Indexing: Reflections (Kindle Serials) (Indexing Series Book 2) Read Free Page B

male: that it was his body, not his brain, which was in error. “Gerry was experiencing severe emotional distress in both our home and school lives. At home, he had to wear dresses and play with dolls, even when he was begging to be allowed to wear jeans and climb trees. At school, he was being called by a female name constantly, by both teachers and students. When we both adopted a male nickname, people just thought the Briggs twins were being weird again. They tolerated our weirdness better when we did it in unison.”
    “You didn’t experience emotional distress over being called by a boy’s name?”
    “No. Why would I? I was born female, I grew up female, everything around me was constantly approving of and reaffirming my gender, even if it was in tiny ways. I got to use the right bathrooms. I got to line up with other girls. On our birthday, I got dolls and teddy bears and toys that said ‘you are a girl.’ Even if I didn’t want them, they affirmed my gender identity. A name couldn’t take that away from me. Gerry didn’t get any of those things. He got the whole world telling him, every day, that his idea of who he was wasn’t right. I got the opposite of emotional distress. I got to know that me having a boy’s name meant my brother didn’t have a girl’s name. He got one thing, and I helped to make that possible.”
    “I see.” Ciara made a note. “Did you feel betrayed when he escaped your story? When the narrative started seeing him as male, and turned all its attention on you?”
    “No,” I said.
    Ciara tilted her head, seemingly waiting for me to continue. When I didn’t say anything, she made a note on her pad and said, “There are people in Human Resources who are concerned that your recent activation will lead you to sympathize with other actives over those who have been averted or do not appear on the spectrum, even as you showed more sympathy for your brother than for the other students in your class who may have been made uncomfortable by having a little girl insist she was actually a little boy. How do you respond? Can you be sure you won’t favor your own kind over the nonactivated?”
    I stared at her. Literally stared, my mouth hanging slightly open as I tried to process what she’d just said. I took a breath to respond, and stopped. There was nothing I could say that wouldn’t get me into trouble. Better for me to keep my mouth shut.
    There was something about this Ciara woman that put my teeth on edge. It wasn’t the questions she was asking, oddly—I was willing to bet those had come from somewhere up the chain of command, and she was at least trying to ask them with empathy and compassion. They were horrible questions. They made me want to punch whoever’d written them. This woman didn’t write them: she was just doing her job. No, it was something about her hair, something I should be seeing, but wasn’t.
    Then she tilted her head, and I finally saw.
    “Blue roots,” I said. “Are you a one-three-eight dash-one, or a three-twelve?”
    And Ciara smiled. “What do you think?”
    “You can walk, you can talk, and you’re wearing a shirt you stole from Captain Hook. I’m betting three-twelve. Averted or abeyance?”
    “Abeyance,” Ciara said. “I’m happily married to my Bluebeard. He said ‘don’t go in that room and I’ll give you whatever you want,’ and I took him up on it. He loves me.”
    “He’s a murderer.” I didn’t know why I felt compelled to point that out: I just did, like there was a chance that she wouldn’t know.
    “I’m his first wife,” she said. “I may have triggered his story when I agreed to marry him. As long as I never use this,” she fingered the key around her neck, “he never starts killing. Can we really punish people for what they might do?”
    I looked at her, and slowly, I smiled.
    # # #
    “Here.” Andy pushed the coffee into my hand as I joined him in the viewing area. I shot him a sidelong look. He shrugged.