by Sin Ribbon
◊ ◊ ◊
At a lonely table inside Starbucks, Riya sits with her phone and laptop charging from a nearby outlet. Her fingers speed across her laptop’s keyboard, entering words into a digital journal while steam billows from the paper cup beside her. Three tarot cards lay spread on the table and next to them, a half-eaten bagel. As she types, the clamor of the shop grows louder. Her brow furrows, as if deeper concentration will keep the sound at bay. Before long, the volume is so intrusive that she puts in a pair of earbuds to drown out the noise.
The pulsating drones of Fever Ray do little to deafen the voices of the people in the shop. Riya takes a long view of the humble establishment: the same number of patrons, no one causing a scene, no blasting speakers, yet somehow the number of voices has increased substantially. Perplexed, Riya removes her headphones. More voices join the chatter, and within moments, the dark-haired woman cannot find her own thoughts amongst the invasive chaos. She packs up her things and hurries out the door, her tea still steaming on the table.
Outside, the noise remains unchanged—a constant stream of voices echoing all around her. Riya throws her hands over her ears, but impossibly, the volume is unaffected. She whips around, stumbling in circles as she seeks out a source or explanation. No one else appears to notice the thundering sounds reverberating through the air.
“Shit, I left the laundry in the washer.”
“... can’t believe she’s still talking to that asshole.”
“... dog is so cute!”
“Did they pour me decaf?”
Dozens more voices add to the inaudible mass with nothing to indicate their origin. Frenzied, Riya picks a random direction and races down the block, hoping to escape the range of the mounting chatter. The train of voices fluctuates but follows her no matter how far she goes. Never has the sound of simple conversation overwhelmed her senses.
Several blocks pass. The auditory congestion continues to swarm around her with no end in sight. Exhausted, her pace slows by the Museum of Modern Art. She stops from a coughing fit and attempts to regain her breath. Despite the unyielding noise, her stamina is gone. She stands dazed on the sidewalk, heaving and massaging her temples.
“Wow, that girl is absolutely lovely.”
The sudden British accent catches her by surprise. Amongst all the voices, this one stands out clearer than the rest. As soon as she hears it, the chatter begins to die down. She breathes a heavy sigh of relief as the usual commotion of New York becomes a quiet replacement.
Looking upward, she finds the origin of the British voice. A lean, brown-haired man stands by the entrance to the museum. He stares at her tentatively, his face flushing when she meets his gaze. Behind him, a taller, muscular, blond Brit rolls his eyes and nudges his shorter counterpart who stumbles and whips back in aggravation.
Riya giggles at their argumentative exchange, her heartrate mercifully calming. Their voices steadily raise in volume as she watches them. Incredibly, the words Riya hears do not match the ones leaving their mouths.
“He’s never going to get a girlfriend if he doesn’t learn how to talk to women.” The deep voice of a smooth-talker, dry and sardonic. The blond?
“Why does he always have to treat me like a bloody child?!” Obviously the brunet. His voice is brighter, spry, and earnest.
The two continue their squabble. Riya gapes, amazed that she can hear them so clearly when they stand a good thirty feet away. She breaks her gaze away and their voices recede to their proper distance.
Deciding to test the scenario, she switches her attention to a female couple across the street. As she focuses on them, their voices become audible as well. Their discussion is inane—sightseeing and tourist attractions—but Riya remains astonished she can hear them at all. They laugh and share a kiss, and Riya smiles on impulse.
“... probably just head west?” The spritely British voice captures her attention again, and Riya whips back to the pair. As the two converse, she attempts to tune back to their conversation, but a sudden beep from her phone snaps Riya from her focus. She’s almost relieved by the chime of normalcy.
“Follow your heart! The wrong train could be the right one. ;)”
Riya chuckles as she types her reply, “You’re a good friend, Cass.”
She looks up to see the British duo have gone. Thankfully, the intrusive voices have ceased for the time being. She turns back for the bus station, hoping the reprieve lingers.
◊ ◊ ◊
At the Greyhound station, Riya reviews her westward options, which is most of the United States. She gulps as she reviews the list of cities across multiple television screens, intimidated by the plethora of choices. Her eyes trace over the options repeatedly but keep being drawn back to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. She stares at the glowing words, feeling a nostalgic sensation welling within her.
She bites her lip, flustered. “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe ...” Her finger bounces back and forth between the two.
“Are you ... heading to Pittsburgh?” a familiar British voice asks.
Riya spins to find the brown-haired young man from earlier standing behind her.
“Sorry!” he blurts out. “I just saw you pointing at that sign and thought we might be heading in the same direction.”
The raven-haired woman lifts an inquisitive eyebrow. “Is that what counts for pickup lines these days?”
He blushes with an immediate retreat. “Forget I said anything!”
The taller blond, who stands several feet behind his younger counterpart, slaps an exasperated hand over his face. Getting a proper look at both of them, Riya assumes they’re brothers judging by their similar features.
She laughs. “I was thinking about it actually. Is that where you two are heading?”
“Oh, um, yeah.” The younger Brit approaches tentatively, complexion returning to a normal shade. “I noticed you earlier outside MOMA, so I thought it a funny coincidence.”
Riya smirks. “Yeah, I noticed you too.”
A bright smile crests his lips faster than he can hide his enthusiasm.
She snickers and extends her hand. “I’m Riya.”
“Sebastian.” They exchange a friendly handshake while the poor Brit struggles to mask his excitement. His blue eyes captivate her as much as his sincerity. “So,” he continues, “don’t know where you’re heading then?”
Riya shifts her attention back to the television screen. She reaches a hand into her messenger bag and fumbles for her tarot deck, pulling out a single card: Two of Cups. She blanks with surprise, incredulous yet intrigued by the card’s romantic implications.
“Joining with another, huh?” she muses before turning around to face the brown-haired Brit. “Looks like it’s Pittsburgh.”
~ EIGHT ~
Madison
“Young lady.” The terse interruption comes in harsh contrast to the tranquil chorus of birds and swaying trees. “Young lady, you can’t sleep here.”
Hazel eyes open to a middle-aged police officer with a firm gaze and folded arms. His presence casts a hard shadow over the youth.
“I’m not a lady,” the boy corrects. He pushes himself upright on the park bench and rubs his eyes.
“You can’t be sleeping in the park. You need to move along.”
The boy scoffs. “Yeah, I’m moving.” He knows there’s no chance for negotiation from the officer’s stern tone. Hoisting his backpack onto his shoulders, he starts walking.
It’s a grey morning at the historic Schenley Park. The spring grass glows with morning dew against the fog. Numerous trees litter the landscape, their branches waving good-bye to the youth as he passes by them. He pauses at a hilltop view of the Pittsburgh skyline in the distance. In a flash of contempt, his eyes narrow before he treks on.
Slender in build and sporting short, messy brown hair, the teen’s nipping at the heels of adulthood. He conceals his feminine shape underneath an oversized red hoodie and blue jeans. The days without a proper shower have oiled his pale
skin and wavy hair, but the grime can’t hide his elegant features: an angular jaw accentuated by a slender neck.
His demeanor has become weathered from a lack of empathetic ears, burying the wonder of his benevolent, imaginative personality. Despite his present confusion and uncertainty, a light within him flickers with the courage to keep moving. He was given and chooses the name Madison.
As he nears the end of the cement pathway leading out of the park, he pulls his cell phone out of his back pocket and flips it open. Dead. Madison groans.
◊ ◊ ◊
The youth slumps against a brick wall on one of Pittsburgh’s trendy market streets, taking refuge beside a serendipitous power outlet. Shops line the sidewalk, but fewer patrons are out today with the clouds hinting at encroaching rain. Despite the threat of bad weather, the local coffee shop next door has a reliable stream of caffeine addicts eager to get their fix.
Madison struggles to keep his eyes open. He clings to his backpack and yawns, watching the power bar blink on his phone. As his eyelids droop from the weight of fatigue, he’s suddenly greeted by a wet tongue on his cheek.
“Wagh!” He shoots upright and whips to the intruder: a brown shepherd-mix, panting with a big grin on his face. He barks playfully and wags his tail.
Bemused, Madison notices that he has a collar with a leash attached but no owner in sight. The youth climbs to his feet and scans the area, but the enthusiastic pup sees this as a sign that the game has begun. He leaps into the air and barks, then prances in a circle.
“Whoa there! Down, boy!” Madison offers a friendly hand, and the pup licks it with eager affection. The boy laughs, a genuine smile finally cresting his face. “Sit?” He suggests more than commands, unsure if the dog will obey. To Madison’s shock, he plops his butt on the sidewalk.
The youth takes the opportunity to fumble for the mutt’s collar, searching for a name or contact information. He finds a metal, bone-shaped charm reading Sirius.
“Sirius, you little shit! Get back here!”
Madison darts to the unfamiliar voice. A tall, androgynous redhead bounds down the sidewalk towards him and his newfound companion. Skidding to a stop, she clutches her knees and pants to catch her breath.
“Sorry about that! He was being sneaky. Strategically planned his escape when I was picking up his poo.” She huffs and snatches the dog’s leash.
“Oh, no worries. He’s a sweetheart. Very well-behaved,” Madison affirms, scratching behind the pup’s ears.
The redhead tilts her head, skeptical. “Really? He’s usually skittish with strangers, but ... that does seem to have changed recently.” She shakes her head, conceding to some frustration unknown to the teen. “I’m Orion by the way, and this is my boy Sirius.”
“Madison,” he replies. Sirius lunges forward and gives the boy another lick.
“Man, he really likes you!” Orion beams, a perfect reflection of her elated pup. “How about I buy you a coffee for keeping him company?”
“Oh, um ...” Madison stammers, caught off guard by the sudden kind offer. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Hey, it’s no problem,” she insists. “Just hold his leash for me while I grab you one. Latte okay?”
“Um, sure.” Sheepish, Madison accepts Sirius’ lead as Orion darts into the café.
◊ ◊ ◊
The clouds have broken to reveal warming rays of light as the sun rises towards noon. Madison and Orion lean against the coffee shop’s stone wall, sipping coffee from paper cups. The teenager can’t help but eye the unique woman. The boisterous redhead has about four inches on him, just shy of six feet he imagines. She wears a lacey pink top in stark contrast to a pair of camouflaged cargo pants. Her ears are decorated with silver twigs dotting along each lobe. Sirius sits by his master’s side, tongue flapping with his breath as he observes their surroundings.
“Wow, surprisingly good,” Madison comments after a sip.
“Oh yeah, the coffee in this neighborhood is the best. Where do you normally go?”
“Oh, well ... this is my first cup actually. I’m, um ... seventeen,” he grumbles with hushed embarrassment.
“Ooh,” Orion teases. “I would’ve guessed older, like twenty. You have mature features.”
Madison shrinks. “Thanks.”
“But wait, shouldn’t you be in school?”
The teen shifts and averts his gaze downward. “Um, yeah. I kinda ... ran away.”
Orion chokes on her coffee and pounds her chest to clear her throat. Madison watches with concerned wonder, but after a few coughs, she descends on him with interrogating eyes. “Whoa, okay. What’s going on here, girl?”
He frowns, looking away. “I’m not a girl.”
She lifts an eyebrow, confused by Madison’s feminine voice and the small breasts hiding beneath his hoodie. When he notices her staring, he crosses his arms over his chest, making the reason apparent.
“Ooh ...” Orion hisses an inhale, embarrassed by her faux pas. “Sorry.”
Madison sighs, relenting. “It’s okay. I’m pre-op, so it’s not like I can blame you. Was finally reaching legal adulthood and thought I could be put on T, but the caregivers did not take the news well.”
Orion softens. The youth rubs at his watering eyes, his nose reddening. He chokes back his sadness behind a wall of gritted teeth. To his surprise, a comforting hand finds his shoulder. He looks up to find empathetic eyes and a humble smile.
The wall breaks into a flow of tears as Orion pulls him into her embrace. “I’m sorry!” he chokes between sobs. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.” But he knows in his heart there’s no other way to receive the first friendly ear given to him.
Sirius whines and licks at one of Madison’s hands. Orion rubs the back of his head like a concerned older sister. “Hey, it’s okay. I don’t mind.”
After a moment of release, Madison sniffs back his sobs. He takes a deep breath to regain composure. “Thank you ...” he whimpers.
Orion smiles. “No problem. Wanna get some ice cream and tell me about it?”
“I don’t think sweets are gonna solve my problem.”
“C’mon, I thought all kids liked ice cream!” She winks.
A tiny smirk breaks through his pouting expression. “Chocolate then.”
◊ ◊ ◊
Madison licks at a heaping scoop of chocolate ice cream on a sugar cone. He and Orion sit outside on metal patio furniture with a yawning Sirius plopped beside them. An awning stretches overhead, jutting out from a quaint ice cream parlor on the outskirts of downtown.
“I mean, I can sorta relate,” Orion answers. She readies a bite of sundae on her plastic spoon. “When I was a kid, I thought people grew up and married who they wanted, that all relationships were about love. I didn’t understand there’s actually this thing called sexuality, and most people are only attracted to one sex.”
Madison responds between bites of chocolate. “Yeah, I’m that way too, though I prefer girls.”
Orion feigns a sultry gaze. “Ooh, better watch myself.”
The teen gags and nearly drops his cone. The redhead bursts into a roar of laughter. “Chill, man. Just trying to lighten the mood.”
Madison tries not to laugh as he downs most of his water. Despite his embarrassed frustration, Orion’s irreverence is too infectious.
“I get the body thing though. Well, sorta. I don’t wanna downplay what you’re going through,” she adds.
Madison perks up. “You do kinda stand out. Are you genderqueer? Nonbinary?”
“Hell if I know.” The redhead gulps down a lump of banana slathered in chocolate syrup. “What’s the point of dissecting it? Everyone’s trying too damn hard to stick to a story, to match the way a label defines them. I think identity is about the way you choose to live.”
Madison lifts his brow, intrigued by Orion’s simplistic outlook. “So you don’t care about pronouns or anything?”
“He, she, they. Who cares?” The redhead shr
ugs. Madison pauses, considering her viewpoint.
“If you don’t mind my asking though ...” Orion pokes what’s left of her sundae with her spoon, surreptitiously eyeing the teen. “I mean, I don’t want pry too much.”
Too much? Madison offers an awkward but reassuring smile. “It’s okay. Go ahead.”
“Well, caregivers? I was just curious about that.”
“Oh ... yeah.” The teen slumps between his shoulders. “Foster parents.”
The redhead stiffens. “Oh.”
“Yeah ... Never really fit in anywhere, not even with a family.”
Orion lowers her gaze, remorseful. “I get that. There’s only one person in the world I consider family, and we’re not even related.”
The teen raises an eyebrow. “Girlfriend? Boyfriend?”
“No, no. Spiritual brother,” she chuckles. “He’s a brooding introvert, and I’m the party that never stops ... but he’s generous. He rescued me, and I paid it forward by rescuing this little terror.” She scratches Sirius’ head, and the dog falls back against her chair, flapping his leg in ecstasy. “What’s left of my family isn’t worthy of the name, so I made my own.”
A pensive Madison stares at his melting ice cream. “And you think I could do that?”
“I’m just saying ... even if you weren’t dealt a good hand from the start, you can change it. Your family’s out there.”
“I don’t know if I believe you.” He watches the ice cream ooze down the side of the cone. “But I want to.”
Orion smiles and hands him a napkin. “It beats accepting the alternative, doesn’t it? And hey, we met today.”
He wraps the napkin around his cone. “That’s true. I just ... can’t get their screaming voices out of my head. All the things they said to me. I keep replaying it and imagining saying something else, standing up for myself this time.” Madison sulks and turns his attention to the street’s activities, the people and their goings. He notices the happy faces oblivious to the war raging in his heart, but as Orion’s words sink in, he begins to wonder about the wars also raging in theirs.