Chapter Text
Being transgender at Midtown High is… about as good as being transgender in high school can be. I like to think that I get treated just as bad as everyone else, but I know that isn’t true deep down. You come to a point where you have to live in a delusional world to make it through. You realize that you have to be in that delusional mindset to get by. Because once you realize that the only way for a trans kid to survive the hell hole that is high school is to fake it, the better. You fake every second of your life; every smile, every ‘I’m okay’, and every ‘No, Aunt May, the kids at school are nice to me!’. Not because you want to, but because you have to.
I came out as transgender my first year of high school. I was fresh out of eighth grade and fresh out of my uncomfortable braces. I remember thinking to myself, ‘Peter, this is it. This is the time you’ve been waiting for. The perfect moment to just tell the world that you’re a boy. What could possibly go wrong?’ Little did I know, everything could go wrong. The scariest thing about coming out as trans isn’t realizing your true identity, it’s realizing just how much it affects everyone else. Funny enough, coming to terms with the fact that I didn’t identify as my birth gender was harder on everybody else than it was on me.
When I told my Aunt, she bursted into tears. She said she was mourning her ‘little girl’. It took her a full year to accept me as I was, after countless fights and endless nights of me wishing I was never born in the first place. Fast forward to breaking the news to my friends. Growing up with these kids, you gain a sense of security. You feel safe with them, you feel safe in the fact that they’re your friends. You think you can tell them anything and they’ll accept you. At least, that’s what I thought. Turns out I was wrong about that too.
“You’re- what?”
“HAAAA! Parker’s a tranny!”
“We’ve all been there. You’ll get over it eventually, honey.”
“Are you sure you just aren’t a lesbian?”
“Nobody’s going to love you if you’re a sick tranny.”
And then they were all gone, leaving me to mourn the loss of them and my broken heart. Words like that coming from your “friends” tend to stick with you. It’s hard to escape those comments when they came from people you loved, trusted, and cared about. The last one hurt the most. Especially since, so far, it’s been true. Ever since I came out, everyone has been repulsed by me. I am the school’s disease. The world’s stain. Not one person wanted to talk to me, be seen with me, or even be in the same room with me. That is, until Wade Wilson came along.
Wade had moved here from Canada at the beginning of my third year. I remember seeing him at the front office on the first day of school and doing my best to keep my gaze from lingering. After all, I was Peter Parker; the disease, the outcast; and he was Wade Wilson; the boy with the most charming smile I had ever seen and the warmest brown eyes to ever make eye contact with mine. I couldn’t help but smile back. How could I not, when he smiled at you like you were the greatest thing he had seen all day?
The thing about Wade Wilson is he had been through enough shit to appreciate the smaller things. He appreciated the gust of breeze through his hair, the melt of the snow on the first day of Spring, and even the smooth flow of a good pen. Wade Wilson didn’t take anything for granted, especially a good conversation. And I just so happened to be the closest person in proximity on his first day. “Excuse me!” I stopped in my tracks, turning my head to look back at him. He was looking at me, but I was still confused as to if he was actually talking to me. I awkwardly pointed at myself in confusion, to which the taller man laughed. “Yes, you.” Wade replied, flashing me that smile once more. That damn smile was enough to make you weak in the knees and was alluring enough to draw you in without you even realizing it. I had somehow ended up directly in front of him, and he was looking down at me. I suddenly felt extremely small.
“What’s your name?” Wade inquired, tilting his head curiously down at me. I felt my cheeks burn just from his gaze, causing me to look down at my feet. “I-I’m Peter.” I replied, cursing internally at my stutter. I swear, the damn thing would ruin every opportunity for me if I talked to enough people to let it. Wade didn’t seem fazed by stutter, since instead of making fun of it he offered me his hand to shake. “Wade Wilson.” I looked at his hand for a moment, swallowing thickly and glancing around us. I didn’t want him to be an outcast like me on his first day just from being seen with me.
Once I was sure the coast was clear, I took his hand and shook it as firmly as I could. A funny thing I always find myself doing with cisgender men is trying to shake their hand a tight as I can. I guess it asserts dominance to the other person, at least that’s what Uncle Ben used to tell me. Wade seemed impressed with the grip. “Strong grip you got there. You lift, bro?” He asked, to which I internally cringed at. Of course he was one of those guys that used ‘bro’ unironically, which usually meant they were straight. “Uh, yeah. Always. All the time.” I sputtered out quickly, trying to seem convincing to the much buffer guy in front of me. Wade looked me over briefly, raising his eyebrows with a smirk. I decided the smirk was just as charming as the smile. “Riiiight. Well, anyway.. Can you show me where Room 2B is?”
And that’s how it started, with me embarrassing myself. Typical. Luckily, Wade doesn’t make you feel awkward about your awkwardness. He just lets it slide, like he didn’t even notice it was there. When you’re someone as painfully socially awkward as I am, you appreciate that a lot. And by a lot, I mean A LOT. That initial conversation with Wade was the first real conversation I had had with anyone in this school since I came out. And for once, I didn’t want a conversation to end.
Wade was full of things to talk about. Anytime there was a second of silence, he was jumping right on the gun to fill it. On our way to Room 2B, he told me about his friends back in Canada and how they had drank so much syrup one night that they all were sick for three days. He told his story with such animation and such detail that I couldn’t help but be sucked right in. One thing I already adored about Wade was the fact that he treated me like everyone else. He didn’t know who I was yet. He didn’t know I was trans, or that the entire school thought of me as the plague. He didn’t know he was supposed to hate me in this moment, so I tried to enjoy it while it lasted.
Lucky for me, my class was right across the hall from his. Therefore, we could talk right up until the bell rung. We had both gotten to the school fairly early. Me, because I come early to avoid the people. He told me he was there so early because he wanted to make at least one friend before school began and, apparently, that was me. I plastered a fake smile on my face at that. I knew by lunchtime Wade wouldn’t be thinking of me as a friend, he would think of me as the plague just like everyone else. I longed to be his friend, but I couldn’t do that to him. He didn’t deserve to be treated the way I am. Nobody does.
As the first bell rang, I felt my heart plummet to my stomach. I tried not to let the disappointment show on my face in front of Wade. It was bad enough he wouldn’t like me after today, I didn’t need him to have pathetic stories to tell his friends about me. Wade wasn’t so good at hiding his disappointment though, which took me off-guard. I was taken aback by how he genuinely wanted to talk to me, and how he was crushed that we couldn’t continue. “I’ll see you at lunch, right?” Wade said to me as I turned away from him to walk over to my class, smiling warmly. I looked over my shoulder, flashing him a sad smile. All I could do was nod before leaving him in the hallway and entering my first class, the feeling of loneliness already settling into its familiar spot in my chest.