Barriers

Callie

Dear diary,
It's hard to write as my hands are shaking so much with excitement. Today is September 10th, the day I finally get to begin my treatments in order to reveal my true person inside, and eventually bring them out to show the world who I am. This morning I woke up to my cat, Socks, jumping onto my feet, causing me to jump out of my skin as he began to lick himself clean whilst he made residence on my crisp new sheets.

8am. I couldn't possibly go back to sleep. Usually on a Saturday, I wouldn't wake up until at least gone midday, but today is different. My appointment at the clinic isn't until 2pm, and I've decided to tell my mum that I'm just popping over to Louise's for an hour to revise for our exams. That's the thing, you see. My parents despise anything to do with LGBT+, they both wrongly believe it's all just a huge fad, originating on Twitter or something. Oh, that's the other thing, they hate the internet too: I know, it's like living in the 19th century!

As I stand up, the floorboards squeak, causing Socks to stir on my bed and let out a sleepy meow. I mumble an apology under my breath before putting on my slippers and heading downstairs. I know that my family are already awake, my younger brother Jack, is always up before anyone to watch cartoons while painfully slowly eating some form of breakfast cereal, and as for my parents, they both run a business from home so they pretty much spend the majority of their day typing confusing document upon confusing document and repeatedly trying to show me how to create and use a spreadsheet.

"Hey dude," I say to Jack, ruffling his hair and sitting down next to him. An episode of Adventure Time plays whilst he is dragged by the eyes into the screen, I swear that kid is beyond addicted to television. After the episode finished, and Jack had finished his cereal, I sighed heavily as I retrieved his bowl from the sofa and took it out to the kitchen before grabbing myself a slice of toast.

Midway through buttering my toast, my mum appeared in the doorway. Although she's the sensible type of mum, that doesn't really care much for fun or taking care of her appearance, she's a beautiful woman, with shoulder length blonde hair that always seemed to shine in the sunlight, fair, freckled skin and delicate rosy lips. But today, her perfectly shaped eyebrows were frowning and the creases on her forehead told me she was far from content. That's when I met her eyes, and everything that could've possibly gone perfectly today, turned to nothing but an unrealistic dream. She had found the letter from the clinic.