Chapter 2: Alessandra Curry

 

My house no longer feels like home. My body never felt like home. I tried so hard to make the shell that my soul is wrapped in to represent the soul within, but no matter how hard I try, it doesn’t feel like me.

My father is the first one to point out how silly I look. He uses other words. I’m a boy in a dress. Or a mentally ill person. Again, I’m filtering his words. I’ll never be the son he wanted. I don’t understand why he can’t accept the daughter he has? 

Sometimes I feel like God or whoever’s in control of everything hates me. I know I’ve made a few bad decisions here and there, but why does it feel like I’m being punished by the forces that be? Did they put me in the wrong gender on purpose? Like some kind of sick joke. Maybe it’s all just a terrible coincidence. Just a roll of the dice. Like clicking the random appearance generator on the Aratheon character creator and coming up with a creature created in a laboratory. I feel like Frankenstein’s monster. That’s definitely how most people treat me. At least the people that know that I’m trans. 

Even though I see a freak when I look in the mirror, I’ll admit I have the luxury of passing to most people. I know everyone sees their own flaws better than anyone else. I just wish I didn’t have so many. 

My hair is far too short. Why did I get it cut? I don’t even like the color of it. The light brown hair just makes me look boyish, especially with it so short. I don’t like my freckles or my pasty pale skin. I’m too skinny and I have a flat chest. 

God, I wish I could afford a breast augmentation. The little nubs that have grown since I’ve started HRT look like mosquito bites and could hardly be recognized as real breasts. For god’s sake, I look like a feminine boy, especially without makeup. The only good thing is that I never started growing facial or body hair. I can’t really afford laser hair removal. So I got lucky there. 

The mirror doesn’t fully represent who I know I am. I am a woman, I’ve known it for my entire life. I just wish my dad and my brother would see me as such. My dad would sooner disown me if it weren’t for my mother. God bless her soul, she’s been the only one who has supported me through my transition. If it weren’t for her, I don’t know if I’d survive. I can’t even fight the tears. Why does life have to be so fucking hard? 

All I want to do is just live my life the way it was supposed to be, as a woman, because that’s what I feel when I close my eyes. I know who I am, I just wish everyone else would see me the way I see myself. 

I pull myself away from the mirror. Nothing good ever comes from staring into it. Just thoughts I’d rather avoid. 

“Hey, honey. Dinner’s ready,” my mother shouts from down the hall. 

“Okay, I’ll be right there,” I say. Time to put my brave face on. I wipe away the tears and take a breath to gain my composure before I head down to face my family. 

They’re already sitting at the table with plates full. My brother is stuffing his face as fast as he can. I grab a plate and fill up before sitting down across from him. Neither he nor my dad acknowledges my existence. I can take my father’s disappointment and even his anger, but my brother’s ostracism hurts the worst. We used to be so close. We’re only a year apart. We’d tell each other everything and now he’s embarrassed to have me as a sibling. Both he and my dad refuse to see me as a woman or even a human being for that matter. 

His girlfriend hates my guts. She never liked me to begin with, but ever since I first came out as gay in high school, she made it her mission to make my life a living hell. Now that I came out as trans, she loves to tell me how I will never be a real woman. She’d always spread rumors about me. I just can’t understand what my brother sees in her. She may be the most popular girl in school, but she’s got a heart of cold steel. His friends aren’t any better. Most of them are quick to point out what a freak I am. They’d push me around and make fun of me behind Pat’s back. Although, not all of them. There was one of his friends who was nice to me. His best friend Liam took my virginity when I only identified as a gay boy. Although, he made me keep it all a secret. I never told anyone and I never will. Sadly, he wants nothing to do with me now that I’m trans, which really hurts. I shed a lot of tears because of him. 

“Dylan, will you pass the pepper,” my father asks as he looks up at me. God, it feels like a punch in the kidney every time I hear that name. He never stops using my deadname and it hurts. It feels like my feelings mean nothing to him. It's as if he doesn’t care what I think or feel. I swear he’d rather have no child at all than to have a freak that he sees me as.

“Ed, seriously? Why do you persist in calling her by that name?” my mother asks. 

“That’s the name we gave him!” he snaps back, using that tainted word. 

“You are so thick in the head. Why can’t you understand that she is no longer your son? It’s easy for me to see that she never was,” she says. Her words make me swell with so many mixed emotions. I am so proud to have her as a mother and yet I feel so sad. I feel like I’m the reason they fight all the time. 

“I’m not the one who’s mental,” he says, throwing a glare at me. The dam finally breaks and the tears fall out in a flood. 

“Wow… Just when I thought you couldn’t sink any lower, Ed. You disgust me,” my mother says as she throws her down her fork. 

“I disgust you? Are you out of your mind? I just can’t understand how you can not only accept this behavior from our son, but you are promoting it. You’re confirming our son’s delusions,” he says, slamming his hand on the table. I suck in a sharp breath. It feels like the air is filled with ice. My father’s words hit hard like a blow to the gut. Tears fall down like rain. I get up and rush to my room. 

I bury myself in my bed and cry until there are no tears left. And they wonder why I spend so much time in a fictional world. No reality could be worse than the reality of my life. I hate it being alive. Why was I created this way? I feel like a mistake.