Weighted: A breath of air

It's a constant weight on your chest. This feeling of not being right, of being all crooked and jagged and just so distinctly wrong you're surprised that no one else has noticed by now. But you guess it's okay because you can't really imagine what it would be like if some stranger just noticed one day and said,

"Hey, your body is all crooked and wrong and ugly ― how do you feel about that?"

Just the thought of it makes you laugh so hard that you hear your mom drop something in the kitchen. The sound of shattering glass breaks you out of your laughing fit and you half-expect your mom to come check on you ( even you had forgotten the sound of your laugh), but she doesn't. It's okay, though. You two never talk much anyway.

To be completely honest, Basketball is the probably the only thing keeping you grounded right now. Sure, most of the team hates you and uses you as a verbal punching bag whenever Coach isn't around ( last time she heard them ridicule you, she made them all run laps while she shouted about the importance of team cohesion). But you're more okay with the name calling then you ever thought you'd be (later, you realize it's because it's better than the J-word).

The reason you like Basketball so much is that you can lose yourself so easily in the game and you're not [ insert J-word here], you're just another player on the team trying to get the ball in the basket. The constricting chains around your chest loosens enough for you to be able to take deep lungfuls of air as you dribble away on the court. The breath of pure, unrestrained air makes you feel like you're floating in an endless pool of serenity and nirvana, and you just want to bask in the feeling before you inevitably start sinking, drowning, choking in the deep, dark water.

Today, you and the team were up against your rivals, the Ocelots. Being the only other Basketball team with a feline related name (the Lions), the stakes were higher than normal. The team was uncharacteristically nervous ( they were meaner than usual in the locker room). Coach gave the usual pre-game pep-talk, everyone not paying attention as usual, and then you're out on the court, dribbling the ball like your life depends on it ( it does in the eyes of your teammates).

Time seems to fly by, because suddenly it's ten seconds before the clock runs out and your sloppily shooting the ball in the direction of the basket, desperately hoping it goes in because you're losing by one point and you really don't want to go home with bruises. There's a moment of silence before the crowd starts chanting and cheering and roaring and screaming. You feel so high that you're practically floating as your teammates crowd around you with praise instead of punches.

You're so high, in fact, that when you spotted a girl in the crowd staring at you in admiration ( and not disgust), and your eyes catch and hold for a second, you imagine her approaching you, the crowd parting for her like she's royalty. She'd stop before and blush slightly, saying, "Hey, Lucas, that was an amazing shot".

And you would blush and thank her and ask if maybe she wanted to go out sometime and ―

"― Great job out there, Janet," Coach says, clapping your shoulder and jostling you out of your head. You smile your thanks to Coach and turn back toward the crowd, towards her, but she's not there and you're just left with the feeling of wrongness. The full impact of what Coach said hit you and the feeling of wrongness intensifies be cause your Janet, not Lucas. You feel your chest constrict with the sudden weight and your sinking instead of floating and you're just wrong. You rush out of the gym, ignoring the shouts calling after you, and run home, fighting the blackness clouding your eyes.

After what seemed like hours of just the pounding of your feet on pavement and the harshness of your breathing, you arrive to an home. It took you several tries before you finally get your hands to stop shaking enough for you to unlock the door and practically fall inside. You fall against the door and take a moment to just breathe, or try to. Your chest doesn't rise that far before it's constricted by the familiar chains and weight and wrongness. You stumble to your bathroom, splash cold water on your face. You notice a pair of scissors on the sink, so close you could just move your hand a little to the left and touch them. So you do. The weight of your sweat soaked hair, loosened from its ponytail, is so unnatural and uncomfortable that you feel the need to fix it into the way you want it. You watch in a dream-like state as your hand slowly raises up, scissors opening wide before snapping closed with a quiet snip. You feel so light now that is seems so natural to cut another lock. And another, and another, so that your little bathroom is filled with the rhythmic sound of hair and chains falling to the floor.

You were reading a book of baby names when you came across it. Lucas. It meant 'light'. That's what you felt when you thought of it as your name, wrapping it around you, blanketing yourself in light that cleared the blackness in your eyes and made you feel weightless. When you were Lucas, you soared higher than the clouds.

You looked in the mirror at your newly shorn hair. It was crooked and jagged and generally looked like a feral cat did your hair, but you loved it. You took a breath of air, breathing deeply, freely, like you never have before. Right now, you're not Janet, you're Lucas. Light flooded the space around when you smiled. You floated.