And They Clicked.

Chapter 2: Hopeless...

*Levi*

Considering the way that I was growing up, it's not a big surprise that I didn't have many friends.  I mean, let's be honest.

I was overweight.

I laughed too loud.

I played too rough.

I had too much hope.

This list goes on.

I'm sure you're thinking "But, Levi. There's no such thing as TOO MUCH hope!!" 

Let me explain.

Hoping that I would fall in love the first time I was kissed, hoping that I would be the person I wanted to be, if I just dreamed hard enough. Hoping that the first person that knew about me, would think it was awesome, that I was still amazing. Still beautiful, but no longer because of how I looked, but who I was. 

I set myself up to be disappointed. 

And boy, was I disappointed. Even better, I was left feeling hurt and lost; a feeling that hasn't gone away.

You see, people weren't who I thought they would be. 

I've never been in love.  

I was abused by my first "real" kiss, when I was fourteen.

I'm still not who I want to be. 

The first person that knew about me told me I was "disgusting, horrible, and a mistake". 

Nobody thinks I'm beautiful anymore. 

~

It's May 17th, and I'm at work. I'm a "Childcare Assistant Coordinator", which is a fancy way of saying that while Mommy and Daddy Dearest are at church, I watch their little ones. But don't let it fool you; I love my job. These kids think I'm the coolest thing ever.

One of the little ones that I watch the most, Bleu, is sitting on my lap, and he's tracing the pictures in the picture book I'm reading out to him. When he gets bored of the pictures, he starts playing with the fringe on my shorts, which I had cut out of a pair of cheap jeans from Salvation Army. 

I'm used to him doing this; he does this on Tuesdays and Thursdays, when he's at my house. He loves pulling off the strings and such that come loose over the time. What I'm not used to his how he notices something out of the blue; like the scars on my thighs, that I had forgotten to cover up with concealer before coming to work. 

"Do you have boo boos?" He asks, looking up at me, with wide, curious eyes. 

Mum looks over at me.

She knows that they're there. She knows I forgot to cover them. 

I look back down at him, at a loss for words. Carefully, I form an explanation.

"Ah... Bleu... I was sad. Really sad. I also made a bad choice. When you're really sad, for a long time, sometimes you do things that you don't mean to. I made a mistake, and I think those are there to remind me of what I did. So I don't do it again." 

He blinks, his little eyebrows furrowed, and after a moment, he asks, "Are you still sad?"

I swallow. 

"S-Sometimes, Bleu. Why don't you go help Mum get snack ready? She needs a little helper." 

The promise of animal shaped crackers gets him excited, and he jumps down from my lap, and runs to my mother, who scoops him up. 

The nursery is filled with a tense silence, as the other workers know what Bleu had seen. They look from one another, to me, and back. 

I don't need to deal with this.  I think, straightening my tie, and standing. I wait for the kids to be picked up, about fifteen minutes later, and I make my escape to the car. 

On the drive home, the same tense silence from the nursery charges the car, and I try to make myself small. It doesn't work. The second the car stops at the driveway, I'm out, running inside and upstairs, to the safety of my bedroom.

I throw myself onto the bed, sobs ripping out from somewhere deep inside of me. It's the first time I've cried in a few years, and I forgot how much it hurts. The throat closing, lungs feeling like they collapsed, and my heart feeling like it was just ripped out of my body.

I don't stop crying until I run out of tears, a full hour or so later. My throat is sore, and my voice is scratchy. My chest heaves, and I feel the nonstop shaking move through me every time I make an attempt to breathe. 

I pull off my clothes, and I can't help it; I look at the reflection in the mirror. A wave of anger, followed then by disgust, followed lastly by disappointment, flows over me. 

I am SO wrong. Everyone else was right. I was a mistake. No amount of dreaming can fix me. It's hopeless.

I had been clean for a month. But on May 17th, it didn't matter anymore. 

The pride I felt from being strong enough, the happiness from proving everyone wrong, the feeling of confidence, was all thrown away. 

My name is Levi, and I'm Gender Fluid. 

This is my life.

A/N: 

Well! That was fun! 

I hope you guys like our story so far. 

Make sure to Like, Follow, and Comment!

 Until next time....

    ~ L.