-- Day 85 --

I woke up with the worst headache I had ever known.

Fuck.

Attempting to open my eyes, I found that the sunlight that managed to leak its way through the blinds instantly amplified the headache to unbearable proportions. Nope. I groaned and rolled over, accidentally squishing my nipple. Fuck times two.

I had a dream last night. I couldn't recall what exactly happened, but a stain in my pajamas and a vague memory of a bouncing motion betrayed its nature.

Gross.

I hated waking up, in general. Waking up with what I eventually recognized as a hangover was apparently a hundred times worse. I'd rather never wake up again, honestly.

An indeterminate amount of time went by, its passage marked only by the increasing urgency of my bladder. The contradiction of my need to urinate and my general disregard towards existence reached the eventual conclusion that I absolutely had to get up, because I was not going to piss the bed.

Putting in my best effort to ignore the pounding in my skull, I extricated myself from my tangled mass of blankets. Eyes half-open, I let tentative, wobbly steps lead me to the bathroom. Light? Not with this headache. Standing? Not in the dark. The vertigo of rapidly dropping onto the toilet seat sent another wave of pain through my head, but I managed. I was fine.

What the fuck did I think I was doing?

I remembered what I did last night. The way that I acted. I couldn't keep doing this, keep playing the part of the loving girlfriend, constantly... making out with her... boyfriend... it was a slippery slope! If I kept it up long enough, I could end up actually becoming attracted to guys.

...Oh, who was I fucking kidding? Could I honestly keep lying to myself, denying the obvious truth that was right in front of me?

Yes. Just watch me. They weren't going to be correct. I wouldn't let them.

God, my head. I needed an ibuprofen.

***

I always ended up staring up at my bedroom ceiling, every single time I felt like stewing inside my brain for a while. It was a boring sight. Why couldn't I just go on walks? Fresh air would do me some good.

I never liked going outside, though - at least not in recent memory.

My thoughts kept returning to yesterday. Eddie was an asshole. A complete piece of shit. But... he was kinda right, wasn't he? I got aroused when I dressed up, when I put on makeup and looked in the mirror. I jerked off to pathetic fantasies, ones that would be utterly humiliating to admit to, but I couldn't stop fucking doing it!

No matter how much I tried to suppress it, I was nothing but a disgusting pervert. Fuck. Why did I even bother?

It wasn't a new thought - I had long felt this way about myself. Despite this, I could usually push it deep in my psyche, able to avoid thinking about it. It was the truth, though, so it always rose to the surface eventually.

I was worthless.

The sound of the apartment door opening and closing heralded my mom's return from work. I desperately wished that she wouldn't knock on my door, but alas, that was exactly what happened.

"What?" I called out, annoyed at the interruption to my brooding.

"I don't know if you remember, but I wanted to talk to you today," she said through the door.

Oh, yeah. I remembered. Judging by the context, it was... not something I wanted to hear. Ever, probably. Perhaps if I just ignored her, she wouldn't push the issue.

She opened the door after only a short moment of silence. I groaned in exasperation, but sat up from being sprawled lazily on my bed regardless. She'd never let it drop until we had this conversation, she'd just keep pestering me until I caved. I almost missed when we were able to ignore each other's existences. Almost.

"Hey," she murmured.

I didn't respond.

She sat beside me on the bed, the springs squeaking under the weight. "So, Eris," she started, "You have a boyfriend."

Despite the fact I knew what was coming, I couldn't help the sheer humiliation that permeated my soul at the knowledge that my mom was aware of who I was now spending so much of my time with. Certainly, she had a vague idea of what I was doing when I was with him. Fuck. It was so embarrassing.

I could feel my face turn red, and I shifted the focus of my gaze to the closed blinds that isolated me from the rest of the world, "Yeah?" I mumbled.

She paused, then asked, "Well, how do you feel about that?"

"Iunno," go away, go away, go away, go away, go away-

My mom sighed, probably already getting exasperated at my lack of cooperation, "Um... I know we've never really... had this talk before, but I just... want to make sure you aren't getting into any trouble, you know?"

"I'm not a fucking child. I know what I'm doing."

Another pause. She audibly sniffed, and quietly spoke, "I'm- I'm sorry. I just want-" she now began quietly... sobbing? "I haven't been a good mother to you in the past. I- I want to make up for that. I just want you to be safe. And happy. I love you."

I had no idea how to respond to that. I was never good at emotional situations. I felt... terrible. A terrible ice spread from my heart. What was wrong with me? Why wasn't I ever a good person? I was just some fucking asshole who hurt everyone around me. I was the worst. The fucking worst. I'd known that for ages, really, but I consciously felt it now.

I didn't want to be like that anymore, God fucking damn it!

But I didn't know what to say.

"Please leave..." I whispered.

She left the room.

***
-- Day 96 --

My doctor had doubled the dose of my estrogen prescription once again: now it was two milligrams, twice daily. She also told me that in a month or so she'd check my testosterone levels to see whether I'd need T-blockers or not.

I had actually managed to avoid Sean at the pharmacy this time, and I succeeded in retrieving the bottle of pills. These tablets looked much the same as the one milligram tablets, but green and with an E2 engraved on one side.

Same chalky taste as ever, though.

With twice the estrogen now running through my veins, I wondered if I would now feel twice as girly. I was pretty sure that wasn't how it worked, but I wasn't in the mood to feel like me, so anything else would be appreciated.

I was hoping for more by now, illogical as it was. While I had managed to develop a decent pair of sensitive, puffy nipples, I wanted actual boobs. It would be... y'know, awesome. Who wouldn't want to have a pair of tits?

Not my internet 'friends', apparently. Recently, in a bout of self-loathing, I had made the mistake of telling them what had been going on in my life over the past few months. Predictably, they mocked me. Relentlessly.

I could normally shoot back as good as they gave, but these taunts felt different, somehow. More personal. I was getting seriously upset at what they were saying, and not just in the anger sense. They were all a bunch of fucking assholes, anyway. I didn't know why I even talked to them. They all acted like crabs in a bucket whenever anyone did something productive and none of their stupid memes were even that funny.

In a fit of rage, I personally DM'd each and every one of them to fuck off and die, then blocked them all.

Fuck. Where was I gonna get new friends, now?

***

"Are you fucking stupid, or something?" I scowled, brows tightly furrowed at the moron in front of me. He thought Antarctica was a country. Why did I even hang out with these idiots?

That was a rhetorical question. I knew why: they shared similar taste in video games and gave me something to do during lunch block. Two months into high school, and I had utterly failed to make any actual friends. Considering my track record, I doubted I'd get any anytime soon. Not with my inability to relate to any of my peers.

If middle school was hell on Earth, than this was... this was, like, hell two. It sucked. I couldn't wait for it to be over.

"Dude, you're kinda mean sometimes," whined Dumb.

"Yeah, Eric, who cares about random geology facts?" added Dumber.

I rolled my eyes, "It's geography. And I'm done with you losers."

Scoffing haughtily, I brushed my hair away from my face - I had been growing it out since last year, adamantly refusing a haircut - and stood up. These guys sucked. I didn't need them. I didn't need any of the immature assholes at this school. I would be fine on my own.

Now I had to figure out what to do during lunch, though.

I brushed past some girls who were clogging up the hallway, talking about whatever girls talked about. I had no clue; it wasn't a world I was ever going to be allowed within, as much as the thought filled me with an odd sense of longing.

The one I bumped my shoulder into sent a death glare my way, along with some indignant response, but I ignored her. Instead, I focused resolutely on somehow burning a hole into the floor just by thinking about it really hard. I hated this fucking place, in all of its incarnations. What fucking sadist decided it would be a good idea to cram hundreds of stupid, impulsive teenagers into a single building?!

I walked directly into someone's back, nearly falling over, "Hey! Watch where you're..."

My rebuke trailed off as he turned around. Wasn't he in my English class? I'd never noticed how tall he was. Seriously, there was a whole foot of difference - how was he in the same grade as me? I was impatiently waiting for my growth spurt to kick in, but for now I was still nearly the shortest guy in any of my classes. It sucked.

"Why are you tall?" I asked. That was a fucking stupid question.

"Huh?" he dumbly replied, rubbing the back of his head in a way that made his hair more unkempt, somehow, than it already was. Worse, he had this confused, wide-eyed look on his face that gave me the strangest feeling, deep in my gut.

It all went downhill from there.

***

Six years later, the limitless power of hindsight bestowed upon me one incredibly obvious revelation: I was hopelessly attracted to Sean fucking Murphy.

And, somehow, I was now dating him. I was his girlfriend - the word played almost on loop in my mind, like an alarm sounding out for the end of everything that made any sort of sense. Equal parts disgust and elation filled me at the prospect, overwhelming any deeper thought.

What was I doing? What was I supposed to do? Why was I... like this?

Sean was an anomaly, some kind of... bizarre exception. I wasn't into guys. I wasn't. He just- just- he was just so fucking perfect that I couldn't help but feel... that way, okay?!

My train of thought kept looping around itself, like some kind of neurotic ouroboros. I'd been spiraling for the past week and a half - sequestering myself inside my room again, avoiding any and all contact with the world outside of it. I was ghosting Sean again. That was mean, but I didn't know how to cope with the way he made me feel.

Was I always going to do this? Was my life always going to be a cycle of leaving my comfort zone, then quickly retreating as soon as it revealed things I didn't... want to admit about myself?

No. I categorically fucking refused. In this spiral of self-loathing, I had one particular moment of insight, one thought more liberating than any other I'd ever had:

It didn't matter.

I was happier that last night with Sean than I had ever been in twenty years as that loser named Eric. Nothing else fucking mattered.

It didn't matter what I did with my life because I was inevitably going to die and be forgotten regardless. Usually the thought filled me with utter hopelessness, but this time it was different.

It didn't matter what those idiotic jerks in school said about me, because they were all gonna fucking die and be forgotten, too! It didn't matter whether I was some degenerate pervert or a disgrace to all men because everyone was gonna die and forget about it anyway! It didn't matter whether I was actually trans, deep in my psyche, because I was going to live as a girl either way - it made me happy, damn it!

It didn't matter if I wasn't doing what Eric Henderson would do, because Eric was fucking dead. I wasn't going to be him anymore. Ever.

And if it didn't matter, if I could just be a girl, then I really was straight, not gay! Take that, fuckers!

The catharsis of the realization - of my freedom from the chains of the belief that I was some kind of failure - filled me with an indescribable sense of relief.

I could just do whatever. So what? I could wear pretty clothes whenever I wanted. Who cared? I could just kiss a guy I found attractive and nobody who mattered would judge me, because the only thing that really mattered was that it made me happy!

I was finally fucking done with feeling like shit about myself. Well... almost.

If I was going to rid myself of the spectre of who I used to be, then I really needed to apologize to someone. I didn't have much practice at that, but I might as well start now.

I got up from my bed - with great effort, mind you - and stretched, taking the pops and cracks of my joints as a sign that I really ought to spend less time in my bedroom. I marched to my door and opened it, finding my mom on the couch watching television.

"Mom, I want to say something," I interrupted. She paused whatever she was watching and stood up. I was so fucking horrible to her. I didn't deserve to be forgiven for it, but I had to ask anyway. I took a deep breath and walked up to her.

"I'm sorry for... being a terrible son, and daughter," I said. It was painful to get the words out; it went against every instinct I had ever developed to avoid vulnerability, to cover up my insecurities. Well, I didn't want any of those instincts anymore. I wanted to be a completely different person.

My mom pulled me into a hug.

I hugged her back.

"Honey, you were never terrible. You were hurting, and I didn't properly support you for so long. You mean the world to me, Eris," she said, with tears streaming down her face,

Having tears of my own to match, I replied, "I feel so bad. Fucking awful. I'm such a... terrible person. Fuck."

"It's okay, Eris. I'm so... so proud of you for coming out of your shell."

"Yeah... I'd like to stay out of it, ideally," I mumbled.

Tomorrow, I absolutely had to call - or text, probably - Sean again... I was being a horrible girlfriend.