Lessons in Lesbianism - 10 (Patreon)

Shatter

Despite having gone to bed early, Olivia found herself having a rather sleepless night. Her mind was awash with stress and uncertainty while her body was jetlagged. By the time she did properly fall asleep it was late enough she ended up sleeping through her alarm clock and stumbled out of bed at close to 10 am. All while she’d been too tired to actually remember any conclusions she’d come to the night before.

Thankfully, her father had already headed off to go fishing with some friends, which meant she only had to deal with her mother’s mixture of judgement and concern. It seemed her mother couldn’t decide if she was being lazy or if it was a sign she was sick, and so had plans to produce both a lecture and chicken noodle soup at the drop of a hat.

“Is everything ok, dear?”

Olivia let out an unintelligible mumble.

“Maybe we should cancel your flight for tonight, if you’re feeling sick,” her mother said, sending a shiver of fear that woke her up better than any morning coffee.

“I should be fine by then! I just slept poorly,” she replied. “Stress about… stuff… um, flights and school and then jetlag and all that.”

“Still, if you’re not feeling well…”

“I need to get back to school to keep up with all my assignments,” Olivia said. “It’s just one night with bad sleep.”

Her mother gave a small nod, seeming mildly unconvinced. Still the desire not to lose out on the money spent on Olivia’s airline ticket probably made her not push the point too strongly.

“If you are going back to school, you should probably pack after you get some breakfast.”

“Mhm. It won’t take long,” Olivia replied, opening up the freezer to pull out some frozen waffles.

She plunked those into the toaster, then hunted for the maple syrup and everything else she might need for her meal.

-

As expected, ‘packing’ effectively consisted of putting a few basic toiletries, some school supplies, and her hormones into her carry-on suitcase. Most of her clothing had still been at home, so she hadn’t needed to bring any with her. Though she did decide to grab a sweater and a t-shirt she’d found herself missing in BC.

With that all done in twenty minutes, despite her mind having wandered at points, she headed back downstairs to spend time with Portia. Her baby sister was currently her favourite person in Stratford, and certainly deserved more quality time than their mother was offering. Not that Olivia could blame her mother that much for being tired, she was in her forties and hadn’t expected to have another child (even if Olivia’s father had been more optimistic). It was understandable that she didn’t have the energy she used to.

Of course, Carl arrived a short while after noon, all smiles and wanting to spend the bulk of Olivia’s remaining time in town together.

“I don’t know, this is an important age for Portia and I’d like to spend time with her so she doesn’t forget me,” Olivia said, though her voice was weak as she didn’t want it to turn into an argument.

She vaguely hoped she could get some pity from Carl, hoping that was more reliable than direct conflict.

It didn’t work.

“So you’d rather your boyfriend start forgetting you?” he asked, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorframe.

“Uh, well, no,” Olivia mumbled politely, while silently wishing that he would.

“Besides, my mom’s excited for you to come visit. She likes you,” he said.

She opened her mouth, but found she didn’t know how to reply. It was true that Carl’s mother did seem to like having her around. She was a nice enough woman. Though also a busy woman, working as a lawyer.

Carl’s father, on the other hand, Olivia was less fond of. With the feelings seeming mutual. He was rather like Carl, with the added issue that he was awkward in regards to her gender.

Which had, really, been Carl’s best trait. A guy who had seemed rather charming back in high school that had actually treated her like the girl she was. In hindsight, she hadn’t had the highest of standards. After all, Carl treating her the same way he treated other girls meant a certain degree of sexism and control she’d done her best to ignore.

But, yes. Carl’s dad was more uncomfortable to be around. She always felt like he didn’t quite know if he saw her as a girl.

Still, she offered him a weak ‘hello’ as she walked into Carl’s home.

His father muttered something vaguely non-committal before turning to give his wife a questioning and judgemental look.

She ignored him. “Hello, Olivia. It’s good to see you.”

“Hello, Ms. North,” Olivia replied. “Did you need any help in the kitchen?”

“Oh, I would appreciate that,” Ms. North said, happily waving her over.

As expected, Ms. North’s Thanksgiving dinner was mostly sides purchased from More Meats Shoppe. Olivia was relieved to see that, having been a bit too tired to help with anything much more complicated than ‘put things in the oven’.

“Is everything ok, dear?” Ms. North asked in a quiet voice, after pouring some frozen veggie mix into a pot.

“Um… yes. Yeah. I’m alright,” Olivia lied, not really sure how to tell the older woman she was planning to dump her son. As soon as she worked up the guts.

Which might well never happen, due to Olivia not being known for her bravery.

She could tell, from the way Ms. North was looking at her, that her lie wasn’t holding up very well.

“I’m just a bit tired, and stressed with our midterm projects coming up.”

That seemed to work a bit better as a cover. Especially with the bonus of needing to put a pie into the oven.

-

The meal itself had been tense and awkward. Carl and his father filled most of the conversation time, while Ms. North provided occasional additions. Olivia, for her part, tried to avoid having to talk as much as possible, her mind floating around on ways she was going to break up with Carl. She was struggling to find a way to be polite about it. Mostly in an effort to escape art argument.

Still, as the meal went on she found herself losing optimism. There really wasn’t a way to break up with a guy like Carl smoothly.

Poking at some peas, she found herself wondering if it would be better to do it via a Flight call once she was back in BC. Then she could just turn off the video call if he started arguing too much.

That was rude though, wasn’t it? It seemed rude. Up there with breaking up by text, which she was pretty sure she’d heard was one of the worst ways to dump someone.

She found the conflict was killing her appetite, and so ended up excusing herself early. She then headed over to the living room, glad to find the North family cat stretched out across the couch. Olivia crouched down beside it and quietly pet it, preferring the feline company to the human options she had at the moment. It was a good way to pass a few minutes, while she waited for the North family to finish eating.

Hearing them finish, she paused scratching the cat’s ear and she let out a small sigh. “I should probably ask to go home. At least having a plane to catch is a decent excuse… don’t you think?”

The cat let out a happy ‘merp’ while purring about the attention she’d been giving it.

With that encouragement under her metaphorical wings, Olivia got up and headed over to where Carl was bringing some dishes to the kitchen.

“Since it’s a bit of a drive to Hammer City, and I have to get ready and everything, I should probably head home to get ready for my flight,” she said, catching his attention.

His eyes glanced over to the pile of dishes around the sink and then he gave a happy nod. “Sure. I’d be happy to drive you back.”

Carl led the way out to the car, and she hopped in the passenger seat. The drive was fairly short, Stratford not exactly being a sprawling metropolis, which meant it wasn’t hard for her to sit in silence for most of the ride. Though it also didn’t give her much time to gather her thoughts.

It was only once he’d pulled into the driveway of the Bishop home that she decided to speak up.

“I don’t think things are working out,” she half whispered.

He turned to her. “At your college?”

Shaking her head, she opened the door slightly. “With us.”

“What.”

“You want a girlfriend who stays in town. I… I don’t know if I want to do that.”

He turned to her, annoyance in his eyes. “Olivia… why are you being like this all of a sudden? You never talked about leaving before going to that academy…”

“I just hadn’t thought that far ahead,” she muttered. “But I knew I never had a future here. I just didn’t think over the specifics.”

“You have a future here. With me.”

“Do you really want that, though? Do you really want to have to adopt? To deal with people whispering behind our backs?”

“That—”

“What about the possibility my dad might the biological grandkids Portia gives him to be more important to him, and to decide to pass the family business down to whoever she marries instead of to you?”

Carl’s face twitched, fear flashing in his eyes. “He wouldn’t.”

“He might,” Olivia muttered, trying to hide the betrayal she felt about that causing him the largest reaction.

She climbed out of the car, standing there with the door in her hand. “At the very least, we should think about ending it.”

Carl sat there silently, staring into empty space. She shut the door and headed up into the house. Her mother called out a ‘welcome home’ which she mumbled a reply to as she headed upstairs, heading into her bedroom.

There she flopped onto her bed, fishing out her phone again, and shot off a text to Kala.

[I just broke up with my boyfriend.]

Then she buried her face in the pillow, waiting a few minutes for the phone to vibrate back.

[woo]

[Woo? Not a ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘oh no, what happened’? Just… ‘woo’?] Olivia texted back.

[he was trash. i saw how talking to him upset you. so… good]

Blinking, Olivia realised that was probably fair. From the outside the relationship probably seemed even worse than she’d tried to convince herself it was. Which just made her feel like an idiot.

She was glad that telling Carl she needed to get read was a lie, so that she could lay on her bed and stare at the ceiling, wallowing a bit in her feeling that she’d wasted a few years of her life on a guy who hadn’t really loved her. And that she hadn’t really loved either.

A guy she had half agreed to date because she knew it would help convince her therapist she really did like guys… right. She had forgotten that had been part of the reason. That she’d clung to him to help get an estradiol prescription faster.

-

Thankfully Carl had left well before her father got back.

Her father only spent a few minutes grabbing some food before calling her down. As with most dads, he wanted her at the airport even earlier than the airline recommended. Not that she was going to complain, wanting to be back on the flight already.

Waving goodbye to Portia (the one person she was going to genuinely miss), she got into the SUV, loading her carry-on into the trunk. Her father tossed on some music (80s hard rock or metal or a mix of both… she wasn’t certain what divided those) and then began the drive over the Hammer City’s airport.

They were well outside of Stratford before he spoke.

“You’re crying.”

She blinked and realised that she was. “Huh.”

“Do you not want to go back?” he asked.

“What? No—I want to go. It’s… Carl and I had a fight. I—I’m pretty sure we broke up,” she said.

It was technically true. She just didn’t want to deal with her father’s reaction to the fact she had done the breaking up. On some level she still suspected her father liked Carl more than he liked her. It had been mostly a lie when she put forward the idea her father would prefer whoever Portia dated.

Mostly. She still felt self conscious about her inability to carry children.

“You didn’t… he wouldn’t?” her father muttered, glancing her way as long as he trusted being able to while driving on the country highway.

“He doesn’t like my being away for school… pretty sure he’s tired of waiting for… well, y’know,” she mumbled, cheeks going hot as she realised what she was almost going to say to her father. “I’m just not… I want my surgery before I can do that.”

Her father paled slightly, having never been great at handling talk about bottom surgery after finding out how what, exactly, it involved. “Erm… well, hopefully you and Carl will patch things up again.”

-

After too long waiting in the airport, a flight that was mostly absorbed by the three hour time change but still left her exhausted, and then a ferry ride, she was finally back at her room in the residence.

Kala hopped up, happy to see her. “Hey roomie! Want to go get ice cream or something to celebrate your new single status?”

Olivia gave a slow and sleepy blink. “I spent five hours on a plane and another hour on a ferry… I kind of just want to sleep.”

“Ah… fair. Tomorrow, then,” Kala replied in a soft and kind tone.