It has been an absolutely draining week. I've done just about everything I can in the northeast and am running out of excuses not to go "home." Facing what's waiting for me in North Carolina is just about the scariest thing I can deal with so I have been focusing on other things.
I'm toting a packet of contracts and memos detailing various backroom deals and legal loopholes that I need to find an expert to interpret for me... I'm not without means but it's going to be tough to leverage them as a strange teenage girl looking person.
I have a list of possible destinations for Kiara, narrowed down to a handful of possible bodies. I won't share this information with you fine readers until it matters.
It has been utterly exhausting traveling on my own, not being old enough to rent a car (I'm using the one I got as Tom just for Maine, but there's dubious legality there that puts me on edge) and having to find somewhere private every few hours to pump milk out of my breasts. I've made due but it's definitely disrupted how I could have seen this going when I was myself.
I've slept and showered in one or two Y's, been leered at by men and women, and had at least one very confusing interaction that felt like I was being hit on but may have just been kindness. After my talk with Ryan I was kind of turned around and in this headspace of needing to prove to myself that I'm still me inside and that Me = Heterosexual Guy, but really, I don't have time or energy for any of it right now, and need to just wall it off.
But I will say nothing makes you feel weaker or more helpless than being on the road and worrying about what kind of person you are going to be trapped in close quarters with, and what they're going to think when they see you. A dude definitely felt up my backside on a crowded subway while I was in the city, and frankly I'm relieved that's all that happened. I was honestly just frozen -- not angry or scared, just 404 error because this is not a situation I was programmed to handle. I bought a set of brass knuckles and a travel-sized can of mace from a street vendor in Manhattan before leaving. Luckily I didn't have to learn whether I had the stones to use any of it.
I've stopped in DC for a much-needed interlude. I needed to retrieve some stuff from my place before... well, I don't know what happens. Like I said, I've refused to play nice and have confiscated every scrap of Tom Nishimura that I can. I don't doubt there are ways into the apartment of course but virtually anything you could do to prove who you are, you'd need to reach out to me to get.
I hauled a bunch of sensitive stuff to a storage unit. That took all day and multiple trips and was particularly taxing on my little arms and legs. But -- assuming I am able to keep paying for it -- that will keep a bunch of my sources and previous research safe. DC is not so close to NC but it's not a million miles away either, if I need it. A ton of it is digital, so I messed with my access permissions in case they find a way to get around that, and downloaded to a USB stick that I can easily travel with.
This kind of acts as my farewell to my old self and my familiar world. Tomorrow I take the last leg of my journey and then from there... it's "Kiara" to the world, I guess.
-Tom/Kiara
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