Life Imitating Art, from Drama to Myself

Chapter 23: Meeting the family

The lead-up to the family get-together on Saturday was exciting but extremely nerve-racking. Exams were easy but meeting my extended family as me was scary. I swear I went through about a third of my wardrobe and easily put together more than a dozen different outfits trying to figure out what to wear. Ashlee helped when she was over, but I was still nervous. We had RE exam on Friday, so Ashlee was going to spend the night.

We walked to the exam venue holding hands when my RE teacher walked past and glared at me and Ashlee. I didn't care, it's not like they could do anything. The exam was really easy, so I finished early and decided to wait for the others to finish. In the end, I was able to catch up with Erma, Dani, Ant, Shannon, Melissa, Brie, Adam, and Kara. I chatted to them about my plan for coming out and how they all thought they went with the exams. Most of the chats were quick, by the time the exam finished I was talking with Ashlee, Adam, and Kara. The RE teacher came past after collecting the exams to mark and glared at all of us, I was happy to know it wasn't just a trans thing, but they didn't like any queer people. We said goodbye to Adam and Kara, wishing them a good week off, and then Ashlee and I went to my place. We stopped at the shops on the way for a nice burger for lunch.

"What time do we need to be ready tomorrow?"

"Mum said it doesn't start until 2:00 and we should be there for dinner, so we probably won't leave until 2:00 ish."

"Ok, so plenty of time. I think we should sleep in as much as you can then have a shower sometime before lunch."

"I like that idea. I hope I can sleep though; I don't want to keep you up."

"Cutie, if I cared I wouldn't have wanted to stay with you tonight."

"Thanks, beautiful. I'm sure I'll sleep better knowing you're with me," I said with a smile and kissed her on the hand, it was as close as I could get at the table we were at for lunch.

"Any time, I'm happy to be there for you. Since we've finished, I think we should get going."

"Sounds good, I want to get out of these pants ASAP," I said with a smile.

"Patients Jocelyn, you have less than 4 weeks once we go back to school after next week."

We walked to the bus to get home, "do you have much on next week?"

"Yeah, Dad's coming over Tuesday to hang out with us, he did it this week too, but I had an exam, then I have a doctor's appointment Wednesday, and our final school performance exam is Thursday. How about you?"

"Not much, why don't I come over Monday so we can rehearse for Thursday, I would like to stay and get to know your dad if he would be ok with that."

"Always Ashlee. Bel and mum are coming with me to the doctor, it might be helpful for you to come too. I'll call the psych when I get home, they might like to talk to you too."

"Are you sure, I don't want to intrude on something that private."

"You know everything that they do, and I think they're going to prepare my family for graduation and me to go full time so I think it might help you as well."

"Sounds good, let's do it."

When we got home, I called Rayne, and they were keen to meet Ashlee and speak to her. When Mum got home, we told her of our plan and Rayne's agreement, she was happy with it. I was going to be at Ashlee's Thursday and Friday night, mum said she wanted to go shopping with us Saturday for graduation outfits, Ashlee messaged her mum, and she said she'd be keen to join us. It was going to be busy for the last week of school holidays.

I woke up Saturday morning, I was happy I slept but I was nervous when I woke up. I got out of bed, trying not to wake Ashlee, and then went to the bathroom. I ended up pacing around the house after washing my hands until Mum had enough and told me to get dressed and have breakfast. Ashlee was awake when I got back to my room.