Be a girl

I really did not want to go to mum’s house, but it was a Saturday, and she wouldn’t accept any reason for why I didn’t want to go. I was still in an awful mood after the night before, except now I was tired after not having slept well. Tossing and turning, unable to get the images of the previous night out of my brain; even my dreams were dominated by them.

I eyed the dress with shame. I had placed it neatly on my desk chair since it was still Izzy’s, and I didn’t want to damage it. It taunted me, lying there all unassuming. I tore my vision away from the garment and trudged into the kitchen. Not that I really wanted to eat much given how positively terrible I felt.

James immediately noticed that something was wrong. He asked me how I was doing, but I simply responded saying that I was fine. A bold-faced lie that he didn’t accept, but he wasn’t getting any more out of me.

Dad also asked me how I was feeling, but I deflected him as well. I wasn’t interested in talking about it – now or ever. He gave up quickly, realising that extracting information from me was a lost cause. I didn’t say another word to either James or my father by the time we arrived at mum and Miranda’s.

Mum, of course, didn’t seem to notice that anything was up with me, but at this point I assumed she was incapable of that. Several months of ignoring James’ agony would do that. Miranda, however, did notice, but I brushed her off as well. Ever since the day she had gotten James’ hair cut short, she had become much more involved in James’ and my lives, taking an active interest in how we were doing. I wished she would do more to help my little brother. Such as maybe convincing mum that she should stop treating James like a girl, but that was perhaps too much of an ask, even for her.

The weekend was fairly standard otherwise. Miranda, James, and I played some board games, though my heart really wasn’t in it, and it showed. But it did eventually come to an end, and that meant going back to school. Where the girls would also be. I didn’t want to talk to any of them; I was still mad and hurt. Though I did appreciate that Izzy had come by dad’s place on Saturday to drop off the things I’d left at hers. She didn’t take her dress back though, so it was still lying on my chair – taunting me – when I arrived back home. I couldn’t bear to look at it any longer, and hung it up in my cupboard – out of sight, out of mind.

Claire perked up the moment I walked into homeroom on Monday, but I averted my gaze instantly. I sat down in an empty seat away from hers, though that didn’t deter her in any way. She came over and tried to speak with me, but I wasn’t having any of it. I kept my mouth completely shut and gave her an annoyed glare. For good measure, I covered my ears so that I wouldn’t have to listen to her. She quickly gave up.

I found my own spot during recess and lunch, away from everyone else. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. Not a soul. And thankfully I was afforded that.

For a couple days. Claire was still worried about me, as she always was. Especially given that I had run away from Izzy’s house and told her to fuck off. But Claire was done giving me space by Wednesday. Not that I was done wanting space. I didn’t want to speak to her ever again, and yet she still confronted me at lunch time.

“We really need to talk,” she said sternly, sitting down beside me.

I pursed my lips and looked away from her, letting her know my true feelings without a single word.

“Please.”

I shook my head, having none of it. I did not want to speak with her, and I made that very clear.

“Bea, please.”

It was truly stunning just how much effect a name could have on a person. The pang in my chest was a whirling conflict of emotions. It brought me joy, but also anger. Joy that such a beautiful, feminine name referred to me. But anger because I didn’t deserve it. It was a guilty pleasure. A pleasure I had no right to enjoy. I wasn’t a girl. I couldn’t be a girl. So, deriving joy from a girl’s name was wrong. Gross. Perverted.

Yet here was Claire, using that name to refer to me. A name she had suggested. A cute name for a cute girl. A name that should never be applied to someone like me. And yet I couldn’t deny that it was mine. It was the name my initials spelt out, after all. It was my name, but it also wasn’t. It couldn’t be, no matter how much I wanted it to be.

I glowered at the tall girl sitting beside me. I was still furious at her for what she had done at the sleepover – it was her suggestion! “Don’t call me that!” I growled.

“Sorry,” she replied, sounding genuinely remorseful. I relaxed my expression somewhat and returned to looking away from her.

“Listen, Ben,” she said softly. I flinched at my own name, though I ignored how wrong it felt to be called that, for reasons I couldn’t quite pin down. It just suddenly felt off. “I don’t know what’s upset you so much, but we’re all worried about you. Please, talk to me.”

I frowned. She wasn’t going to respect my wishes. No, she had to ‘help’ me, like always. Forget how I felt about it all. She wouldn’t be satisfied until she’d gotten her way. At this point I was so used to it, that there really wasn’t any reason to resist. Either I refused, and she continued pestering me until I gave in, or I spoke up, and she got her satisfaction right away. Either way, she won.

“I’m mad at you. I’m mad at Izzy and Rachel. You invited me to a girly sleepover, knowing full well that I’m not a girl, and then dressed me up like one against my wishes.”

“I…” she began, but she paused briefly. She quietened her voice to barely above a whisper. “I thought that’s what you wanted.”

What I wanted.

I had a sudden realisation. Something I should have recognised sooner. It had been lingering at the back of my mind for a while, but I’d ignored it out of fear. I was trying to protect myself, because it was simply too painful.

But there was no denying it now. Claire had brought it to the forefront of my mind, and I could no longer brush it off so easily. I’d known it to be true for quite a while but didn’t want it to be. Because it meant that I’d failed. There was one secret above all secrets. A secret I swore to never tell anyone. A secret which I knew, deep down, that Claire was already privy to.

She knew that I wanted to be a girl.

It was obvious, else she wouldn’t have done everything she had at the sleepover. She’d already tried to ‘help’ me in that regard, but it backfired horribly. She was still trying to ‘help’ me it seemed.

The thought that I’d failed to keep my deepest, darkest secret was utterly gut-wrenching. My stomach twisted in on itself as the reality of my epiphany settled in. I was a freak, and she knew. She knew. She knew.

“How long have you known?” I asked quietly, looking back up at her. I needed an answer, even if I wasn’t going to like it. Even if I could already deduce it. I needed the confirmation.

She stared at me. Stared deep into my soul. I tore my vision away, unable to bear the profound weight of her gaze. She sighed.

“Ever since I first laid eyes on you.”

Fuck.

I wanted to refute her. Tell her that she was lying. I didn’t want to believe her. But given everything I knew about her, about what she’d told me in regards to her power, I couldn’t. There was no denying that she was telling the truth. She’d known the entire time, and I’d just ignored that fact, not wanting to think about it, because I couldn’t bear the thought.

Part of me was relieved. I had no more secrets to keep from her. I’d either divulged them through necessity, or she’d figured them out on her own. And yet she was still here, trying to do what she always did. Despite everything. No matter how angry or upset I was at her, she remained.

I thought back to that day, my first day at this school, the day I’d met her. Standing up in front of the entirety of our homeroom, nervously giving a brief introduction to all the students before me. The teacher had asked for a volunteer to show me around the school, and Claire raised her hand, with an enthusiasm I’d never seen before that moment. Having the context now, that she could read me like a book, know all my shameful secrets with but a mere glance, it shifted the entire perspective.

But why had she been so eager to help me? Of course, she was Claire, that was what she did, but I simply could not comprehend how she could know my most shameful secret and still offer herself up like that. How was she not disgusted with me?

“Why did you volunteer to give me a tour of the school, despite knowing that about me?” I asked.

She chuckled slightly, as though it were a fond memory of hers. “When we first met, I was jealous of you.”

Huh? That made zero sense. “You were jealous of me?” I asked tentatively, looking back up at her.

She cupped a hand on her cheek and looked off into the distance pensively. “Yeah,” she said, “Despite your appearance, my brain insisted that you’re a girl. And I realised I wanted to be like you. Except, at the time, I thought I couldn’t. I was just a phony, while you were the real deal.”

Wow, that was… I didn’t know how to take it.

She shook her head. “You looked so scared and lonely and in desperate need of a friend, and I knew that it needed to be me who helped you. Not just because you needed me, but because I needed you, too. Maybe that was selfish of me, but I don’t regret it in the slightest.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“I wanted to, but I didn’t know how to broach the subject. I tried to hint at it a few times, but you always brushed me off. I tried thinking that maybe my brain was wrong, but it was hellbent on the idea. I couldn’t argue with it, so I figured that maybe you just didn’t want to talk about it.

“Then there was the myriad of conflicting emotions I had about myself. I felt like a pervert for having these feelings. I couldn’t compare to you. You were genuine and pure, unsullied by gross sexual feelings, while I was a gross man pretending. How do you bring that up in conversation? Heck, it took a fair bit of convincing from my sister that it was ok to feel comfortable as a girl after you… you know.” She made a vague hand gesture at her body, pointing out the obvious.

Everything she was saying… it was a lot to take in. She sounded so genuine; she wasn’t lying to me. She couldn’t be, because much of what she said, I could relate. This entire time, she felt the same way I did about wanting to be a girl. It was somewhat reassuring. As much as I’d tried to deny it in the past, she and I really were more similar than I previously wanted to admit.

But there still was a huge difference between us two – a chasm. It was an undeniable truth. She got to be a girl, whilst I didn’t. It was an irrefutable fact of the universe. The feelings of disgust and repulsion she’d had before I transformed her were valid, while mine weren’t, all because the universe had decreed that she be allowed to be a girl, and I could not. It was an indisputable fact, and her reassurances meant nothing because of it.

“I know what it’s like, you know,” she continued, her tone now forlorn. “That feeling like you can’t be what you’ve always wanted. It lingers there, in the back of your mind, never going away. It gnaws at you constantly like an itch that you can’t scratch. But no matter how impossible it seems, you can be a girl.”

Her words were meaningless. I wasn’t allowed to be a girl. The universe itself had said so. “I can’t be a girl.”

“Don’t say things like that. It’ll definitely be more difficult for you, but you can do it.”

“I already told you I can’t.”

“But you can though!” she exclaimed, perhaps a little too loudly. She quietened down to a more reasonable level, peering down at me melancholically. “I promise.”

I scowled at her, irate. How dare she. How dare she. “That’s really easy for you to say!” I snapped. I couldn’t believe she had the gall to say that. “You had it so easy, just turning into a girl like that.”

“Easy? Easy!?” she roared, “Don’t tell me you haven’t been paying attention, because this has been anything but easy! Two of my closest friends thought I was pretending to be my own sister, then one of them stopped speaking to me entirely after I managed to prove my identity. I’ve had people constantly hurling slurs at me, misgendering me, deadnaming me, including fucking teachers. I wasn’t even allowed on the school softball team because I’m supposedly still a man. So please, tell me, what fucking part of that was easy?”

I wanted to deny everything she was saying. But she had a point. I was neither stupid nor oblivious. I’d seen all the things she’d mentioned and knew how they’d affected her. Though I was loath to admit it, she was right. It certainly hadn’t been easy for her.

But that didn’t really matter. If I’d been able to turn myself into a girl in the same way I’d transformed her, I would have had to deal with the same awful treatment from others – the same scorn and disgust. It just came with the territory.

“Sounds like a small price to pay for getting to be a girl.”

Claire wanted to rebut me, but no words exited her mouth. She held her mouth open as if to speak, but soon closed it. Her face became painted with worry as she stared down at me. She pursed her lips, then quickly looked away from me. She remained silent for a short while, clearly contemplating her response deeply. Finally, she spoke, without returning her gaze onto me.

“What you did to me really transformed my life,” she said, her voice laced with sorrow, “and I can’t ever thank you enough. I don’t feel like I’m constantly wearing a mask anymore, I’m not pretending anymore. I can just be. So please, let me repay that. Let me help you be a girl.”

My mind returned to the sleepover. How she had suggested I be an honorary girl for the night. Call me by a feminine name and pronouns. Paint my nails. Tie my hair in ponytails. Put me in a dress. Was that her way of trying to convince me that I could be a girl, like she was currently suggesting?

“Is that why you invited me to the sleepover?”

“Yes.”

“What is wrong with you!?”

“I was just trying to help.” She turned away from me once again and gazed forlornly off into the distance. There was a sadness to her voice, but I didn’t let it assuage my anger. I glowered at her.

“Yet you never once asked if I wanted help!” I exclaimed. “That’s what you always do! You just want to help, but you never consider the other person in the equation! You just throw yourself into the fray; never thinking. You do this constantly. Over and over and over and over again. But to be honest, Claire, you’re really shit at helping people.”

I was met with stunned silence. Good. That meant less speaking on my part, and less listening to her. I relished the quiet, listening to the sound of the wind softly blowing through the trees, and the leaves brushing along the ground. Much more relaxing than the sound of her voice.

But Claire did eventually formulate a response, much to my chagrin. “I saw the way your eyes lit up when I suggested you be an honorary girl for that night. The way they glistened with joy when everyone called you Bea. No one forced you to wear that dress; you put it on willingly. Don’t tell me you didn’t want it. Don’t lie to yourself like that.”

I wasn’t lying to myself. I was right. Being a girl was a distinct impossibility for me. I had already accepted that fact. I was doomed to be a gross, miserable boy for the remainder of my life. She was the one who was lying to herself if she believed otherwise.

“It doesn’t matter how I feel. I can’t transform myself, so I can’t be a girl.”

“But there are other ways though! There’s a medication that you can take!”

I scoffed. “I already told you: I can’t be a girl! I’m not allowed.”

The sorrow in Claire’s eyes was palpable, but I didn’t let it affect me. I didn’t need her pity. “If you keep thinking that it’s impossible,” she said softly, barely above a whisper, “all you’ll do is make yourself miserable. Please, I want you to be happy, but you aren’t letting yourself.”

“Claire, stop!” I yelled, stunning her. Her lips sealed shut. She stared at me wide-eyed. “I will not take platitudes from you any longer. Stop rubbing it in my face that you can be a girl. I can’t. So, just fucking drop it.”

“Please,” she pleaded, “let me help you.”

“If all you’re going to do is continue to push the issue, then I don’t want to talk to you.”

“I just want to help.”

“I know you do! I don’t want it! So, why don’t you just leave!”

She looked at me forlornly. Her pleading eyes told me she didn’t want to drop it. “Please,” she whimpered.

“LEAVE!”

“Fine,” she huffed, standing up. She balled her hands into fists and glared down at me. “Wallow in your pity. I’m not going to help you unless you ask from now on, since that’s clearly what you want. If you want to talk again – with me or the others – you know where to find us.”

She swiftly left without so much as a glance back. Good. I’d had enough of her. I didn’t want to be around her: a constant reminder of what I could never be.