General Warning:

CW:

 

Keira definitely saw the realization in my eyes, she knew that I was jealous of her feminine beauty, if she hadn't always known.

Shame overtook me, which quickly turned to disgust, then to a miasma of self-loathing that completely consumed me. 

A paper thin wall of restraint was all that spared Keira from the full brunt of my regret, denial, and years of bigoted dogma that would lash out at any and all around me if given half a chance. 

There was a couple clear paths, but which ones were forward and which led to destruction was impossible for me to tell, and so I did the only thing I knew how to do, I ran from my problems.

With a surprising burst of energy, I tore out of our bedroom and down the hall to the room that had been my hospital the day before, then slammed and locked the door behind me.

I picked up the hospital cot and wedged it under the doorknob, then sank to the cold tile floor and wept.

Stupid, stupid, stupid! Why'd I let myself think about wanting to be like her? Should've just been happy for her and moved on! Then she went and gave me her name, with whatever power comes with that. It's not like I don't have enough shit to deal with already!

Keira giving me her name was just the latest in a long series of traumatic events that threatened my already tenuous grasp on being a functional person.

The worst of it all was an emptiness in my heart and mind I couldn't rightly define that just kept getting worse and worse. If I couldn't fix it too soon I knew it would consume me until there was nothing left but a husk that called itself Lucas in my place.

For some time I just lay on the uncomfortable floor and wallowed in my sorrow. I couldn't tell whether or not I fell asleep at any point, the only thing that marked the passage of time were my tears running dry and thirst and hunger pangs that were rapidly getting worse.

Had I wished, I could've easily remedied that, but that would involve leaving the safety of the room and was out of the question at the time. Not that I cared that much if this body was in pain, it had always bothered me to some extent, but at that moment it felt like a coffin, and why maintain something that you're going to bury?

Thirst and depression reminded me there had been a bottle of absinthe on the bedside table, where it still sat. I'm not proud of getting drunk to help run from my problems, but I did. 

The spirit burned going down and left a vile alcoholic black licorice taste in my mouth, but after drinking what I figured was a safe enough amount of the 140 proof drink I achieved the desired result. 

If my melancholic mood created any stray weather in the room I didn't notice. Maybe my magic had given up as much as I had. There were so many things that kept going awry that there was no way I'd be able to overcome all of them.

Am I really so dumb to think I could even save Keira from Winter's wrath? The magic cops already found her so Winter can't be far behind.

I struggle getting to work everyday, how am I so arrogant that I thought I could make a difference. What am I even doing here? I should just leave this place and be done with all this now that it's too late to save Keira.

No matter how desperately I wanted sleep to take me away from the cruelty of consciousness, even with the ample amount of alcohol in me, my brain was having none of it. 

So, I slumped to the floor and the tears came renewed. Time was meaningless, but by the time the crying slowed my brain felt bloated and my eyes were raw.

At some point there was a knock on the door and Leon's concerned voice came from the other side.

"Hey, you alright in there?"

Ignoring him was my first choice, I didn't want to hear my gravelly voice or even put the effort into speaking.

"Lucas, what's going on? Mark is-"

"Her name is Keira!" I shouted angrily. 

Him using that name set me off, it was vitally important to me that her real name and pronouns were used and respected.

"Who's Keira…? Oh, she came out to you! I'm sorry, Keira is in your room crying. I don't know what exactly is going on, but I have a good guess." 

Of course he already knew she's trans, why wouldn't he? I'm the one no one bothers telling important information.

"Have you been drinking? I can smell something real fucking strong from here," Leon asked.

"Fuuuuck off," I slurred.

"Jesus, Lucas. Can you let me in, please?" he pleaded.

"Go away.”

“Fine, but I’ll be back in a few.”

"Ugh, just leave me alone."

He did actually leave and I went back to suffering in peace. Lucidity waxed and waned, but I never completely lost consciousness. My mind was too busy reminding me of everything it could to remind me how useless I was.

Eventually something cut past the haze of my drunken stupor, in the deepest dregs of my physically and mentally exhausted mind a familiar memory of a day in first grade crept to the surface briefly. I had never understood why, but over the years I had kept coming back to it.

I had been playing house with some girls when a teacher pulled me away and made me play with the boys. 

One of the girls had a doll whose name stuck in my thoughts no matter how violently I tried to rid myself of it and boy howdy how I tried.

After all, it was just the name of some dumb doll owned by some girl I'd long forgotten everything about, so why should I dwell on it? Even if it was such a pretty name, especially since it was.

At the time I had decided it was the name of the person I was going to marry, which in retrospect is a wild thing for a six year old to think, let alone for the memory to still be fresh in their mind nineteen years later, but here it was once again haunting me.

Sarah.

It was a normal name, nothing particularly special about it, no real reason it stuck with me, but it certainly did. 

During the many times I did an internet search on the name I found out it's a Hebrew word that means something to the effect of 'a woman of noble birth'. Pretty bougie if you ask me, but it’s still a pretty name.

A couple of other neat factoids I found out about were it was one of the most popular girl's names the year I was born and as far as I could find there was no male version of Sarah, not that that mattered to me or anything.

There was a knock on the door. “Whaat?” I called.

“Hey, it’s me,” Keira called from the hallway.

“Go away.”

“I can’t do that, I know you too well to leave you alone when you're like this. Please open the door so we can talk.”

“Leon there?”

“Yeah, I know we haven’t been close lately, but I still care about you and want to help as best as I can,” he confirmed.

“Leon told me what you’re doing to yourself. Him and the others are here too,” Keira said.

“Uhh, hey there, friendo,” Vincent greeted.

“Please let us in, we want to talk,” Ashe pleaded.

“Why do you even care, Ashe? You know me even less than Vincent.”

"Why shouldn't I care? True, I haven't known you long, but I can tell you're a good person and you deserve better than the lies your mind is feeding you. I've been where you are and I wish I had someone there for me."

"And where exactly am I?" I demanded.

There was silence on the other side of the door. The fact they went quiet at that spoke volumes.

She knows, they all fucking know! Shit, damn them to hell for being so fucking perceptive!

“This stuff is best left alone, I don’t know if I can handle it.”

“We’re here for you, please just give happiness a chance,” Leon pled.

"Goddamnit, why can’t you just leave me to rot in peace!"

"No, we're not going to let you do this to yourself, I love you and can’t stand to see you like this,” Keira asserted.

“Fucking hell, fine.” I righted the cot and opened the door, then collapsed on the uncomfortable bed.

My friends poured into the room and surrounded the cot I lay on. I made no effort to turn to properly face them, I couldn't bring myself to look at them yet as the disappointment that must have been in their eyes from seeing me in such a sorry state would have been humiliating. 

“I want to ask you a question, are you alright with that?”

“Do we really need to do this?” I grumbled.

“Yes, but only If you are okay with me asking it. I think you already know what I’m going to ask, if you didn’t you wouldn’t be so upset. All I want is for you to let go of the bigotry you were raised on and be happy.”

"Why can't you leave well enough alone? There's no point to all this." I tried to throw my arm up to better illustrate my point, but it was hard to lift my limbs so it ended up being more of a shrug than anything.

"If you really and truly want us to leave you alone, we'll go," Keira sighed.

“No, don’t go!” I blurted out, realizing this was happening whether I wanted it to or not and regardless of my previous wishes, I decided I really didn’t want to have to deal with this alone.

"Then we'll stay as long as you need," 

"Thanks, can someone help me sit up?" I mumbled.

"I gotcha," Vincent volunteered, then practically picked me up and sat me upright. 

I nodded my thanks to him and managed to maintain something not entirely dissimilar to proper posture.

"You ready then?" Keira asked.

“Yeah, ask your damn question." 

"Think about your answer carefully, if you tell a lie of this magnitude it could potentially infirm or even kill you," Ashe warned.

There's a thought. I morbidly noted

“Do you want to be a girl?" Keira asked.

 

I was less prepared than I could have imagined. 

The world was falling down on top of me. 

I was dimly aware I had collapsed on my side.

 Her words ricocheted around my mind like shrapnel

 that destroyed the very fabric of Lucas' being.

Lucas' mind snapped as he felt the dread of a forgone conclusion he feared was coming to him. The truth had come to kill him and there was nothing he could possibly do to save himself. If there would be a person left in his body when he died he couldn't say for sure.

Keira was right about Lucas knowing the answer. There was nothing else they could have been talking about and a part of him had known his deepest desire for a long time, but never before had the truth been spoken.

He briefly considered lying in the hope it would kill him, but as he looked around at the worried expressions of the people who were putting their lives on the line to help Keira and him, then to Keira herself who he would do anything for, he knew that he couldn't do that nor did he want to.

"Yes," Lucas admitted in a small and vulnerable voice.

"Yes, what?" Keira pried with a look of heart-wrenching concern.

A wounded animal cornered with no hope will use all of it's remaining strength to fight in a vain attempt of surviving, even if death is inevitable. Flight had failed Lucas and he was fatally injured, but he would not die without a fight.

"Yes, I want to be a girl, but I can't be! I wish I could be one so fucking badly, but I'm not and I don't need you rubbing that fact in," he admitted.

"You can be a girl, all that's required is that you want to be!" Keira promised. 

"No, I'm not special like you folks, I'm just a sad sack of shit that you shouldn't worry about. Keira just came out, shouldn't the focus be on her?"

"We've known she's trans for a while," Vincent admitted.

"Of course you all knew before me," Lucas grimaced.

Keira gave him a dirty look, then explained, "I was scared you might react, well, like this and I don't want to hurt you."

"Then why did you?" Lucas snapped.

“Because I couldn’t go on pretending that I was a guy. It was torture to allow myself to be referred to as he/him or by… that name. I couldn't even maintain the pretense that I liked being masculine, I just couldn't take it anymore."

"I can relate to that a bit, but that doesn't mean that I'm like you!" Lucas declared.

"Why can't you be trans?" Keira asked him.

"BECAUSE IF I'M LIKE YOU, THEN I'VE WASTED MY LIFE BEING MISERABLE FOR NO GODDAMN REASON. IF I'M TRANS THE ONLY REAL FAMILY I HAVE LEFT WILL HATE ME. EVEN IF I WERE TRANS I'D MAKE FOR A FUCKING REPUGNENT WOMAN," Lucas screamed at the top of his lungs.

There was silence as Lucas caught his breath, both in the room and in his head. He had expected them to yell back, to tell him that he's a bastard that's too neurotic to accept the truth, but no sound came from his friends. 

What he saw in their expressions was far worse than the argument escalating, it was a bittersweet sympathy in their eyes told Lucas they had dealt with some if not all of the problems he was so terrified of.

Keira, Leon, and Ashe can relate to your fears because they are trans. Why not just accept it? They're probably right, it explains so much, the jealousy, the daydreaming about wearing a dress, the awful feeling when looking in a mirror or just perceiving your own body, the hollow malaise that's been a constant companion throughout your life. Occam's Razor says being transgender is the simplest answer. The logical part of his brain told him.

Being transgender would mean almost nothing from your life before all this madness remains both true and untainted. Who are you if everything about you and your past is a lie? Do you even exist? Depression reminded him.

You are more than your trauma. Behind the wall you've built around yourself is a nerdy goofball who is very passionate about helping people in need. You're a kind, loving person deserving of happiness. Your parents can't hurt you anymore there's no reason to keep up this charade. Logic retorted.

It's too scary, there's too many unknowns and even more hardships this will cause. Easier to bury these feelings and avoid all this pain.

That hasn't worked to stop the pain so far and there's no way it will work now that you've accepted that you want to be a woman.

Depression couldn't counter that, it knew no amount of denial could keep the truth down forever, but there was still a little fight in him, Lucas wasn't going to lay down and die that easily.

"I want to be a girl, but it's not that simple, I can't just decide that I'm a woman, but it doesn't work like that," Lucas cried.

"That's exactly how I figured out that I'm a man. I realized there was no difference in wanting to be a man and just being one. It's the same with being any other gender!" Leon exclaimed.

"Even if I was trans, I'd be a hideous girl!" Lucas said.

"If you decide you want to be one, I know you'll be a beautiful woman," Ashe assured.

It was little comfort that Ashe was physically unable to lie. Him believing Lucas could be beautiful just proved he's delusional and his options shouldn't be trusted.

“Babe, he’s right, you’d be a gorgeous woman. How often do I need to tell you how cute you are for it to get through to you?”

“Seriously, have you seen what hormones can do? If you don’t mind me saying, you’ve already got the framework, with a couple years of taking HRT and you could be a model if you really wanted to,” Vincent observed.

“Yeah fucking right." Lucas rolled his eyes and turned to Leon." You got some inspiring bullshit to add too?” 

“Don’t ask me, I’m completely asexual. I don’t know jack shit about this stuff,” he spluttered.

“Now there’s something I can believe in,” Lucas snorted.

“Keira, try showing them timelines,” Leon recommended.

Keira nodded and poked at her phone for a moment, then handed it to me. There were a variety of photos of men who mostly looked as depressed as Lucas felt and next to cheerful and downright sexy women. 

“What do these couples photos have to do with anything?” Lucas scowled at the screen.

“Oh my god, you dense-,” Leon began, then pointed out, “Those are the same people in both photos. They are all transfem people who have been on hormones.”

“Really?” Lucas gawked. 

He took a much closer look at the pictures and sure enough there weren’t any men in them, or at least no cis men. There were only people who more or less had been in the same place he was in. 

"If you're trans, then you would get to be a girl, if that's what you want," Keira promised.

"I would get to be a girl?" Sarah echoed.

A simple shift of perspective can be extremely powerful. Changing from an upwards camera angle of a cabin in the woods to a downwards one can be the difference between a sinister atmosphere and a cozy one. For me it was much the same with being transgender. 

The sudden change in mental gears violently threw out of the last of my doom and gloom. For the first time I was able to see the positives being transgender, instead of only dwelling on negatives.

If I'm trans, then I get to dress like a girl, people would treat me like one, and best of all I get to be a girl, because I would be a girl. The only thing that's stopping me is my unwillingness to allow myself to consider it.

"I'd become a girl," I muttered, deep in thought, then corrected myself, "I would have always been a girl."

People would call me Sarah, because that's my name… I mean, that would be my name if I'm a girl… Fuck, who am I trying to fool? 

I realized that I had been wrong, Lucas wasn't going to die, because there never was a Lucas, not really. Sure, people called me that, but that had been a façade that my true self hid behind for protection, but I was so much stronger than I had given myself credit for, I hadn't needed the protection for a long time, and maybe I never had. 

Whatever the case, I could stop pretending to be someone else and let the real me come out.

My friends looked at me with anxious anticipation, a stark contrast to moments prior. 

There were seven words between me and the path to happiness. Just seven little words. It was simple really, but at the same time it was the hardest thing I'd have done. 

Not saying the words wouldn't make them any less true, that ship had sailed. Despite that it was still incredibly difficult to actually commit to the reality of who I am, but at the same time I couldn't keep it hidden any longer. 

"I t-think I might be a-," I began, but faltered.

I tried to finish the sentence, but I couldn't even make my mouth make the shapes required for the last word. 

Keira put her hand on my shoulder and gave me an encouraging nod. 

Come on, I can do this. They already know that I know what I'm trying to say. I just have to admit the truth. 

"I think I might be a girl!" I proclaimed.