The Things About A Trans Teen

The Crossroads Home

    I walked home that day, not so keen on returning to my mother who most likely got a call from the school telling her about my "tantrum" today. The school has a way of making things sound so much worse than they really are; my mom being a bigot doesn't really help either. How she ever got a kid like me? The world will never know.

    I took a path through the woods outside of town that to outlying country houses dotted around the village limits. Everyone knew the part through the woods; marks in the trees, carved by our great grandparents, point directions to certain areas. A giant tree at a crossroads of several paths has arrows carved into pointing towards school, town, Oakridge Farms, and the Daniel Estates. From there, I walk along the Daniel Estates path, where my house, along with several others, are scattered across a large field owned by the Danielle family.

    Germy Danielle, father of the football team's star quarterback, had the houses built fourty years ago, after receiving the land from his father who passed away. He rented the house out to families who couldn't afford to live in the houses owned by the Zacherius family closer to town. The houses weren't much, all being carbon copies of each other, and consisted of three bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen, dining room, and living room. It was just enough for a family like mine.

    I snuck in through the backdoor, making sure the screen door shut behind me with a nice soft click. My brother was in the living room with my sister watching some daytime television.

    They're both older, my brother being eighteen and my sister nineteen. I snuck past the entryway to the living room, into the hallway, and began opening the door to my room when my mother called my name. Anxiety rushed through my veins, the angry tone in her voice freezing me like Medusa would her victims. I back away from the door slowly, creeping my way to the kitchen from where she called me.

    Her face said it all, and I knew I was about to hear it all too, "Micheal Johnson, how nice of you to join me today," her intimidating glare pierced the deepest parts of my soul as she calmly spoke to me. "I heard you got in trouble at school today. Wanna tell me how that happened?" Her southern accent was as thick as sap on trees in the middle of summer.

    "I called my counselor a self-observed bigot. I have no regrets to what I did, she wants to call me in for 'bullying'," I qouted her with my fingers above my head. "When she hates anything that isn't directly inline with Christianity or sports."
    The palm if my mother's hand hit me hard. I knew my mother's devotion to religion was huge, and what I just said would, in her mind, be a one way ticket to hell. My cheek heated up with pain, the tears leaving a white line where they ran through my now swollen cheek.

    I retaliated with screaming, "this is why my father left! You always pick your beliefs over your family, you're the reason he's gone!" I wailed like a new born baby. She knew what i said was true, the blank expression on her face shown it.

    My father left us when i started with the makeup. It's the only reason my mother let me continue to wear it, guilt over him leaving. I remember the screaming that night, my father telling her that she was a horrible person for hating me. She retaliated by calling him a deadbeat and told him to get out. My father wasn't Mich of a working man, but at least he loved us for us.

    "If you love him so much, go live with him, she stated firmly before walking away to her room, slamming the door. Those were the last words she would say to me for the next year.