I Ain't No Wonderwoman, B***h.

Fighting gender stereotypes. Superheroes don't exist. And neither do ghosts. Which is why they're both in this chapter.

Chloe had been pouring over reports of homophobic violence for hours, reading hundreds of accounts. Often she had to stop and put her head in her hands, crying. Weeping over her lost brethren, martyrs for the cause.

She eventually threw down the stapled packets with a violent oath.

“S**t, Chloe, what was that about?” Drew said. He had been Googling the people committing the violence as Chloe called out their names, marking them as dead, incarcerated, or at large.  

“What the hell are we doing, Drew. We’re just kids. We haven’t even graduated from high school yet. Already someone I loved has died because of our stupidity. I’m not anything special, I’m just another teenage girl trying to make her way in the world. Sure, I’m smart. Yeah, I know my way around a wrench. Yes, I can make sarcastic comments so caustic your skin could burn off. That doesn’t change the fact, however, that I am just your average teenage lesbian. I want someone to hold me close, stroke my hair, tell me how beautiful I am, whisper in my ear that she loves me. But I fucked that up pretty badly, didn’t I? And what will I become to the world? What every other female superhero has been? Yes, I have b***s! That doesn’t make me less of a superhero. Give me one female superhero valued for her talents instead of her femininity. That’s right. THERE ARE NONE. No one takes powerful women seriously! We’re all just objects of lust and I’m f*****g sick of it!” She yelled, tears pooling in her eyes and slipping down her cheeks. Her voice was thick with pain and emotion.

Drew put his arms around her, drying the tears that were coming down in rivers.

“No one ever takes superheroes seriously, Chloe. Male, female, straight, gay, lesbian, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, anything. Humans over-scrutinize everything and it’s ridiculous. My dear, you’re also forgetting that superheroes don’t actually exist. Hell, we aren’t superheroes. We weren’t thrown into a vat of acid or whatever. We’re just two people living in a world dominated by hate with talents to change that. Chloe, when we were in the hospital, you yourself told me that this needed to be done, and that we are the only people to do it. Things need to change. And, by God, they will,” Drew said gently.

“It’s going to be so hard,” Chloe whispered through her tears.

“Babe, anything worth doing is not easy,” he reminded her.

She smiled at him and dried her tears.

“Okay,” she said.

They resumed their posts with more fervor until they had exhausted the reports.

“Drew, you have that list?” Chloe said, pushing her reports to the side. Drew turned away from the computer and looked at her.

She seemed to have aged at least forty years since they had begun their research. The lamp beside her elbow threw her face into a rather unflattering relief, drawing worry lines and frown lines and dark circles under her eyes. Even her voice sounded exhausted. Learning about the crimes committed, the horrible, unspeakable, heinous evil acted out on the will of a god that didn’t condone violence and maybe not even exist.

“Chloe, I think you need to sleep. You look worn out. Dead,” Drew said, worried.

“Yeah, I guess so. This night has just worn me out mentally. I also think I’ve lost all faith in humanity. This makes me sick beyond words,” she said. She glared at the pile of paper beside her, and with all the venom she can muster, spits on it.

“That was rather childish,” she remarked under her breath.

Drew walked up to her room with her. The room was fondly reminiscent of happier times, the ghost of the morning’s perfume plus the lingering remnants of fabric softener. The stars, angels of other galaxies, twinkled in the sky, the full moon washing the world in an eerie silver glow. Chloe climbed in her bed, wrapping her covers around her, arms of her dead lover, a protective cocoon of dreams and wishes, of false hope and could-have-beens. After tucking her in, her dark curls contrasting against the light color of her pillow. Her eyes closed, and her wrinkles smoothed. She transformed from an elderly woman into a young girl again, the moonlight stealing away all of her sorrows, the stars granting her the innocence borrowed by children. Drew smiled, and made himself a bed on the floor. They usually slept in the same bed, but Drew thought she needed to be on her own for tonight.

            Chloe’s dreams were a mass of names and tortures. Seth Walsh. Tyler Clementi. Harrison Chase Brown. Asher Roth. Every name came with a picture. A hangman’s noose. A dive off a bridge. A gun. All because of homophobia. She woke up, eyes staring at the familiar egg-white of the ceiling, tears spilling from her blank eyes onto her hair.

Eventually, she went back to sleep, and dreamed of being in Amy’s arms, kissing her, sharing cannolis and wine, picking out a shining wedding ring, kissing in  front of a man holding a bible, a wedding announcement with both their names below it. A pretty crème and blue Victorian house by the ocean, the soft rhythm of the waves a constant accompaniment of their lives. A baby girl in their arms, soft cooing noises coming from it. Saying goodbye to their daughter at an Ivy League school. Seeing her get married, following the same patterns as her mothers. Then two graves, next to each other, bearing their names.

She opened her eyes, looked at the blue light of her alarm clock. 2:07. Lovely. Drew was snoring peacefully on the floor, so she decided to leave to visit Amy’s grave.

The purr of her motorcycle calmed her slightly, and the moon lit her way. Ghostly flowers and trees were outlined in the sliver glow, making the daytime world lit by an otherworldly glow. She did not think, the bike guided her, letting the wind caress her hair, toss it, play with it, its fingers brushing through her locks. She arrived at the gate, stone meeting wrought iron. It was locked, but that wouldn’t stop her. Scaling the walls was an easy task.

If the moonlight had been eerie in a world of the living, it was positively terrifying in the world of the dead. It cast shadows where there were none, making trees into Grim Reapers, flowers into ghosts.

There. Amy’s grave. Her name chiseled into the dark marble, along with her dates and a short epitaph. Chloe traced the stencil, murmuring words that were intelligeible only by God himself, if, in fact, He did exist.

Something whispered her name, lovingly, like a prayer. She jumped about fourteen feet in the air.

“JESUS CHRIST!” She yelled, eyes almost about to pop out of her head. Hee hee, pop! Pop pop pop. Snap, crackle, pop, rice krispies.

“Chloe,” It was clearer now. A woman’s voice. A voice that sounded like…

No! Impossible!

But was it? Chloe turned around, and it was true indeed.

Amy stood there, her red hair motionless despite the slight breeze. She looked solid, and just as beautiful as ever.

“Chloe,” she said. Softly, so softly, as if calling upon a goddess. Her eyes, though. Her eyes were not what Chloe remembered. They were coals, void of life or emotion, unnerving.

“Amy,” Chloe whispered. She fell to her knees, quivering. “How?”

“Well, there is a very long and detailed response to that. So I’ll sum it up for you. Yes, I am a motherfucking ghost. I can come once a month, on the full moon. As long as I have someone who still lives and loves me here on Earth. That’s you, dear. As long as my memory lives on in your heart, I am not truly dead, my love,” she said softly, so softly.

“Can I kiss you? What’s death like? Do you have friends in your afterlife? Should I repent and become Christian? Should I become Muslim? Hindu? Buddhist? Jewish?” She asked.

Amy laughed, the same musical laughter that had haunted Chloe even while Amy was still alive.

“I’m not in the same plane of existence as you are anymore, my dear. While you can see me, it’s just an echo of who I was. There’s no real substance. That’s why my eyes are so creepy. Eyes are the windows to the soul, right? Well, my soul is gone. Not in this body anymore. My soul is speaking to you through your memories. Death is peaceful. No more stress, no more worries, no more fear. It’s numbness, but not the kind that accompanies depression. It’s just a freedom. I can’t really give you all too much detail, though. Your head would explode and then you’d have to find out before your time. It’s happened before�"really quite nasty, lots of mess to clean up. Then if your soul comes to speak to anyone, and that’s how they remember you, it’s not going to be pleasant,” she said.

“I love you, Amy,” Chloe said, her face all seriousness.

“I love you too,” Amy said, her voice tender.

They couldn’t kiss, but they did soak up the beauty of each other’s presence, the simple wonder of being together when they thought reunion was impossible,

Together they sat, talking, sharing stories and jokes, until the sun appeared over the horizon, like a lantern, beckoning the world of the living to light, the world of the dead to sleep. They whispered goodbyes, and like dust in the wind, she was gone.

Chloe drove home, abiding the speed limit, thinking. She thought about all the things Amy had said to her. She thought about the names of the people that had died. She thought about how crushed she was as still is about Amy’s death. Then, in that moment, she decided. Never again would she idly sit by and watch injustice happen; no, she would stand up and fight, take control of her life, change the way that the world works. The beautiful bike purred beneath her, and a brilliant idea seemed to zoom out of the clouds, reflect off the chrome finish, and blind her with pure awesomeness.

Revving off and leaving the speed limit in the dust, she raced to notify Drew.

She threw open the door, took the stairs two at a time, ran headfirst into her bedroom door which was then opened by Drew, and she excitedly told him her idea, bouncing up and down.

He listened, nodded. Then a slow smile spread across his face.

“Holy s**t, Chloe, you are freaking brilliant! Fabulous!” He said, grinning and wrapping her in a huge hug.

“Isn’t it? Okay, let’s get started.”