Jerk of Hearts, Queen of Spades

________________________________Chapter 5

Though he was no longer angry or drastically horrified, Reggie spoke to Midge very little the rest of the week. They had left things mostly amicably, though he knew she had the impression that he honestly disliked her. Fact of the matter was, Reggie was unsure how to approach her or behave around her. No amount of reassuring himself that she was the same person helped. Every conversation they had felt forced, plastic. Going over them again in his mind, he saw they were normal, everyday babblings of two stupid teenagers, but they still felt uncomfortable in the moment. He cursed himself for making this into such a big deal. It was, but he felt he was only exacerbating it by dwelling.

Friday came around, and school had let out. For some reason, he was surprised and disappointed to find Midge wasn't by his car. It had been a week since he'd made his discovery, and part of him had been waiting for her to acknowledge this. Where was she? Maybe she was making up with Moose as they spoke. It was hard to quash the image of him fondling her in more areas than usual when they reconciled. What would he do if he felt a little too much? Moose had no problem beating the stuffing out of any guy in school - and Midge was a guy. Would the rules still hold if he found out his girlfriend wasn't as girly as he thought?

Reggie drove past Pop's, and went to the movie theater and the bowling alley. No sign of anybody. Where else was there to go in Riverdale? At a loss, he went to the mall and began wandering around from store to store, mostly window shopping. He found something in one of the lower-end jewelry stores that caught his eye (and was within his price range). All sense of reasoning left him, and he bought it. A while later, lo and behold, he ran into Midge in the food court, slumped down behind a plate of fried rice and sweet-and-sour chicken. Reggie debated a moment, then decided to get her back for what she did to him at lunch.

"How's it hangin'?"

When she looked up at him, her eyes were bloodshot and bleary, and all sense of humor left. Sniffing as she wiped at her nose with a napkin, she muttered, "Hi, Reggie."

"You don't look so hot." Hesitantly, he slid into a seat next to her. "What happened?"

"Do you really care, Reggie? Or are you just here to talk about what size condoms I have to use?"

"No, I care! But, um... if you say XXL's, I'll shoot myself." He did get a quiet snort of ill-disguised humor out of her before she cried anew, burying her face in her napkin. She tried to tell him something, but none of it was clear enough for him to get it. "Easy now, let it all out," he muttered as he patted her on the back gently. It did make his skin crawl slightly despite his knowledge that there was nothing strange for him to find on her back besides a bra strap.

"M-my dad," she half-whispered. "He can't... he's not going to be able to let me come stay over the summer with him. B-because of his new wife. All he needed was to start up a n-new family so he could forget about the old one!"

"Whoa, are you serious?" Reggie squirmed. A little voice in the back of his head said, "Or it might be because his son turned into a daughter," but he told it to put a sock in it. "That's messed up."

"You know," she began, pausing to slurp absentmindedly at her soda, "I really thought we had connected, that- that he had accepted me, and that now we were st- starting to be a family, even with the divorce. But he only ever has time for a quick little phone call now that SHE has him wound around her little finger! And that stupid little brat of hers, always 'buy me this, buy me that," and- God, now I'm jealous of a toddler!"

"Your, uh, stepmom is a real hag, huh?"

Midge shrugged. "What's the point in me complaining about it? Water under the bridge. I'll be the son he lost, and her kid is the replacement."

"That's no way to talk," he said kindly. Again, he was aware of his discomfort with the subject matter, but he forced that onto the back burner. "What did your mom say about what he did?"

"She, uhh... she doesn't know." She leaned back, hands at her temples. "Daddy called me directly. And here I am, bawling my eyes out in the middle of a public place trying to figure out if I should even tell her... or just wait for them to have another screaming match over the phone."

Reggie was having himself an awful quandary. He kept staring at Midge, thinking about how wrong everything had gone in her home life. A different part of him was taking into consideration that "real men don't cry", which helped her case even more. It sounded to him like Midge had honestly tried to be a good daughter, but her father hadn't wanted that, and so he'd left. If that really was the case, Reggie considered him to be the lowest form of dirtbag. No matter what choices you make in life, or if they're right or wrong, it's deplorable to throw away family like that. They're FAMILY.

Now he felt yet more awkward. Struggling for something to do to cheer her up, he couldn't find any words that wouldn't come out being offensive instead of constructive, so he did something else. "Hey, uhh... I got you something."

She opened her eyes and simply stared at the tiny jewelry box next to her half-eaten egg roll. "Wh... what? Why?"

"Nevermind why," he said, which was good enough since he really had no idea. "Open it."

Sniffing, she pulled it from the box. She let out a bark of wet laughter when she saw the diamond-cut golden letters in the center of the fine chain. "Reggie, what are you trying to do, here?"

"It says 'Lady'," he informed her redundantly; she could read. "I, uh... whatever, they were having a sale."

"So this is like our own private joke, huh?" she said flatly, almost an accusation.

"Oh... well, yeah, I guess, but that's not how I meant it." He shrugged. "As you told me before, you are what you say you are. Now you got a symbol to display that. But, uh, I still got the receipt if you don't like it, so just say the word."

Midge stared at it for a few seconds, still trying to dry her eyes out. Then, she looked up at him with a bleary smile. "Can you put it on me?"

For some reason, even though he hadn't truly sorted out his own feelings, her asking him to do this made him happy. Shrugging, he stood and walked around behind her. Midge's hair was short enough that it wasn't in the way. When she handed him the ends of the chain, their fingertips brushed, and the tingling he felt was very real, and very intense. Why did he still feel this way if he wasn't interested in what she had to offer? He bent down to see the clasp and couldn't help but notice she smelled beautiful, like lilacs or something. She felt his breath on her neck and shivered. This was too much tension for people who were supposedly incompatible.

"How does it look?" she asked with an uncertain smile as he plopped back into his seat.

"Great," he told her honestly. "I, uh, was afraid it was too trashy or something, but it works on you."

"Do you, uh..." She stopped, then glanced down, as if deciding to change her question. "Do you want some of this? I can't eat any more, I'm just not hungry."

Reggie grinned. "No thanks... but I will read your fortune cookie."

"Aww," she said playfully as he cracked it open. "I always read those, you're taking away my fun."

"Ahem. 'Love is like wildflowers; it is often found in the most unlikely places.' Kooky."

They both laughed aloud at the hackneyed phrase. When the laughter died, they continued to smile and gaze across the table at each other. When Reggie held out a piece of the broken cookie for her, she took his hand gently, holding it and enjoying its nearness. His heart pounded hard against his chest. It was almost as if knowing she was different had reset his high-running tally of dates back to zero; though he'd been out with dozens of girls, he'd never gone out with one like her before, and he was flying blind. That voice that was unsure if he was really okay with her condition got quieter and quieter as the sound of his thudding heart drowned it out. He was in over his head.

Midge let go of him, still taking the piece of cookie and popping it into her mouth. "You know," she said around it, "I usually hate almonds... but almond-flavored things are okay. Why is that?"

Not one to be left out, Reggie ate the rest of the cookie, shrugging. "I'm more of a cashew man myself."

"Well, next time I'll order the cashew chicken," she said with a wink. "See if your taste in food equals your taste in jewelry."

"Hey, uh... you wanna do something?" he asked suddenly, as he tried not to stare at the tracks her tears had left on her face. He wanted to be doing anything but sitting around moping about her father, and he suspected she shared the feeling. "The arcade's open, or there's bowling..."

Midge grinned. "Boy, I will destroy you in skee-ball."

________________________________

Three hours later found them falling into Pop Tate's, laughing. First had come the arcade, which included skee-ball, pinball and air hockey, not to mention a few rounds of Reggie's favorite fighting game. Eventually they decided they didn't want to spend all their money via quarters and moved along to a music store, where Midge picked up an album she'd been coveting and Reggie found a Guns N' Roses t-shirt that was on sale. On the way out, the local news station had randomly stopped Reggie to ask him his opinion on a few of the mayor's new policies, and Reggie had given him more than an earful on the subject.

"You're never going to be shown on there," she giggled, bumping him with her shoulder. "They'll edit you out."

"They will not!" he complained. "Everybody needs to hear the truth - I'm a reporter, too, I'm more than willing to stick my neck out for journalism!"

"Sir Reginald, you actually used the word 'tightwad' - they'll never air that!"

Reggie pretended to be offended as he turned to the counter. "Why does everybody keep knighting me just because I have such a distinguished given name? Hey, Pop - couple of malts?"

"Sure, kids," Pop chuckled. As he grabbed the glasses he continued, eyebrow raised, "So you're going to be on the tube tonight?"

"If they don't blur his face to protect him from angry mobs," Midge snickered.

"My opinions should not be censored to fit some arbitrary ideal of what's acceptable on the airwaves," he groused. "If they wanted that, they should watch Mr. Rogers."

The afternoon had been so easy-going that Reggie felt like he'd been injected with sugar and sunshine. It was great hanging out with her, pleasant like a roaring fire in the hearth in Winter. Every time he stopped to think about Midge being something other than a normal girl, she'd do something cute, or funny, and he'd forget again. The shock value of the knowledge was wearing off fast.

Why hadn't he ever known her like this before? All those times he was after her behind Moose's back, when he didn't know the secret truth, he had never stopped to learn who she was. What little he did know, he liked okay, that was for certain. But now he had seen her through a whole new set of eyes, had to appreciate that she was more than a pretty thing he wanted to be alongside. Midge Klump was a blast. Romantic feelings, desire... those were complex and unapproachable for now. In the moment, he knew he got along with her very well, and that he felt good just being near her. There was no simple way for him to quantify that, and once he'd decided to accept that for the time being, the rest of their time together had been nothing short of perfect.

"What's this?" a voice said with a slight bite to her words. "Moving in awfully fast, aren't you?"

Reggie craned his neck around to see Ethel standing behind their booth, hands on hips. If she could be passive-aggressive, so could he. "Hey, Stretch. What's a good word?"

"The word is 'sniper'. Want to guess who this applies to?"

"Ethel, don't worry about it," Midge said easily, though Reggie caught a slight wrinkle in her brow out of the corner of his eye. "There's no problem here."

"I didn't say there was one," she continued easily, all smiles. Then her thumb and forefinger were on Reggie's ear. "Can I see you outside for a second? I need to ask you something."

He winced. "When you put it like that, how can I say no?"

Once she had dragged him forcibly from the establishment, she hissed, "What in God's name do you think you're doing in there?"

"Cheering her up," he snapped. "Not that you're doing a good job."

"Muscling in on Moose's territory a whole two days after they split is not the same thing as helping a friend. You need to recheck your motives, Casanova."

Reggie sighed. "Listen, I read you loud and clear, but you're way off base this time, all right? I... ran into her at the mall, she was totally in the dumps. We've been running around doing stupid, zany things. I swear, no eager hands, no dark movie theaters or anything."

"Since when does Reggie Mantle believe in good clean fun with no price tag?"

"And I haven't been footing the bill the whole time so she'd feel obligated," he continued, arms crossed. "Because it wasn't a date. I'm not a cad all the time, you know."

"Just ninety-nine percent," she countered. "And you shouldn't be using her breakup as an 'in', that's cheap, even for you."

"That's not what she's depressed about," he gusted. And it was too late to take it back. He looked up into Big Ethel's eyes and saw they were squinting slightly, one eyebrow aloft. He hastily stammered, "Uh, no, that- wait, nevermind, I'm not-"

"What's going on here?" she whispered. For the first time, she didn't look angry at him. "Is she in some kind of trouble?"

"No, not really," he went on, then kicked himself. Ethel was being a good friend, but she was also being nosy - something he himself was guilty of often enough that he recognized it instantly. "And you can just stop right there, because I'm not going to tell you anymore. That's up to her."

Ethel frowned at him for a long moment while he tried to look better than he felt. All of a sudden, he wished he didn't know about her identity issues, about her father. He was going to have to hide it well until Midge was ready to talk about it. Finally, she nodded and said, "Very well. Let's say this time I give you the benefit of a doubt and believe you. But if she winds up getting hurt, I'll shoot you out of a cannon."

"Deal."

When they went back inside, Ethel joined Nancy at a table while he slid into their booth. Midge looked somewhat amused. "Enjoy yourself?"

"Sure," he said with an eyeroll. "Barrel of monkeys."

"That was about me, right?" she sighed. "And the breakup and everything."

Reggie shrugged. "Yeah. I... man, I kind of screwed up."

"What do you mean?"

"She doesn't know anything at all," he said quickly as her eyes began to widen. "But... she may have gone away with the impression that you were depressed about more than Moose."

"Damn it!" she hissed. "Reggie, what is your head filled with, sawdust?!"

"I hedged around it," he continued weakly - this sounded a lot worse than it had outside. "You should probably tell her about your dad or something, so she doesn't keep wondering. It's the lesser of two secrets."

"You're an idiot," she flung at him before sitting back, covering her face with her hand. "How could you do that?"

"I didn't mean to do anything. You know me, I usually only lie to get people INTO trouble, not the other way around. I'm new at this."

Midge sighed, glaring at him in a defeated sort of way. "Learn, fast."

Then their malts arrived and they went about drinking in silence. The whole thing had killed the mirthful mood, and Reggie couldn't help but feel jilted. He'd been doing his best to keep everything under wraps. Why was he paying the price?

________________________________

Half an hour dragged on, and they finally left. Reggie drove her home, silently berating himself the whole way for lapsing in his vigil over her unspeakable truth. Not that he'd decided whether or not he was okay with it, but he had definitely come to the conclusion that nobody else needed to find out. And he had come very close to leading Ethel right to it.

"Thanks," she said quietly as she slammed his door. "It was... yeah."

She was halfway up her drive when he leapt the door and sprinted after her, grabbing her arm. "Wait, hang on!"

"Let go of me," she growled. He did, but she was still glaring at him. "What? What is it now? Who else did you almost-"

"Come on, have a heart," he pleaded. "I didn't tell her anything, she's totally in the dark. She just kept pushing, trying to make me out to be some stalker or something, and I said I wasn't just comforting you about the breakup. She tried to get more out of me, but I told her it wasn't my place. Just an innocent slip of the tongue, I swear I'll be more careful. Cross my heart."

Midge turned back toward her house, but did not walk farther. She took a few breaths. "Okay... one 'get out of jail free' card. Because you were so great today, like a real friend. And I needed that." When she turned back, she looked more sad than angry. "But you can't mess up anymore, got it? Next time you might not be able to cover your keister - or more importantly, mine."

Letting out a gust of pent-up, anxiety-laced air, Reggie stepped in closer. "I'm so far out of my depth here that I don't know which way is up. Guess I'm just hoping I get bonus points for effort."

"Friendship's not a game, you know," she told him earnestly as she leaned in a little, looking up and into his eyes. "You have to mean it, because it's a fragile thing you build with the utmost care. The Reggie I hung out with today... I'd like to get to know him. He seems like a great guy."

"Ditto," he muttered. When she shot him a quizzical look, he continued. "You, I mean - and not a guy. I mean, because you're not. That's not what I-"

"Don't talk anymore," she laughed weakly, swinging her tiny shopping bag. "You're ruining what you're trying to say with more words."

Reggie's heart was pounding again, his hands twitching. Should he put them in his pockets, or pat her on the arm or something? The corners of her eyes crinkled as she grinned at his reaction. Some invisible force behind him shoved him, and he moved forward and kissed her, with passion tempered by hesitance. His hands were lightly resting on her upper arms; he was all too aware that he'd been too rough when he grabbed her before, and he couldn't let his control slip like that again. Not that he knew why he was doing this at all.

Midge started to respond, very briefly. Her neck elongated, her lips parting as she worked them into his, the bag falling from her hands to the concrete. Then, as quickly as it began, she had leapt backward and out of his grasp. "What was... Reggie, no, what are you doing?"

"I don't know!" he gasped out, hands already pulling at his hair. "Midge... I don't know. It just happened. There's something here, something... but it's not right, is it? How can I be feeling all this?"

"You have to cut it out," she told him sternly as she patted down her hair, voice shaking as she tried to breathe. "It was bad enough before you knew, now... what is it you're after?"

"I'm after you," he said softly. "I... it's like I'm on auto-pilot. A chunk of my brain can't stop wanting to be with you, no matter what the rest of me thinks. You're so awesome."

Her arms were folded tightly to her chest now as she tried not to outwardly show how vulnerable she felt. "What the rest of you thinks, huh? You mean, like, how being with me might make you gay?"

Reggie, to his own shock, only felt the slightest discomfort at this thought, though he was offended at the label. "I'm not gay. And you know that, you told me yourself."

"But you're still worried you might be if you go out with a trans person," she accused. "Which is bee-ess, but oh well, can't make a leopard change his spots."

"Midge-"

"I'm NOT a guy!" she reiterated, tears welling up in spite of her best efforts. "I'm a woman, a girly, curvy, flaky, man-loving woman! I want to be with a man - and not men who want other men, but a boy who likes girls and wants this one right here to be his one and only! THAT is what I want, and that is who I am! Got it?!"

"Then how are you going to do it?" he fired back. Now he was more outraged than ever that she had seen how hard he was trying to do the right thing and thrown his efforts back in his face with a 'substandard' label across them. "Boys who like girls are after girls who have girly equipment. Last time I checked, you came packaged with something else."

She looked like she had been slapped. "What a worm you are."

"No, I really wanna know!" It was the truth; he hadn't wanted it to be, but it came bleeding out of him like an open wound. Much though he'd phrased it like an insult - it was his first language, English coming in second place - he had been too honest. "How? I'm not- I don't want that, I have no idea what I'd do, I'd hate it - but I want to be with you! So what do I do?! You are everything I want, I could ever want - all the other girls are like cardboard cutouts when you're the real deal! The original model in a sea of Brand X! Deities aspire to be you! But what can I do if you have... ARGH, I can't take this, I don't have it in me to handle this!"

All of a sudden, she was staring at him, far more shocked than when he had insulted her. She looked terrified. "Reggie... you can't mean what you're saying. Because that would mean... you actually think of me as more than just..."

Neither of them spoke for a long moment, both stewing in thoughts that were both beautiful and ugly at the same time. When Reggie turned toward his car, she snaked out a hand and said, "Stop."

"Why?"

"Reggie Mantle, you will not just up and walk away from me," she blubbered furiously. "Not after that."

"It doesn't mean anything," he grated out painfully. "Because if either of us said we were okay being together the way you are now, we'd both be lying. It's... GEEZ, it's not fair! This is like some stupid, unsolvable equation where you fail the test no matter WHAT you put down!"

"It's not unsolvable - it can't be. If we both feel the way we do, then... we can find a way around it, can't we?"

Reggie's head whipped around and he looked right into her eyes, saw the fierceness fighting with the raw nerves. Did she mean it? She felt the same? But then he looked away again. "No. I... I don't see how. You said it, too - it's not just me, it's both of us. We can't be right for each other because we don't meet each other's needs. So we're royally screwed."

"That-" Her voice caught, and he had to struggle against the urge to throw his arms around her shoulders. "There has to be, though. We can't be doomed before we ever started, that's pathetic."

"This world sucks," he replied. "This proves it - the whole thing with your dad, and... what's the point if all the good things are just out of reach or ruined before-"

And then she was kissing him, her hands pressing into his back, feverishly, focused on every part of him. Every second he kissed her back he felt like a criminal perpetrating the worst crime, but he couldn't stop, he craved her touch so badly that it burned. One of his hands found the back of her neck, and the other the small of her back, and he held her there as his tongue roved along hers, as he fought to make himself part of her. Around the same time he pressed his hand into her backside, he felt something against his thigh, but he ignored it - part of him knew what it was, and shielded him from the knowledge. This was too exquisite and rare to let minutiae like that muddle it up. Even so, he shivered involuntarily from the feeling, and at that instant she shoved him roughly away as she staggered back.

"What did you- Midge, what's wr-"

"No!" she panted, cheeks rouged. "No, y-you can't- not when I'm like this, I don't want you to!"

His eyes were drawn to the taut fabric between her thighs; he knew what was going on behind it, and he knew the same was true for himself. "Maybe... maybe I'll be okay with it. If it's you, I mean. We could-"

"We can't!" she wailed. The distress had long taken over her features from desire, but still she could not force her anatomy to calm itself. He noticed her noticing him, as well, and her eyes went round before she turned away from him. "Reggie... even if I... look, my mother might be home, okay? This is not happening - and not here. You should go."

"But-"

Too bad for him she was already at her front door. The fleeting look over her shoulder was only enough to show that she wanted to say goodbye, but she couldn't find it in herself. While she was fumbling for her keys, he caught up the bag from her driveway and said, "Hey, you forgot-"

"Keep it," she choked out as she slipped inside.

________________________________To Be Continued...