Phoenix (8 page)

Only it wasn’t. Trevor had been fascinated by it for a

while, but he’d triggered severe dysphoria with his interest

in some of Blake’s less desirable parts, so to speak. Trevor

was fascinated with the things that Blake was disgusted

with. They’d had fights about it, many of them mostly Blake

telling Trevor to stop playing with his chest or to stop

begging him to stop binding or making cracks about girls in

relation to him. Trevor knew how to push his buttons. He

never tried to fix that, though.

Eventually, they drifted apart because Trevor couldn’t

take the idea of duality, and Blake was deathly afraid of that

happening again, and so he swore off relationships. All they

ever did was hurt him more. He didn’t want the person he

ended up with seeing him as anything but male, but that

seemed to be such a big thing to ask, so he just stayed away

from it. The thought of being objectified again made him

shiver with disgust.

Blake bit his bottom lip and opened the text message,

shifting up from his half-laying position and running his

hand through his hair as he forgot to breathe for a moment

or two. It felt oddly like the entire world had stopped

around him.

How are you, B?
was the simple question on his phone,

and he scoffed, lips quirking into a rueful sort of smirk,

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shaking his head and pulling both legs close to his chest

with a heavy sigh. He didn’t know what he was expecting,

but that simple question wasn’t what he was waiting to read

on his screen. It wasn’t disappointment he was feeling—he

wasn’t sure what it was.

How was he? Funny question, he thought with a roll of

his eyes and a derisive scoff as he scratched at his forehead

in slight agitation, staring at the screen until it felt like it was

burning his retina.
That’s a very fucking funny question, Trev,

considering you’re the one that gave me a ton of complexes about

my gender identity.

Okay, so maybe it was a little bit on the bitter side, but he

couldn’t help but think it. Trevor had set back his dysphoria

so fucking badly that it made him squirm to think that he

was contacting him in such a casual sort of manner. He bit

down hard on his bottom lip and slid it between his teeth

until he was just biting on the right corner as he rocked back

and forth on the bed idly, trying to think of something to

respond with.

I’m doing all right, I guess. How’re you?

He responded with, wondering exactly what kind of

response he was going to get. Was Trevor going to tell him

that he was great, wonderful with a fantastic girlfriend who

knew she was a girl and didn’t question it? Would he say he

was miserable without him and wanted him back? The

second was unlikely, but the first was quite possible.

His phone beeped again and he looked down, opening

the message with bated breath, jaw tense and nostrils flaring

as his heart beat wildly in his chest. His chest was tight and

his stomach was tensed like hell. He tried to get it to stop,

tried to relax and let it roll off him, and most of all he tried to

convince himself that it was probably nothing, that he was

just going through his phone and decided on a whim to text

him for shit and giggles. That had to have been it.

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He found it almost amusing in an ironic kind of way how

right he was.

Okay I suppose. Was bored n thinking about you so I decided to

check up on you. How’s the transition going?
Something about it

made his stomach clench uncomfortably. It sounded so

flippant, so carefree. Like it didn’t matter. Trevor had never

cared much after they’d drifted apart, and hell, he’d

confessed that he would have stayed with him if he’d

decided to stay a girl. The thought made him shudder.

Never.

Great, I’m on hormones now and I’m saving up for top surgery.

He told him despite all the emotions the simple text cropped

up. It was hard to work when his schedule was so intensive,

but he worked a couple days a week in the college

bookstore. It wasn’t the most glamorous job, of course, but it

was effective for what he was working toward.

Congrats,
was all the next text said, and Blake stared at it,

mouthing the word with a confused look on his face. What

the fuck did that mean? He couldn’t tell if it was sarcastic or

serious. He didn’t even bother to try and reply because he

didn’t know the tone of it. He didn’t want to make an ass out

of himself.

Blake put his phone back on the bedside table and curled

back up in the bed, letting his head rest on his pillow as he

shut his eyes and willed himself desperately to fall asleep.

He flipped on his computer and turned music on his iTunes,

hoping that might lull him into some half-ass dream state if

nothing else.

He knew it wasn’t going to happen, though, even with the

music, because his mind was going a mile a minute. Things

just kept cropping up in his mind, things he shouldn’t have

been thinking about. He hated that his own thoughts and

everyone who had shaped them had such control over him.

His emotions were a wreck right now and he wasn’t quite

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sure why.

Well, he knew why.

It was only the first day of the new semester, but it was

already proving to be very interesting, and just as rocky and

strange as the last two. People who said that college was

easy were out of their fucking minds, as far as Blake was

concerned. Then again not many people had to deal with the

issues that he did. He’d actually never met another transguy

like him, and if he had they’d been so good that he didn’t

know the damn difference. He envied that, even though he

passed a lot of the time.

He felt oddly alone even though he had friends all around

him, some better than others. Ethan didn’t quite understand

what he went through every day, no matter how often he

tried to explain his discomfort and anguish. He could only

say ‘I hate myself for the way I was born’ so many times

before it seemed to lose its meaning and turned into some

kind of excuse or something. He didn’t want that to happen.

He hated the skin he’d been born in, and it crawled every

time he looked at himself in the mirror unless he had his

binder on. He liked his face well enough, it’d been

masculinized by testosterone, but that didn’t mean his

disgust of his body was fixed at all.

Shaking himself out of his thoughts, Blake sighed and

buried his face in his pillow, clutching at it hard and trying

to lull his brain to sleep.

Fat fucking chance of that.

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aking up the next morning, getting out of bed, seemed

W to be the hardest thing that Blake had done in a very

long time. Once he’d finally lulled himself to sleep, he’d

crashed hard because he hadn’t slept well in over a week.

Anxiety from going back to school was a killer, obviously,

but it seemed he had finally worn himself out. Before

tonight, he’d slept maybe two hours a night, and he’d been

able to feel the exhaustion pulling at him the night before.

To be honest, he was pretty sure that was why he was

thinking about so many things. His mind was so tired it

reverted back to when he would think about things for

hours, dwell on them and focus on them until he exhausted

himself. He didn’t like that he’d gotten himself back to that

point already, when he’d done so well at pushing all of that

down.

He was groggy and listless when he finally pulled himself

out of the bed, his limbs feeling heavy as he rubbed at his

eyes with the heels of his palms, groaning a little and

running his hands through his wild hair.

He heard Devon mumbling from across the room,

probably trying to wake himself up. Blake chuckled a little

and shook his head, adjusting his hoodie and grabbing his

phone to look at the time. After clearing another message

from Trevor without even looking at it, he finally looked at

the analog numbers on the background of his phone.

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He groaned. He hadn’t slept in until one in a very long

time.

“Well, it’s a good thing my first class is at two today,” he

mumbled as he dragged himself out of the bed, stretching

with another groan and walking into the bathroom after

grabbing his binder, packer and clothing for the day. He

passed Devon’s bunk on the way there, and he grinned at

the way he had his face mashed into the pillow, his arms

splayed out with one hanging off the edge of the bed, feet

kicked out chaotically. It was pretty funny, he had to admit.

He himself slept on his side with one arm tucked under

the pillow, curled into himself with his head ducked down

firmly. It was funny how differently he and his roommate

slept, because as far as he remembered, Ethan slept like he

did. His mother used to say they made a heart-shape when

they fell asleep next to each other because they’d face each

other and both tuck their knees up close with their heads

bowed.

His mother was silly.

He reached the bathroom and stripped off his hoodie,

debating for a few painful moments whether or not it was

worth it to shower. He’d taken his binder off before he’d

actually passed out, so he felt oddly exposed standing in

front of the mirror. He tried not to look at it, but instead he

looked down at his thin t-shirt. He could see the contours

that his binder normally hid, and a sudden bout of nausea

turned his stomach and he had to swallow against it.

His chest wasn’t big, a B-cup maybe in bra sizes, but it

still made him incredibly uncomfortable. It made him even

more dysphoric than the bottom area. That part of him was

even more feminine. At the same time, it didn’t matter

considering he wasn’t sexually active anymore and he had a

packer that he strapped on every day to make it look like he

had a dick. He just kind of ignored that part of himself. He

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pretended he had what he so desperately wanted. But his

chest was something he couldn’t pretend with.

It was a feat to even bring himself to shower sometimes

because he didn’t like getting undressed even by himself.

He knew he had to, though, because if he didn’t he’d

probably be cursing himself for it later, and so he sighed,

shutting his eyes and taking off his shirt, discarding it

somewhere to his left and stepping out of his pants, kicking

them aside as well.

He didn’t look in the mirror at all as he walked over to the

shower and turned the water on, and once it warmed up, he

stepped under the spray with an abstract sigh of relief. It

was an odd sort of feeling, the way the tension seemed to try

and ease its way out of his body with a heavy sigh. He let his

head fall forward, letting the water drench his hair as he ran

his fingers through it.

He stepped further under the spray, letting the hard

water beat at his broad shoulders. It was so strange, to look

at himself in the mirror because he had broad shoulders,

semi-muscular arms and his curved hips were pretty much

gone, but his chest was still so completely out of place. Hell,

he even had a happy trail leading down to his groin, but that

was where everything seemed to go wrong.

At least his body was getting more masculine, he tried to

tell himself as he soaped up his body quickly, barely even

wanting to touch it as he went along. He did it just enough

to clean himself off, but not any more than that. He couldn’t

really do it, because after a few minutes it felt like his hands

were hypersensitive and his skin was like sandpaper,

making him recoil, especially the now-unnatural curves of

his chest.

He shivered and distracted himself by soaping up his

hair, amusing himself momentarily by watching the way the

suds turned pink before he washed them down the drain.

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He quirked a small smile and watched as they circled their