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  Love During Robot Fighting Time by Helena_Heissner (itch.io)

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  Elijah

  Graduation caps flew into the air, and the crowd cheered as we all parted across the football field and went to where we were going. For some, that meant regrouping with their friends or partners; for others, it meant heading straight to their cars and getting out of here; for others still, it meant family. I fell into that st category, squinting in the bright May sun as I searched for my parents in the crowd. I saw them walking towards me -- my dad with his barrel chest and beer gut and brown skin and gray-bck hair, my mom with her short frame and svelte figure and long red locks worn down -- and I retrieved my cap from the ground, dusting it off so that we wouldn’t get fined for damaging the rented graduation clothes.

  “Hey there, mijo,” Dad said, putting his arm around me and smiling broadly, eyes beaming with pride. I couldn’t help but smile back -- Dad’s enthusiasm was so infectious, it almost helped calm the pit of dread in my stomach. “How you feeling?”

  “Ah, ya know, alright,” I said while Mom put her arm around me as well. She had to reach up on her tiptoes to manage it at this point, and I leaned down to help with the endeavor.

  “Just alright?” Mom said. “You just graduated! You should be feeling a little better than alright.”

  I gulped, then said, “Oh, I know, just… worried about what comes after this.”

  “I know, and that’s smart of you, but try to just live in the moment for right now, yeah?” Mom said.

  I offered a weak smile and said, “I’ll try.” For her sake, for both their sakes, I would try.

  We parsed through the crowd and hopped in the family car, a beat-up and barely-functioning silver sedan that was older than I was. The journey out of the buzzing parking lot took almost as long as the rest of the trek to the restaurant where we met the extended family. My high school -- my former high school now, I guess -- charged tickets to attend graduation, and neither side of the family had all that much money to spare on something like that, but they still wanted to celebrate. So we all met at an artisan pizza pce in Culver City on that warm California night; Dad’s three brothers and their wives and kids, along with my mom’s two sisters and their husbands and kids, were all gathered around a single long table while a menagerie of pizza pies was brought over to us.

  I sat between my parents, devouring slice after slice of meat lovers’ pizza, while my Tio Miguel and Tia Frida looked at me with an odd mixture of pride and pity.

  “So, Eli,” Tio Miguel asked. “What’s next?”

  I winced. I’d been asked that question a million times in the past few months, and the answer -- or ck thereof -- hadn’t really changed. “Uh, I’m gonna start a community college program in the fall, hopefully become an electrician like Dad.”

  Tia Frida chuckled when I said that.

  “What’s funny?” Mom asked, eyes narrowing.

  “Oh, just… remembering the time Eli tried to fix his remote control car on his birthday and it wound up catching on fire,” Tia Frida said.

  “That was a while ago, he was a little kid then,” Dad insisted.

  “It was three years ago. He was fifteen,” Tia Frida said, still ughing. “And you’re gonna be an electrician?”

  “Yes, he is,” Dad said, giving his brother a look that said ‘make your wife shut up now.’

  “I’ll believe that when I see it,” my cousin Sarah, already pregnant at twenty, snickered a few seats down the bench.

  “Look here,” Dad started.

  I didn’t let him finish: “I mean, hey, I’m also considering male modeling. Figure the sky’s the limit with these movie star good looks,” I said, running a hand through my short-cropped red-brown hair and attempting a goofy smile. I meant it in self-deprecation: I wasn’t ugly per se, with my average, slightly skinny frame and tall body, but the chronic neckbeard and stubborn acne on my face didn’t do me any favors.

  It worked -- she ughed. So did my aunt and uncle. Wasn’t sure if it was with me or at me, but at the moment, I didn’t really care.

  “Oh yeah,” Aunt Nancy said from further down the table. She pulled an envelope out of her purse, fat with contents, and slid it towards me. “The sisters and I all put a little donation in. Thought it might be nice for you to get yourself a little treat -- you men are so hard to shop for, figured it was easier than trying to guess what you wanted.”

  I opened the envelope and saw a very rge stack of hundred dolr bills inside.

  Tio Jorge, Dad’s oldest brother, a behemoth of a man with a shaved pate and a handlebar mustache, retrieved a manil envelope from his inner jacket pocket and handed it to me as well. “The boys and I had the same thought. Your dad will probably tell you to spend it on something practical, but that’s not fun. You just graduated, you deserve to treat yourself, kiddo.”

  I opened the envelope. Oh wow, that was a not-insignificant amount of cash. I suddenly minded them not coming to the ceremony a lot less. “Thank you. Thank you, everyone. This is amazing of you, really.”

  “I mean, you really should spend it on something practical,” Dad said.

  “Maybe put it towards your own car?” Mom suggested.

  “Or tuition,” Tio Miguel said.

  “Or your own apartment, so your parents can finally stop having to deal with you,” Sarah said.

  “Could say the same to you,” Aunt Nancy said as she side-eyed her daughter.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Sarah said.

  “You know what it means,” Aunt Nancy said.

  Oh, good. Here we go. The arguing started, quickly devolving into an incoherent deluge of auditory stimulus as parent and child began yelling at each other. Sarah’s boyfriend/baby-daddy leapt to her defense while her parents began dragging our other retives into the conversation.

  The familiar dread, a tightness in my chest, grew ever more taut with each word, and the plethora of noise in the room became too loud to handle. I stood up.

  Everyone looked at me and went silent.

  “I think I’m gonna go make my first purchase with this money,” I said.

  “On what?” Mom said.

  “My comic shop is only a block from here,” I said.

  “Comics? Really? Aren’t you getting a little old for those?” Sarah sneered.

  “Oh, hush,” her mother replied, but her facial expression made it clear she shared her daughter’s sentiment. Same with most of the adults… most of the OTHER adults there.

  I forced my best smile onto my face and said, “Allow me one more bit of childish indulgence, then, in my final evening hours of youthful innocence.” I even threw in a flourish of my hands and a bow. “I shall return, but for now I bid you all adieu.”

  The loose assortment of chuckles my dorky antics conjured alleviated the tension as I grabbed one st slice of pizza and shoveled it down my throat; I stepped outside into the amber light of the setting sun. The one-story businesses running down the street were all throbbing with activity, save for the one I was looking for:

  Kendrick’s Comic Emporium. It was a long, wide, two-story building with a ft roof and big windows all over the front. It was sparsely poputed inside -- it was a Friday night, and the shop closed in a half hour. Still, it was worrying -- I’d been coming here since I was a freshman in high school, and it seemed to get less and less business every year. But hey, at least I was doing my part to keep it alive: I came in every month and bought a trade paperback, usually spending no more than twenty dolrs on the newest volume of whatever ongoing runs I was keeping up with at the moment.

  Inside that shop was my happy pce: I could have failed a test, gotten cut from the baseball team, gotten rejected by a girl (all of which had happened at various points. Sometimes more than once), but I could still come here and I’d just instantly feel at home. Waves of pure nerdy joy washed over me as I took in the sights of the walls lined with new issues and the shelves filling the back with volumes. Paul Kendrick, the owner, a tall and portly white man with a ponytail and a full beard, sat behind the register, while his nephew, whose name I’d never actually been able to learn, was taking inventory.

  “Hey, Eli,” Paul said, giving a broad smile and a personable upward nod.

  I returned the upward nod and greeting. “How’s it going?”

  “Oh, the usual,” Paul said. “How was graduation?”

  “Long and hot, and for some reason we couldn’t do it inside,” I snarked.

  “Heh. That is the way of it. It was the same at Sam’s graduation st year,” Paul said, gesturing to his nephew. I guess that was the guy’s name.

  Sam shared his uncle’s bulk but not as much of his height, coming up a few inches shy of my own five-foot-eleven. He was paler than should be possible at this time of year in southern California, with shaggy bck hair and an acne problem that rivaled my own. He wore a baggy bck and silver The Crow shirt and tan cargo shorts and white sneakers. He stood on a stepdder pulling overstocked books into a cardboard box beled ‘Bargain bin.’

  As usual, he looked supremely depressed. I dunno, I’d never really interacted much with the guy -- I’d tried talking to him a couple times, but he scoffed at my more conventional taste in superhero books and then walked away – he just always had this look in his eyes like… He wasn’t fully there. Or like he was trying with all his might not to be there. I gave him a half-hearted wave as I walked by, and to my shock, he returned it…

  … Only for the box to slip free of his grasp, and for his feet to slip free of the dder when he tried to grab it out of the air.

  I lunged forward and grabbed both before they hit the ground. Sam was a big guy, and the box was heavy, so it was less ‘catching them gracefully and heroically’ and more breaking their fall. It was a quick and painful trip to the ground for me, with a significant mass pinning me down, Sam’s face ridiculously close to mine. He blushed and then scrambled off of me hurriedly, putting both hands over his face in embarrassment before prying one free of his face and offering me a hand up. While still covering his face with the other hand.

  “Thanks,” I grunted.

  “Th-thank you. Feels more appropriate,” Sam choked out. “Are you alright?”

  “Gonna feel that tomorrow, honestly,” I said, rubbing the small of my back. He looked down, extra guilt exuding from his face. Shit, I’d made him feel self-conscious about his weight, hadn’t I? Dammit. “But I’ll be fine, seriously. Don’t worry about me.”

  “I just feel bad. You had to try to catch my fat ass and I wound up hurting you --”

  I forced out a weak ugh and put my hand on his shoulder. “Hey, don’t do that. You took a tumble. That’s all. There’s no point in me breaking your fall if you start beating yourself up right after, ya know?”

  He blushed again. I could feel the word ‘cute’ starting to bubble up in my mind, but I shoved it down. Didn’t feel like unpacking the implications of that just yet. Besides, I didn’t wanna make this poor guy any more uncomfortable than he already was. I just took my hand off his shoulder and repeated, “Seriously, I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

  “...Okay,” he said, somewhere between curt and shy. It was hard to tell, honestly. The guy didn’t say that much.

  “Well, I worry,” Paul said, leaning on the gss countertop while dabbing his sweaty forehead with a towel. He was breathing heavily, and there was a thin yer of wheeze to it, just under the surface.

  Sam’s face scrunched up with concern and fear. “Uncle Paul, maybe you should head home early. You look tired.”

  “I can’t just leave you here to close up on your own,” Paul insisted.

  “I’ll stay and help out,” I said.

  They both looked at me with surprise. Paul said, “Tonight is your graduation night, I can’t ask you to do that --”

  “You didn’t ask, I’m offering,” I said. “And I don’t mind. At all.” The desire to get back to the screaming match my family had no doubt devolved into wasn’t exactly overpowering. I could shoot my parents a text and they’d understand. They might not be the biggest fans of my lifelong hobby, but they always respected my desire to help out where I could.

  Paul drew in a slow, steady, wheezing breath, and said, “Alright, if that’s what the vox populi demands, I shall acquiesce. I’ll see you at home ter tonight, Sam.”

  Sam nodded, and his uncle departed. Leaving the two of us alone.

  I mustered a smile and said, “So. What’s first?”

  Sam gave me a list of overstocked items to pull from the shelves and put into the bargain bin, while he set about making sure everything was organized.

  “So, you reading anything good tely?” I asked, hoping to clear away some of the awkward silence that had quickly settled over the room. I was over at the manga shelf pulling spare volumes of One Piece into the box, while behind me, Sam was organizing and taking inventory on the Marvel shelf.

  “...Uh, a couple indies. Probably stuff you haven’t heard of,” Sam answered.

  “Why’s that?”

  “...Uh, because… Uh…”

  I snort-ughed. “Because I’m a stupid normie who only reads the Big Two?”

  He hesitated, then said, “I didn’t… I just assumed --”

  “You shouldn’t assume things about people, man,” I said, grinding my teeth slightly.

  “...I’m sorry,” he said.

  “It’s… It’s whatever. I’m used to it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “...Uh, well, when I was a kid my retives thought I was stupid or weird for reading comics. And then it was because my grades were crap. And then it was because I couldn’t hold down a job or get into college,” I said, eyes cast down. “And now I guess it’s because I still read comics even though I’m sort of a grown up.”

  “...I… I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” I said, going back to pulling manga tankobons.

  “No, I really… I’m pretty used to people assuming I’m dumb,” Sam said. I looked back and noticed he’d turned to face me, eyes still sad and downcast. “And I… You’re a really nice guy, and I basically called you an idiot. I’m sorry.”

  My smile turned a bit more genuine. I put the box down. “Dunno where you got the impression I’m a nice guy. We’ve barely ever talked to each other. But thank you. You seem pretty alright yourself.”

  “... I wish I was better.”

  I blinked. “In what regard?”

  “Uh… Everything, I guess.”

  “You’re gonna need to be a lot less vague,” I said with a raised eyebrow.

  “...I’m ugly and dumb and I have no future,” he said.

  I gaped. “Okay, first off, you’re not dumb.”

  “I couldn’t get into college.”

  “Neither could I.”

  “Which you said made you dumb.”

  “No, I said it makes people assume I’m dumb,” I said. “Also, it isn’t technically true -- I’m starting trade school in a few months.”

  “That’s more of a future than I have,” Sam said. “All I’ve got is this shop. And Uncle Paul.”

  “That’s plenty,” I said, waving a hand. “Also, you’re not ugly.”

  He ughed.

  “I mean it. You’re not ugly. I’m sure plenty of…” I paused, considering my words. I wasn’t actually sure where this guy’s desires ran. Then again, he’d blushed on physical contact with me, so I could take a guess. “...People find you attractive.”

  “...My boyfriend doesn’t.”

  I blinked again. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Oh. Uh, shit, I shouldn’t have said that. Yeah, I have a boyfriend --”

  “Not what I was surprised by. Your boyfriend doesn’t think you’re attractive?”

  Sam turned around and started taking inventory again. So I marched over and leaned against the wall. “Is he the reason you think you’re ugly?”

  “...”

  “Sam.”

  “...He says I’m ugly, yeah,” Sam said. “He says it a lot. Says sometimes that he’s too good for me.”

  “Then why are you with him?”

  “Because he’s the only one who wants to be with me.”

  “But you just said he doesn’t want to be with you.”

  “No, he does,” Sam said defensively. “He says so. He just also says mean things sometimes because he’s… He’s usually not like that.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said bnkly.

  “You don’t believe me.”

  “I just think…”

  “What?”

  “...That you should value yourself more,” I said, finally.

  He gulped. “I… I’m working on it.”

  I smiled. “Good. That’s the important part. What are you doing to work on it?”

  “...I don’t actually know yet.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Well, I can tell you one thing,” I said. I didn’t really have much leg to stand on when it came to offering people life advice, but I did know one thing for absolute certain. My father had instilled it into me since the day I was born, a simple but effective notion for figuring out what direction you needed to go in: “You need to be honest with yourself about what you want. Once you admit to and accept what will really make you happy, the path forward becomes a helluva lot clearer.”

  Now it was Sam’s turn to blink. “Just… Admit to it? That’s it?”

  “I mean, it’s an oversimplification, I know, but as first steps go, it’s a pretty easy and effective one to take.”

  He breathed in and out a heavy sigh, and when he’d finished expelling it, his posture straightened and his shoulders came un-slumped. “Huh.”

  “What?”

  “Just, uh, admitted something to myself. Just now.”

  “Oh, nice!” I said, offering up my hand for a high five.

  Slowly, awkwardly, reluctantly, he returned the high five in question. “Aren’t you gonna ask what it was?”

  “I mean, this is the longest conversation we’ve ever had; I feel like that’s your business, not mine,” I said, scratching the back of my head. “If you wanna tell me, I’ll listen, though.”

  A moment of silence passed before he closed his eyes and shook his head quietly.

  “Fair enough,” I said with a steady voice and a warm smile. This poor guy was really going through it… Hopefully he would start turning things around though.

  “We should probably get back to work,” Sam said suddenly.

  “Fair enough,” I repeated. “So, those indies you’re reading. What are they called?”

  He smiled again, and the word ‘cute’ floated up from my subconscious again, dangerous, uninvited, useless, and traitorous. I wasn’t into guys, and even if I was, this one had a boyfriend. Best to push it out of my mind.

  Sam started rambling about something called Love Eversting, which sounded interesting if also incredibly depressing, while we finished working. He was a passionate guy when you got him going about comics, which was something I very much identified with. And it was so the opposite of his usual withdrawn, sullen demeanor, it was difficult not to get caught up in the enthusiasm.

  As the sun finished setting and we flipped the ‘open’ sign over to ‘closed’, Sam looked antsy and eager to leave. But before he headed out the door he stopped and asked me, “Hey, wait! You didn’t get anything. The whole reason to come here was to get something, but I made you help me instead.”

  I shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. I got an experience, which is arguably worth more.”

  “Yeah, but… I want you to have gotten something else, too,” he said. “On the house.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, we can spare a book.”

  “Hmm… How about that one you were talking about?”

  “Really?” he said, his eyes lighting up again.

  “Yeah, totally.”

  He ran forward and grabbed a copy of the first volume, and put it into my hands. “Come back soon?”

  “Absolutely,” I nodded. “You know me. I’m here every month.”

  “Cool,” he smiled again. “Well, I’ll see you around.”

  And with that, we parted ways. I called an Uber and got home intact, finding my parents already asleep. Presumably they’d both had their fill of beer and wine at the pizza pce and had been able to call it an early one as a result.

  So, with only myself for company, I sat down on my bed and pulled out the book I’d been recommended.

  I opened to the first page, and a new journey awaited me.

  Felt appropriate.

  Samantha

  ‘Be honest about what you want.’ It echoed over and over again in my head, a steady drumbeat that accompanied me home. Uncle Paul was already asleep in bed, his evening medication washed down with alcohol. Wish he’d stop doing that. But he was an adult; I couldn’t force him to do anything. I couldn’t force someone to make changes in their life when I wasn’t making any myself.

  But… I’d admitted it. What I wanted. What I needed. Now all I had to do was take the next step. And maybe once I did… I could get Uncle Paul to start taking his health more seriously. After all, I would have to do that myself if I was gonna do this.

  I lumbered into the bathroom and scowled at my reflection. Wes always told me I had a face for radio, and he wasn’t wrong: I was an ugly, fat, misshapen, fat, hideous lump of man. Who was fat.

  Well. I knew what I wanted. Time to start making changes.

  Maybe then Wes would start being nice to me again.

  I started by shaving my face, scowling as each zit I ran over with the razor burst with blood, then washed my face thoroughly afterwards. I’d need to start researching a skincare routine if I was serious about this -- makeup would help, but it also took a while to learn, and I didn’t have anyone to learn it from but the Internet.

  Next came my arms and chest, a hideous forest of bristly bck fuzz I spent thirty minutes hacking through. Then came my legs, an even more difficult endeavor. I was pretty sure I would need to pour some Drano down the spout after this. Last came my groin, though I went a little easier on it then the rest of it. Girls had pubic hair too, after all.

  It took hours. Literal hours. And literal bloodshed was involved. But when it was over… I felt good. REALLY GOOD. My mind was humming with a symphony of joy and relief, my heart abze with unbridled enthusiasm.

  I went to my room and started typing relevant questions into my search engine: endocrinologists near me who took MediCal, resources for trans people, trans friendly salons and clothing stores, that kind of thing.

  One other question loomed in my search engine, waiting for me to hit the button and find answers I was utterly terrified of: ‘Is my partner abusive?’ I stared at the screen, sitting atop my unmade bed for hours. Outside, dawn broke and the first shards of golden-red light trickled in between the closed blinds of my window, revealing the disparate contents of my messy bedroom: baggy clothes strewn about across the blue carpeted floor, my sketches of ssher movie vilins and unicorns and ssher movie vilins jousting each other while riding unicorns taped to the walls, a poorly organized shelf of horror comics and romance manga shoved into the corner by my closet, and several waste baskets filled with used paper towels and empty bottles of lotion.

  It was a mess. And it was my mess. So I had to be the one to clean it up.

  And I had to be the one to tell people I was cleaning it up.

  Part of me wished I had told Eli, but I barely knew the guy, and he’d flinched when I’d told him I had a boyfriend, so I wasn’t really sure how he’d react. Still… He seemed nice. If nothing else, it would be nice to have a friend.

  “Morning,” Uncle Paul said, looming in my doorward, hunched over and haggard.

  “Hey,” I said, “What are you doing up?”

  “Woke up and couldn’t fall back to sleep,” he shrugged. “Want breakfast? I can make bacon and hash browns.”

  “A-are you sure you should be having that? You know, with your heart --”

  “Don’t worry about me, it’s fine,” he said with a weak smile and a wave of his hand. “My ticker is as strong as an ox.”

  I breathed out inaudibly. He always did this. “If you say so.”

  “I do indeed say so,” he said, looking chipper and lively as ever.

  He turned around.

  “Hey, uh, Uncle Paul?” I said, closing my eyes tightly.

  “What’s up?” he said, turning back around.

  I opened my eyes ever so slightly. “I’m trans.”

  He blinked. “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you’re a --”

  “I’m a girl, yeah,” I said. Saying it out loud was… a lot different than saying it in my head. Suddenly it was out there in the world, information that would disseminate and take hold, an irrefutable reality that I had acknowledged and allowed to be known by others.

  I was committed now. More so than I’d been before.

  And it felt…

  AMAZING. Like Ats’ burden had suddenly been pulled from my shoulders; like Tantalus finally getting that damn apple; like Sisphysus had finally gotten to the top of the fucking hill with his fucking boulder; like Tiresias… Okay, bad example, but whatever. It felt really, really, REALLY GOOD, okay? That’s the general vibe.

  That was when I realized Uncle Paul was still standing there, blinking rapidly, silent and otherwise stationary.

  “Please say something,” I said.

  “What… What would you like to be called?” he said, slowly, carefully, like he was chewing on each sylble.

  “...I haven’t really thought about that,” I said, looking down at the mess of sheets and bnkets atop my floor-mattress. “I guess… Sam is good. Short for Samantha, though.” Hearing the name ‘Samantha’ aloud did something for me, sending a warm rush of bliss from my brain down through the rest of my body. “Actually, I think I’d prefer Samantha.” Hearing it again, and getting another rush of unadulterated happiness.

  “Then Samantha it is,” Uncle Paul said.

  “Y-you’re not mad?” I said, leaning forward, exhaling a sigh of pure relief.

  “How could I be mad? I have a beautiful niece.”

  I offered a bitter ugh. “‘Beautiful’ is a strong word.”

  “Hey, what I’ve said about that negative self-talk, young dy?”

  Another ugh, this one considerably less bitter. “Right, right.”

  “How long have you known?” he asked, stepping inside my room, sitting down at the end of my bed.

  “A few years,” I said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ears. “I was kinda just keeping it bottled up.

  “Now that’s just unhealthy.”

  “Lots of things I do are unhealthy,” I said, poking my own fat, bulging gut. Uncle Paul grabbed my hand and pulled it away.

  “Bad,” he said.

  “...Fine. But I’m gonna make some changes, and not just the whole ‘being a girl’ thing. I want to start being healthier as well. Even if I don’t manage to lose as much weight as I’d like, eating less processed crap and refined sugar will probably help with my skin.”

  “Okay, fair enough,” Uncle Paul said. “Want me to make you a doctor’s appointment for you?”

  “Yes, please,” I smiled. “Also, I love you, Uncle Paul. Have I mentioned that tely?”

  “Yes, but I don’t mind hearing it more often,” he chuckled. “I have to ask, though: what gave you the final push?”

  I smiled weakly. “Eli.”

  “Really? Eli?”

  “Yeah, he’s… Well, he’s really nice and cool and he just told me that if I’m not happy I need to start being honest about what I want, and… Well, he made it seem really simple. So I decided to start being honest.”

  “Good,” Uncle Paul said, pulling me in for a hug. I happily embraced the man who’d been more of a father to me than my worthless excuse for a dad ever had, infinitely grateful for his pce in my life. “Why don’t you take the day off work. Things have been slow tely --”

  “Don’t remind me,” I grimaced.

  “-- And you’ve probably got all sorts of things you want to do,” Uncle Paul said. “But first, breakfast. Bacon and hash browns?”

  “...Not this time, no. I think I’ll just have some toast and some fruit.”

  Uncle Paul shrugged. “Well, more for me.”

  He got up and made way for the kitchen before I could say that that was exactly what worried me.