A Darker Form of Darkness

Chapter 2

When I was younger I was filled with dreams, so many dreams that I couldn't keep them all contained inside of me and shared them with anyone I came into contact with who would bother to listen to what I said.

In 1st grade I had my heart set on becoming an astronaut. I was convinced that one day I would travel into outer space and make my way to the moon and I would grab a piece of it that I could bring back and show people. When I brought it back to Earth and showed all my classmates they would think that I was super cool and everyone would talk to me and I would be able to say I had gone to the moon. Looking back on that now I realize that I can't just bring back a piece of the moon and that whole dream was kind of stupid but I was just a kid; I didn't know any better.

In 3rd grade I was sure that I wanted to be an artist because my art teacher used a drawing I did as an example when she was teaching the class about drawing by using different shapes to make up something. My drawing was of a dog that I used ovals and circles to draw which actually wasn't that great now that I think about it, but I was so proud every time someone would reluctantly approach me for advice and wanted to live in the feeling of being wanted and being able to help people out instead of causing them inconvenience, which is what I felt like I was doing every time someone referred to me as one of 'Satan's children'.

In 5th grade I thought that the best possible career in the world would be becoming an actor. I landed the supporting role of LeFou when I went out for our school's production of Beauty and the Beast and I wanted to live in that feeling being celebrated for playing a male character and people not even minding that I was playing a male character. For once, my gender identity wasn't the first thing they thought of when they saw me, they just thought of my acting ability. The sound of the applause as the lights came up and I took a bow with all the other members of the cast was the best sound I had ever heard. It wasn't like I was the best performer out there; I was just accepted for what I was doing for once in my life. In my darkest moments I would remember that feeling and it would get me through my sadness, but it didn't always work, seeing as I almost killed myself and that I wanted to.

In 7th grade I wanted to try to become a famous author. By then I had realized that having a career in the arts was harder than one would think that it would be when they're younger, which is why my dream was just to try, but I thought that it would be nice since I would never have to interact with the negativity myself because I would use a fake name. I would be able to change my last name and no one would ever know it was me but I would still be celebrated and it would be the best thing I could ever hope for. It would just be me and whatever world I imagined myself in. I would pour myself into the characters and be able to get my emotions out my system without doing anything to hurt myself, but that dream quickly fell apart after 8th grade. Right after he just left.

By 9th grade all my dreams had fallen apart, and so had I. By 9th grade I just wanted to be happy again.

The only two dreams that stayed constant throughout all the years in which I still dreamed were to 1) be a real boy someday and 2) to be liked by people and have friends. My capacity to dream has left for a while, seeing as I'm now in 11th grade and I haven't formed a new dream yet.

At this point, I'm wondering if my last two dreams are still even achievable, because it's looking more and more like I'm going to be here forever as the days drag on and on.

The only thing I can still hold onto is my dream to be happy, and to do that I need to get out of this hospital room.

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The room they're holding me hostage in contains very little: no more than a bed, a chair, a bedside table, a closet, a TV and one small window. Besides the door and the bathroom there's nothing more in there. I used to have a cup filled with flowers, they didn't trust me with anything breakable, on the windowsill but it's been a long time since any more of my disinterested classmates have attempted to pay me a visit so now the blue plastic piece sits empty and looks as though it is filled with all the sadness I feel. All of the cards I've shoved into my closet are obvious products of extra credit work. A few of my classmates went as far as to bring me a poster which is taped up on the wall. One of the corners is falling off so parts of the giant Get Well Soon! are covered. The poster is filled up with hearts and notes from all the people they could get to write something for it.

I have never heard half of the names on the poster. Some great classmates I have, huh?

Fortunately, the hospital placed me in a single room. I'm almost 100% sure it's because they didn't know whether they should put me in a room with a girl or with a boy because my parents probably told them how I was 'wrong in the head'. I could be wrong; I don't know what the other room arrangements are like because I haven't really gone out to interact with the other people out of fear that they would ask me more stupid questions about my gender. I have heard more than enough of those to fill a thousand lifetimes.

"Are you wrong in the head?" the worst ones, like my parents, would ask after they heard about my gender identity. The people who asked questions like this one, besides my parents, were the ones who would go on to lock me in the janitor's closet when they got old enough to work locks.

"What do you have down there?" the ones who were too curious for their own good would ask. The people who asked questions like this one were the ones who would just ignore me before I almost died, but they were also the same people who would've contributed to the poster. They're not all bad, but they don't really see me as a person of equal standing either.

Each time I would hear each question as well as others that were similar and others that were even worse I felt something inside me break. It almost felt as though everyone was out to get me and out to make me feel uncomfortable by asking me everything that should be obvious not to ask.

I'm not quite sure how my determination didn't crack earlier in my life, seeing as I was always being beat down either by my own thoughts or by everyone around me.

I remember, from the time I was about five years old and started to express that I felt I was a boy, creeping down the stairs after hearing my mother crying and looking around the kitchen to see bottles with labels reading 'gin' and lots of other things I couldn't read. Her sobs echoed through the house and I saw her in the corner of my vision, my father crouching over her and rubbing her back.

"My daughter doesn't want to be my daughter," she cried as she took a drink from a bottle almost exactly like one of the bottles I had seen in the kitchen. "What kind of parent am I that my only daughter is convinced she wants to be my only son?" My father didn't respond, just continued drawing circles on her back and looked off into the distance with a sadness in his eyes I had never seen before and have never seen again.

I'm pretty sure that the only thing that kept me from going off into the deep end earlier was my best friend Parker Jemmings. With dark skin and total disinterest in talking about girls, he also found himself becoming a social outcast who just so happened to sit next to the other social outcast back when seats were assigned by alphabetical order. What began as a simple 1st grade friendship discussing our shared dream of going to the moon and bringing back a huge piece of it slowly turned into a 5th grade friendship acting alongside each other in the school's production of Beauty and the Beast with me as the exceedingly loyal LeFou and him as the dashingly handsome Gaston.

In our version of the show, the director let us figure out how we wanted the relationship between our characters to be, and Parker and I both agreed that they were best friends. However, LeFou also appeared to almost be in love with Gaston throughout each of the productions. When all the townspeople went to fight the Beast, Gaston charged ahead into the castle and was saved many times by LeFou, who would always have his back. LeFou got trapped beneath a closet, but Gaston didn't hesitate to leave him behind in order to go off with a group of people who were still able to fight, not even casting a backwards glance at LeFou. The hurt shining through my eyes in that scene wasn't entirely acting.

Looking back on it, it's incredibly ironic how all of that happened in the show and then almost seemed to reflect exactly what happened in real life just years later.

Before I dive into those memories and start to relive the events that sent me down the spiral that landed me in this white-walled prison in the first place, a nurse walks in and sets down a tray filled with food.

I'm so worried about appearing as though I'm eating as much as I normally do that I completely forget what I was thinking about by the time she comes back to clear my tray.