Autumn Leaves\n\n--\n\n[[Start|1]]\n\n<<audio "autumn" loop volume 0 fadein>>\n

//black eye\n\ndirt in your mouth\n\ncuts on your knuckles\n\na bottle of water poured over your head\n\nbruises across your stomach\n\nfaggot echoing in your ears//\n\n//[[don't think about it|8]]//

You cross the school grounds and make your way around the back of the science building, looking for the school gardens. You know //of// them, technically, but you've never stepped foot there willingly. Plants are quite far down the coolness ladder.\n\nSadly, you haven't a choice, and today you're going to the school gardens for the first time - for detention.\n\n[[This sucks.|2]]

The girl turns to face you with surprise, before standing up and smiling.\n\n'Hi, n-nice to meet you. I'm Autumn.'\n\nYou freeze for a moment. Their voice sounds nothing like you'd expected - after a tiny moment you realise it's a boy's voice. Trying not to show any surprise on your face, you reply.\n\n'Cool. I'm <<textbox '$MC' 'George' '4' autofocus>>,' you say. Autumn smiles and nods, before turning back to the plants before her.\n\n[["'Can you help me with this?'"|4]]

Rounding the corner, you come to the gardens, a set of six raised beds, two greenhouses and a rundown shed. You don't know a thing about gardening, but the place looks messy and overgrown; you can see orderly lines of plants in the beds, but they're surrounded by other plants - weeds, you assume - competing with them for space, spilling out of the beds and onto the path between. \n\nA girl is crouched over the nearest bed of plants, facing away from you. Her uniform is deeply uncool; her skirt's too long, the blazer sleeves rolled up to the elbow, hair in a boring ponytail. The colour of their tie says Year 11, one year above yours. Sighing, you resign yourself to spending the afternoon with them.\n\n[[You cough and say, 'Uh, hi, I've been sent here.'|3]]

You crouch down on the opposite side of the bed and start searching for more Mare's Tail. Everywhere your eyes sweep you seem to see a bit - a small one hiding behind another plant, a big one spreading out across several inches of soil. \n\nYou start picking them out, glancing up at Autumn as you do so. They're concentrating on the soil, smiling gently to themselves. You know it's rude to stare, to scrutinise someone you don't know, but you can't help it. \n\n[['So, uh...'|6]]

They gesture at the bed in front of them. You look at it and have no idea what they want you to do with it - everything looks the same to you.\n\n'Uhhh... I dunno anything about gardening.'\n\n'That's ok!' they say cheerily. 'I'm picking out Mare's Tail - plants that look like //this//.'\n\nThey point to a plant that looks kinda frond-y, with lots of little segments on the stem. You look around the bed and see dozens of them scattered about. To illustrate, Autumn pinches one by the base and pulls it out of the ground.\n\n[["'Can you do that?'"|5]]

You've gathered a small bunch of the plants in your hand - the fronds keep trying to fall off and you have to pick up more. You ask Autumn where to put them and they gesture to the 'compost heap' - to you it just looks like a stack of plants rotting in the corner.\n\nAfter a couple of minutes weeding in silence, Autumn clears her throat.\n\n'So, what'd you do?'\n\n'Huh?' you reply. They nod their head towards the school buildings.\n\n[['You're in detention, right? No-one comes here one their own.'|8]]\n

You try and think of something to say.\n\n'Garden's pretty overgrown, huh.'\n\nAutumn sighs and nods, looking up at you. They sniff and wipe their nose with their sleeve, and say, 'I've been ill, and there's so much work to do now.'\n\nYou frown. 'You mean you do this on your own?'\n\nThey nod and you look around at the whole garden. It seems a lot for one person.\n\n'It's not that bad,' Autumn says, 'It just takes a lot of time.'\n\n[[You wonder how much help a single detention's worth of work from you is going to be.|7]]

'You know, no-one's told me that yet.'\n\nAutumn looks shocked. They take a moment to think of a reply, pulling weeds as you talk. You look for one to pull yourself, but you're struggling to concentrate on the plants in front of you.\n\n'You shouldn't feel bad for fighting,' Autumn says. 'It just carries on otherwise.'\n\nSomewhere, behind their words, behind the glint in their eye, you can hear a similar experience. You start to pull weeds again angrily.\n\n'What if it doesn't make a difference?' you say. 'No matter how many times I hit back, someone's still gonna call me a fag.'\n\n[[The word tastes bitter on your tongue.|10]]

Autumn Leaves

...\n\nCREDITS\n\n...\n\nThank you for reading! It's only a really short little twine this time, as I came in to Raining Rainbow Jam a little late to do anything ambitious.\n\nI tried to think of something that matched 'Inner World' and only tentatively did so. But I think something that validates a few thoughts from childhood was important to make. //Creating the media we needed as kids, etc.//\n\nWriting and audio by Freya C.\n\n'Autumn Leaves' originally by Joseph Kosma.\n\n[[Back to Start|Start]]

You take a deep breath before speaking.\n\n'Yeah, it's detention. I got into a fight. You know Charlie Hall?'\n\nAutumn shakes their head and you shrug. 'Well, anyway, he was trying to pick on me with a few friends.'\n\n'Oh no! Were you alright?'\n\n[[The fight plays back in your head.|fight]]\n\n'Yeah,' you lie. 'I only got in trouble because I fought back.'\n\nAutumn sighs and pulls another plant out the ground. \n\n'I guess that's how it is,' she says. 'You don't need me to tell you you did the right thing.'\n\n[[You don't reply for a moment.|9]]

It's almost, in a twisted way, kind of nice.\n\nBeing able to talk to someone who just gets it.\n\nYou haven't had to clarify that no, it's not being accused of being gay that gets to you, because you //are// gay. The insult stings more because it's accurate and you hate it.\n\nYou haven't had to listen to a lecture about tolerance or turning the other cheek, and anyway tolerance is meant to go two ways so why should you give it if you don't get it? Your idea of giving what you get relies on your fists, however effective it might be.\n\nYou haven't been told that it's somehow your fault for just being, in a careful and non-accusatory way that's delicately not saying it's your fault for being gay, no, that you've somehow made yourself a good target and that's why someone tries to spit on you.\n\n[[You try not to make it obvious when you wipe a tear off your cheek.|12]]

'I'm sorry,' she replies. She says it so sincerely; the words deflate whatever anger you had building up, and you feel your stomach twist. She looks at the ground as she continues speaking.\n\n'At least, if you hit back or... y'know. You can feel like you're doing something, instead of just having it done to you.'\n\n'And if it doesn't make a difference?'\n\n'You tried,' Autumn says. 'Bullies get bored or grow up. Eventually.'\n\nShe looks up at you with a grimace, and you meet her eyes for a second before looking away. You resist the urge to challenge her, to say //What do you know?//, because [[you don't need to ask.|11]]\n\n

'What?'\n\n'Your detention,' she says. 'The hour's up already.'\n\nYou pull your phone out your pocket to check and she's right. You'd expected to be counting down the minutes, but now the time's come you feel... conflicted.\n\n'Are you sure? There's still, uh...'\n\nYou gesture to all the weeds still left. Autumn spreads her hands wide and shrugs.\n\n'You've been a help,' she says. 'And it's nice to talk, even if, um...'\n\n[[She trails off. You can guess what she means - the conversation itself wasn't about anything nice.|14]]

Autumn's listened to you and not tried to make it about them - whatever their deal is. You don't want to push it and ask, but you really want to know, too. You don't want to be like, a spectator, someone at the zoo learning about a new animal. You just want to find someone you can identify with, and in front of you, crouched over a bed of plants, might be that person.\n\nThe bit inside you that tries to project - to understand //you// by understanding someone else - it cries out as you pull weeds. You want to ask Autumn about anything, everything - to hear her validate everything you're feeling and tell you it's right.\n\nJust as you're thinking about it, Autumn glances at their wrist and looks up.\n\n[['It's half Four,' she says. 'You can probably go.'|13]]\n

\n\n...\n\n\nThe next day, after the school bell rings for the end of day, you cross the school grounds and make your way around the back of the science building, heading for the school gardens.\n\nCrouched over a bed of plants, facing away from you, sleeves rolled up, Autumn is already there.\n\n[[You walk up and say hello.|16]]

You stand to go, fidgeting with your bag awkwardly.\n\n'Are you staying late?' you ask. Autumn shakes her head.\n\n'I'm going to go home, soon.'\n\nThey don't make an effort to stand or get ready to do so. You get the feeling they're waiting for you to leave first.\n\n'Right, okay,' you say. 'Well...'\n\nYou hesitate and try and find the right thing to say. Words and fragments bounce around your head, and a dozen questions you could ask, but you struggle to grasp anything that feels right. You just take a breath and let it out again. Autumn smiles at you kindly.\n\n'Have a nice evening, $MC.'\n\n[['Thanks,' you say, and leave.|15]]

...\n\nThe end.\n\n...\n\n[[CREDITS|credits]]\n

\n\n...\n\nIn the afternoons, for a while, you can forget about everything. \n\nWorking quietly in the garden, hands in the soil or watering plants, the two of you talk, or just work comfortably next to each other.\n\nIt's nice. Her presence reassures you; you're not quite the same, but you see something of yourself in her, the part of you that's hard to find in others. The little voice that struggles to be heard, that makes you question whether you imagined it.\n\nBut it's here, working and breathing next to you, and it's here, living inside you.\n\n[[And that makes it a little easier to carry on.|17]]

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Freya C / @spdrcstl