There are moments when words fail, when raw, pure emotion surpasses human reason. There are moments when my body seizes and I no longer inhabit the machine, the deus exiting the machina. Then I am free-floating, observing the reactions of my carefully programmed mechanism. But this time…

This time, no matter how much the bird thrashed in protest, it remained stubbornly entrapped. I could viscerally experience the beating of my own heart, sanguine scarlet flowing through me, commingling with the breath in my lungs, powering the gold-metallic mannequin. I slumped to the ground, hoodie slowly dragging on the wall of the elevator. The closed elevator doors would not open. The bird could not flee.

“Are… are you okay?” A voice rang out from somewhere high above me. I was only vaguely aware of its presence. Intellectually I knew what was happening, who it was that spoke so, but I couldn’t emotionally reconcile the fact that in a few moments, it would all be crashing down on top of me: all the lies I’d told, all the pills I’d stolen. And for what? A moment’s high? A month without nightmares? My breath rang ragged in my head, echoing off the inside of my skull in low, sonorous tones. I drew my knees up to my chest and tilted my head downwards, feeling the scratchy sensation of my facial hair touching other skin. The horror always returned. I was a fool to ever run.

One breath. Two. My heart thundered within me, the flickering fluorescence of the elevator lighting causing my sight to grow hazy. It would pass. It would all pass. In a way, it all already had. I was merely in that transitory state where I was still barely untouched by the consequences of my actions, but there it was, right above me, barreling down at terminal velocity. And terminate it would.

A pressure grew around me, encircling me, the weight of my sins bearing down and… comforting me? It felt warm. Gentle. Like someone was… but they couldn’t be. I didn’t deserve it. No one should have to touch this body of mine. I screwed my eyes shut. Three breaths. Four.

I spent devil knows how long in that state, curled up on the dirty floor of a broken elevator.

“Hey,” a soft voice whispered into my ear. “When you’re ready, okay?” The presence gave me another tight squeeze. I felt safe in the pressure, as though it was more a protective shell than a punishing vise. But sooner or later, I’d have to push my way out of it. I was a bird. And birds have to hatch.

Still… I wasn’t sure I was ready. Not yet. So I bought myself another moment, appreciating the calm before the storm. Then I gripped the controls of my machine, and lifted my head.

“Sorry,” Thalia apologized, removing her arms from their position around me and nervously rubbing the back of her neck, “but you kinda looked like you were spiralling, and… uh, was that not okay? Please tell me if that wasn’t okay.”

“No, um,” I replied, voice coming out so soft that for a moment I thought I actually liked the sound of it, “that was wonderful. Thank you.” I shifted around on the cold aluminum.

“So, since it looks like we’ve got a bit of time to kill, what brings you to these parts?” Thalia asked, settling into a more comfortable sitting position.

I coughed conspicuously. “I live here.”

Thalia’s face lit up. “Hey, me too! How come I haven’t seen you around before?”

I looked askance, feeling an answer trembling on the edge of my lips but unwilling to say it.

“Well, anyway, now that I know you’re so accessible we should totally take advantage of this. Go for outings together, y’know. Actually, ooh, I—”

“Are we just going to pretend I didn’t…” I interrupted. My crime, what about my crime? Either the one I committed a month earlier, or the one I’d committed just now?

Thalia raised an eyebrow. “Uh, unless you want to talk about it more. I mean, it just happens sometimes, right? At least, that’s what I hear from my Aspie friends. ‘Sides, it’s super understandable, considering we just…” She waved her hands around in the air, gesticulating wildly at the aluminum capsule we were ensconced within. “Honestly, the only reason I’m not freaking out right now is because I got that done while you were doing the same.”

“No, no, I.” I hesitated, panicking at the prospect of coming clean. A part of me wanted to stop speaking, to let the lie continue, to keep on being trans, being a girl, being Chloe. She would never have to know I was anything different. She would never have to know I stole something of hers. And yet. There is something beyond lies, beyond acting. A reality that makes its presence felt. The toys laid in broken pieces around me; I was to pick them up and put them away now. Be responsible. I couldn’t simply be what was expected of me.

I took a breath. A slow one, that hissed rather than rattled. “I’m not trans. I’m not a girl. I’m—I’m a cis m-man, and my name isn’t C-Chloe.” I heaved. I couldn’t help it. Something within me felt like it had broken, and I grieved for its loss, sobbing into the sleeve of my hoodie. From this vantage point, I could see the past months for what they had been. A futile attempt at playmaking, and nothing more. There probably hadn’t been a plot to convince me of my transness. I was just a self-sabotaging idiot.

I could feel Thalia lay a hand on my shoulder, keeping it there as I let out wet tears. I hadn’t cried tears in so long. I was dimly aware of a stirring within me, a feeling almost resembling contentment at finally being able to cry how I wanted to. 

“I… I see,” Thalia said, in a voice gentle with concern. “Well, is there a name you’d like to be called?”

I paused my sobbing, allowing for a break in the tears as I sniffled and glared at Thalia through bleary eyes. “I-I’d like to be called Chloe, but that isn’t my name.”

Thalia furrowed her brow. “Sorry, but uh, I don’t get it. If you want to be called something else then that’s fine, but… if you want to be called Chloe then why not just… be called that? Even if you’re cis, I mean, you can still—”

“I can’t,” I snapped, “because my name isn’t Chloe. I can’t be trans because I’m—I’m not. I just can’t be; it doesn’t make sense.”

Thalia said nothing, rather placing her hand on mine and squeezing, waiting for me to continue.

“I’ve been…” I looked away, trying to verbalize my thoughts. “All my life, I’ve been exactly who people expected. Student, employee, cashier, son… and then I stumble onto a group of trans people, what do you think would happen? Of course I act like I’m trans. That doesn’t mean I am. Even if I sometimes want to be, or wish I were, I’m not. I’m only after the—the feeling of community. Anything else is pure fantasy.”

I sighed. “I’m sorry for lying to you. For lying to everyone. I don’t want forgiveness. I just want to be left alone.” And in speaking the words, I knew I was condemning myself to yet more lonely years in my apartment of vice and sorrow above a city that found itself bereft of mercy.

From the corner of my vision I could see Thalia start to open her mouth, and I knew what would come next: a series of recriminations, nothing more than what I deserved. But the words that tumbled out resembled something else entirely.

“Chl… uh, not Chloe… sorry, is there anything else I can call you? Just for the time being?” She looked at me apologetically, with more than a little anxiety of her own captured within the nervous vibrations of her leg.

I looked away. “Um, Doll. It’s my… pseudonym.” I appreciated not having to give my legal name, for several reasons that tumbled together within the pit of my stomach and got combined into a slurry of fear.

“Right. Well, Doll, lemme tell you about myself. We’ve got a lot in common, you and I. I ran away from home at sixteen. It’s been… God, it’s been almost a decade.” She made an effort at fumbling through the multitudinous pockets of her cargo pants before giving up. “Sorry, uh, didn’t bring any tissues.”

I laughed softly, managing a weak smile. “I’ll manage.”

Thalia nodded, continuing with her story. “Yeah, alright. Well, once I ran away, I came here. Couch-hopped for a while, occasionally rented rooms when I could afford it. When shit really hit the fan and my parents sent some investigators to capture me and/or ruin my life, I spent some nights out on the street. Sucked, but…” Her eyes were unfocused, concentrating on a place that was not here and a time that was not now.

“Hey, why…” I hesitated a moment before asking, perhaps a moment too long. Under different circumstances I would have no trouble speaking, but it had been a while since my body had been perfectly behaved. About a month, actually.

“Why’d I run? Lots of reasons,” Thalia replied, knowing exactly what I was about to ask. “I used to be a lot like you said: I was exactly who my parents and tutors wanted. Tried my hand at being an athlete, an artist, even a son. Did an okay job at all three. But when I wanted anything different?” Thalia shook her head ruefully.

I crossed my arms over my knees and curled up into a ball, following her words carefully, searching and scanning for retorts, for excuses as to why I wasn’t like her and why I couldn’t ever be. For one, I didn’t want anything. The only vices I regularly partook in were drugs and drink, and as for life goals, well, it was somewhat difficult to have those when I couldn’t even imagine myself growing older as I was.

“It sucked, having to choose between what I wanted and what others wanted for me. And for years and years, the way I dealt with that problem was by shoving down my own desires, until I could barely remember that I’d ever had any. I became like a puppet.” Thalia reached out a hand and closed it around a spot in the air, holding something of her past within the palm of her hand.

“...Dancing along the strings guided by your masters,” I added softly. 

“Yeah. That,” Thalia said, refocusing her attention. “But, as it turns out, that’s not a sustainable way to live your life. I just couldn’t do that, couldn’t live every day in a body that was gradually becoming more and more alien, couldn’t keep my passion for things I’d never felt passionate about in the first place.”

I didn’t see why she couldn’t. It seemed like I’d been doing that, and I’d been doing just fine. At the very least, I had nothing better to compare it to, once I took away the temporary highs of HRT. Still, I felt like I could guess where this story was headed. 

“So you confronted your parents.” 

Thalia nodded grimly. “Yep. But my parents didn’t want a daughter, see, since a daughter couldn’t pass on the family name or take on the mantle of leadership once dear old dad passed. And they didn’t want a no-good journalist in the family, and after a while it became clear that they didn’t want me.

“So I ran. Ran away from a place I had called home, to a place that actually would be.” She sighed as she finished speaking.

I stared directly at her, a lingering doubt making its way into my expression. “And what am I supposed to take from that? That you didn’t want to be who your parents wanted you to be, so you ran away from home?” I asked, having formed half a conclusion and unwilling to complete it.

Thalia pursed her lips for a second before replying. “You’re not supposed to take anything away, and that’s the point. You can’t spend your life being who other people expect you to be, Doll, you just can’t. At some point, you gotta accept that half of yourself with wants, and desires, and hopes and dreams.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” I snapped. “That’s why I’m saying I’m cis!”

“Maybe so,” Thalia said, a mischievous grin appearing on her face, “but in that case, tell me, what do you want to be called?”

I rolled my eyes. “Chloe. But—”

“Right,” Thalia interrupted, “and what pronouns do you want to use?”

My mouth hung open like a door ajar. “You-you can’t do this to me!”

“You didn’t answer the question. C’mon, don’t tell me your pronouns, Chloe, tell me what pronouns you want.”

“I—” I began, my face by now a marvellous ruddy flame. “I want to use she/her,” I answered, the last part petering out into nothingness.

Thalia nodded. “Thought so. And please, tell me, this Chloe, would she be a man, a woman, a—”

“Well, obviously I’m a—”

“Ah! Forgive my wording. What would she want to be?”

“...A woman.”

Thalia clapped her hands together. “Then we’ve reached our conclusion, haven’t we, dear Chloe?” Her face was positively alight, her chest proudly puffed up in the long-sleeved t-shirt she was wearing.

“I—wait!” I cried. “That doesn’t solve anything! I’ve never wanted these things before, it’s only after joining that support group that I’m feeling this way!”

Thalia let out a bit of a giggle. “You mean, it’s only after having a safe place to act in a way you haven’t been able to before that you’ve figured out that you like and want it?”

My mouth flopped open in a manner reminiscent of certain breathless fish.

“You’re a woman, Chloe. I mean, you’ve been on HRT for a while now, right?”

Ah. And the other thing. Was now a good time to come clean? I mean, I’d just admitted quite a large thing to myself, so it only felt appropriate.

“Um, yeah, about that…”

Thalia froze. “Oh my god, you’re not having trouble getting more, right? I know I’ve offered to share before, but I just wanna say again that—”

“No, no!” I quickly replied, a little flustered. “I actually had… something to confess about that.” Taking in a deep, somewhat more confident breath, I laid out my crime from beginning to end, from the first time I’d seen her on the elevator to my current situation where I was, yes, a little tight on funds. As I spoke, Thalia alternated between expressions of pity and concern, anger never showing on her face.

“So um, yeah…” I finished, releasing a final rattling breath and letting the elevator fall silent.

Thalia took a moment before responding. “Y’know, Alice asked me if I wanted to sic the Culler on whoever stole my shipment and I gotta level with you, I’m feeling real damn relieved that I didn’t say yes.”

I blanched. Thalia was in contact with Alice?

“Yeah! I’m Gebbeth, and mostly I tail people, case mansions, stuff like that. Turns out writing skills are transferable!” She gave a weary laugh. “Hey, I mean, have to make a living somehow, right? ‘Sides, I totally owe her. She gave me a place to crash for a while and supplies my HRT every month. Sends these handwritten notes with them, too? Total sweetheart.”

Gebbeth—I’d heard that name before. Alice had accused me of conspiring with her. Perhaps this whole ordeal had been more interconnected than I’d thought. “I… thought you’d be more angry about this.”

Thalia cocked her head to the side, thinking. “Well, I was when I first found out about it. But I’ve had a month, y’know? And Alice was real good about replacing it for free. I think after a while I basically just saw the whole thing as funny, like some kid had snatched a bottle of pills and was now unintentionally feminizing themselves.” She gave me a smug look, and I turned away, flushed.

“Besides,” Thalia continued, “I offered to share, didn’t I? You just took me up on my offer a little early.”

I didn’t say anything to that, instead letting out a high-pitched whine that was somewhere between the screech of metal on metal and the pained noises of an extremely embarrassed girl.