Dead!

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

The next day, I got in line to get myself another mocha frappuccino, but I saw that they had changed the menu. According to the barista, the Celestial Bureaucracy had just hired a vegan chef, so they had to add a few items to the menu. I ended up ordering a mocha frappuccino and a falafel sandwich.

Despite the fact that I had no idea what falafels were before I took a bite of the sandwich, it was actually quite good. I couldn't wait to tell Samantha the news, so I went to look for her. However, I couldn't find her.

That's weird, I thought. Samantha can't be at therapy. That's on Wednesdays, and today is a Monday. I continued to search for her, but she seemed to have disappeared. Maybe she got called and I didn't see it. That's certainly possible.

I found Samantha sitting in a corner, tears rolling down her face. "Samantha!" I exclaimed. "Are you okay?"

"I...I'm f-fine," Samantha said. She looked up me and asked, "Is that a falafel sandwich?"

"Yes! They have them at the food stand now!" I said. "But seriously, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," Samantha snapped. "It's none of your business I'll be fine. Just give me some time to go get some food, and then we can talk about something else."

"Samantha, I'm your friend," I said. "You can tell me anything."

"Ivy, we've only known each other for a few months," Samantha said. "You might be my friend, but you don't know me."

"Well, maybe I'd like to get to know you better," I said. "So what's wrong?"

"My parents are just being really irritating on Facebook," she said.

"What did they do?" I asked.

"See for yourself," Samantha said. She took out her phone, opened up something and passed it to me.

I looked at the page that she had pulled up. Apparently it was some sort of Facebook group. The title of it was "Remembering Samuel Murphy," and there was a picture of a middle-school aged boy with ginger hair and blue-ish grey eyes. "I don't get it," I said. "Did your brother die or something?"

"I don't have a brother," Samantha said. "I have an older sister named Kathleen, but as far as I know, she's alive."

"Then who is that kid?" I asked. "Is he your cousin? Nephew? Friend who happens to have the same last name as you?"

"That's me," Samantha said. "Apparently that's the best picture my parents could find of me before I started transitioning." She sighed. "It's kind of sad really. Even now that I'm dead, they can't even acknowledge that I'm a girl."

"Wait, what?" I said. "Are you saying that you're transgender?" How did I not notice this earlier? I thought. Then again, it did add up: the deep voice, the facial structure that seemed just a little too masculine...how did I not notice? "I'm sorry!" I exclaimed. "Like, I'm just so unobservant. Did I really not notice that?"

"Stop freaking out," Samantha said. "It's really not that big of a deal...or at least, it shouldn't be. You know, now that you know that, maybe I should just tell you everything else too."

"What else do you have to say?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know," Samantha said. "Maybe I should just tell you how I died." She sighed. "This is going to be a long story."

"I have time," I said, "but you don't have to tell me if you're uncomfortable."

"No, I'm fine," Samantha said. "I'll tell you. I guess it started...well, I'm not entirely sure when it started. I think I was about thirteen when I realized that I was a girl. I'd never really felt comfortable with being a guy, but that was probably the first time that I really think I figured it out. I tried coming out to my girlfriend first..."

"Wait, you're a lesbian too?" I said.

"I'm pansexual. Get it right," Samantha said. "In any case, that went horribly. Meredith still thinks I'm a freak, and coming out to my parents didn't go any better. I ended up living a bit of a double life during high school. My friends knew me as Samantha, but my parents still thought I was Sam. It wasn't as bad as it could have been though. Sure, my parents were still transphobic idiots, and sometimes I just wanted to lay down and die, but it could have been worse, right?"

"What happened after that?" I asked.

"Senior year was actually pretty good," Samantha said. "I decided to move to my friend Allie's house, and I thought everything was going to be okay. I didn't have a whole lot of money, but I did get accepted to University of Iowa, and with the in-state tuition, I was able to go."

"That's good," I said. "So how does all of this relate to how you died?"

"I'm getting there," Samantha said. "My roommate there was probably one of the worst people I've ever met, and that's saying a lot, since I've met a lot of horrible people in my short life. I just never fit in, even in college, and I fell into a downward spiral again. Things just weren't going well, and I lost all hope that life was going to get better. So on my nineteenth birthday, I killed myself. And that's how I got here."

"Oh my gosh," I said. "You...you killed yourself?"

Samantha nodded. "Sometimes I wish I didn't, but maybe that's the antidepressants that the Celestial Bureaucracy gave me talking. You know how gender works in the afterlife, right?"

"Your soul retains its gender through all of its reincarnations," I stated, remembering what I had read in the FAQ page.

"Exactly," Samantha said. "It makes things kind of rough for non-binary people, but whatever. There are a whole lot of things that the Bureaucracy needs to fix, and that's one of them. So I'm just a female soul that accidentally ended up in a male body. I'm nothing more than a clerical error." She sighed and said, "The rebirth people killed me."

"I'm really sorry Samantha," I said, giving her a quick hug.

"Don't apologize Ivy," Samantha said. "This isn't your fault. But some falafel might ease the pain." Samantha stood up and we walked over to the food stand. "Thanks for listening, Ivy. It felt good to get all of that off of my chest."

"No problem Samantha," I said. "I'm just glad that I was able to help."