True Family
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We sat at the table in awkward silence during a family dinner, though I suppose ‘uncomfortable’ was a better word here. My sisters and our Mom were wearing some fancy clothes you’d normally wear to visit relatives you didn’t see in a while, and I stood out like a sore thumb wearing my usual hoodie and jeans; not like I had anything fancy to wear anyways, Mom generally didn’t get me clothes I found uncomfortable. The only person to whom the mood of the table didn’t apply was the one who caused it - our father.

According to our Mom, when she’d first married him, he was actually an okay guy, a very kind one even, but after several years… Well, from what I understood, he’d discovered one of those weird conservative spaces on the internet and basically got indoctrinated, which led to him becoming, to put it gently, a huge jerk. It’d started small, but quickly escalated - some inappropriate comments, then the discussions, and then just yelling, lots of yelling, mostly at me, the then five year old who didn’t meet some imaginary standard of masculinity.

Luckily, Mom’d realized rather quickly that she wouldn’t be able to solve the problems peacefully, and filed a divorce. One useful thing that came from whatever the ideology our father adopted exactly was, was that he had no intention of behaving appropriately in front of the judge. Who happened to be a woman. Since then, he could only visit us once every couple months, which was honestly still too much.

And it all led us to now, with yet another very unwanted visit

“You know son, after all these years, I thought someone would have got you to stop being so picky and choosy ‘bout what you eat.” My father said, in that voice that sounded confrontational, but pretended to be polite.

Just hearing the tone of his voice gave me chills. I shouldn’t have responded, I knew I should have just kept it to myself, but I also knew that saying nothing would only make things even worse.

“Do you really think that I wouldn’t have stopped by now if I did it on purpose? That I wouldn’t get bored?” I asked, trying to keep a level tone.

“Speaking of your eating habits, you haven’t been eating any soy, have you? You still look an awful lot like your sister.” He disregarded what I said. Of course he did.

“We’re literally twins, dad.” I really hoped he wouldn’t notice that change in my tone.

“That’s just an excuse.” He paused for a couple seconds. “Say… How are you doing in school, huh?”

“My grades are fine.” I knew this wasn’t what he was talking about, but I had to try.

He simply shook his head. “No, how is your P.E. going? Have you joined any sports club, now that you’re a high schooler? Or maybe even you’ve decided to finally man up and stand up to your bullies?”

I hated that word. I didn’t know why, but it hurt. I took a breath to steady myself.

“I already told you, I’m not bullied anymore.”

He laughed the fakest, most obnoxious laugh I’ve ever heard. “I’ll believe it when I see it. With you making yourself such a target; I bet you don’t even have any friends of your own!”

Of course he brought that up again. So what if I happened to share all of my friends with my twin sister? And she technically talked to them first since I was too anxious to? They were my friends too! They talked with me normally even when Lulu wasn’t around!

I needed to calm down.

I took a deep breath.

His words wouldn’t get me angry as easily as his voice made me scared.

“Okay, let me get one thing clear,” I said calmly, “I don’t know what kind of person you think I’m supposed to be or whatever, but I’m not that, and I don’t want to be.”

Surprisingly, I didn’t get interrupted, but I could clearly see anger on his face now.

“You’re supposed to be a fucking man,” he growled. “And you should fucking act like one for once in your life.”

In that quick moment, all of my resolve evaporated. I wasn’t scared, or angry, but some sort of dam got broken, and I was suddenly on the verge of crying.

“Okay, that’s enough!” I vaguely heard my mom in the background.

I couldn’t stay there. I had to run and hide and hope he wouldn’t come after me.

And so I did, I stood up from the table, making much more noise that I’d like to in a rush, and quickly retreated to our room. I jumped onto the lower bed, and started crying into the pillow. I didn’t know why that word affected me so much, I didn’t even know how I could cry after three years of not being able to, all I knew was that, once I let them, the tears just kept flowing and flowing.

After a short bit, I heard a rhythmic knock on the door. It was Lulu. Even after all the times I’d already told her that she didn’t need to knock to enter what was also her own room. To her credit, she did enter without waiting for an answer I was probably unable to deliver.

I heard her gasp, then the closing door, and then I felt her sit down on the bed next to me and gently squeeze my hand. “Shhh... It’s okay, I’m here.”

I just let myself cry, hearing periodic re-assurements from Lulu. I dug through the confusing torrent of painful emotions, desperately trying to find something, anything, that could have made me lose it like that, but it all just kept coming back to that stupid word. Not my father, not his attitude to everything to do with me, just this one word, and I did not understand why it hurt so much.

Eventually, my crying started to calm down somewhat, and I slowly sat up, only to get instantly enveloped in a hug from my sister. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you cry like that; did he really scare you that much?”

I shook my head, not feeling ready to speak quite yet.

“Then what was it?” She asked carefully.

“Dunno,” I sniffed quietly.

Another knock, this time our Mom’s. Lulu looked to me for agreement, and I nodded.

“Come in,” she said.

In the corner of my eyes I saw the door opening, and then heard another gasp.

And just like that, I was also being hugged by Mom, “Oh god, baby, I’m so sorry, I should have said something sooner.” She ran her hand over my head. “It’s okay, he’s gone now.”

I didn’t even realize how much tension was in my body until I heard that it was safe, that I could feel at home again. In my fragile state, some new tears started to flow as I slumped into my Mom’s embrace.

“Remember what I always told you — it’s not being related to someone that matters, it’s if someone loves you no matter who you turn out to be. If he can’t do that, then he doesn’t matter,” she said.

She was right, of course. I knew that he cared about his idea of his son, and not me, but… “I just… I just don’t understand why it hurt so much… Why did it make me cry for the first time in years… It’s just one word…” I managed to get out between my cries.

“Just one… What word?” Mom asked.

I shook my head again. I was not saying that word.

After a couple seconds of silence, I heard a quiet “oh” from my sister.

A moment later I felt Mom nod, then she pulled away from me, and wiped a tear from my eye. “I love you honey, but I think Lucy will handle that one better,” she said, after which she left the room.

After a couple more minutes, my crying finally stopped and I calmed down somewhat.

“Hey, you said that that word hurt you, right? Then how about you try out something else?” Lulu asked.

I was starting to become rather confused. “What do you mean?”

“Well… We are pretty much the same size, so you could just borrow some of my clothes to see how it feels like,” she suggested.

Honestly, I still didn’t understand what she meant or what was going on, but… I had to admit I might have been a tiny bit envious of some of the clothes she got to wear for some time now. And by ‘some’ I mean most of them… And by ‘a tiny bit’ I mean a lot…

Needless to say, when she opened her wardrobe and told me to pick what I liked, I spent a couple of minutes just looking at it all. In the end, I picked out a safe combination of one of her looser pairs of pants, and a fluffy sweater.

When I finally stood in front of the mirror, I had trouble processing it all. Logically, I knew that slightly different clothes shouldn’t make that much of a difference, but… Somehow, it completely recontextualised my reflection to make it something I didn’t mind seeing, but also… somehow, it made me look like I wasn’t Lulu’s brother, and it wasn’t until that very moment that I realized I didn’t want to be one.

I wanted to always be seen the way I saw myself in that very moment. I could see my face grow red, and the smile that was forming on it regardless. I felt the tears come back, but this time, I didn’t feel upset.

“How do you feel? Do you like it?” Lulu asked.

I nodded, not taking my eyes from the mirror.

“Do you want to try on more stuff?”

I nodded enthusiastically.

After that, I kept trying on different things until I started to run out of breath, and I loved every single one of them. Eventually, I settled on a turquoise skirt, light grey blouse, and very long socks with white and light pink stripes, which for some reason were still in their original packaging until that evening. Lulu also brushed my shoulder length hair into more flattering style, and just like that, we looked like twin sisters, and for some reason, that made me very, very happy.

After that, came the hard part, the part where we left our room to show off how I could look. It might have been hard to take that step, but in the end, I knew that my family would still love me for who I was.

If you like this story and want to read more like this, visit this author's page: https://www.scribblehub.com/profile/15274/rainbow/

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