Chapter 16

Chrysalis

I spent my three-day suspension on the internet. In an actual productive way. I learnt new words. Well, I also re-watched an entire season of Glee, but even that felt like progress because I watched it on the TV in the living room instead of on my phone with headphones on so that no one would know. Just a little thing, but it felt so good not to hide.

I can’t do any more hiding. At least not from myself.

I go back to school today. I’m up earlier than I need to be, logging into one of the new forums I’ve joined.

I’m feeling more comfortable with who I am, but I’m not sure if I want to tell anyone else yet. What do you folks think I should do?

A couple of replies ping through while I’m brushing my hair.

@GenderButterfly: Gender identity is not the same as gender expression. It’s okay to feel one way in yourself and look another way. Do you.

@QueerTeenHero: wait until you feel strong, my friend. We’ve got your back. Be proud of yourself for pushing the boundaries of what society believes.

Still not feeling that brave, I put on my usual disguise of jeans and a hoodie. Looking in the mirror, I see an ordinary boy. But also someone else behind his eyes. I smile at that secret person.

It’s a shame I had to go off the rails and get suspended before I had the guts to google why don’t I feel like a proper boy? and discover that there were so many answers out there. So many kids who don’t fit into a boy/girl divide. It seems so obvious now that I’ve worked it out. There is no reason at all that having a male body should make me masculine. I thought that gender had to match up with biology, and so if I didn’t feel like a boy I must want to be a girl. But there are other options.

Another ping. A text from Padma: Meet us outside skull. U butter be their. Autocorrect is hell when you have dyslexia.

Her message joins the other twenty-six unanswered texts on my phone. I won’t keep avoiding their questions forever. But I need longer to get comfortable in myself.

My new room is helping with that. Dad helped me repaint. One wall is burnt orange and the others are pale yellow. I admire the poster I’ve hung on the wall. In a big, funky font it says, I contain multitudes. That quote by Walt Whitman (because I can admit to liking poetry now) is my new statement of identity. A simple ‘he’ isn’t big enough to contain me: I am a ‘them.’ Like there are lots of me. There are: lots of parts, friend and student and dreamer, different degrees of masculine/feminine on different days. And Aliya, of course: a whole other me.

‘Sibling’ is the part of me I need to work on right now. Accepting myself is all about helping Lily—I can’t keep her in the dark about it. Not completely, anyway.

I lean my forehead against Lily’s bedroom door and say quietly, ‘Hey, Lils, can I talk to you?’

After an excruciating pause, the door jerks open. ‘You haven’t called me that in years.’

‘No, I know. I’ve been a shitty brother for years. But I think I’m beginning to get why.’

She steps back and lets me in. She still looks hostile, but like she might consider lowering the drawbridge, even if only to lure me in close enough to get shot.

Her room is starting to look so grown-up. She still has drawings she’s done tacked to the wardrobe door, but these days they are actually good rather than just good for her age.

I perch on the end of her bed and sit there in silence for a bit until Lily throws a pencil at me. ‘Just man up and get on with it.’

I give a slightly hysterical giggle. ‘That’s exactly what I will not do!’

She picks up a hairbrush and holds it threateningly. Hairbrushes hurt—I’ve been fighting with my sister long enough to know that.

‘Alright, alright,’ I mutter. ‘See, I kind of freaked out when you started going to my school.’

‘Yeah, I noticed,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry.’ It feels good to get the apology out. Now for the hard part.

‘The thing is,’ I tell her, ‘I’m a different person when I’m with you. I was scared to let my friends see that person. I was embarrassed—not by you, but by myself.’

‘What do you mean, you’re different?’ Lily asks. For the first time in weeks, she doesn’t sound pissed off with me.

‘At school, I got used to being…well, all boy. Or, at least, what I thought “boy” was supposed to mean. Around you I could relax a bit and be more me. Then the two worlds collided and it was like…’ I wave my hands around like I can conjure an analogy from thin air. ‘Like scrambled egg.’

‘Scrambled egg?’

‘Yeah. Panic attacks and stuff.’

‘Shit.’ I can tell from that one word that I’m forgiven.

I lean my head on her shoulder, even though she’s so much shorter than me. ‘Remember when you were little and we’d spend hours playing with your stuffed animals? I miss that.’

‘I’m not five anymore, Luke,’ she says.

‘I know. But I miss being able to be me without caring what anyone thought. I got too worried that other people would see how much I enjoyed playing with my little sister. I tried to stop being that person and it messed me up. It messed us up, too.’

‘What, so you want me to dig Mr Snuffles out of storage for you?’

God, she is so sarcastic. I love her.

‘No, I just wanted to tell you I’m going to be me, and to hell with what anyone else thinks.’

Her face softens. ‘It’ll be good to have my big brother back.’

‘Ah…about that. Can I be “sibling” rather than “brother”? It’s all that masculine/feminine crap that confused me in the first place.’

She bursts out laughing. ‘You’re even more of a mess than I am! But I guess I’ll have to rethink disowning you.’

My heart is beating so hard that it takes me a minute to process that she’s laughing because she’s happy for me rather than laughing at me as I’d feared.

‘So, if you’re not a boy or a girl, are you neuter, then?’ Lily asks.

‘Ugh, I think that’s like when you’ve had your cat spayed or something. I’m neutral. Not one thing or the other. It’s called non-binary.’

‘Hey, what shall I call you? How about Rainbow? Or Tinsel?’

A strangled noise escapes my throat before I realise that she’s taking the piss. It’s so good to see Lily laugh after the week she’s had.

With a sheepish grin, I say, ‘I was thinking Luca. But, Lils—I’m not ready to tell anyone else, yet. Please don’t tell Mum and Dad. Or say anything at school. Or—’

‘Chill,’ she says, raising her hands to halt my incipient meltdown. ‘Of course I won’t. You mean I’m the only person you’ve told?’

I nod, and a pleased flush covers her cheeks.

The great chasm between us is healing over, and I’m filled with hope. I can do this.

I will learn to be a dreamwalker, because in dreams anything is possible. I just have to realise that I’m sleeping, wake up within the dream…Together, I know me and Aliya will be able to do what needs to be done.