WILD WEST OF THE HEART

S I X T E E N

Mira was perfect.

Well, Michael Adebayo was. Not the natural kind of perfect but the kind that came from practice.

She felt she had to be just the right amount of a human. And of a person. Attain this fictional level of perfection, who could blame her, when it was how she was brought up.

Michael was born into a traditionally royal family, having a father that was linked to some title back at home, she didn’t know what it was but it was because no one talked about it much but her great grandfather was a chief in Nigeria’s colonial days and the future plan was that she, as well as her father and her whole family move back to Ondo.

Maybe to finally claim his rightful position on a throne. It was something no one bothered about that then and instead he put all of that energy into moulding Mira—

“Practice makes perfect” He’d yell across the field to her as she ran between hurdles and stumbling blocks. Her father would have a whistle in his hand, timing her every move. And each time, she didn’t meet up, it was more time added for her.

And as punishment, Mira might get flogged or have to sleep on the front porch till the next training. That way she was always kept grounded, knowing what was at stake—

—she knew she couldn’t fuck up.

Daniel wanted her to be a football star, or with that height maybe basketball. So he tried his best to build up her muscles and her pace. And make her as strong as a man. As strong as he was.

He’d look into her eyes and yell to her that the world wasn’t very kind to men, and you needed to be a certain level of strong for you to keep going.

To keep pushing.

And for the first few years, Mira was living her father’s dream. But then she turned ten, and she begun to figure out her love for ballet. She’d sneak out between her father’s training with the stereo in her arms and she’d dance in the rain, flaunting the flexibility she gained from her father’s practices.

She realized then, she wanted to be a dancer. And not some wonderkid soccer star.

She hated it, but she couldn’t tell her father.

Because what if he does worse than flogging her? What if he kicks her out? And her mother wasn’t exactly the kind to stand up to him or to anything.

It was just her, and Daniel.

But at least her mother knew from the moment she was born, that she was different. They both knew, it was why they tried so hard to change her.

Mira didn’t realize she was a boy until she was like four years old, and the only memory she could recall was her teacher yelling at her to get out of the girl’s bathroom. That, she was a boy.

The news came as heartbreaking, because Mira would often wear dresses and get excited over her mother’s pair of heels. She loved makeup and wrappers, and all that glittering shit.

Her mother found her one day in a pair of her sinful red stilettos, and eventually she was told about how Mira was in school.

All she did was give her an hour long speech on why she needed to change. She didn’t push as much as her husband, Daniel. Because what’s the worst that could come out of having an effeminate son?

But then Daniel found out.

And he took it upon himself to change her. And the more intensity he brought to her, the more she leaned to dancing to take her mind off everything. To free her soul, and the body she was trapped in.