Work Text:
The world outside Charlie’s window became alive with the new day, as he lay snug inside his bed. Ignoring the entire universe taking up space inside his mind and body. His body is the root of all evil. At least if you asked his mind, it would say that. His body betrayed him daily it seemed. He was held hostage to what God created in his mother’s womb . A perfectly average, normal body, that was not his at all. His mind was nowhere to be seen when a passerby glanced at his physical form.
Pulling himself from the warmth of his bed, he could hear his sister puttering around in her room, the silence of the morning enabling him to hear the soft steps of her moving through his wall. The sun bleeding through his blinds, shining light onto his baby pink walls, a color his mother insisted on painting 16 years ago when she found out she was once again pregnant with a girl. The color mocked him as he stared at it with hate. Puberty had betrayed him in the end, he had become a slave to whatever society believed of him because of how he had been born.
A soft knock came at his door, his body stiffened at the sound.
“Elizabeth, are you awake?”
The voice floated through the air, assaulting his ears.
“Yes, mum.” He spoke as flatly back as he could muster at that moment.
He could hear her footsteps retreating and going down the stairs, one of the only good things about living in an old house. He felt trapped inside this room, much like his body. He could only continue doing this for so much longer.
He got up and dressed to go to his other form of torture and prison, school. He wrapped an ace bandage around his body to try and conceal what God had cursed him with, he read online it wasn’t very safe to do that, but frankly he didn’t care; maybe it would expedite his demise. He dressed himself in the baggiest clothes he could get away with and grabbed his belongings. Taking a deep breath, he descended down the stairs to the face of his mother cooking some type of breakfast. He wouldn’t eat it but merely stare at it, but he appreciated the thought.
“Elizabeth, what on earth are you wearing?”
Mother's voice cut through the morning air like a dull knife.
“I’m wearing clothing.”
He knew it was a smart-ass answer, but he didn’t care.
“Why don’t you ever wear your clothes that fit you, you know I got you that really nice dress a few weeks ago and I have yet to see you wear it.”
Ah yes, the dress that had been burning a hole in his closet for the last six weeks since school started.
“I just haven’t found a reason to wear it yet.”
Grabbing a piece of toast from the table, he stands and begins to speak,
“Thank you for cooking us breakfast Mum, but I’m going to be late. Nick is outside.”
His eyes looked back at the front door, wishing Nick was outside.
Nick wouldn’t be for at least twenty more minutes, but he could not continue having a conversation about this dress.
“I was hoping we would be able to sit together and eat as a family, but I see your boyfriend is more important than your family, Elizabeth.”
Charlie swallowed a groan; he did not need a guilt trip at 7:45 in the morning. He pretended to look at his phone,
“I’m sorry Mum, but he’s really outside I have to go”
he hoped his obvious lying did not make it through. Grabbing his belongings he began walking towards the door.
“At least say goodbye, Elizabeth, before you abandon your family for a boy.”
His mother spits back, venom in her voice. He did not want to deal with this at all, his mother’s lack of emotional regulation was not his fault. It wasn’t Nick’s fault; he was the only person who treated Charlie like an equal, as a boyfriend.
“Bye, Mum.”
He slipped out as he hurried through his front door. The morning sun and the humidity that followed made his skin instantly damp. He figured that he should just begin the 10-minute walk to Nick’s house, it was better than his mother catching him standing alone outside. Sounds of the Earth awakening for a new day soothed Charlie, he knew he could never tell his mum how he truly felt inside, that his body was wrong. He was wrong. Everything was wrong.
As Nick’s house came into view, he realized he hadn’t warned him that he would be walking to his house. As he went to pull out his phone he saw Nick’s form in this short distance.
“Nick!”
He yelled, which caused the neighbors who were walking out to their cars to send him a scowl. Nick turned around at the noise, squinting his eyes to try and take in who was yelling for him. A small smile grew on his face when he saw his boyfriend coming up the sidewalk to greet him. “What are you doing here? I thought I was coming to get you?”
Before anything else can be said Charlie is throwing himself at his beau.
“My mum was being weird about the dress .”
He says with a dramatic sigh. The dress had been spoken about multiple times at this point, and every time it was mentioned it felt like Charlie’ chest was going to cave in, as if the mere mention of this dress was enough to stop his heart and kill him.
“Well, we can’t have that now can we,”
Nick spoke softly, or perhaps it just sounded that way since he was speaking into Charlie’s hair.
“No, please. No more dress talk, I’m tired of explaining to her that I don’t want to wear it, but she won’t take ‘No’ for an answer.”
The sigh that came out of Charlie nearly deflated him.
“My poor boy,” Nick replies.
Charlie loves it when he calls him a boy, his boy, his boyfriend. Even if his mother never knows him as such, at least he isn’t invisible here at this moment. In this moment, he is seen as who he is.
“Are you all ready to go to school? Do you want breakfast first?”
Charlie shook his head,
“No, can we just go to school ? ”
The morning dragged into the afternoon; nothing could distract Charlie from the growing pit in his stomach. He had to tell somebody other than Nick, his sister perhaps. He wondered if she would care, she’s not the more feminine of girls either. Maybe she would understand him. She had to, right? They had spent every day together for the last 16 years, certainly , she knew something was amiss.
Nick drove him home that afternoon, he offered to stay with him, to go with him to tell Tori. But Charlie knew he had to do this alone, he had to do it for himself. Walking into his family home, he took in the surroundings, the silence. He was the first one home; Tori would be another hour. The silence rang in his ears louder than ever before. He could feel his heartbeat on his eardrum. He paced the small space of his bedroom, the floor creaked and groaned as he moved across it, pacing back and forth. Lost in his head. He had to figure out how to do this. What if she took it badly? What if she hated him? What if she told their mother?
That thought stopped him in his tracks, if she told their mother what would she say? Go ‘Oh Elizabeth you’re just confused.’ He wasn’t confused, he had felt this way since he was a tiny child.
Just as that thought left his head, he heard the front door rattle open and close. Tori was home. He stopped moving, knowing anybody on the floor below him would hear his every step. He stopped breathing for a moment as if his entire body was shutting down at a moment’s notice. Surly Tori would be okay with it? She had gay friends, right? The thought passed through his head, that yes, she did have gay friends, but that wouldn’t mean she wouldn’t be horrible about her sibling being transgender. He held his breath again, was he really doing this? Today? On a random Wednesday in October? The air in his chest seemed to be thinning, he couldn’t even think anymore it seemed. It was so hard to just exist in this body of his, the least he could attempt to do was share the grief with somebody he hoped would understand him. He slowly moved towards his door, opening it and staring at the long passage down the stairs. At the bottom of the steps, stood Tori, staring down at her phone.
“Hello, Tori,” he said as calmly as he could.
“Hello, Elizabeth,”
Tori said back as flat as ever, a small smile growing on her face as she looked up. Charlie all but threw himself down the stairs towards her,
“I have to speak with you about something.”
Running out of breath as he spoke.
“You’re not pregnant, are you? I can’t be an auntie yet.”
Mischief in her eyes as she said it.
“If I was, you’d have to kill me.”
Charlie deadpans as Tori chuckles.
“So, what is it you need to tell me, my darling sister.”
Tori began walking down the hallway towards the kitchen.
“Wel l, actually that’s what I need to talk to you about.”
He began fidgeting with the loose ends of his sweater.
“Oh, is it now?”
Tori had a knowing look in her eye, she had to know right?
“Well, you see, well, um”
“I believe in you, use those words.”
Charlie stared at her as she said it.
“I think, no I know, well you see- “
“Are you gay or something is that it? If it’s that I fear I am already aware”
Tori spoke back, with a look of sheer boredom on her face.
“Yeah, something.”
Charlie continued to fidget.
“I’m a boy.”
That is so not how he meant to say it.
“Wow, that is something.”
Wait a minute, was she not angry ?
“Are you mad?”
He looked down at the floor as he spoke,
“Why the fuck would I be mad?”
He snapped his head back up as she replied. Well, that’s not what he expected. A look of confusion fell over his face, how could he ever think that his own sister would be mad at him, hate him even ?
“I’m not sure why you would be mad, I just was worried is all.”
Tori’s eyes show sympathy for a moment before she speaks.
“Who all knows ?”
“You, and well Nick.”
Tori rolled her eyes at the mention of Nick.
“Is he nice to you about it?”
Suddenly turning protective, as if Charlie was seven years old and had just fallen off his bike. “Yes, he’s very nice about it. He calls me his boyfriend.”
He’s still bashful about it, glancing down.
“How disgusting.”
Tori’s voice was light and playful, teasing him.
“Well, it’s nice to know that you still are normal.”
He replies with a slight chuckle. Tori’s face turns more somber as she looks him dead in the eye, catching Charlie off guard.
“If anybody is ever mean to you, I will kill them.”
She deadpans.
With this Charlie laughs at the absurdity of the situation he has found himself in, just this morning he was fighting with God, begging for his mother to shut the fuck up about that stupid ugly dress she bought on sale six weeks ago. Only to then realize that his sister simply did not care or mind that he just, existed. He let out a deep breath he didn’t know he was keeping.
“You all, right?”
“Just a lot to take in at the moment.”
His mouth makes a half smile as he looks at his older sister. The anxiety is still living inside his body, but slowly his heart rate is coming down and he doesn’t feel like he is about to explode and die.
့