Admin Note: Originally published on BigCloset TopShelf on Wednesday, 05/17/2017 - 03:42:51 PM.(-0400), this story was pulled out of the closet, and re-presented for our newer readers to enjoy. ~Sephrena

I'm always alone and have nobody to go to.

I live in an orphanage that I’ll be in until I’m old enough to leave.

I’ll be lucky if I ever graduate.

I ask the question again, Who am I?

I am the one looked down upon for being short and being the dumbest kid for my age.

Nobody wants to be my friend and I’m all alone with the teachers while the kids go out for recess.

This isn’t how I wanted life to go. This is just how it happened.

I’m the outcast, the one that nobody pays any attention to.

Every night that I’m at the Orphanage I do what school work I have and then just stare into space wondering what I did to deserve this.

I think back on my birth parents and what they did to me before I was put in this orphanage.

The abuse, the torture, the everything. They used me as their slave and it really hurt.

Nobody deserves to have this kind of life. But this is my life.

This is the life I have to live.

You don’t get any second chances.

There’s a new kid in class and all the girls are fussing over her wanting to be her friend. I can tell she is quite shy and doesn’t want all the attention she’s getting.

She looks over at me and smiles at me but I don’t really pay any attention to it.

Upon taking our seats for the day she sits in the empty seat next to mine as pretty much everywhere else was full.

She says hi to me and I wave back to her.

The teacher starts the day and we say nothing to each other until lunch where she notices that I’m not going with the rest of them to lunch. She waves back to me and I just sit there silently.

I can’t afford lunch and I can’t get free lunch with me being an Orphan so I just stay behind while everyone else enjoys their fun time.

None of the kids really care about me anyway so I’m not really missed at lunch or recess.

I look at the clock and see that it’s just about time for the kids to be going out for recess.

I hear all the kids going outside and I sit there wishing that I could be apart of all the stuff outside but I know it’s not possible.

Then I hear the footsteps, I think to myself it’s probably just the teacher coming back after lunch. I was partially right but I saw that the new girl was also with her and I wondered, why is she not outside playing?

She comes and sits down next to me and asks me if I’m ok.

I tell her I’m fine and she asks why I don’t talk to anyone.

I tell her my story and by the look on her face I can tell she doesn’t believe what she just heard.

She goes up to the teacher and asks her something and I’m pretty sure it’s about me as she points at me several times during the conversation.

Upon her returning to her seat next to me she looks at me with a look that you see only when someone feels bad for you.

Class goes on the rest of the day and I think nothing of what was said during that period.

My life continues on as normal and the new girl goes outside with the other kids like normal and I think of yesterday as a one off thing.

Then something strange happens, I’m walking back to the orphanage like any other day when the girl comes up behind me and asks me a question I’ll never forget “Would you be my brother?”

I look at her confused and then I see behind her a person who I could only assume was her mother looking down at me.

I sit down on the curb of the sidewalk we were on and think, she actually cares about me?

She sits down next to me and wraps her arm around me.

She starts explaining how she felt so bad for me the day I told her what I’ve been through that she told her mom and dad how bad she felt for me. She went on to say that her mother looked into adopting me and was willing to take me in if I wanted to.

At that point her mom was sitting on the other side of me holding my hand smiling at me.

I was feeling all warm and fuzzy inside for the first time in many years.

My classmate looks over to me and asks again “Would you be my brother?”

At that point I started to tear up and for the first time ever I genuinely felt love for someone like family. I hugged her and said “yes but there’s more to me than meets the eye.”

Her mom pulls me onto her lap and hugs me tightly.

She then says to me “We’ll be there for you whoever you may be.”

That made me start crying happy tears and my classmate joins in for a hug sandwich.

Over the next few weeks I started to lighten up knowing that I would have a family soon.

By the time I left the orphanage for the final time I knew that life for me had changed.

On the way to my new house I got really emotional. I was crying tears of joy and my new sister holds me in her arms. Upon arriving at the house I was at a loss for words. It was a really big house and I wasn’t sure I was deserving of this and my new sister takes my hand and after our mom opens the door she takes me and shows me around. She shows me her room and I tell her she has a very nice room.

Her mom comes in and tells me it’s time to see my room.

She takes me across the hall and opens the door into what is now my room.

As I’m taking it all in my sister comes up and hugs me.

She says to me “Welcome Home.”

I then come to find out that my paperwork was changed slightly to “make” me the same age as my sister that is in my class at school.

School was out for the summer two weeks later and me and my sister had become very close. She was my savior and I had no way of ever repaying her.

She was the super popular kid in school and I was always in a massive shadow behind her.

The first week of summer would be a turning point in my life.

I still had mental scarring from all that had happened to me and one day my sister came into my room and sat down next to me.

“You’re hiding something and I think I know what it is.”

I look over to her and she continues “You’re jealous of me and what I get to do. You live in my shadow and just wish you could be like me.”

I say nothing so she continues “You’re a girl at heart but you don’t want to admit it. You hid in your shell for so long that you don’t know who you are anymore.”

“You could really do it if you wanted to, you just need to stop hiding yourself.”

I heavily deny what she’s saying to me and she takes my hands into hers and says “You may not want to admit it, but you and I are one and the same.”

I look at her for a split second, then turn away.

“I don’t know anything, you could be right or you could be wrong. I simply don’t know.”

My sister pulls me next to her and holds me.

“I’ve known that side of you since the first day we met. You may not see it now, but you are a girl.”

I look at her confused and she says “Think about it for a second, you and I have a lot of the same interests.”

Upon her saying that it really hit me. I’m a girl?

“You see now don’t you?”

I nod and get up off the bed and go sit on the floor in a corner.

I then ask myself “Who am I?”

My Answer “I am a Girl.”