Synopsis: Alex is a young boy who wants to be a girl, but has hidden this from everyone around him. That is, until he is saved from a bully by an older girl, Jen, who makes him an amazing offer: Work with her as a waitress at her sister’s themed café!
Unfortunately, things are falling apart in his home life and they get even worse when his mum finds out that he's been taking hormones.
Alex's life has changed for the worse, but he has some ideas about how to make it better

Authors note: We're finally onto the next day! Whew.
Thanks for all of the support, as always <3 <3

 

 

I tried to focus on what Ashley was saying but my mind kept turning back to Jen, trying to figure out if she’d help me get hormones. I’d only known her for a day so it was pretty unlikely, but I had to try. I’d do anything to get hormones again…

The right kind of hormones, anyway. I needed the exact same ones that Ashley used to take, as they were stronger than normal birth control pills. I’d read that they were even sometimes prescribed to actual transwomen so they were perfect for me. I wasn’t exactly sure why Ashley had been prescribed them and it could be impossible for Jen to even get them, but I could worry about that later. Right now I just needed to know whether or not she was actually willing to try.

She was a really nice person, so I could imagine her wanting to help me. The problem was that asking her to give me hormones was a really serious thing to do, because if she was caught doing so then she’d get into a lot of trouble. I’d be asking her to put herself at risk just to help me. And beyond that, the hormones could cause serious damage to me so she might not want to give them to me because of that. She’d already mentioned that it was dangerous for me to be taking them unsupervised.

So…asking her to just give them to me probably wouldn’t work, and I didn’t feel comfortable doing that anyway. I needed to offer her something in return so she wasn’t just risking herself for nothing. But what? I could tell her that I wouldn’t work at the café with her unless she gave me hormones. That sounded like a really mean thing to do though! She said she needed me and didn’t have much time to find a replacement, and I’d already said I’d do it. And besides, I really wanted to work there. I didn’t want to risk not being able to because she didn’t want to give me hormones.

Agh! That was like the only thing I had to offer her though! I didn’t have anything else, unless she was interested in video games or anime. I did have some rare limited edition DVD imports from Japan…

I was gently shaken out of my thoughts by Ashley, who grabbed my shoulders and frowned at me. Guilt stabbed through me and I blushed, realising that I should be giving her all of my attention. She’d been incredibly nice to me and I didn’t want to appear ungrateful.

‘Ah! Sorry!’ I shook myself and smiled at her. ‘What were you saying?’

‘Nothing important,’ she returned my smile. ‘What were you thinking about? You were lost in your head for like a minute.’

I considered telling her but immediately decided not to. I wasn’t sure if she’d be okay with Jen giving me hormones, and if she wasn’t then bringing it up might cause her to interfere in some way. It was too risky. I wasn’t going to ask her about her new hormones for the same reason. If I asked her if she could give them to me and she said no then she might tell mum that I’d asked, and both of them would be on higher alert.
‘I don’t know.’ I shrugged slightly and rubbed my face. ‘My mind kind of drifted off. I feel awful.’

She inspected me and then frowned in concern, taking her hands off my shoulders. ‘You look awful too. You should probably go lie down for a bit.’

I gasped. ‘I look awful?’

‘Yeah. Your eyes are all red and puffy and y-’

‘Oh god!’ I’d forgotten how much of an impact badly crying had on my face! I probably looked like some kind of horribly gooey, puffy worm monster! ‘Don’t look at me!’

‘Don’t be silly Alex!’ Ashley laughed as I jumped to my feet and grabbed some tissues from a box on my bookshelf. ‘You just look like you’ve been crying. It’s fine.’

‘No it’s not! I don’t want-ah!’

The bedroom door swung open and mum walked into the room, her eyes fixated on Ashley. I hadn’t even heard her walk up the hallway and wondered briefly if she’d been listening in on our conversation. Was mum capable of doing something like that?

‘Right. Time’s up.’ she told Ashley, once again not looking at me.

‘What? You were seriously timing how long I was in here for?’ Ashley frowned. ‘That’s…creepy, mum.’

She scowled at her and then sighed. ‘Just…get out. I need to speak to Alex.’

Hope surged inside of me and I bounced over to her. Was she going to apologise for saying all those awful things? ‘What about?’

She smiled slightly. ‘You working at that café with Jen.’

‘Oh yeah!’ Ashley’s face lit up and she jumped to her feet. ‘Jen told me that she’s asked you to work with her! As a kitchen hand?’

I hesitated a moment before nodding, wondering if she actually knew what I was really going to be doing there. It’d probably be fine for me to tell her that I was going to be a waitress now, and she might be able to help me keep it a secret. If I was even going to be allowed to work there in the first place.

‘Are you going to let me work there?’ I asked mum, and to my relief she nodded.

‘I think it’d be really good for you to get some work experience. I spoke to your father about it on the phone and he agrees, so we’re both going to meet you at the café af-’

‘What? No!’ I blurted out before I could stop myself, and mum finally looked at me with her tired eyes. ‘I don’t want dad there!’

‘Alex…,’ her eyes looked down at the ground and she bit her lip for a moment before looking back at me. ‘He wants to be there. To support you.’

‘He what?’ I looked at her in confusion. ‘He wants to support me? What do you mean? He hates me!’

‘He doesn’t hate you, swee-Alex.’ Mum said awkwardly but Ashley snorted.

‘Uh, yeah, he does. W-’

‘I told you to leave.’ Mum snapped.

‘I do-’

‘Get out!’ she practically screamed and both Ashley and I flinched in horror. ‘Now!’

I took a step away from mum and stared at her with wide eyes. I’d never heard her raise her voice like that before!

Ashley swallowed nervously and shrugged. ‘F-fine. I’m going.’

‘Good.’ Mum said and stepped out of the doorway so she wasn’t blocking it.

‘I’ll umm…I’ll see you later Alex.’ Ashley said as she hurried to the bedroom exit.

‘Thankyou for talking to me.’ I waved weakly at her, wishing that she wouldn’t leave. I really didn’t want to be alone with mum right now.

She smiled quickly at me before leaving the room, and mum slowly closed the door behind her. I heard her mutter something angry under her breath and she stood facing the door for a moment.

‘Mum?’ I asked when what felt like a minute passed, and she jumped slightly.

‘Yes. Sorry,’ she turned around brushed her hands through her still-messy hair. ‘We need to talk about your father.’

‘Oh…’ I looked warily at her. Conversations about dad were never, ever good.

She gestured at me and swallowed. ‘There’s a chance that he knows your body’s…like it is.’

A cold shiver crawled down my spine. ‘What? How?’

‘He mentioned being suspicious of it when we were arguing in the morning, which is why I confronted you about it today. I’d been hoping to have a few more days to figure out what to do but…well, I ran out of time. I should have done this months ago.’ a frustrated expression appeared on her face and she gritted her teeth. ‘Anyway, your dad made some comments about your body shape and suggested that he…inspect you…to make sure that you’re still a boy.’

Oh god. ‘Inspect me?’

She nodded slightly. ‘He also asked me if I’d noticed your chest getting bigger, which is not good. You need to hide your…your uh…shape better.’

My shape? Did she mean my breasts? ‘I have been hiding it them though.’

‘Not well enough,’ she grimaced. ‘So tomorrow after school I need you to buy a much tighter singlet to disguise them before going to the café.’

I nodded vigorously. That was a good idea. ‘Okay!’

‘And avoid him for the rest of the day, and tomorrow morning,’ she continued. ‘I’m going to tell him that I talked to you about your body and that it’s fine, but I’m going to take you to see Dr Karin just in case. So if he asks you about it then make sure to tell him that so he doesn’t try to uh…inspect you.’

I tugged nervously on my shirt. ‘Will he really kill me if he finds out?’

‘No, but he won’t be happy,’ mum grimaced and looked away from me. ‘And…he’ll tell my father about it.’

‘And he’ll kill me.’

‘He won’t kill you,’ she answered after an awful moment’s hesitation. ‘But it’d be best if he didn’t find out. So don’t let dad find out.

‘I won’t.’ I muttered, wondering if other families had to hide things from their dads like this. Were all dads angry, unaccepting jerks?

‘Good. That’s all I wanted to talk about so I’ll…well, I’ll talk to you later I guess,’ mum looked around the room awkwardly and then opened the door. ‘Try to get some sleep. You don’t look too good.’

I looked at her for a moment, wondering if I should try and talk to her about wanting to be a girl again. I was exhausted though, and going to sleep sounded like an amazing idea. And besides that, I was scared of her yelling at me like she’d done to Ashley. That’d been terrifying.
So I just nodded at her, and she smiled tightly and left the room. No hugs like there used to be, no kind words about sleeping well or looking after myself, nothing. Just a bad smile and silence.

My chest tightened and I grabbed at it, feeling empty. This was all wrong! That whole conversation with mum had felt wrong and off, almost like I was talking to a stranger, or a teacher I didn’t know very well. Not mum, who was supposed to love me. Was she feeling like this too? She certainly wasn’t happy. Maybe I could use that to convince her to change her mind. She was making both of us miserable and there was no way that could be a good thing.

But, later. I could figure that out after I woke up. My thick, squishy bed and its cute kitten and bunny doona were calling out to me and right now they were the only things I could focus on. Sleep…

I crawled underneath the covers and submerged myself in its heavy warmth, hugging one of my pillows to my chest like I always did. I thought about the kitten cookies and a pang of sadness ran through me. Maybe everything would have been different if I’d have been able to share them with mum. She might have been too focused on how yummy they were to check my body and right now we’d be snuggling together instead of feeling miserable.

This was all Tom’s fault. What a jerk.

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I slept horribly. Nightmares assaulted my exhausted mind, ones full of people in shadows laughing at how disgusting I was while mum and dad watched and did nothing. Pain kept pulsating through my injured arm and leg, and I had awful dreams about rabid dogs trying to rip my limbs off. I woke up numerous times drenched in sweat and my head aching. It felt like I had some kind of fever, and when I did manage to fall back to sleep I flailed about as sickly, nonsensical dreams trickled through my consciousness.

By the time I finally managed to properly wake up light was trickling in underneath my blinds, and when I stared blearily at my alarm clock I was surprised to see that it was nearly eight forty in the morning. I’d slept through the rest of the day and all night! Why hadn’t anyone woken me?

‘Oh crap!’ I threw off my tangles bedsheets and slid off the bed. School started in twenty minutes!

My knee was stiff and sore, but it didn’t buckle under my weight so I grabbed my spare sports uniform and sped out of my bedroom. I needed to have a shower and maybe find something quick to eat before it was too late. I had to speak to Jen and I wanted to do it before school started, not at recess! The sooner I talked to her the sooner I’d start feeling better.

Unfortunately, my progression was halted by dad coming out of the kitchen. He was sipping at a steaming cup of coffee and had on the same ugly brown dressing gown that he’d worn yesterday. His face was badly unshaven and his beady eyes were unusually bloodshot, making him look like a depressed skeleton.

‘You’re awake.’ he commented, looking at me over his coffee.

‘I am! Why didn’t anyone come and wake me?’ I looked around in the hopes that someone else was home, but it looked like it was just dad and me.

‘Your mum said to let you rest,’ he wrinkled his nose in distaste and scratched at his thin moustache. ‘Apparently you’re so delicate that getting lightly beaten up warrants you a full days rest.’

‘What?’ I held up my bandaged arm. ‘I was really hurt!’

‘Bullshit. If you can stand up and walk around then it was a light beating,’ dad sniffed and walked closer to me. ‘And Ashley tells me you were saved by one of her friends? A girl?’

‘Yeah.’ I took a step away from him, as he smelt strongly like beer and sweat. ‘Jen.’

‘Fuck me. That’s pathetic, Alex,’ his beady eyes ran over my body and I resisted the impulse to cover my chest.

‘Why? She was older than me and really strong! Even To-the boy who was attacking me was scared of her.’

Dad snorted. ‘That just means he was pathetic as well. ’

I blinked, not sure how to feel about that. I hated Tom, but hearing dad call him pathetic made me angry for some reason.

‘Umm, well-’

‘Never mind that! What the hell do you think you’re doing, going out and getting a job?’ he snapped and I looked at him in surprise, taken aback by the sudden change of topic.

‘What?’

He scowled at me. ‘Are you trying to rub it in my face that I’m still unemployed?’

‘No! I just…the opportunity came up and I took it.’ I scratched my bandaged arm and looked at him in confusion. ‘I didn’t even think of you.’
His eyes narrowed and he gulped at his coffee before continuing. ‘Liar. I bet you think it’s hilarious that you’re going to be making money while I sit here looking for work all day. Like you think you’re better than me or something.’

‘I…I hadn’t even thought about getting paid.’ I blushed slightly. How had I never realised that before? Of course I’d be getting paid if I was working. Oh my god, that was awesome! Maybe I could give the money I earned straight to Jen to pay for the hormones!

‘Bullshit.’ Dad sneered. ‘I bet you’re fucking loving it. Arrogant little shit.’

I just blinked in confusion. Was he jealous of me? It seemed like it but, I was pretty sure the only reason he didn’t have a job yet was because he wasn’t looking, not because he couldn’t find one. Even he had to be able to find a job in six months! So why was he so angry? I never understood him. He was always so odd and kind of…not all there sometimes. There was something wrong with him, but I didn’t want to deal with that now.

‘Well, I need to have a shower so…’

‘Yeah, you go do that.’ he walked past me and dumped himself down on his armchair. ‘Get the hell out of my sight.’

I was more than happy to oblige and rushed off to the bathroom, where I quickly got undressed and removed the bandage on my arm. The cut looked horrible, a nasty red gash covered in dried blood, and I quickly looked away from it. Eww. I was going to have to wash it and bind it back up again, something I’d never had to do before. Usually mum would do those kinds of things for me but even if she was here I doubted she would this time. She’d probably say something about me being a boy and needing to look after myself because our relationship was wrong and bad and fucked up…and…and…

My chest tightened and I shook my head. No, now wasn’t the time to be thinking about mum! I had to focus on getting to school and speaking to Jen. Everything else could wait. Until I started hormones again, or-

Hormones! Oh my god. This was my first day without taking them.

I shivered and looked down at my body. How long would it take before it started reverting back into a boys one? A few days? A week? A month? Shit…I had no idea. And how fast would it happen too? Would it be slow or really fast, my body quickly forcing itself back into its normal form?

I imagined it in my head, my chest shrinking as my waist and shoulders got wider, and my hips squared off and became practically invisible. My body would become more angular and rough too, and I’d start growing facial hair! Facial hair!

‘No!’ I whimpered as a disgusting image popped into my head, one of me with a dark moustache like dads and a scraggly beard. ‘Oh fuck!’

With a gasp I dropped to my knees and carefully inspected my body to make sure that it was still as feminine as it had been the day before. My breasts were still tennis-ball sized, my hips were wide and smooth, my shoulders small and petite, and my skin soft and silky. I got up and checked the mirror, relieved to see the familiar girls face staring back at me. No facial hair or anything masculine! Just a pale, blonde-haired little girl with petite facial features, high cheekbones and a beauty spot underneath her right eye.

Just…me.

Nothing at all like dad.

I let out a huge sigh of relief and ran my hands through my hair. ‘I’ve still got time. It’ll be okay I’ve still got time. Oh god…it’ll be okay, right? Jen has to be able to help me!’

A sob welled up in my throat but I fought it off, desperately not wanting to cry. I was so sick of it! I’d cried so much yesterday, more than I think I ever had before, and my eyes were still sore from it. My chest felt a little sensitive too from all of the sobs. I didn’t want to go through all of that again. Especially now that mum wasn’t going to comfort me anymore…

With a shaky sigh I jumped into the shower and turned the water on as hot as I could bear. Usually I’d meander about and enjoy the burning warmth but I didn’t want to waste any time so I quickly got to work cleaning myself and the wound. It hurt so badly that I almost cried out it pain, but I gritted my teeth and just rubbed at it until it was clean. Then I quickly turned off the shower and dried myself, bound the wound back up with fresh bandages and changed into my spare sports uniform. It was exactly the same as my old one, but I’d brought a long-sleeved black shirt along to wear under it for warmth. The day looked like it was going to be as cold as yesterday and the absolute last thing I needed right now was to get sick.

With that done I rushed out of the bathroom and entered the kitchen, my stomach growling miserably. The only thing I’d eaten yesterday had been three slices of pepperoni pizza and it was probably why I’d slept for so long, and why I felt so drained. I needed food!

I inspected the fridge first but didn’t see anything I liked. There were some apples, some juice, slices of meat and yoghurt, but I didn’t want any of them. I wanted something sweet and chocolatey, not yucky and healthy. I closed the fridge and went to the cupboard opposite it, my eyes scanning the shelves for something amazing. To my annoyance I could see a packet of biscuits on the top shelf but it was far too high for me to reach. It’d probably been put up that high just so I couldn’t get to it, as mum knew how often I craved sweet things. Ugh! I scowled and looked around for anything that’d be passably okay and found some dry yoghurt-covered muesli bars. It wasn’t chocolate but it wasn’t fruit so I guess it’d do…

I grabbed two and immediately unwrapped one, almost completely devouring it in one go. There were some sq-

‘Nice to see you actually eating something.’ Dad’s said from behind me, and I spun around to see him putting his empty coffee cup into the sink.

‘Mufh.’ I agreed. ‘Foof ish ged.’

He grunted and then looked pointedly at me. ‘You got tits, Alex?’

I almost choked on the muesli bar and quickly swallowed it down, staring at him in horror. ‘Gah! W-what?’

‘Your chest. It looks like you’ve got tits sometimes.’ I winced at the word “tits” and he frowned at my chest. ‘Is there something wrong with your body?’

‘Uh,’ I remembered what mum had said the other day and scratched my shoulder. ‘I don’t know. Mum is taking me to see a doctor next week so umm…if there is something wrong with my body then we’ll know then. I guess.’

‘You don’t need a doctor to tell you whether or not you have tits,’ he stepped towards me, a strange expression on his face. ‘Or if your body’s unnaturally feminine. Show m-’

‘I have to go!’ I cried and fled out of the room, unable to stand being around him any longer. It felt like he was seconds away from ripping off my shirt and uncovering my breasts, and if that happened then I was dead.

‘Wait!’ he snarled after me but I just increased my pace.

I charged into the laundry where my schoolbag and sneakers were, grabbed them both and then ran out the back exit. Dad wasn’t following me but I didn’t care and continued at the same pace, running around the side of the house and into the front yard. I looked back at the house and to my horror I saw him looking at me from the living room window, looking disgusted.

Well, shit.

I probably could have dealt with that better. When I saw him next I was going to be in a lot of trouble…

But that wouldn’t be until after school! I could deal with it then. Right now I needed to figure out how to get Jen to give me her hormones. Once I did that then I could deal with family stuff…

To be continued

Thankyou for reading! Comments and kudos are very much appreciated <3 <3
This chapter felt a bit awkward to write for some reason, and I'm a bit worried that too much is happening over the course of one day and making the story feel stuffed and bloated. And maybe too many things are happening right after they're brought up?
Please let me know if this is the case. I've struggled with pacing in the past