By My Side - Sam/Aomaris Fanfiction

28) A Day of Peace

I slept surprisingly well that night. My sleep was peaceful and dreamless and it was over before I knew it. I woke up the next morning to Sam running his fingers through my hair, making me sigh and stretch, now fully awake because of his touch.
"Mornin', doofus." He said quietly.
"Morning, Sam." I yawned, dragging myself out of bed. I grabbed my clothes for the day and hid in the den to get dressed. It was surprisingly spacious. I pulled my binder on, sighing. I hated the thing and the fact that I had to wear it. At least I knew Ronnie shared my pain. Sam hummed as I pulled it on.
"Why do you wear that thing if you hate it so much?" He heard him ask.
"Because of a little thing called gender dysphoria. I can't explain it in full right now, but essentially it makes me want to swallow a fuck-ton of painkillers and then try and stab at these useless lumps of flesh on my chest until they eventually fall off." I resumed getting dressed and clambered out, fully dressed for the day. Sam stared at me.
"Don't humans have doctors and stuff for that?" I sighed.
"Yes, but top surgery can be very expensive and because of stupid human mentality, doctors have the right to refuse me treatment because I don't identify as female, so I try not to advertise my desperation for said treatment." Sam was silent for a second.
"Humans are stupid." He said shortly. I could only nod.
"Couldn't have said it better myself."

When Naomi and Suzu arrived to take Mika to school, I wandered outside to greet them and Ronnie, and noticed the latter staring wistfully at the house. After a glance over my shoulder, I figured out why. Matthew was peering out of his bedroom window, the same expression on his face. I was extremely excited for Saturday, mostly because it meant Matthew could stop hiding himself from his brothers and he could also stop hiding his relationship with Ronnie, which he was clearly so desperate to reveal just so he could talk to his boyfriend in front of everyone.

I met the girls and Ronnie outside after school with Sam. Mika waved goodbye to her friends and headed inside, while Ronnie ranted at me about how unfun creative writing had been that day. Mr Sawyer challenged Ronnie to write something that wasn't fantasy based and I groaned, fully understanding the consequent pain from such a task. It had been years since I'd written something that wasn't fantasy-based, and Ronnie sniggered at my reaction. I'd always struggled with writing stuff that wasn't fantasy based. To me, it wasn't creative writing if I was limited to the exceedingly fucking boring real world. Somehow, though, Ronnie had gotten the seal of approval from Mr Sawyer by cobbling together a story about a kid struggling through high school but finding some friends to help him. Ronnie, now very worked up and rather affronted, told me Mr Sawyer had laughed at his grumpiness, but he had promised that he'd let us write about fantasy things from now on, which was good as it meant I'd never be subjected to the same torture that Ronnie was that day.

However, I was subjected to the other horror I usually had to endure on a daily basis: maths. Maths wasn't any fun, but to be fair I couldn't remember a single point in my life where I'd classified maths as 'fun'. Despite the lovely teacher we had, maths never had and likely never would be a strong point in my life. Unfortunately, that was exactly the homework Ronnie presented me with, because life was cruel and even though I was suffering through something I could barely even comprehend, life still made me do maths. I'd hoped with my 'sickness', the staff might give me some leniency, but no. The school days always dragged on and on, made longer by the pop quizzes the teachers had us doing almost every lesson to prepare us for our finals, which were only about a month away by that point. If you couldn't be there for a pop quiz or a study session, then they'd be damned if they didn't send work for you to do in your sickbed.

I waved to Ronnie and the girls after a few minutes of chatting with them and bumped into Matthew as he was making his way into the kitchen and I stopped him as he walked past.
"Oh, do you have everything planned for your birthday?" I asked. He paused for a few moments before nodding.
"Yup! Everything should be good! I got James to book the arcade for a couple of hours so we won't be interrupted there."
"That's good. I'm looking forward to it, then. And so is Ronnie." Matthew blushed. "And Suzu and Naomi, obviously, but Ronnie really likes... 'the arcade'." Sam glanced between me and Matthew, who was the colour of a tomato by now, confused.
"What's happening here?"
"Nothing, why?"
"Because Matthew's face looks like it's about to explode."
"I don't know why. All I said was that Ronnie likes the arcade."
"That doesn't explain Matthew's face."
"I'm just pleased Ronnie and I have a shared interest," Matthew interjected quickly. "I really like the arcade too," I smirked, and Sam shrugged, clearly giving up on the subject.
"Whatever. You're both weird."
"Aww, thank you." I kissed his cheek as Matthew chuckled and continued on his way to the kitchen. Sam grabbed my waist and spun me to face him so he could kiss me properly.