know what had happened until one of my other friends came and found me in my class and told me that Latasha had jumped from the nine-story library building and died after hitting the sidewalk headfirst below. Just like everyone else, I ran to the scene but it was already taped off and you couldn’t see anything. And then they brought out the stretcher with a body bag on it that contained her dead body. Looking back, I realize a part of me died in that moment.

           Latasha Reed had been my friend since we were eight years old. She was the first person I confided to at age thirteen that I was trans and wanted to transition. The craziest thing about what happened was that I was always the one contemplating suicide. I was made fun of and harassed almost every day of my life until I began attending Calhoun University. I still had to put up with ignorance but it wasn’t as bad as my high school years. The whole time, I had Latasha there to have my back. And I had hers, even in death. That’s the thing about death; no matter how it happens, it always causes a unique reaction. Latasha’s suicide turned me into someone I’d never been before: a vigilante.

           “Monique,” I called out as I caught up with her just as she was leaving the journalism building. “Thank God I caught you. I need a really big favor.”

           “Kendall,” she said, “I still haven’t decided who I’m going to let take over the fashion section of the school magazine this semester. You’re in the running but…”

           “No, that’s not the favor I need. Monique, I need to build my portfolio to show you guys what I can bring to the magazine. The offices have the best editing tools and Photoshop on their computers, so I was hoping maybe you could let me borrow your building access keycard for tonight? You’re the editor-in-chief of the magazine so I know you can let me borrow it. I promise I will have it back to you tomorrow.”

           “Kendall, I don’t know. I’ve never let anyone hold the access keycard for the building overnight, not even fellow journalism students who write for the school paper or work on the magazine or CougarTV. You’re just a contributor every now and then to the school newspaper.”

           “Monique, please.” I noticed her hair wasn’t done and offered, “Girl, I can hook up that hair for you. You know the spring senior kickback is this Friday.”

           “You know how to do hair?”

           “I did my own haircut last week.” I ran my hand through my hair.

           She looked at my hair and then quickly handed me the card and asked, “You do sew-ins?”

           “Do you have the weave?”

           “I can buy some today while on break at my job. There’s a little Korean store across the street from my job that sells hair.”

           “I’ll hook you up tomorrow at my apartment. You can get the keycard back then, too.”

           “What’s your address?”

           I gave her my address and then we walked off in different directions. As I headed towards the athletic dorm, I thought about everything I was going to have to do that day and night. It was crucial for me to get it all done before the next day. The next day would’ve been Latasha’s twenty-first birthday and I needed to let her know that I had her back. So, after I got to the athletic dorm, I texted Rakeem and asked was the coast clear. When he told me yes, I took the stairs instead of the elevator up to the fifth floor, where his dorm was.

                                         Me (Kendall Stone)

           “Get your sexy ass in here,” he said, grabbing me by my waist and pulling me into the dorm. “You want somethin’ to drink before we fuck?”

           “No, daddy,” I told him. “All I want is this.” I put my hand on the big dick print in his jeans.

           He scooped me up off my feet and took me into his bedroom. After closing and locking the door, he gently put me down on his bed and took off my heels. He massaged and kissed on my feet before saying, “Damn, every part of you is so fuckin’ sexy, boo. I don’t know why you won’t let me be your man.”

           “Because I’m all about the dick, baby. I don’t need a man. I just need some dick when I want it.”

           “I can give you the dick and be your man. I think I done caught feelings for you, Kendall.”

           “Are you gonna fuck me or you gonna keep acting like a bitch ass nigga?” I snatched my feet from his hands and spread my legs wide. “You know how I want it, daddy.”

           He laughed before getting completely naked and then snatched my clothes off. We went at it rough as usual and the whole time, I told myself this was for Latasha. Everything I had done since the day she committed suicide was for her. The truth was I didn’t give a flying fuck about Rakeem or the fact that he was developing feelings for me. He was a part of the reason why I lost my best friend. So my last time letting him fuck me wasn’t because I really wanted him that day. No, it was for an entirely different reason.

           Believe it or not, I ended up getting involved with Rakeem Peterson through the Badoo app. He was on the football team and I specifically put in my profile description that I loved football, hoping to get hit up by one of the players on the team. It was a longshot, but Rakeem hit me up after finding me in the ‘People Nearby’ function on the app. I clearly put that I was transgender in the description, so I knew he didn’t have a problem with it. We’d been having sex since the middle of January. He was sexy and fine but I kept my mind on my mission. Nothing was going to stop me by that point.

           “I swear you got the best ass I done ever been up in,” he told me while wiping sweat from his forehead. “Well, it’s the only ass I done ever been up in. Before you, I’d never been with a woman who has a dick.”

           “Well, I hope you enjoyed it,” I told him as I climbed out of his bed. “Because today was your last day getting it.”

           He chuckled and asked, “What?” When he saw that I wasn’t joking, his face became serious and he sat up in bed and asked, “Kendall, what are you talkin’ about?”

           “I’m here for one reason and one reason only, Rakeem. I want the video.”

           The moment I said that, his whole demeanor changed. He looked away from me for a few seconds and then back into my eyes before saying, “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talkin’ about.”

           “Don’t you even try it you simple-minded motherfucker! You know what video I’m talking about!”

           “A’ight, you need to lower your fuckin’ voice and get the fuck outta here.”

           “Your teammates aren’t coming in from the gym for another hour. I’m not going anywhere, even if they get here first.”

           “Listen, I don’t know what the fuck you think this is but…”

           “I am not leaving this dorm until I have that video, Rakeem. Do not fuck with me. You do not want to do that.”

           He balled his fists and climbed out of bed naked and told me, “I’m not givin’ you shit. So you need to get your wannabe woman ass outta here before I…”

           “Before you do what? Nigga, you lay one hand on me and I will scream so loud that everyone in this building will hear me. This shit is serious and you’re going to treat it seriously. Do I make myself clear?”

           He unclenched his fists and exhaled loudly before affirming, “Yes.”

           I quickly got dressed and he put back on his pair of jeans and stood by the door. After thinking for a few moments, I stared back into his eyes and reminded him, “Five of your teammates gang-raped my friend last semester in a hotel room and she killed herself just before finals in December.”

                                             Rakeem Peterson

           “I don’t know…”

           “Shut the fuck up! I mean it, Rakeem. You have no idea how close I am to the edge right now.” I calmed down and continued, “Latasha told me everything. She confided in me. And she told me that there’s a video. I told her to go to the police but she kept saying no one would believe her because the football team made it to the state championship last season and everybody will support them and not her.”

           “So, you want me to do what?”

           “Get me access to that video. I need to put a copy on my SD card.”

           “For what? You’re gonna go to the cops or somethin’?”

           “That is none of your concern. You’re not on the video so you don’t need to know what I’m going to do.”

           “Man, fuck this. I’ll just pretend that I never met you and I never fucked you. You’re a delusional tranny bitch that wanted me and couldn’t handle that I rejected his faggot ass.”

           I laughed before revealing, “I thought you might say something like that so I took a few extra precautions to make sure you’d play ball for me. I recorded us each and every time we fucked at my place. I have video after video after motherfucking video of you sucking my dick, eating my ass, letting me rim and finger you, and you fucking me. I would hate for everyone to see all of those hours of footage.”

           “You fuckin’ bitch I’ll…”

           “Once again, you lay a hand on me and I will scream. You really need to think about this, Rakeem. It’s either you save yourself at this point or I ruin you and your football career before it even gets started. You guys almost won the state championship. You’re all draft material this year for the pros.”

           “Don’t do this to me, Kendall. Please.” Tears began to form in his eyes. “What do you want? You want me to be your boyfriend? I can be that, baby. Just please don’t…”

           “I don’t want a damn thing from you but that video, Rakeem. This whole thing between us was fake. I don’t even like you. Not one bit. I fucking hate you. I hate the fact that you sick motherfuckers get away with so much shit! You think you can just rape someone and act like it didn’t happen?”

           “I ain’t rape nobody! I wasn’t even at the hotel when they did that shit to her!” The tears rolled down his face and he was shaking. “You can’t do this to me, Kendall. I feel bad that she killed herself, I really do. You gotta believe me.”

           “This isn’t about you. The only thing you can do for me is get me that video.”

           “And betray my brothers? I can’t let them go down for this. They got their whole lives ahead of them. What about them, Kendall?”

           “How dare you? My best friend is dead and all you can think about are your fucking teammates? What about her life? What about the things she won’t get to do because she’s dead?”

           “She killed herself, Kendall! Nobody told her to do that shit! Why should my brothers have to suffer for the rest of their lives over one mistake?”

           “Your brothers, huh? Your brothers are rapists! And the fact that you’re defending them tells me all I need to know about you. You’re all disgusting. You’re foul disgusting pieces of dog shit and I hope you fucking die. Now get me the fucking video! Get me that video!”

           He stood there with his chest heaving up and down for a little while as more tears fell from his eyes. And then, he stepped out of the room. I didn’t know what he was about to do but I was prepared to fight for my life if I had to. When he returned a few moments later with a laptop, I knew he was going to let me make a copy of the video. He sat the laptop on his dresser top and then woke it from sleep mode. It didn’t require a password so he was able to bring up the video quickly.

           “My teammate Reggie was one of them,” he told me. “This is his laptop. They all have the video and they’ve shown it to some of us but not all of us, only those they can trust not to say anything.”

           “Play it,” I told him as I wiped tears from my eyes. “I need to make sure it’s the real video before I copy it onto my SD card.”

           He played the video, which was nearly an hour long in length. I couldn’t watch all of it so I just had him click through the timeline to show it was the full video. They all took turns holding the camera as they raped her. I remember her telling me she’d been having sex with one of them regularly. His name was Jerrod. He tricked her into coming to that hotel that night after one of their playoff games and the five of them raped her. After inserting my SD card into the SD card slot and making a copy of the video, I ran out of that stank ass dorm as fast as I could. Six back-to-back showers weren’t enough to wash away the filth I felt all over—and inside—my body.

           “Kendall, I don’t have time for your mind games,” Theo said to me after answering my call.

           I sobbed before telling him, “Theo, I need you.”

           “Are you crying? Kendall, what’s wrong?”

           “Can you meet me under the bridge we used to meet up under sophomore year?”

           “Yeah, I can meet you there. Give me like twenty minutes. I need to take a shower real quick and I’ll be there. And Kendall?”

           “Yeah?”

           “Whatever it is, it’s gonna be okay. Alright?”

           “Alright.” I ended the call and cried because I wasn’t expecting him to be willing to meet up with me.

           Theo McCrary was my ex-boyfriend. I had a lot of classes with him freshman year and sophomore year by coincidence, and we ended up talking after getting paired up for a project. Although it was a closeted relationship, my relationship with him was pretty much the only good relationship I’d had in my life besides the platonic one I had with Latasha. Theo was caring and loving, and he wasn’t afraid of being in love or afraid of allowing himself to be vulnerable like a lot of cisgender heterosexual guys are. The only reason why our relationship failed was because I couldn’t handle him sleeping with so many other women to keep up his reputation. He was in a fraternity so his reputation was important to him. The only reason why I needed him so much was because he was a very smart computer technology major and his skills were crucial for me to do what I needed to do.

                                             Theo McCrary

           “What’s wrong?” he asked while hugging me. “Why are you crying?”

           “Because I really need your help,” I told him. “It’s about Latasha.”

           “Damn, I should’ve known it was about her. I’m so sorry, baby.” He pulled back and kissed my forehead. “I’ve been thinking about it, too. She was the only person who knew about us and she was so supportive.”

           “Yeah, she told me to stay with you and just deal with our issues because you’re the perfect guy for me. I miss her so much, Theo.”

           “Aw, baby.” He wrapped his arms around me and held me as I cried on his shoulder. “It doesn’t matter that we’re not together anymore. I’m probably gonna love you forever.” He held me tighter and caressed my back.

           After taking a while to calm down, I rested my head on his shoulder and admitted, “I always thought it would be me. With all the horrible things that happen to transwomen of color in this country, I just knew one day I’d be dead and she’d be here trying to get me justice.”

           “Don’t talk like that, Kendall.”

           “It’s how I feel, Theo. God help me, but sometimes I wish it were me. Why did she have to go? I know why she did it but…”

           “Wait a minute; what do you mean you know why she did it? She didn’t leave a note or a letter behind. You don’t know why she did what she did, Kendall. You could never know a thing like that. When people decide to take their own lives, they’re usually not thinking clearly. Maybe she was suffering from some kind of mental...”

           “She was suffering from mental trauma after being raped, Theo.”

           “What?”

           I sat up and looked into his warm brown eyes as I explained, “Latasha was gang-raped by five football players. Jerrod Williams, Reggie Simms, Marlon Tyler, Dante Freeman and Philip Johnson gang-raped her at an out-of-town hotel after their first playoff game last season. She’d been involved with Jerrod and he set her up. They took turns recording it and after sticking to a plan involving blackmail where I had to have sex with Rakeem Peterson for a few months, I have a copy of the video.”

           He was silent for a while and then a single tear forced its way out of his right eye and rolled down the right side of his face. After taking in a shaky deep breath and exhaling, he told me, “Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do it.”

           “I need you to enter the school of journalism building with me late tonight and program the video to play in the middle of tomorrow’s campus news broadcast. You can do something like that, right?”

           “Yeah, I’ll just need to create a computer virus to make it happen. Are you sure you want to do this though? What if people see something different going on in the video?”

           “I saw some of it.” Tears rushed to my eyes again as I explained, “She was screaming stop and she was hitting them, but they hit her back. They beat her, Theo. I can’t just send this video to the police because they’ll create a case without providing the evidence to the public. I don’t want my friend’s name dragged through the mud and people calling her a slut without knowing what really happened. As many students as possible need to see that video to know what those disgusting motherfuckers did to my friend. I want to take all of their power from them.”

           “Is there any way the football players or their coaches can know that you have a copy of the video?”

           “No. I told Rakeem that I recorded me and him every time we had sex at my place.”

           “Whoa. Did you?”

           “No, I was bluffing. I could never do something like that to someone. I thought about it but then I thought about the possibility of the footage getting into the wrong hands so I didn’t do it. I might hate his ass for covering for his teammates, but I would never ruin him like that. I decided to keep the relationship going and then today, exactly today, I decided to lie to him and tell him I’d recorded us every time so he would help me make a copy of the rape video.”

           “Why today?”

           “Because tomorrow would’ve been Latasha’s birthday. It’s the first time since before we knew each other when we were little kids that one of our birthdays is going to come around and one of us isn’t here so there’s no celebration. Theo, I had to do this. I didn’t have a choice. All of those times I contemplated suicide and now that she’s gone, I don’t have anyone else. I need this.”

           “I agree. But baby, you’re not alone in this. You have me. Whether you want to give our relationship another try or not, you have me, Kendall. I love you.” He grabbed my hand and kissed it as more tears filled his eyes.

           That night close to midnight, we entered the school of journalism building using Monique’s keycard. We gained access to the CougarTV studio where the campus news was broadcasted from. I stood watch by the door as he entered the producer’s area and did what he had to do. After a few minutes, he returned with my SD card in his hand and a smile on his face.

           “The virus I created worked,” he told me. “I got full access to the program’s main computer and I timed it perfectly. In the middle of tomorrow’s broadcast, the video is gonna play and they won’t see it coming.”

           “Thank you, Theo,” I said while hugging him. “I owe you for this.”

           “You can repay me now.”

           “How?”

           “By letting me spend the night with you tonight. I don’t want you to be alone.”

           “I’ll be fine, Theo.”

           “Well, I won’t unless I know for sure that you’re okay. I’ll sleep in Latasha’s old room or out on the sofa if you want me to. Please, baby. I’ll be worrying about you all night.”

           “Okay. You can spend the night at my place. But we’re not fucking.”

           He laughed and assured me, “I will be a total gentleman tonight. All I wanna do is hold you and make sure you feel safe tonight.”

           “Why do you always have to be so damn perfect? It makes me rethink breaking up with you.”

           “That’s the point, baby. That’s the point. Come on.” He grabbed my hand and we quickly left the building.

           I made sure to be on-campus in the library the moment the virus interrupted the campus news broadcast. It cut into the broadcast at exactly five-thirty-five. First, there was a brief message by Theo with his face pixelated and his voice distorted detailing what the video would show and revealing the names of the five players that had raped Latasha on that fateful night. Then, the video began to play. It took the campus news crew nearly ten minutes to figure out how to stop the virus and stop the video from playing. He’d even made it hard for them to control the broadcast signal, so everyone who was watching the live broadcast could also hear the crew panicking off-camera.

           “Happy birthday, Latasha,” I said quietly to myself.

           Immediately after the virus was stopped and the footage was yanked off-air, I emailed a copy of the video to the police department using a fake account that I’d made on the library’s computer. If they were to track the IP address, there would be no way of knowing which computer in the entire library sent the email. I was never going to log into that fake email account any other time outside of the library, so they’d never know it was me who sent the video to them. I quickly logged out of the account, removed my SD card from the computer and exited the library.

           I made it to the athletic dorm just in time to see the police arriving there. They went inside as a big crowd began to form out in front of the building. When the police came back down and outside with Jerrod, Reggie, Marlon, Dante and Philip; everyone booed at them and some people threw things at them, causing the police to make everyone back up. As pleased as I was to see the beginning of justice being done, it was a bittersweet moment. It didn’t matter that their football careers were over. It didn’t matter that the truth was out and there would be no way to spin it. It didn’t matter how many years they would get in prison for doing what they did to Latasha. The fact remained that she was gone forever. I’d never get to see her beautiful smile again or hear her sweet laugh. I know it was irrational but I felt so guilty. Why was I still on this earth and she wasn’t?

           “I understand why you did it,” Rakeem said to me, startling me a little. “What my teammates did was wrong. What I did was wrong. I apologize. Now can I please have the videos you have of us? If they get out, I’ll lose everything I care about.”

           “There never were any videos of us, Rakeem,” I admitted. “I’m so sorry I put you through that but I had to get justice for my friend. Rape happens so much on college campuses and when it’s committed by popular student athletes, it just gets swept under the rug. This…this fucked up violence happens to transwomen like me in this country every single day.”

           He looked around to make sure no one was paying attention to us before asking, “So, that makes it okay for you to do what you did?”

           “Yes. I’d do it the same damn way if I had to do it all over again. And if my plan hadn’t worked, I was going to do something crazy. I was going to kill your teammates and then take my own life. That was my backup plan. So, I am sorry that I hurt your feelings but the pain I have been walking around here with every single day since my best friend took her own life is a pain that you could never understand.” My voice cracked and I began crying, so I couldn’t finish what I wanted to say to him.

           “I still like you, Kendall. I know what we had goin’ these last couple of months wasn’t real but I thought it was, and I started fallin’ for you. I meant what I said, I’m sorry about what happened to your friend. I wish there were something else I could do about that.”

           “There is, Rakeem.” I wiped my tears before looking back into his eyes and telling him, “Speak up and speak out. There is simply no way we are going to win this battle against rape culture and other cultures of violence without help from men like you. We need you, Rakeem.”

           I wasn’t sure if my words would reach him, but I said them nonetheless. He looked at me for a while and then headed back towards the dorm building. I turned around and went back to my car, which was still parked in the library parking lot. While sitting in my car, I could’ve sworn I heard the sound of Latasha’s laugh in my ear. I thought I was going crazy until a gust of wind blew a small slip of paper onto my windshield. On the paper, the message, ‘thank you,’ was written in blue pen ink. The handwriting was Latasha’s. For the first time that day, I smiled.

           “What are you doing here?” I asked Theo as I found him sitting against the guardrail outside of my apartment.

           “After spending the night here with you last night,” he explained as he stood to his feet, “I realized how much I missed you and how good it made me feel knowing I was keeping you safe. Kendall, we’ve been broken up for a minute and I still feel the same way about you. I don’t want us to be apart anymore, baby. I promise I will figure out a way to make this work between us.”

           “I don’t know, Theo. I’m not sure if it’s worth us giving it another try.”

           “Baby, out of all the women I’ve been with in my life, I never felt this way about them. I’ve never been in love with anyone before I fell for you. You told me yesterday about how Latasha pressured you to get back with me. You came to me yesterday so that I could help you get justice for her. Can’t you see it baby? This is a sign.”

           I thought about what he said and then I smiled before telling him, “Come on. Let’s go inside so we can discuss this over dinner.” He smiled back at me as I grabbed his hand and led him into my apartment.

[Disclaimer]: Pictures used do not reflect the sexuality or personality of people in the pictures. They only serve as visual examples of the characters.

© D.A. Morrison 2017