Taking the Leap

Chapter 13

~Achilles~

"Hey, Sunshine." I said, when I picked Sunny up from band practice. She clobbered into the back seat with her trumpet case and strapped in noisily. "Everything alright?"

She kissed her teeth, something I didn't really hear her do very often. "I don't know, Lee. Is everything alright? We're just spinning on a rock in the middle of a galaxy. No. Everything is not alright."

I started driving towards a Dairy Queen since I knew Sunny could use a sweet treat. It was nearing November and the local Dairy Queens were normally closing around this time of year.

Sunny was pursing her lips and glaring at the window.

I looked at her through my rearview mirror. "Should I even ask?"

"I want to cut my hair." Sunny started. "And start wearing flannel. Maybe then my parents will finally realize I'm a lesbian."

Sunny's home situation had been somewhat chaotic since she came out. She talked about how when she went back home her parents had just pretended nothing had happened, and given her an extra rosary so she could pray on it. Sunny's Filipino mom and step dad could be pretty religious. Sunny told me how they just pretended not to hear her when she came out. The next time she came home her mom made lumpia, pancit, and chicken adobo with white rice. Sunny's confession hadn't been mentioned.

I drove into the parking lot of Dairy Queen and  we moved past the drive through where I yelled our orders into the little machine. We crawled along in the pick up line and my heart started beating hard and painfully against my chest. I opened my mouth but it felt so dry. Shit, I should've brought a water bottle.

"Lee." Sunny looked at me through the rearview mirror. "You can go."

I looked up at the line seeing the wide gap between me and the next car. "Oh. Yeah. Right." I drove up to the pick up counter, got our stuff and handed it over to Sunny. She immediately set up her fries and burgers on her lap and, putting her blizzard in the cupholder without completely missing.

Sunny had lost her eye as a child due to severe macular degeneration and partially because a serious infection had set in. The eye hadn't survived but Sunny compensated with a bit of intuition, her nose, ears and by swivelling her head more than a normal person would. Because she'd lost the eye so young it hadn't affected her confidence too much.

"Lee!" Sunny said loudly through chewing on her fries. "You're coming to my Winter Wonderland recital, right? We're playing Tchaikovsky's ballets, you should invite Xander, too. I have solos in almost all our songs."

"Wow, solos, Sunny? That's great." I'd gone to every one of Sunny's performances, sometimes taking off work. Her parents went to about one performance a year, so I had to make sure I went to all of them. I didn't know a lot about music but I knew Sunny was seriously great at her instrument. I felt bad sometimes that I couldn't read sheet music and I didn't know much, if any, musical lingo. But , I tried to support her the best I could.

"Yeah. I beat out Justin, Anya, and Daniel. They were good, but I was better." She made eye contact with me through the rear view mirror. "Can I go to your place? I'm tired of my parents looking at me like they wish I could've turned out like kuya."

Xander was currently at my place. We were trying to make Thursday date night and we were planning on having an evening in. Not exactly Netflix and chill but close enough. "Sure." I said, unsure how to explain that to Sunny.