Be a girl

I lost track of time sitting on the floor of the shower, the hot water softly raining down on my unmoving nude body. Eventually, the tears ceased, washed away by the torrent from above. After who knows how long, I finally stood up and turned off the water. I couldn’t remain on the tiled floor for eternity, nor could I waste so much water without a guilty conscience, no matter how comforting the stream was.

I dried myself off slowly, sighing as I did so. My life was a complete mess, and I was only ever capable of making it worse. I wished so desperately that it could all just end, but nothing was ever so simple. Heading back to my bedroom, I dressed myself in the most comfortable clothes I could find. Which, being honest, weren’t that comfortable. Men’s clothes never sat right with me. They were always so drab and boring and scratchy and repulsive. Women really had it so much better in that regard. Not that I would ever be caught dead wearing women’s clothing; that simply wasn’t allowed. No, I was forever stuck with the poor excuse that was men’s clothing, because society deemed it so.

I laid down on my bed, wanting this day to be over already. Closing my eyes, I hoped sleep would take me, but it never came. Instead, I heard a knock at my door. I stood with a sigh and opened it to a very concerned looking dad.

“Are you ok?” dad asked softly, clearly very worried for me. I shook my head, eliciting a frown from my father. I couldn’t lie to him. Not now. Besides, he’d be able to read the pain on my face with ease. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I didn’t want to talk about it at all, but I knew that, logically, it would probably be helpful. I wanted to forget about it all. But I couldn’t simply push this to the back of my mind like everything else. It was all too real and unavoidable for my liking. Whether or not I would be able to get the words out was another question entirely, but I felt that I had to at least try.

Instead of replying straight away, I walked over to my bed and sat down, slumping over with my elbows resting on my knees. Dad followed me inside my room and took a seat beside me. He placed an arm on my back and rubbed it, trying to comfort me. While I didn’t want to be touched at this moment, I didn’t tell him to stop.

We remained silent for several minutes. I didn’t want to speak, though I knew that I had to, and dad was surely waiting for me. He kept gently rubbing my back the entire time.

“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong,” dad finally said.

I inhaled deeply, and let it all out slowly, mustering up the courage to speak. Dad would understand. He had firsthand experience. That didn’t make it any easier though. “Jaxon… He… I…” God, why was this so hard? My words were failing me, as they usually did. I couldn’t help it. But I still needed to tell him. So, instead of trying to get the words out proper, I pointed at my hand, hoping dad would get the message.

“Oh. That’s. Ok.” Dad said, understanding my intent perfectly, but unsure of how to take in the information. “We can get through this,” he tried to reassure me. It didn’t help. How could it? “It’s going to be ok.”

“Is it!?” I exclaimed, raising my voice far louder than I would have liked, stunning dad a little. If it weren’t for dad’s reaction, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed that I’d raised my voice. Softening my voice, I continued, “I mean, I ruined the life of my first friend in years. Will it really be ok?”

“I will admit that this is a tough situation, but you can get through this. I know you can.”

“Can I? I mean, Jaxon most definitely hates me. I –” I swallowed a lump in my throat, “–turned him into a girl and then ran away. He won’t want anything to do with me now.”

“I don’t hate you for doing it to me. And if Jaxon is a true friend, then neither will he.”

I was sceptical of dad’s second point. The first one was evident. I knew dad harboured no ill will towards me, as much pain as I had caused him. But he couldn’t very well speak for Jaxon, only himself. Of course Jaxon would hate me. I had completely overturned his entire life in an instant. How could he not hate me?

“I wish that none of this ever happened,” I said, burying my head in my hands.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have a choice. We just have to deal with it.” Dad sighed, flopping backwards onto my bed with his hands resting on his stomach and head staring toward the ceiling. “Not a day goes by where I don’t wish for my old body back. It’s been what, four months now? And it hasn’t gotten any easier. I thought it would, but it didn’t. Sure, I’ve grown accustomed to my new normal, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy with it. I want my old body back. I want my wife back. I want my family to be happy again. But no matter how much I wish it to be true, that doesn’t make it.”

Dad let out a loud, exasperated sigh and sat up again. He placed a gentle hand on my shoulder and continued, “I know it’s hard right now. But we can get through this. Together. It would kill me if you did anything drastic.”

“Ok,” I whispered so softly that even I could barely hear it.

“Do you promise?”

“I promise.”

“Pinky promise?” he asked, holding out his pinky finger for me to grasp. Were we really doing this?

“Dad, that’s what got us into this mess,” I groaned, remembering back all those months ago when I transformed my dad into what he is today. The day that I cried for the first time in years.

“Well, it’s going to get us through it too.” The smile he gave me was both large and forced. There was a pain in his expression that told me that he was hanging on by a thread. Perhaps he was right. It was as though history was repeating itself today, so why not let it?

I gently gripped my father’s pinky finger with my own and shook his hand. No matter what, dad had my back, and we would get through this. Together.

***

I awoke the next morning feeling… hollow. Depressed, but also numb to my senses, like the negativity had departed my body and I was left an empty husk. As much as dad had reassured me last night, that didn’t change anything about our situation. Not materially at least.

Walking into the kitchen, dad was preparing breakfast for himself, while James was eating his. I didn’t really feel like eating this morning, so I just sat myself down next to my brother without a word.

I’d woken up a little later than usual, so dad and James were already dressed and nearly ready for the day ahead. They were probably going to head on over to James’ school once they’d both finished eating their breakfasts.

Dad loaded his plate with his morning meal, grabbed his coffee, and set them down at the kitchen bench before seating himself. “How are you feeling, Ben?” he asked. I merely sighed in response. Dad nodded in understanding. “You can take the day off if you’d like.”

“That’d probably be for the best,” I said.

“Are you sick?” James asked.

“Yeah. I’ll be fine though.” I gave him the most reassuring smile I could muster under the circumstances. I didn’t want to tell him what had happened. He was too young to be worried about me or my friend. Sure, he could very well empathise with my friend’s situation, but this didn’t concern him.

“Ok. I hope you feel better soon.”

“Thanks.”

We all made idle chatter – dad and I avoiding the topic from last night – while dad and James finished off their meals. Before they left, dad strongly recommended that I eat something to make myself feel better. He was probably right, but I didn’t have to stomach for it right at this moment.

Instead, I took a shower, hoping the comforting hot waters would soothe my tormented soul. Did they? No, of course not. I wanted to cry like last night, but I no longer had it in me. It seemed that I could only cry when things became really bad. And since I let it all out last night, I had no tears remaining.

I didn’t stay too long, not wanting to waste water. After getting dressed, I grabbed myself a snack just to have something in my stomach. Nothing much, just a muesli bar, but it would do. I then turned on my computer to find something to take my mind off things. In this case it meant something passive, so I found some videos on a sciency topic and got to absorbing the information presented.

Upon hearing a knock at my bedroom door, I glanced at the clock on my computer to discover that I’d been completely wrapped up in what I was doing for several hours. I didn’t even realise it had been that long.

I turned to face the door as dad walked in wearing a suit for some reason. “What do you think?” he asked, splaying his arms out to show off the outfit he was wearing.

I had no idea what to think. Why was he even wearing a suit? A woman’s suit no less. And was he wearing makeup? I couldn’t really tell from this distance. Since when did he learn how to do that? “I don’t know,” I replied tersely.

“How do I look?” he tried again.

The extra specificity made it a bit easier for me to formulate an answer. “You look like a corporate Karen.” He’d recently gotten his hair styled to be more feminine, but since it was still relatively quite short, it was a very Karen looking hairstyle. I had wondered why he’d gotten his hair styled in such a manner, but I never asked since it seemed rather rude. Now it seemed I had my answer. He’d fit right in amongst a gaggle of women his own age, appearance wise at least. They might spot that he was an imposter if he hung around them for too long though.

“Thanks,” he pouted. He asked me how he looked, and I gave him an honest answer. What was he expecting from me?

“So, what’s with the…” I vaguely gestured at his outfit without finishing my sentence, mostly because I didn’t really know how. The vague gesture was sufficient.

“I have a job interview today,” dad answered, pulling on the collar of the suit jacket. I supposed it was a good thing that dad was job hunting now. He probably had a decently sized pool of funds to allow him such a gap between jobs, but it was most assuredly finite, of that I was certain. “And you’re coming with me,” he added.

“What? Why?” I whined. I could see no reason for me to go along to his job interview. What was I going to do? Sit there and be bored?

“I don’t want you spending all day on your computer,” he said, motioning dismissively towards the device in question. So that was it. That was always his excuse. Even after everything that happened yesterday? 

I groaned and slammed my head into the back of my chair in frustration. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t need to be there. So, why did I need to come along? I needed time away from everything. To recover.

“Oh, don’t be like that,” dad chastised, “It won’t take long. And we can go out for lunch afterward. Now, get your gloves on, we’re going in five minutes.”

I groaned again as dad left my room. This was so stupid. He didn’t want me on my computer all day, so he was forcing me to go to something where my presence is not required, so that I could do, what, exactly? Sit around doing nothing for who even knows how long doing nothing? Because that was so much better than spending that time on my computer.

I sighed and grabbed my gloves like dad asked. I made sure to slip them on securely, triple checking them, to ease my anxious mind. I didn’t want any repeats of yesterday.

“I still don’t understand why I need to come,” I grumbled as we both stepped into the car.

“Remember that promise we made last night?” he asked, starting the car, though we remained in place for the moment. “About getting through this together?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I’m about to go to my first job interview as a woman, acting like I’ve been one my whole life. ‘Nervous’ doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel right now.”

“Oh.” That definitely put a pit in my stomach. Of course he’d be nervous.

Dad sagged his head, pressing his forehead into the steering wheel. “I just need some moral support,” he sighed. He briefly glanced towards me and gave me a very forced looking smile.

“Why didn’t you mention this earlier?” I asked with a hint of irritation in my voice.

“I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want to worry you, so I just defaulted to what I usually say.”

Oh. Ok.

***

Dad brought us to some fancy office building in the city. Naturally, that meant there were very few parking spaces, so we had to park quite a distance from our destination. And pay an exorbitant fee, of course.

Dad was very obviously wriggling about in his seat from all the nerves as we waited for him to be called into the interview. I refrained from commenting on this. As I expected, when he was finally called up, I was disallowed from entering the interview room. Right before he left, he gave me a hug. A very unusual gesture coming from him. He took a deep breath and shook out his nerves. He asked me to wish him luck, which I did, and then he entered the interview room, leaving me on my own in a foreign space.

It took an hour. An hour of me having nothing to do. An hour to spend worrying about the state of my life. To agonise over how I’d destroyed the life of another person so close to me. Just what I needed.

When he finally came to relieve me of my boredom and self-loathing, I naturally asked him how it went. It went well apparently. Perhaps not everything in our lives would be awful from now on. Whether not he would actually get the job remained to be seen. The question of whether or not he could withstand the job if he did get it also loomed.

We then went out for lunch, despite my insistence that it was too early for it. I wouldn’t normally be having lunch for another hour. Dad argued that since we were in the city, we might as well make the most of it and grab something to eat from one of the many restaurants or cafes. I didn’t see the point in fighting him, so I didn’t. I let him choose a place to eat, and away we went.

Just as we finished our meals, dad received a phone call, interrupting our conversation. The frown that formed on his face did not bode well. He nodded along as he listened to the person on the other end, not saying much in return.

“I’ll be there as soon as I’m able,” he said, ending the phone call and sighing. I raised my eyebrow at him, urging him to explain what said call was about. “James has been sent to the principal’s office.”

“What for?” I asked, rather taken aback. It wasn’t like my little brother to get into trouble like that.

“He was caught using the boys’ toilets.”

Oh. That was. Completely unsurprising. But I had a sinking feeling that this would not end well. Nothing ever did these days.