Space Enough To Grow

1

***AN! I'm drawing huge inspiration from Glitter by thekellinunderthevic on this website. I by no means am trying to imitate Sarah's story to make myself look good. I'm still trying to learn how to write and I really wanted to put a spin on her concept. This story probably won't copy her for very long but just for the record, full credit goes to Sarah and her amazing work.

Also, triggers I guess? I'm not entirely sure how this story will go but it is about a very gender confused boy (?) so just be warned. There's probably going to be a few mentions of suicide, self-harm and dysphoria and all that fun stuff...***

The first time I ever really thought about my gender was when my friends decided to split up one day. Boys were going to play football and the girls were going shopping. I stood there in the middle of the school parking lot, completely lost. I was torn. As much as I longed to go play football in the rain with the boys, the girls were chanting at me. "Alani lets go!"A wave of panic flew over me and I sighed, looking longingly at the boys' car driving off as I crawled into the backseat of Melanie's cherry red beetle. That thing did not fit the four of us. I spent the whole car ride to the mall sitting there completely confused with my hesitation earlier. I was Alani, I was a girl. I should go do girly stuff with the girls, right?

It wasn't like it was a sudden alarm going off in my head screaming "maybe you're a boy Al!" It was more like the way the tide came in. Slowly, then all at once. That terrifying feeling I had in the parking lot started to pop up more and more as my junior year in high school went on. I just assumed that it was normal phase most people went through. The teenage years were ones of self-discovery and self-doubt after all. It was perfectly normal to question yourself. I told myself these things over and over again as I slowly began to start hating my reflection.

At the end of junior year, my dad left us. He was always an asshole and I guess one day he just snapped. I was secretly glad. I had never liked him. He was the kind of abusive that wasn't full on breaking-beer-bottles-over-your-head type abusive, more like the snide-comments-and-years-of-emotional-damage type. Not enough to get in trouble for, but just enough for it to hurt. I hated what it did to my mother, though. She closed herself off so I couldn't really see what the full effects of him leaving were, but it was still pretty bad. She was distant all the time. You could tell something was bothering her. All I could do was be there for her and not get into trouble, for her sake.

Instead of being sad about my dad leaving, I took all this new found alone time to really discover who I was. I spent hours in his closet trying on his clothes, tying my hair up and desperately trying to claw my breasts off. It wasn't like I was a boy, I told myself, this was all for fun. I was just dressing up for fun. No meaning to it. I was always drawn to my father's sense of style, so naturally, I took the clothes. Hid them under my bed in a secret box only my cats knew about and tried to move on with my life.

My mother knew I took the clothes. It wasn't until she saw me in the bathroom wrapping my chest with a bandage did she start to wonder why. I thought that she would interrogate me about it but she just left it alone. We came to a sort of don't-ask-don't-tell agreement. It worked I guess. I cried myself to sleep every night.

I didn't know what was wrong with me. Why didn't I like makeup, or shopping, or dresses? I could understand why I hated the color pink because no one I hung out with liked it, but everything else all my female friends liked, I absolutely hated. I hated myself and I hated what had become of me.

My friends had absolutely no clue what was going on with me. I was overly cautious now, terrified that anyone would look into my world and figure out my secret. My friends were oblivious. They were too busy with their emo music and their eyeliner and their memes to pay attention to my mid teen life crisis. Unless I was new merch at hot topic or dat boi, I wasn't that interesting. Regardless of their irregard for me, I loved my friends. It was hard in a town this small to find your "people". Emos, however, always tend to flock together. You knew if you saw another emo you would get along. It was like the universal code. Right now our group consisted of 8 people, myself included. The group was always split up, however. It was always boys against girls. Even at lunchtime, there were boys on one-half of the table and girls on the other. It was ridiculous to me. On the boys side, we had Vic Fuentes, a short Mexican boy who was always the life of the party. Along him, there was his "friend" Kellin Quinn, who acted like a lost puppy dog that hung onto Vic's every last word. They were totally hooking up but still tried to hide it. Every single touch and look at each other gave it away but no one questioned it. Alongside the boys was Austin Carlile. The beautiful hunk of man that Austin Carlile was. All 6 foot 4 inches of him was perfection. He was my best friend. Me and him could talk to each other about everything and anything under the sun without getting bored. On the girls side, we had Melanie, Hayley, Taylor, Alex and me. They were all catty bitches and I couldn't stand them. I wished I could be accepted into the boys side just to get away from these girls. If I had to have one more conversation about fucking lip gloss or something I was going to scream. Why were they all so superficial?

I was so glad that it was summertime. I could get away from everyone at the school. I decided to spend some much needed time with my grandma from across the country. That summer I completely secluded myself. I shut my phone off and left it in my hometown and made sure to get as far away from everyone as I could. The only person I spent time with was my dear old grandmother and I liked it that way.

Being away from everyone gave the freedom to think about myself seriously. I began to think about my gender for real. I finally came to the conclusion that I had been debating for years now. I am a boy. Not just a tomboy, a real boy. That small little revelation gave me so much joy in my life. Now it was time for the rest of the world to accept that too.

Coming back home was horrible for me. I had always been depressed, but having to deal with being "Miss Alani Ashby" constantly was tormenting me. Even the simplest pronoun slip drove me insane. I just wanted to climb on top of the tallest building and shout "I'm a boy!" until I didn't have to hear another damn "she", but I couldn't. I became a recluse. I knew no one could know the truth about me. They would think I was a freak going through a phase. No one would ever accept me, it was pointless.

I wasn't happy, I was trapped. I became so scared that someone would find out my dark secret that I stayed in my house until I couldn't anymore. I stayed closeted. It was my only escape.