“You’ve got to talk to somebody about this.”

I jump a little at the sound of her voice and move my hands to cover my exposed chest.

It’s Isa, watching me from the bed. I hadn’t noticed that she was watching me.

For how long has she watched me?

For how long have I stood before the open closet, skin still a little damp from the shower, staring at the neat stacks of clothes I feel no longer comfortable wearing.

I’m tired. Maybe it’s just the lack of sleep, I try to tell myself, but really, I know that that is not true.

Claire’s words have left marks I still struggle to understand. And if I struggle to understand them, how can the healing process start?

Yesterday, laughing at the waterfall with Isa and Alex, I’d had hope. Hope that everything’s going to be alright soon. But that’s not how trauma works and looking at it realistically, that’s what this is, isn’t it?

Laughter that haunts me at night. Harsh voices booming through the sound of rain and thunder.

The feeling of helplessness and shock.

The pain barely plays a role.

My shoulder still hurts. I have to sleep on my back because I can’t sleep on my other side because of the bruise on my stomach. And then I wake up because I tried to turn over in my sleep and accidentally put pressure on one of them.

Isa had been there the entire time, sleeping next to me. Once, when I’d had a panic attack after waking up from a bad dream, she’d held me and told me that she was there over and over until my breathing had calmed, but she can do only so much. She can’t read my thoughts. She wasn’t there.

I nod vaguely. “I should.”

But I don’t move, even though I’m uncomfortable.

Isa gets up and hugs me from behind, careful to avoid the bruise on my stomach.

“Do you want me to pick something out for you?” she asks in a gentle voice.

I lean into her lightly, feel her warmth against my back, her breath against my neck.

“The thought of wearing a skirt makes me want to throw up,” I say lamely. I know that’s not a reply. I say it anyway.

“Doesn’t have to be a skirt,” Isa says. “Girls don’t have to wear skirts and dresses to be girls.” Her thumb gently brushes against the soft skin just underneath my breasts. “Look down. Your clothes don’t define who you are.”

I don’t look down on, though, because what if that’s the point?

I hate that I can’t help but wonder how Timothy would have fared in that situation, deliberately ignoring the fact that it would never have happened to him in the first place. There’s safety in invisibility, isn’t there?

“Come,” she says, stepping past me. Purposefully, she opens one of the drawers and hands me a pair of simple white underwear. “Going without isn’t an option.”

Despite how I feel, I can’t help but agree. So I turn away from her to put it on and by the time I’m done, Isa has put flared jeans and a wine-coloured T-shirt next to me on the bed. I don’t argue on that, either. I have to wear something, after all, don’t I? And it’s easier, knowing that I wasn’t the one to make the decision to wear something that’s not the most plain my closet can offer.

“Now sit,” she says, patting the mattress. “We should talk.”

I follow her command and as I sit down, I notice that she’s still in her pyjamas.

I glance at her face but then look away again. She looks worried.

You make everybody around you miserable.

I shake my head and and press my eyes shut, bite down hard on my lip. Arms come around me, holding me. Isa.

No! Isa chose to help me. I never asked her to come back, but she’s here anyway.

The voice fades.

“This exactly what I mean,” Isa whispers. “You’ve got to see a professional about this. And until you get an appointment, talk to Reyna. She’s here to help you. You can talk to us, of course, but there’s only so much we can do. We haven’t studied this shit.”

She’s right, of course, so I nod once again.

“Alright,” she says, letting go of me. “Think I can leave you alone long enough to shower? I stink a little.”

And there it is, the tiniest of smiles on the corners of my mouth.

-

“Hey, Reyna.”

“What a coincidence. I was just about to come over and check in on you.” She finishes putting away her laptop and gets up.

“How can I help you?”

I give her an only slightly awkward smile.

“My friend told me I should go talk to you and… since she’s got quite the record of being right about a lot of things, I’m here now.”

“To talk.”

“Yes.”

“Alright, then.” Her smile is encouraging and only slightly professional. “Where would you like to talk? I’m sure we could find a quiet spot outside, but my room’s an option, too, of course.”

“I’d prefer the room, if that’s alright.” I don’t like the idea of talking about the things I’m here to talk about where somebody could listen in on us.

“Alright,” Reyna says without missing a beat. “My room it is.”

She puts the sling of her computer bag over her shoulder and walks ahead, up the stairs.

Reyna’s room has barely changed since the last time I was here. Nothing is lying around, the sheets on her bed are tucked in nicely. She did put away the suitcase, though, likely expecting to stay for a little longer, with all that’s happened.

Reyna closes the door behind me, without locking it, notably, and sits on her own bed while I take the one across from her.

“How are you feeling?” she asks then, after a moment’s hesitation. She’s sitting fairly straight but relaxed, still. Her gaze holds me without staring and her expression is neutral.

It takes me a second to gather myself. We’re doing this again. She’s being professional.

I just rolled around the mud fighting a fucking high schooler.

I think I liked that Reyna better and at that moment I can’t help but wonder whether we could have been friends, had we met normally. Okay, sure, she’s more than a decade older than me, but…

I need this. This is going to help me. So I better be happy I get the opportunity.

“Like shit?” Right. Very helpful. “I have trouble sleeping,” I add, kneading my hands. “I keep hearing her voice, shouting my old name, telling me those awful things.”

There’s a shift in her eyes. From neutral to understanding.

“Both are common responses to trauma. I don’t think either of us is surprised that you’re traumatised, are we?” She pauses. “May I ask what you’ve been doing in order to cope?”

“The night right after, my little sister slept over in my bed and that helped. But then she had to go to school so I visited a friend’s place and talked to them. A lot. And then Isa, the friend who told my to come see you today, arrived and I spent the rest of the day with her mostly. Alex was there too.

That was nice…”

“That’s a good start. It’s important that you surround yourself with people. Talk about your feelings, granted, you’re doing that right now… You might want to consider going back to school in the near future. Returning to a strict routine can help people a lot because it can give them a feeling of returning normalcy? People who are left alone with their problems can find doing that difficult, because they don’t see themselves as a valid part of the community anymore, but you aren’t alone, are you? So… think about it.”

I nod vaguely. “May I ask, are you a trained therapist?” I know it’s off-topic, but I can’t help being curious about it.

Reyna looks confused for a moment, then humour flashes past her eyes.

“No, not really. I’ve received some training, but definitely not enough to make me a professional on this in any regard. Really, most of what I can offer is just… experience.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Classified?”

A tired smile spreads her lips. “Most of it, anyway. But if you think it could help you, I could tell you about an event that isn’t…”

She holds my gaze, waiting for some sign of approval, so I nod.

“My parents were… conservative. My father was the breadwinner, my mother stayed home to take care of the house and me. So far, nothing wrong with that, right? But their marriage had been arranged. They didn’t even particularly like each other. My father used to call my mother stupid and tell her that she’d long lost the beauty he’d married her for and she didn’t like him because… well, because he was an asshole. He drank a lot and almost every time he did, he hit her. He’d always find reasons. Because he didn’t like the food she’d made, because she’d talked to him at the wrong moment or in the wrong tone, sometimes even because of me. Because I hadn’t turned out to be a boy he could raise to carry on his pitiful legacy of bigotry.” She takes a second to breathe and rearranges her legs. “When I got older, he started hitting me too. He pretty much blamed me for everything that had gone wrong in his life and my mother for having given him me and not the son he felt he deserved.” The way she talks about it, it really doesn’t sound like she cares much anymore. She’s not making light of her past, but she doesn’t seem like she’s still struggling with it, either. “And I’d hate myself for it. For being a girl, not because my father wanted me to be different, but because my mother kept telling me that I couldn’t stand up to him because of it. I hated that helplessness.”

Wow. I’m sure that under different circumstances I’d be able to laugh at how well I can relate to what she’s saying.

“But as I grew older, I learned about martial arts and that women could very much be strong. Strong enough to take on almost any man. So I decided I’d become one of them. It started with YouTube videos, then I began sneaking out to take classes I’d paid for with my pocket money. And then, maybe two years later, I finally felt like I could take him and when he tried to hit me, I beat the shit out of him for it.” She shrugs. “He threw me out, of course, but I couldn’t care less. I moved in at a friend’s house and swore to myself that I’d never be weak again. That’s how I ended up at the police. It took me years to realise how unhealthy that approach was. Because nobody can be strong all the time and I hope you don’t make the mistake of believing that. Nobody can just keep tanking hits, be it emotional or physical, and come out of it unscathed. I loved to tell myself that I was strong for it and it took me another traumatic experience to realise just how dumb that was…” her voice trails off.

“It’s similar for me,” I say. “This morning I thought about how all that never would’ve happened to Timothy.”

She considers me for a moment. “Maybe not. But what are all the things you would have missed out on, had you stayed Timothy? You have Alex now, you at least know what it feels like to like yourself and I’m confident you’ll be able to return to that. Think about it. Where would you be now, had you not become Selena?”

“Dead, probably.” As harsh as it may sound, had I chosen to stay as Timothy and had another dream and a panic attack… I don’t think I’d have made it.

“Right. And that’s the unfortunate reality of many trans folks, you know? Life is hard in a society that sometimes even refuses to recognise them for who they are, but dying isn’t an option and living with the wrong gender can sometimes be even worse. And anyway,” she says, a small smile creeping onto her lips, “I know this might sound stupid, but you can’t rewind time. So you can’t go back to simply being miserable and thereby avoiding this hardship you’re going through right now. Regret doesn’t help you.”

“So what should I do instead?”

She leans forward, her voice firm. “You should learn. You should learn and grow and move on. And that’s what I’m here to help you achieve.”