Seeing In Color | Transgender

Chapter 16

I have made a lot of mistakes in my life and I am willing to admit that. I am not ashamed but not proud either. I am simply accepting of the fact. Everyone makes mistakes along their lifetime and it's nothing new to others or myself. I know that it is a normal act but I still find it one of a kind. I find my inability to process and think the correct way completely devastating. As my list of mistakes rack up there is one that finds it's place at the very top of the list.

Perhaps allowing myself to give in to the relief of opening my skin was a mistake. No, it was a mistake, yet a happy mistake I'd willingly do again. Although, the timing and place was a definite mistake. But, it's not at the top.

Maybe speaking up to Danny was a mistake. I had disclosed more than I'd like and gave him more room to pick and tear at more sensitive nerves. I set myself up for worse treatment yet in the time, I didn't care. It might have been a mistake, but the look upon his face and the startled effect wavering across the air was worth my while. It might have been a mistake, but it was not at the top.

I had made one large and time turning mistake. It was something I could never undo and still wasn't sure I wanted to. Although, if I could go back and time and prevent this mistake, I would in a heartbeat. It was this mistake that built upon all the others. It was this mistake that resided at the top of my list.

Meeting Rylan Malcolm was a mistake.

I had spilled more than I wished, in fact, more than I ever had. I have opened myself and left myself vulnerable, how could I be so ignorant? So unintelligent? Where had all my sense gone? The more he knew, the higher my chances of getting hurt went.

I should have cut him off the first day we spoke, but there was something about him that forced me to continue. There was this little boy pushing words past my lips with a sugar high laugh. I couldn't stop myself so I learned to accept it. I should have willed myself more. 

Rylan Malcolm had turned my world upside down and I'm still not sure if I should thank him or tell him off. 

He had helped me in ways I could never imagine, even if I wasn't willing to admit this. But he also broke me down as well. The crash of his soul tore mine as well. The laughter he provided me with landed me higher upon this ladder I climbed and I soon found myself feeling at the top of the world. I was so used to clinging on to the bottom pegs that I never thought of the idea of going higher. I adored every aspect of the feeling and never let go. Although, once I had, the fall was far more grand than any other one I experienced. I had fallen farther, harder, quicker. It was a shock I made it.

I am sitting in the middle of my bed, my legs criss crossed. The room is dark and the curtains closed. My door is gone, taken away by the forced and unwanting hands. My room had been searched and separated from anything with an edge. The room and I both feeling empty.

I look down at my wrists. I don't have the bandages on anymore, but that didn't mean they were healed. Scabs of dried happiness roamed my pale moon skin, popping out at me with a scare. I knew this scar would dominate all the others and I applauded it's authority as it shamed me. There was beauty in this rigid pain.

For a week I laid in a hospital bed. The blood loss had been far too effective on my body and quite a lot to handle. I don't remember much of those days. Blurs of small commercials of thoughts flashed lights at my memories but never completely shined. It wasn't until I was transferred to a psych ward did I begin to remember and come aware.

A month.

I spent a month in the psych ward. I spent Christmas in the psych ward. Words will never explain my experience, there are simply not enough. There is not word for the emotions I felt other than, done. The frustration and anger and sadness and numbness all mixed with smaller minerals of emotions that would come together but never join. 

I was a mess.

I suppose I still am. But, that had been an always statement. It was just more apparent now. It was more noticeable. It was worse.

I unlock my phone and open up the Instagram app. I click to his username and look at the most recent text sent.

Sunday 8:44 pm

e.allen011207: Text me when you can so we can talk.

Read 11:19 pm

I looked to the top right corner of my phone to see the time shining bright.

2:58 am

This wouldn't concern me much. Typically I'd assume he was busy or asleep or his phone died or got lost or anything reasonable. But then I considered that fact that it wasn't Monday now. No, it was Friday. It was Friday.

Now I sit and wonder questions to myself.

Had I made the mistake meeting Rylan Malcolm, or had he made the mistake meeting me?