my name is aaron (ftm)

8

Second day.
I wonder how I'm still alive.

Soon it's Friday and the first week is about to be over.
Fucking finally.
I need a break.
It was hard enough avoiding John in the hallways for the second half of last year, but now it's practically impossible.
Every time I turn a corner, every time I exit a classroom, he's there.
Sometimes he's not even actually there, but I feel like he is. I can still feel his glare, the ghost of his touch on my body from that one night. His hot breath as he breathed down my neck, and my tears falling as I trembled and whimpered for him to stop, too heartbroken to move and too frail to speak...
The bell rings.
I take the back door of the classroom and leave as quickly and quietly as possible.
It's hard to be brave when all I can remember is how he made me feel so weak.

I stand in front of the mirror.
My reflection and I compete in a staring contest. I keep my eyes locked on the reflection of my eyes, so that they don't wander anywhere else. I don't want to have to look at anything I don't want to. For example, my entire body. It's disgusting, ugly, and wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Wrong parts, wrong curves in the wrong spots, so wrong. It makes me want to cry and scream. The boy trapped inside me wants to just tear his way out. I want to just tear my way out of this pathetic body. But I can't. All I can do is scream.
Scream so loud that no one can hear me.

I find myself reaching up to the medicine cabinet.
Before I know what I'm doing, my hand is opening it, reaching in, and closing around a round object. I look at the object I'm holding. It's a roll of bandages.
Once Sheryl (that's my annoying, preppy, younger sister) had sprained her ankle from cheerleading practice. So we bought these bandages for her, but they haven't been touched or used ever since.
I run my fingers over the fabric. I begin to unroll it and I tug on it firmly, testing the strength of it. I glance at myself in the mirror. I exchange a look with myself.

My sweater is on the floor.
My shirt is on the floor.
The bandages are in my hands as I wrap then around my chest.
I have no idea what I'm doing or if this is safe.
Is has to be safe, right? I mean, they are bandages.
I secure the end of the roll and then inspect myself in the mirror.
Well...
I guess...
It's not bad.

I pull on my shirt and sweater, then turn sideways to see how much my chest has flattened.
Wow.
That's pretty good.
I grin to myself.
Aaron. It's Aaron.
I'm Aaron.

I survive the weekend with minimal damage.
It goes by faster than I thought it would, which is disappointing. Everytime I left the house, I was paranoid. Thinking I would run into John somewhere, but I don't. I force myself to stay confident and brave. At least if I do run into him, I won't just stand there like a deer in the headlights. Not anymore. At least that much has changed. It's a good start.
Now Monday, the start of the second week. I should feel like some time has passed, but I feel nothing. Everything feels the same. Same school, same people, same insecurities, same number of fucks I give (zero), same feeling of dread and anxiety that looms over me with every waking hour... I wonder if it will all be the same one the last day of this school year. A day that I can't wait for, and a day that feels an eternity away.
I sigh and walk through the crowded school, my eyes jumping left and right like a scanner, scanning for John. At least the whispers have stopped, but I still hear the whispers in my head. It's annoying. And they still stare occasionally. The best I can do is ignore them, but the one person I can't ignore is-
"John!"
I freeze.
I turn to see some guy waving across the hallway at some other guy, who's top of the head is all I can see.
Fuck.
I need to get out of here.
I turn and sprint, which is hard considering the entire population of North America seems to be crammed in this tiny hallway. I mostly just take really quick steps and bump into about a million people and mutter "Sorry" about a million times.
Soon I'm out of the crowd and locking myself into the bathroom in my little stall and breathing heavily and grabbing my hair and leaning against the wall and sobbing and sobbing and sobbing and I can't stop.
I want to kick myself for crying like a baby.
Crying like a girl.
It could have been a different John, it could have been someone else.
Why does the thought of seeing him scare me so much? It wasn't this bad before... Why do I even care? Why do I even let myself think about him this much? Why when I tell myself to forget him all I can think of is memories, memories, memories, exchanged smiles, and exchanged kisses, and whispered "I love you"s that were all fake, fake, fake, and how quickly those smiles turned to glares and those kisses turned to punches right in my weak dysfunctional heart and those "I love you"s turned to "I hate you"s because they were all fake. Fake. Fake.
Fake.
I can't take it.
I can't take it anymore.
I unzip my backpack forcefully and I shuffle through my papers with blurry vision from my tears until I find a staple and I don't even sit on the toilet, I just kneel on the floor and I cut and I cut and I cry like a stupid stupid child and I cut myself and I watch my wrist bleed and tears land on my cuts and it stings and I cry some more as I bang my head against the wall and nothing is in my head but
Why
Why
Why
Why
Why.

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