TW: dysphoria

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I push open the door to my house, pressing my hand against the sage green paneling after turning the handle.

Immediately the scent of roasting peppers and onions hit me in the face, starting an instant coughing fit at the spicy aroma in the air. I can already hear the music, probably coming from the vintage record player always set on the kitchen counter. We only had one record, no label on it to tell us who was singing or what their songs were called, but it was something. Upbeat trumpet and piano and just bops were always present. The songs sounded like my childhood. I had them memorized all by heart.

"Is that you, Ve?" Mama calls from just around the short accent wall enclosing the door.

"Ye– yeah—" I call back through a cough, while in the middle of taking my school shoes off by stepping on the heels and shutting the door behind me, locking it. So we'd know.

Mama suddenly appears from around the wall, her face instantly lighting up. Thick, dark, and glossy hair is tied back into a bun at the base of her neck, but a couple of strands in front of her face have managed to get loose and stick to her forehead from a thin film of sweat.

She smiles, brown eyes crinkling along the same lines they always have against her golden Middle-Eastern skin. A feature I didn't inherit. Sometimes, at night, when I was younger she'd sit with me in bed, run her fingers along my scalp, and tell me stories that her mother had told her, that her mother had told her and so on and so on, about their home long before the Revelation. The details get more muddled and vague with every generation, but it's what little we have left.

"Welcome home, baby." She says, wrapping one of her arms around my shoulders and pressing a quick but firm kiss to my temple.

"Hi, mama."

"How was school?" Mama asks, gesturing with one hand for me to follow her out to the kitchen. I drop my school bag onto one of the rickety barstools lining the counter, watching mama walk back over to the stove and stir the contents of her pan a couple of times with a wooden spatula.

"It was alright." I reply, giving myself a boost up onto one of the stools. "Boring, but alright."

"Nothing special?" She asks again, glancing over her shoulder at me.

"Nope." I say, popping the p and flicking a chip clip across the counter. "Just boring."

"Oh." The pan sizzles slightly in the silence that follows.

"How was yours?" I change the subject, bringing my gaze up from the tiled countertop. One of my fingernails was dug into the grooves, running along the grout lines and picking up dust.

Mama's smile returns, just as it always does when a conversation begins to die, but I manage to pick it back up again. "It was alright, thanks honey." She leans her lower back against the counter, hands braced against the edge, away from the pan on the stove. She never goes into detail about it, it's always just an "alright" or an "okay", but I can tell by her face that she isn't lying this time. "I'm nearly done with lunch, I know it's a bit late but I was thinking we could eat together and then—"

A light jingling comes from the door, metal against metal, a chime of anxiety. Mama freezes, knuckles lightening from her grip on the countertop. She reaches over, turns the heat up on the stove, cursing under her breath. The flame underneath the pan jumps to life, flickering weakly before attacking the walls of the cast iron, little fingers of orange reaching and sliding along its surface with a hypnotizing glow.

I'm already off the barstool and halfway to the staircase, tucked against the wall and nearly out of sight.

"Never mind, love, another time—" Mama says, hardly looking up, all the little traces of tired excitement gone from her expression, replaced by taut worry and the smallest lines of fear that made my stomach twist in anger, writhing snakes buried and waiting to snap their jaws and strike. "I'll have a portion for you in the fridge, for later." Mama knows I don't like coming down when he's home.

I nod, holding my school bag in one hand and the railing in the other, the wood in desperate need of a sanding.

"Oh—" She calls, right before the door opens. I glance over my shoulder. "I know you're going to Rahab's tomorrow. So happy early birthday." She says with a weak smile. And like every year, when I meet her eyes that have been layered with a kind of sadness I don't think I can quite understand yet, I wish I could spend it with her.

I return her smile. "Thank you."

"Love you."

"Love you too."

I'm on the carpeted landing when I hear dad's voice raise in annoyance about why lunch wasn't ready and plated and off the stove as soon as he walks in the door. All I can do is clench my fist around the strap of my bag, grit my teeth, and kick the door to my room open.

Men were supposed to be the "leaders" of the household. Some shared that responsibility. Some abused that power.

Bullshit.

I lock the door to my room, throwing my bag at the foot of my frameless mattress of a bed. Pages spill out from where the faux leather straps had come loose and it had opened, sprawling out across the already littered floor. Homework, school binders, my bible.

The first thing I do: Flop face first onto my bed. Big mistake, I rarely could break myself out of a bed flop and actually, y'know, get back up. But after about five minutes of smothering myself in self pity I roll over, falling a few inches onto the floor, and sitting up. My skirt has gotten hiked up past my knees. Little bruises dot my skin, some fresh and a deep purple like little patches off the dull dusk sky had been pulled and patched against my skin, and some old and turning a sickly yellow-brown. I like my bruises. They are the only proof I have of not being an uptight snob. That and my awesomeness.

Now it's time to take this ridiculous uniform off.

My room is pretty cramped. Just four dark blue walls enclosing my mattress, a dresser, a hamper and a desk beneath the window just big enough for a small person to crawl through (wink, wink). Little decoration. I don't spend much time in here anyways. Just to sleep. And hide. There's a mirror propped against the wall just to the right of my door, a few sticky note reminders that I never remember to look at pressed to the corners. That's about it.

I push myself onto my knees, leaning over and pulling open a drawer of my dresser. Absolutely zero organization. Just a pile of clothes. What did you expect?

Trying to shut the drawer after I grab what I need is nearly impossible. Sleeves and pant legs stick out no matter how hard I try to stuff them in, so it stays that way.

I slide my navy blazer off first, slinging it over the back of the chair pushed against the desk with a million other articles of clothes on it. Next my skirt of the same color. I nearly trip on it trying to step out of it, swearing loudly, and bracing my hand against the dresser so I don't fall flat on my face.

Don't ask me how many times that has happened. I won't answer.

The idiotic tights I am required to wear were ripped and torn around my waist and hips, like when someone reaches their hand into a spiderweb and leaves gaps where their fingers touched. I haven't gotten a new pair in ages, but it doesn't really matter since my skirt covers me from torso to foot. Over my legs instead goes a pair of sweatpants, grey ones with worn knees and fuzzy curdles of fabric dusting the trim of the pockets and the hem. They were Ray's brother's, and she had been ever so kind enough to give them to me after he graduated from Lewis' and ran for the hills.

That's why Ray wants to stay here.

Adam ran. Jacob ran. Ray is all her mother and father have left. Well, besides their estate five times larger than the average person's, a working car, and steady, stable jobs.

Me? I want to get out of here. But then the question arises of where I would go, and I stop thinking about it. Every time.

I fall backwards onto the ground, on purpose this time, tying the sweatpants' strings around my waist so that they wouldn't fall, and cuffing them at the ankles. They weren't huge on me, but they were still a bit big. Ray probably dug them out of her mother's pile of sentimental things (bins filled with her children's old clothes, art pieces, books, and probably their teeth not going to lie, knowing Mrs. Rosier) from when her older brothers were younger than I. Very humbling to think about.

My blouse comes off next, thrown haphazardly into the chair-pile that will one day reach the ceiling if I don't take care of it. I muster the courage to glance down, look at the strap of my bra, and try to tighten it even more. Just a little snugger, a little more concealing. The elastic digs into my skin, over my collarbone and beneath my chest around my ribs and my shoulder blades. It's a cage, one that I don't want to escape because yeah, the cage sucks, but outside of it is much, much worse and I'll stay behind these bars until it isn't. I position my arms to try and tighten the strap stretching across my back, over my spine. It digs its claws in further, a red hot pain pinching at every crease in my body that it touches. But it's not enough. I hold my breath, trying to make it go tighter. Because who needs oxygen when you need a flat chest more?

I feel the inaudible click, click, click of the fabric stretching, threatening to tear, and I stop. I can't lose my only shelter. Besides, my sweater should hide it anyways. Mostly.

So I throw the dark blue hoodie over my head (can you tell I like dark blue yet?), shrugging my shoulders to get it to sit right and pulling the bottom over my ass and waistband. I have to roll up the sleeves to actually use my hands, but it's comfy and I like it and I don't need any other reason to wear it, so screw off.

Next on my list is hair.

I tug it from where it's pinned to my neck, gathering it all at the crown of my head, holding onto it tightly like a bouquet of fragile, black, and decaying flowers. That was before I twisted it and, using the elastic I had slid onto my wrist earlier, tied it up. I lung the slightest, groping towards my nightstand where a black beanie was placed all in a bunch. And then I get to my feet.

The mirror that's propped against my wall holds very little use. I rarely look at myself while getting dressed in the morning. But one purpose I do have for it, is doing my hair.

I flip my ponytail up over my face, strategically positioning the end of my hair over my forehead, before trapping it all in place with my beanie.

I glance at my reflection.

I'm supposed to be staring at a sixteen year old boy. A boy with bangs nearly as dark as his beanie, exploding beneath the hat's fold and scattering in all different directions, trying to escape. A boy with freckles like splattered paint dusted across his rigid nose, profile cut almost out of marble. A boy with brown eyes that never seemed to stop, dark tunnels dug past what he could see, that just kept going and going and going because what little there was to see behind them he concealed. A boy in oversized clothing, his limbs drowning in waves of fabric and rivers of seams. A boy.

That's what I'm supposed to be seeing.

But it's not what I am seeing.

Because I can see the bulge at the back of my beanie where my hair is gathered. I can't see past my soft jaw and wide, downturned eyes, or the rise of my chest, despite the layers I'm wearing. I can feel my hoodie brush my waist, my sweatpants tighten around my hips, my bra digging into every corner of my skin it can find. I can see how small I am compared to my room, too small, shrinking.

The ceiling curves, it's closing in. I can feel the room tightening around me, the areas where the dim lighting couldn't destroy the growing shadow clawing at the floor and towards me.

Too small, too small, too small.

I couldn't fit all of me inside this. I felt too big for this body, too many thoughts to squeeze into such a tight space. When would some piece of me come exploding out because I couldn't contain it any longer?

It all swells beneath my skin, a feeling so close but too far to describe. I press my hands to my chest, desperate, sliding them down my torso. Go away, go away, go away, go away.

I want to scream, to cut my throat open with the knife that is my rage. My hands are clenching around the fabric of my hoodie, my nails digging into the skin underneath. My knees are weak, my lungs are filled with shrieks that can't escape, leaving no room for air.

And now I'm holding my breath, but no exhale comes. Every heartbeat shatters against my ribs, my veins throbbing once, twice, three times, strong in my chest and my thighs and my hands that sting and turn white under the pressure they're clutching my sweater in.

You're not a boy.

It feels like someone is screaming it onto my ear. It feels like someone is raking their nails through my lungs, dragging me down by my shoulders. There is no real weight, only words. But those words carry tons.

I hate crying. I hate it. I hate the needles in my nose, the tightness in my throat. I hate the way my eyes sting, the water rimming my eyeline might as well have been gasoline from the way it burns.

So I don't cry. I press my sleeves over my eyes and I don't cry.

You're not a boy.

Shut up.

You're not a boy.

Shut. Up.

You're not a boy.

I SAID SHUT UP.

I'm reaching for the floor, for the spilt contents of my bag. I'm grabbing my bible, the cover leather and covered with little flowers that mama had hand stitched. I'm thinking about dad and his screams, school and its hypocrisy, every single lie that gets chanted in my ear day after day that tells me who to be and what to follow. I'm thinking about this miserable little city in this miserable but huge world, where this God doesn't even know we exist. I'm thinking about my body and my thoughts, how they don't match and don't fit and how the fuck someone could mess that up. A puzzle piece is askew, or missing entirely, I'm not sure anymore.

And now that bible is not in my hand anymore.

It's spiraling across the room, pages whipping razor sharp before smashing into one of the middle drawers of my dresser, clattering to the floor with a papery thud.

My chest heaves as I finally breathe in, taking in the momentary silence.

That felt good.

I nearly break my neck whipping my head around at a sound. A sound coming from the window.

Rat tat, rat tat.

Tapping.

Rat tat tat tat.

A familiar tapping.

Rat tat, rat tat, rat tat tat tat.

Two lamp-like eyes are peering at me through the glass. Glowing.

I grin.

Feral.

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chapter twooooo

it's different from the last one- very different. but hey, it's life, y'know-

i wrote this all off of my own experience of dysphoria, it's not going to match perfectly with everyone else's- 

dunno how y'all are gonna feel about this chapter honestly- it's a lot more serious than what i usually write- but it's really important for the plot

oh, and cliffhanger!

uh, let me know what you think- opinions, votes and comments are always appreciated :)

word count: 2731