The Simplicity of Being Normal

“It’s not like I want to be anything that great or special. I don’t want to be a superhero or a rock star. I want to be a complete person. A normal person… I just want to be free."

Sam has his life figured out – at least his life after graduation. Until then he has to deal with peers trying to bash his head in just for being Sam (rather than the Amanda to whom they’ve grown accustomed). His pleas for help have been ignored by the principal and most of the staff. His persecutors are still given free rein to terrorize him, so he’s given up disclosing his gender identity to anyone else. Sam’s time is spent moving quickly between classrooms never left unattended and anticipating the freedom that will come with leaving high school behind forever.
 
When one attack leaves him unconscious and bleeding, his instinct upon waking is to find a safe place – his favorite safe place – Mr. Keegan’s classroom.
 
From Todd Keegan’s perspective, the strange interaction that follows leaves him wondering if Amanda is on drugs and if he's underestimated her maturity. Between enabling his traumatized, dependent sister and hiding secrets of his own, Todd has no desire to waste time on a junkie teenager, let alone allow her to attend the AP History trip to Washington, DC.

 In order to survive the remainder of senior year, Sam will have to convince his only ally that he’s not under the influence and decide if, unlike the rest of his family and school staff, Mr. Keegan can be trusted with the truth.

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Excerpt one - Chapter 2
POV: todd Keegan

What he wanted to do was lecture—it was one of his favorite things. To be the focal point and hold all the aces. Before deciding on teaching, he’d considered pushing this narcissistic propensity into performing of some kind. But audiences came and went. Fads shifted. If he was lucky enough to achieve popularity, he’d fall out of it. But what never changed was the endless parade of teenagers filling twenty-five desks six times a day. And while a captivated audience was ideal, a captive one was also gratifying.

It was the perfect job, and he got most of what he needed from it. He liked history and enjoyed sharing what he knew even though few, if any, of the little idiots grasped the finer nuances of the subject. Their brains were too saturated with designer clothes, boy bands, Japanese animation, and whatever else they were into. The neural pathways for drawing patterns and deriving pleasure from dates, facts, and historical figures had been eroded with cheeseburgers.

However, there was a more important knowledge that he found easier to impart. Based on his disinterest and his refusal to negotiate or empathize, he could coax a vital life lesson to grow in the shamrock shake mush of the teenage brain.

You aren’t entitled to anyone else’s understanding or sympathy. When you’re microwaving burgers at McDonald’s, your boss won’t give a shit if you’re sleepy or if your hamster died. Outside the high school doors, there’s no more “cut poor little Snoochie a break.” Fuck little Snoochie. That’s the most valuable thing I could teach you.

Excerpt Two - Chapter 18
POV: Julie Keegan

The sound of the door closing behind her. The lock sliding. The footsteps. And when she turned to the doorway of her kitchen, there he was. She dropped the phone.

A sudden coldness hit Julie’s core. Like someone had punched a syringe into her chest and pushed units of liquid nitrogen into her heart. She imagined the organ freezing, swathes of smoky frost curling from the solid rock.

He had the intimidating build of a linebacker. He was older than her, but not old enough to have lost the power he appeared capable of. Unlike how she’d pictured a home invader, his face had been uncovered. And there was no indication on it that he was anything other than a normal man. A normal man who stumbled into the wrong house? Sure. That was it. The houses looked similar.

Yeah, buddy. You’re in the wrong house. Just go. It’s all good. She struggled to lift the corners of her mouth.

But upon realizing one had accidently entered the wrong house, one wouldn’t set down one’s large duffel bag as if preparing to stay. One wouldn’t step closer. One wouldn’t smile.

“Julia.” The stranger said. “I didn’t think you’d be home for hours. Did you know I’d be here?”

She hadn’t known what to say. Her mind was as calcified as the rest of her. He recognized her. He was there for her.

excerpt Three - Chapter 7
pov: Sam Porter

Sam imagined standing with Scarlet in a grocery store checkout after he’d been on testosterone a few months. She’d address him as Amanda and call him her daughter.

And the cashier will look at you like you’re nuts, Mom. Like you’ve been smoking crack. You care so much what everyone else thinks. What will they think then? That you’re a fucking tweaker.

Sam squirted some gel into his palm and ran it through his hair. Thinking of the perplexed look on the fictional cashier’s face filled him with confidence. Yes, the tables would turn. Instead of the public having to find the boy, they’d have to hunt for a glimmer of the girl. She’d disappear like the phantom she was, and Scarlet could do nothing but look like a fool in insisting he was anything but a normal young man.

When I change my name, you’ll have a conniption. And when I tell you it’s Sam, you’ll erupt.

The careful selection of his name had been explained multiple, agonizing times. It was in honor of his family, particularly Scarlet, that he’d been named. “Amanda” was a traditional family name on Scarlet’s side. For generations, the girls in his mother’s line had carried “Amanda” as either a first or middle name.

“I had three miscarriages before you, and we were sure you’d be it. We named you after both of us. Amanda, for me. But we also had to get your jackass father in there.”

That’s how it’d come to be. Amanda Michelle: the name meant to define him for the rest of his life was an amalgamation of his parents’ vanity. A mobile monument to them. But that’s all he’d ever been. An expensive bauble. A miniature dog in a zebra-striped fucking bag.