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Alright, as many have already guessed, I am a rather liberal person. This part of the story does make reference to the Islamic center they are proposing in New York City, as well as the fundamentalist group rising up against them. I also stab at Fox news--rather harshly, in fact. If you don't like these things, I really don't care. Don't read the story. You have been warned. These things were added because they are part of the story. If you have comments to make about my personal views on politics and religion, I'll delete them. I want critiques of the story, not my views.

Chapter X--The Kicker

_Close my eyes when I go to bed

And I dream of angels who make me smile

I feel better when I hear them say

Everything will be wonderful someday_

_Promises mean everything when you're little

And the world's so big

I just don't understand how

You can smile with all those tears in your eyes

Tell me everything is wonderful now_

Please don't tell me everything is wonderful now

-Everclear, "Wonderful"

What seemed like an easy sentence was quickly turning into a torture exercise for Luca. Sitting at home all day, wondering what was going on at school, what people were saying, how they were reacting to things, and especially how her boyfriend and friends were doing in there. She wanted so badly to be right there with them. She wanted even more to see the fabulous shiner on Pamela's left eye. According to Beccah, it was one of the best she'd ever seen.

Luca kept the cordless from the kitchen with her all the time so that she could monitor the numbers. It was the only phone in the house that had its own digital readout for caller ID. It seemed every newspaper and television broadcast station was trying to contact her. The only ones she answered, however, were the calls from GLBT papers and shows. She didn't want to talk to anyone else. When Fox News tried to get in contact with her was the only exception. She answered long enough to give them one little tidbit of information: "In no way do I have any intention of giving Fox News any kind of information, now or ever. You distort everything you report, and you promote people who say horrible things about the GLBT community." With that, she hung up on them. Fox News didn't report that little quote. Instead they fed whatever information they could from other sources they managed to interview, along with what they bought from other major news sources.

Luca was laying sprawled across her bed, head hanging from the side edge, when the trio of the three furres that meant the most to her at Harris High School were shown in by her mother. Luca smiled and murred as Zee came up to her and kissed her, then flopped down next to her.

"It's about time you guys got back. I've been going stir crazy, and the national news only makes it worse."

"National news?" Zee said, face looking concerned. Luca nodded.

"This is apparently a bigger deal than we thought," Luca said. "You guys have been locked away in school, so you haven't seen, but CNN, Fox, MSNBC, they're all making this into a big fiasco."

"Makes you wish we'd been outed when Deepwater Horizon exploded. We wouldn't even be a blip on the radar," Zee agreed. His face looked worn, tired. He'd had a long, stressful day, and it showed across his face.

"How was practice?" Luca asked him.

"Would have been better if the entire fence along the school grounds wasn't lined with reporters," Zee answered grimly. "Coach kept pushing me harder. I felt like such a tool."

"Baby, you're not a tool," Luca said gently, rubbing her hand over Zee's chest. "He is just trying to show people what you are made of."

"I'm becoming a spectacle," he groaned, placing his hands over his face. Beccah and Harold had relegated themselves to the other window in the room, the one that overlooked the back yard. There was a little alcove with some cushions and pillows, and the pair were snuggling close, letting Luca and Zee have their conversation.

"Furres will forget all about this after the competition, I'm sure," Luca said, laying her head on Zee's shoulder. She kissed him on the cheek and murred as she pulled herself close. Finally, Zee managed a hint of a smile as he looked at his girl. It was getting harder and harder to make him do that, Luca realized, and sadness touched ever so slightly at her heart. It was all too familiar of a feeling.

Two weeks had passed, and while the reporters thinned out and eventually disappeared, the scandal over the airwaves intensified as the next big track meet approached. Fox News kept bringing on their "special guest" and leader of the anti-cross-membership camp, Marcus Keller. He was an ugly hump of a mouse, with a face that was too small for a head that was too large. He had been a hardcore Bible-thumping Evangelist since sixteen, and was already in New York City trying to establish a church for his so-called "9/11 Christians," which was his other front of attack against Islam.

CNN and MSNBC tried to present their fair perspective on it, but always ended up showing the screaming lunatics outside Harris High along with the images of several, much more stable and reasonable furres. It seemed to Luca the screaming lunatics got more attention, even if it was a series of perhaps five clips constantly rotated.

And still, even as the competition drew closer, the School Board had not reached a final verdict. Furres from all over who had no business in dictating how Luca and Zee should live their lives came in to speak, yell, and gesticulate their respective points. Nobody ever asked Zee what he wanted, and every day he seemed to sink into a darker and darker place.

Finally, the day had come. It was a Saturday, and the School Board was still holding meetings, trying to come to a final conclusion. If they wouldn't reach their verdict by ten that morning, the case would go undecided and Zee would be unable to compete. The extreme right sent their flood of protesters and talking heads to try to filibuster the School Board into submission, but found they were shut out at the door. The School Board was no longer allowing any further testimony on the matter, and was conducting private deliberation.

Zee was at the track, prepped and ready, his face deadly serious. Luca watched on with a worried frown, curled up in a track-side seat as Zee stretched. He'd hardly so much as said two words the past few days, and had started opting out early from his visits at her place to go home and rest. The only consolation for Luca that day was the fact she had Beccah at her side, along with a much more stylish-looking Harold. Apparently Beccah had been meddling in his appearance, forcing him to abandon the hunched, t-shirt-with-open-and-wrinkled-overshirt-on-top look for something more trendy. Now he was sitting beside her, adorned in a black Yosef Aboud button-down with a charcoal v-neck shirt over it and a sleek slate-gray overcoat that looked more like a trench coat that had been hemmed short. His pants lay somewhere between the vest and shirt in color, replacing Harold's typical aged and worn-out jeans. It was awfully gray, in Luca's opinion, but somehow it did seem to work when contrasted against Harold's very bright, almost-orange-tinged fur and black spots. He was like a whole different hyena.

Protesters were gathering outside the track, denied entry due to the fact none of them were students, parents of students, or faculty. There were, however, those that could gain entry and began to heckle.

"Hey, get back into your sports bra!" one voice shouted out. Zee shot a fierce look up at the stands to see who dared say such a thing. Luca couldn't help but feel that Zee was being bated along in all this. Perhaps he was just a spectacle to these furres. She stood and reached out a hand to Zee, touching him gently on the arm. Zee turned, his expression black.

"Are you alright?" Luca asked in a timid voice, worry plain in her eyes. Zee's features softened, and his face brightened--slightly. He pulled Luca into his arms and hugged her close. It wasn't quite like the hugs they used to share.

"It's just really stressful, babe," he said to her. "I just want this to be over with and go back to just being me and us."

"Me too," Luca said in a whisper, kissing his cheek. She bit her lip and pulled away, sitting back down so he could keep warming up.

It was only fifteen minutes until Zee was up to do the first of the three events he had for the day, 100m hurdles, when a sudden commotion broke out at the gate. A beaver that breathed like the type that probably had an allergy to everything came rushing up, wheezing his way to the coach. Handing the coach the paper he was carrying, the beaver sat down in the row of folding chairs just behind Luca. Luca grabbed a water bottle and handed it to the male, who had a split-second of hesitation when he recognized the counterpart to Zee's "transgendered sports participation scandal." Luca just ignored it, and turned to see what the coach was reading. A big grin spread across the charcoal gray feline's face. Luca wasn't sure whether she should be smiling too, but she did anyway.

"He's going to be able to compete," Coach Nemitz said, relief painted across his face. With half the team busted and expelled from the team for the drinking issue at Homecoming, Zee was all he really had to rely on. The coach turned towards the audience, holding his arms high. Everyone went silent--in the stands at least, the crowds outside could be heard even more now--and Coach Nemitz's voice boomed for all to hear. "He's allowed to compete!"

Some of the audience broke out in applause, and most of the applause came from where the Harris High School fans had clustered themselves. Parents and students from the other competing schools simply remained silent, their expressions, for the most part, unreadable.

Coach Nemitz continued in explaining the decision. "The school board has temporarily lifted the restriction on gender. Their decision is based in the notion that, as an athlete of such elite skill and ability, Zee should be able to compete against whomever he is best matched. They are going to continue to review the case in order to establish clearer and more encompassing guidelines"

The applause continued from the Harris section of the stands, and the protests outside only got louder as the furres there realized what was going on. Luca let her gaze wander over to them, and saw Marcus Keller in the fur standing at a temporary pulpit, a massive poster behind him with Jesus on the cross. In giant red letters it was painted, "Repent! Jesus died for your sins, and you are spitting in his face!" Marcus was screaming and ranting at the pulpit, his hands digging into the sides of it with a ferocious deathgrip. Spittle flew from Marcus' mouth as he screamed and ranted.

Luca turned towards Zee and found he was looking at her with that same dark expression. He had caught her staring at the protesters, after she had been so adamant about ignoring their presence. She bit her lip and looked down at her lap as Zee made his way to the track.

Suddenly, things grew silent as the track members took their places. Even the protesters fell solemn, and the Evangelist Reverend Keller's words drifted away after he realized nobody was paying any attention to him anymore.

Seconds yawned out like an eternity as people awaited the sound of the start. And when it came, nobody expected what happened.

Silence.

Zee was in his zone. There was nothing now. It was just between him and the track.

Calm.

Zee's heart was in perfect rhythm now. None of the frantic pacing it did when he saw all the protesters, all the spectacle-watchers.

Bliss.

Zee's body was perfectly coiled. It wasn't like a nervous tension. It was a spring that was wound tight throughout his body, ready to unleash the explosive force of his legs. When the shot came, he uncoiled, launching forward from the line.

What the spectators saw was a running and leaping machine. Zee's legs pistoned her down that track in a way that brought even the non-Harris fans to a moment of awe.

Zee, however, was no long of this world. He barely knew he was running. It felt more like flying. He was barely down on one foot before the other was launching forward for the next step. When the hurdles came, he barely registered their existence, flying up and over them like it was as natural as breathing. Every second that passed only added to the bliss of it. And it came to an end all too soon as he passed the finish line and came to a stop.

Zee finally registered just how hard he was breathing, how much the blood was pumping. His head throbbed slightly from it. Finally, though, he registered the silence all around him. Did he lose? Were the circus-goers not impressed? Looking up, Zee finally realized just what was going on. The time that was flashing on the screen was impossible, he thought, but there it was: 13.10.

Zee fell back onto his ass, in shock. 14 seconds was a very good race for him. 13.10 was beyond fathom. He was only a high school sophomore, he realized, and he just beat out the time of the best WAC time in the country.

Slowly, applause began to break out as others realized what Zee had just accomplished. Even the parents and students from the other schools began to join in on the applause. That applause built to a stampeding rhythm, and eventually all the track meet was applauding him in uproarious approval. So why did it feel so empty?

Looking over to the protesters, Zee saw a new sign that someone had just painted in protest either to his winning School Board approval or this race. In big, crooked letters, the words "God still hates you, fag," were written. Zee's face finally went from the hardened, dark demeanor he had been keeping as his mask to a drawn, tired-looking face. Zee buried his face into his hands and began to sob.

The overjoyed fans only seemed to applaud more. To them, Zee was crying out of sheer joy. To Zee, it was like the circus spectators reveled in his pain. Zee had gone from the sheer bliss that was soaring past hurdle after hurdle to the lowest feeling of sadness and depression he'd ever known. It wasn't until Luca's hand touched his shoulder that he finally looked up, tears soaking his face. She said something, her smile fading to a frown. Zee didn't hear what she was saying. Instead, he simply stood up and began walking towards the edge of the field where the police were blocking the protestors from getting into the field. The applause behind him broke up into bewildered silence as they realized Zee wasn't coming back.

Luca followed directly behind Zee, trying to keep up with him. "Baby? What's wrong? Where are you going?" she prodded, trying to get a response from him. Zee kept on going, ignoring her.

Flashbulbs went off, cameras were shoved in Zee's face, and still he pressed on, his face still streaked with tears. Suddenly, he found himself face to face with that otter from the Advocate.

"Mr. Polaski," the otter said, his brilliant blue eyes looking slightly bewildered. "A word for the Advocate?" For the first time, Zee found himself not having a question shouted at him. Instead, it was an actual, heart-felt question. Either that, or something about the otter made Zee double-think his intention to just plow through him.

"Sure, what is it?"

"How are you feeling right now?"

All the other reporters had gone silent, wanting to hear every second of this. Live feeds put Zee's face on national news throughout the country.

"How do I feel?" He said, with a slight and sardonic laugh. "I feel like a whore."

"What do you mean, Zee?" The otter pressed, a genuine concern on his face now.

"I mean that I did this for the wrong reasons. I saw the protestors out there, led by that ugly prick Keller, and it angered me. It fueled me to show the world I'm not what they make me out to be. I've never worked harder for a victory in my life, and I've set a personal record and put myself as the foremost female athlete that's ever existed in the hundred meter hurdles. And I've done all this after just turning sixteen."

Zee sighed, taking a moment to compose himself. Luca had caught up with him, and was holding onto his arm, listening to him speak.

"The point is, all I've done is made a spectacular circus act of myself. Nobody would have paid any attention had a boy done this. Perhaps local papers would have reported the winners of this meet in some back section of the sports pages, maybe I would have even been a piece of intrigue on some local news station because of their dull news day. But the only reason this is such a triumphant victory--to anyone--is because, biologically, I was cursed to live in a girl's body. Nobody here would care if I was just the same old Zee--a boy--that kicked the ass of a bunch of other boys. Sure, recruiters would turn their heads, people would ask if I could push towards Olympic-level capabilities, but it would have been because I was Zee Polaski, boy athlete, not Zee the female to male transgender that defied the odds. I didn't want to be known for this. I didn't even want to be known. I just wanted to be a normal boy. And no matter what I do, those people over there," he said, pointing at the evangelists, "are still going to hate me for what I am, no matter what kind of personal achievements I accomplish."

Just then, Keller came intruding into the circle that had formed around the group, shouting his head off.

"By the hand of God, I cleanse thee, demon!" He began. That was all me managed to say before Zee punched him hard in the face. The Evangelist's face crumpled in at the jaw where the impact point was. Zee then brought his other fist in, this time making contact with Keller's right eye. Then the preacher went down.

The next thirty seconds was a melee of activity as Zee pounded the already butt-ugly face of the preacher into oblivion. By the time they finally dragged him away, the preacher was unrecognizable, his face covered in his own blood. Zee pulled away from those who managed to subdue him.

Luca reached out, trying to grab Zee's elbow. He drew away sharply, hissing at her, ears lowered. "This is your fault," he growled at her, then stormed off through the crowd. The entire country was able to watch the moment Luca's heart broke, and she fell to her knees, covering her face as she sobbed heavily.