Synopsis: Alex is a young boy who wants to be a girl, but has hidden this from everyone around him. That is, until he is saved from a bully by an older girl, Jen, who makes him an amazing offer: Work with her as a waitress at her sister’s themed café!
Unfortunately, things are falling apart in his home life and they get even worse when his mum finds out that he's been taking hormones.
But she doesn't react how he'd expected her to.
And neither does his sister.

Authors note: So, this took about as long as I expected to come out >.< Sorry about that! It took a long time for me to get it to feel right, and...aha...I started playing a card game called Hearthstone and it kind of ended up taking up a lot of my time and..money >.> Uuuurgh...
Um! But, yes! New chapter! I hope it's good and you all like it :) Thankyou so much for all of the comments on the last chapter too! This one isn't as depressing, at least not at the end.
Comments and kudos are appreciated!

I love card games. And Blizzard.

 

 

I collapsed onto my back and stared up at the ceiling through blurry eyes, unable to process everything that had just happened. I’d always known this day would come but, now that it was here I just…I couldn’t handle it. Short of dad finding out and killing me this was the worst possible outcome I could imagine. It was maybe even worse. At least if dad killed me then I wouldn’t be feeling anything. And I wouldn’t have heard all the things mum had said.

She was…she’d…

She’d said such horrible things…

A horrible emptiness grew in my body and painful sobs wracked my body as I cried, but I could barely hear myself. My ears were ringing and a thick numbness was consuming my mind. I felt so awful, worse than I could ever remember feeling before. It was hard to breathe through my nose and I had to take strangled gasps through the sobs, making me feel even worse. I felt like I’d fallen into a black void and was slowly suffocating, the air around me crushing my body. All I could think about was how horrible I felt and how utterly alone I was. Normally if I felt even a fraction as bad as I did now I’d go to mum and she’d snuggle with me and tell me everything was going to be okay. And she wouldn’t leave me until I was feeling better, no matter how long that took.

But she wouldn’t comfort me now.

She’d murdered our relationship! She wasn’t going to treat me like a girl anymore. No more hugs or snuggles, or playful games or cute names like sweetheart. She was going to treat me like a boy. Like Jason. Jason! She didn’t even hug him! The most she ever did was pat him on the head. Was that all I was going to get now? Instead of the warm, comforting hugs that went on for ages I’d just get a pat on the head and a smile? Why? I couldn’t deal with that! Why would she do this to me? Why wou-

Our relationship is wrong. It’s bad.

‘No…’ I whimpered and clapped my hands over my ears, despite the voice having come from my mind. From my memories. ‘Don’t say that!’

This is all my fault! I fucked you up so badly!

‘I-I’m not fucked up! Don’t s-’

Just…look at you. You’ve gone so far as to steal hormones and change your body just to be like me. That’s so fucked up! I should-
‘Shut up!’ I screamed and sat up, my entire body shaking with anger and disgust. ‘Shup up, shut up, SHU-’

You can’t be a girl.

You can’t be a girl, Alex.

You know that.

If you can’t learn to accept that you’re a boy then the rest of your life is going to be very painful.

Bad.

Wrong.

Fucked up.

I fell onto my side as the voice washed over me and let the void crush me.

It was all I could do. All-

…

No.

No!

‘Fuck!’ I screamed and slammed my fist into the ground, a searing hatred burning through my stomach. It was the same feeling that had ran through me while listening to Tom talk about Grandpa.

Why the hell was I so sad? I should be furious, not a sobbing mess! This whole situation was fucked up and unfair and wrong! Mum didn’t make me like this. It had nothing to do with her! Why was she wrapping up my problems in her stupid guilt and screwing me over? How dare she say I was fucked up, or that our relationship was wrong. Did she even know how that would make me feel? Did she even care? Now that she’d suddenly decided I wasn’t her substitute daughter had she stopped caring about me?

And why the hell had she even needed a substitute daughter? She said she needed to be loved so she’d encouraged me to hug her all the time? I would have done that without encouragement! Loving my mum didn’t make me a girl. I’d wanted to be a girl si-

You can’t be a girl.

I hiccupped and shook my head. ‘No! Shut up!’

You can’t be a girl, Al-

‘I said shut up!’

You can-

I snarled and dug my fingers into the wound on my arm, then screamed as pain exploded through it. It drowned out the voice and I gasped in relief, and then tore my fingers back through the wound. It hurt so badly, but it felt so good! Simple, easy to understand pain. My anger began to fade and I hiccupped again, starting to feel more normal.

‘Shit…’ I breathed and rubbed my wet eyes. ‘Think. I need to think! Uhm…shit…’

I could try and figure out why mum thought she’d made me like this later! For now, I just needed to figure out how to convince her that she was wrong, so she’d go back to treating me like she always did. And more than that, maybe even take me to see a psychologist who specialised in tr-

You’re not a transsexual.

‘Uuurgh!’ I grabbed my wound again and squeezed it, a sick feeling appearing in the pit of my stomach along with the pain.

This was bad. I’d never heard voices in my head before. Was I going insane? It wasn’t like they were voices of strangers telling me what to do though, just memories of what mum had said to me. Did that make a difference? Did I need to worry about this, or was it only happening because I was so upset?

Well…either way, I couldn’t do anything about it now. I needed to focus on mum. I had to find a way to convince her that I’d always wanted to be a girl, and that it had nothing to do with her.

Simple enough. So, how was I supposed to do that?

…

Uh…

‘Why do I even want to be a girl?’ I looked up at the ceiling and then back down at the floor, unable to think of an answer.

I didn’t know why I wanted to be a girl! I’d just always wanted to be one, for as long as I could remember. There wasn’t any moment that I could recall that made me hate being a boy, or any sudden realisations that I was a girl or something. I just knew, like I knew how to breathe or swallow food. I hadn’t learned it, it’d just always been there. A feeling of wrongness with my body and the role I was expected to fill as a boy, and a deep longing to be a girl. And the older I got the stronger the feelings became, more intense and difficulty to ignore. And…so awfully painful. The feeling of wrongness got so ba-

Our relationship is wrong. It’s bad.

I fucked you up so badl-

‘Oh my god! Shut up!’ I clamped my hands over my ears and groaned miserably. ‘What the hell! Go away!’

I took a few deep breaths and closed my eyes, trying to calm myself down. The voice…I was only hearing it when I got really upset, to the point that my chest hurt. I needed to calm myself down and f-

‘Oh god!’ I yelped as my door slammed open and Ashley appeared in the doorway, her eyes wide with excitement. Her shoulder-length brown hair was unevenly brushed behind her ears and her messy fringe was dangling over her thin eyebrows. She was still in the school’s white shirt and grey skirt, but they were slightly crumbled and the shirt was untucked.

‘I told you to leave him alone!’ mum’s furious voice came from down the hallway and I heard her footsteps thumping down the hallway. ‘Ashley!’

‘I just want to talk to him!’ Ashley shouted back and stepped into the room, looking at me as if I were a rare breed of cat. ‘Hey Alex…how are you?’

I just started stupidly at her, unsure of what she was doing here. School surely couldn’t be over yet?

Before I could ask anything mum stormed into the room and glared at Ashley, her hair still a mess and her eyes red.

‘Out. Now!’

‘No.’ Ashley walked past me and dropped herself down on the edge of my bed. ‘I’m not leaving until I talk to Alex.’

‘What’s going on?’ I looked anxiously between Ashley and mum.

‘Your sister decided to skip school because she didn’t think anyone besides you would be home.’ Mum answered, not looking at me. ‘Jen told her about you getting inj-’

‘Oh, who cares about that now?’ Ashley leant down and stared intently at me. ‘You’ve seriously been taking my pills for eleven months? I thought it was for only like a month or something!’

‘W-what?’ I stared at mum in horror. ‘You told her?’

Mum pushed both of her hands through her hair and sighed wearily, still not looking at me. ‘She’d already figured out that you were stealing her hormones from our conversation last night, so I told her what we talked about today so that she wouldn’t bother you with questions, but-’

‘Obviously that was a mistake,’ Ashley finished for mum, still looking at me, ‘because there’s no way I’m just going to stay in my room after finding out that you’re actually a transsexual.’

‘Ashley!’ mum’s eyes darkened and she pointed at the exit. ‘Your brother doesn’t want you in here so get out!’

Ashley smiled down at me. ‘That’s not true. You want me in here, don’t you?’

I looked at her and rubbed my tear-stained face, trying to think. I really did need someone to talk to after everything that had just happened, but…Ashley? She was constantly blaming me for dad’s bad moods and smacking me on the head, treating me like I was some kind of ill-mannered puppy. And she’d tried to grab my chest a few hours ago! She wasn’t someone I trusted at all, but…

I really didn’t want to be alone right now.

I swallowed and looked at her. ‘Are you going to be mean to me? Or try to grab me again?’

She leant back up and looked solemnly at me, something I’d never seen her do before. ‘No. I promise.’

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘O-okay then.’

‘Yeah! There you go.’ Ashley beamed at mum. ‘Now could you give us some privacy?’

‘You want priv-’ mum’s face contorted with rage and she cut herself off with a sharp hiss. ‘Fine then! Do whatever the hell you want. Just don’t te-’

‘I’m not going to tell dad, don’t worry. Everything that’s said in here stays between the two of us. Dad’s got nothing to do with it,’ she smiled crookedly and looked at mum with wild eyes. ‘He doesn’t really have all that much to do with Alex anyway, does he? Maybe I shoul-’

‘Don’t.’ Mum’s voice was a mixture of anger and fear and her entire body tensed up. I looked at her in surprise but she still refused to look at me. ‘I get the point. I’m going.’

‘Yeah. Good.’ Ashley eyes stared coldly at mum, who stared back with a quiet rage.

‘You’ve got half an hour.’ she finally said and then left the room, closing the door shut behind her after giving Ashley one last displeased look. ‘Don’t waste it.’

‘What was that about?’ I immediately asked Ashley, but she shook her head.

‘Nothing important.’

‘But what did she mean, she gets the point? What-’

She pushed herself off the bed and I my words ended in a squeak as she towered over me. She was around Jen’s height so I only just came up to her chest, and even if she wasn’t so athletic she’d have still be far larger than me. Her murky-green eyes washed over me and I started to shake, sure that she was about to hit me. But instead a pitying expression appeared on her face and she smiled sadly.

‘So, you’re a girl then, huh?’ she asked in a gentler tone that I’d expected.

‘I-I guess so.’ I blushed and looked away. ‘You’re not angry?’

‘No,’ she leant down a little so we were closer to eye level, and didn’t continue speaking until I met her eyes. ‘I’ve thought that you might be trans for a while now so I’ve gotten used to the idea. You’ve always been stupidly girly, way more than I’ve ever been, so it wasn’t hard to put the pieces together.’

I looked at her in surprise. ‘It wasn’t?’

‘No,’ she smirked and gently pulled on my blonde hair. ‘Your hair’s longer and better maintained than mine is, you love being hugged and called stupidly cute names like sweetheart and stuff, you adore cute things, you’re overly emotional and refuse to do anything even remotely manly, and so many other things. It’s pretty obvious when you sit down and think about it for a while.’

My throat tightened at her words and I shook slightly. ‘Y-you’re okay with it then? Me wanting to be a girl?’

‘Yeah, I am,’ she smiled and her whole face lit up in a way I’d never seen before. ‘You’re-’

‘What? Why?’ I blurted out, my confusion getting the better of me. ‘Why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden? I thought you hated me!’

‘You think I hate you?’ she looked hurt and I blinked at her in surprise. ‘Why?’

‘Because you’re always hitting me on the head and saying that it’s my fault dad’s in a bad mood when it’s not!’

‘And that means that I hate you, does it?’ she raised an eyebrow and pointed at my bandaged arm. ‘If I hated you then I’d being hurting you like that all the time, not just lightly smacking you on the head and complaining about crap.’

‘Uh…’ I suddenly turned red, feeling stupid. That was a good point. ‘W-well, you’re never nice to me!’

‘Yeah, well, you’re never nice to me,’ she countered. ‘When was the last time you asked me how I was? Or how my basketball team was going? Hell, you didn’t even know that Jen was my best friend until today!’

Her words stung like little bees stabbing me in the chest, but I refused to back down. ‘W-well, you don’t know who my best friend is!’

‘Really,’ she looked at me flatly and then walked over to Sally, who was lying sadly on her back in front of the bookshelf. ‘I’m guessing she’s your best friend? The one soft toy that survived dad’s purge? Or if we’re talking about living humans then I’d say mum’s your best friend, as sad as that is.’

‘W-h-wh?’ I stammered out nonsense and then just stared at her, completely taken by surprise.

‘I do pay attention to your life, you know,’ she smiled lopsidedly at my stunned expression. ‘It’s how I realised you were trans so fast. You’re my brot-sister, you know. I care about you, even if I don’t show it.’

I almost started crying when she called me her sister, but I forced myself to stop so I could keep asking questions. ‘Why don’t you ever show it then? I’ve thought you didn’t want anything to do with me for years!’

‘It’s…complicated.’ She licked her lips and slowly bounced from one foot to the next. ‘It’s partly because of dad…I want to keep him in a good mood so he’ll keep giving me money and let me hang out at my friends’ houses, and because you’re pretty much his worst enemy I can’t be seen being nice to you.’

I frowned and rubbed my back, digesting that. ‘But what about when you’re not around him then? You hit me this morning and it was just you and me!’

She shrugged and looked guilty. ‘I get…annoyed…at you sometimes. Dad’s been in a bad mood ever since he lost his job, and it’s been getting worse because of you and mum. He barely pays me any attention anymore, which means that he’s not giving me any extra money or letting me go out at night as much.’

‘So? That’s not my fault.’

‘I know! I just…,’ she sighed and met my eyes. ‘I can be a bitch sometimes. I’m sorry.’

I scowled at her, not ready to accept her apology yet. ‘Do you even like dad then? Or do you just hang around him so he’ll be nice to you?’

‘What do you think?’ she smirked. ‘My best friend’s a lesbian and he’s a piece of shit homophobe. Of course I’m just pretending to like him.’

I felt like part of my world had just been turned upside-down and I licked my lips, my tired brain trying to put everything together. Ashley wasn’t at all who I’d thought she was. Or, well, not completely anyway. I really didn’t like that she hung around dad even when she didn’t like him, just to get money and more freedom. I’d sooner cut off my arm than pretend to like dad just so he’d be nice to me! And I felt like she wasn’t mentioning something important, something that better explained why she’d been so mean to me in the past, but I doubted she’d tell me what.
I rubbed my sore eyes and sighed, starting to feel sleepy. ‘Why are you telling me all of this now anyway?’

‘Because…,’ she scratched the back of her head and then put her hands on her hips, beaming at me. ‘Well, I thought that maybe this is a chance for us to start things over!’

‘Start things over?’

‘Yeah!’ she nodded eagerly. ‘Before, I wasn’t sure if you were really trans so I was worried that bringing it up would offend you. But now that I know that you are, and you know that I don’t hate you, then…yeah! Let’s be…sisters, Alex. Or do you have a girls na-gah? What’s wrong?’

I burst into tears and a thick wave of emotions crashed into me, making my legs start to shake. She wanted to be sister!

A strangely joyful, satisfied feeling appeared in my stomach, but it was almost immediately drowned in an ocean of despair and hopelessness that made me almost vomit.

You can’t be a girl.

You can’t be a girl, Alex.

‘N-no! I’m not your sister!’ I moaned and clutched at my chest. ‘Mum isn’t going to let me transition, and if dad even finds out about it he’ll kill me! And there’s no way I’m going to be able to take hormones again! Mum’s going to make sure of that.’

‘W-well, yeah but, you’re still a girl on the inside, right?’ Ashley smiled hopefully. ‘Isn’t that how it works?’

‘W-what does it matter what I feel on the inside if I can’t be it on the outside?’ I sniffed and rubbed my leaking eyes.

‘You do look like a girl on the outside though. You’re beautiful, Alex.’ she said quietly and I froze, staring into her unusually soft eyes.

‘W-what?’

‘You inherited all of the best parts of mum,’ she continued with a small smile, ‘and my pills just enhanced them. I’m…jealous. So jealous that I hate you sometimes. You’re so much more attractive than me, even though your body hasn’t finished developing yet. You were born a boy and you still look better than me. So don’t say you don’t look like a girl on the outside, because you do! Do you know how lucky you are?’

‘I didn’t mean-I meant that it won’t last!’ I moaned, her words not making me feel any better. ‘Without hormones I’ll look like a boy again in a few months! And mum thinks that I want to be a girl because of her so she’s not going to take me to see a doctor or a psychologist that specializes in trans stuff! In a year I’ll be…I’ll be-’

My voice ended in a pained whine and I collapsed onto the ground as my knees gave out.

‘Alex?’ Ashley knelt down in front of me and looked unsure of what to do.

‘You don’t understand!’ I sobbed, unable to control myself anymore. ‘Without the hormones I’m going to go through puberty as a b-boy! And by the time I can get hormones again it’ll be too late to change things back to how they are now! Right now! This was the best chance I have to be a girl and it’s over! It’s over! And I didn’t even get to…get to be happy…I never even got to wear a dress or...or anything! It’s-it’s-’

I cut myself off with a strangled gasp as Ashley wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into a fierce hug. She’d never hugged me before and I almost pushed her away just on reflex, but after a moment I gave in and hugged her back just as tightly.

Oh, god…after everything mum had said I didn’t think I’d ever be hugged again…

‘It’ll be okay.’ Ashley breathed as she rubbed my back. ‘We’ll speak to mum and get her to change her mind. I th-’

‘Sh-she said I can’t be a girl though!’ I sobbed and clutched at Ashley’s sides.

‘Well, she’s wrong. Because you’re already a girl, aren’t you?’ she put her hands on the sides of my head and gently forced me to look at her.
‘You’re my sister. And if mum doesn’t understand that then we need to make her understand that.’

‘How?’

‘I don’t know.’ She smiled widely. ‘We’ll think of something though.’

‘We? You’ll help?’ I sniffed.

‘Yes. I will,’ she looked past me for a moment. ‘And Jen might be able to help too. She knows a ton about transsexuals, and is pretty much the reason why I know as much as I do.’

‘Really?’ I blinked and then smiled weakly. Jen! I’d completely forgotten about her! And the maid café too. Was mum still planning on going to see it after school tomorrow?

‘Yeah! And she really likes you for some reason! I don’t know what happened between you two in the morning but you made a huge impression…’

I gasped softly and stopped listening to what Ashley was saying as a surge of excited hope ran through me.

Jen.

Jen!

Oh my god! Jen!

She might be able to help me get hormones!

To be continued!

Thankyou so much for reading! If you have any feedback please let me know ^.^

Hopefully the next chapter will be out sooner, but I don't know. Things are kind of messy over here to be honest. The reason I got so involved in Hearthstone was to escape from reality for a while. We'll see what happens!