Newly Not Cis

A Ghost

In the six hours since Katie had had her talk with James, he had somehow unravelled the mystery she had been investigating, got himself a boyfriend, accepted his sexuality, become more girly and come out to his asshole friends. It would have been incredible if it weren't so poorly thought out and rushed. Seriously, who just decides to make their dysphoria worse? Who talks to a ghost and decides,'Yeah, make my life even worse' is a good thing to ask for? James, that's who. Trying to understand his decision-making was starting to seem futile.

Katie: So, do you want me to call you Jamie?

Jamie: No, but do it anyway.

Katie: Okay, Jay.

Jamie: Why are you calling me that?

It would be a lie if she said he had been forgiven for all of his transphobia over the last couple of months. Reusing the nickname from when they went bra shopping seemed to be a good way to get back at him, while also not hurting him.

Katie: You know? Like you called me K?

Jamie: I'm sorry about that.

Katie: I mean, it was like two weeks ago. You have bigger problems.

Jamie: Maybe. But still, I'm sorry. For that and everything else.

Katie: Let's talk about this another time.

She wasn't ready to have another emotional talk with James after earlier. Sure it had been enlightening and getting him to hopefully give up his bastard ways once and for all was great, but she also didn't want to think about apologies when he was already tired. He could apologise when he wasn't struggling and they could talk about it properly.

Jamie: Okay.

Katie: Anything you need help with for tomorrow?

Jamie: I've already bothered you enough. I'm gonna get some more sleep. TTYL

Katie: Okay, tell the ghost I said hi if you see her again.

Jamie: Sure.

Now it was time to think about the ghost. About Melody. Ghosts made sense. How else could things start appearing in a closed bag? What else could have been moving those chairs around? What else could accelerate her transition? Still, it was hard to understand why she'd turned him into a girl. She'd have to ask for more details later. Maybe she could ask Melody to talk. There had to be a way for them to communicate if she could talk to Jay. In the meantime, she had some research to do.

An hour of searching yielded a small amount of information about her. She'd died in 2001. Her parents begged for her 'nickname' to be printed on her memorial instead of her deadname. Three teachers were fired because of their inaction, and since then Ashland High had had anti-bigotry programs in place to deal with garbage students. Those programs weren't enough for the school to tell their students about the school's history, or to talk about suicide or LGBT issues or history. Those programs were still not enough to prevent Jay and Ben's bullshit and also not enough to prevent the death of a student a couple of years after the first incident. Good job, school system! It was almost enough to make her understand some of Melody's radical methods. Almost. Melody had been there for years, right? Stuck in the school for so long, surely she would understand the rules and programs in place. Wouldn't it have been less destructive for her to simply get Jay and Ben caught by the teachers? One of the biggest reasons they got away with all of their crap was because Miss Campbell was consistently late enough that they could pretend they didn't do anything.

Maybe talking to Adam would help her put together a reason behind all of her actions. Adam was always a good rubber ducky when she was faced with a hard problem, and even if he couldn't help her figure it out, talking to him was nice. It made her feel normal, like sure there was a ghost that changed someone's body, and she was trying to understand it because she might have an obsession with Mystery Inc., but in the end, she was just a teenage girl who had crushes sometimes. It was nice. Feeling normal was a rare pleasure for people like her.