His perspective

Chapter 4

//hello my children, something i was doing got cancelled so i decided to write some more instead of posting something to my long-dead instagram for art qwq//

My classes were, as usual, stressful and boring, somehow simultaneously. My brain was fogged out completely as I mindlessly doodled in my notebook. The 5 minute bell woke me up from my trance as i realized i had been crying, silently, and doodling me. Well, what looked like me... but I had a flat chest, short hair, stubble, and bulge. What the hell?

As I flipped through the pages, there were more and more drawings of me. Was that even me? How long had I been doing this? No notes, no dates, just 2 or 3 pages, back to back of random names that felt familiar, and more drawings of an.... I guess "idealized" me? They all looked slightly different, with a name next to or around them. Then, finally, in my confusion, I stumbled upon another drawing of the "idealized" me. Bigger, smiling, and... happy. And a name, large and proud, the most familiar of them all...

Victor.

I had never known a Victor, nor any of the other names that were scrawled in these lined pages of realization. But Victor had a feeling attached to it, a feeling so large and powerful and so right that it can't be described but any other feelings exactly. Better than comfort, Bigger than happiness, a feeling that just said "Wow, this is so right, and that is me and I am it." A feeling that said "Wow, this is my name."

Needless to say, once school let out i immediately looked up what it felt like to trans men when they discovered their names. I didn't even look for Amelie, which I was supposed to, but I did find an hour-long documentary, a couple articles, and some coming out videos on YouTube. After gathering some scraps of words and a couple minutes of feely shit, I came to the conclusion I wasn't alone in this feeling.  I shut off my phone and headed toward the bike rack, which took maybe 40 seconds of uncomfortably squeezing through sweaty teenagers, I found Amelie, standing by a wall, headphones in. She was gently bobbing her head to some sort of rave music, I bet.

"Whatcha listenin' to, Emmy?"

She didn't respond. Her music is always so damn loud, I question why she isn't deaf yet.

"Emmy. Emmy!" Still no response. Goddammit, Emmy!

"AMELIE WILSTER HOLDEN!" She jumps, and rips her headphones out.

"Jesus, Tori! Calm the fuck down!" We share a laugh, and I ask her again.

"Whatcha listenin' to, Eeeeeemmy?" I poke my face in her screen, much to her disapproval. Yup, just as i thought. Emmy was listening to GHOST DATA's Blatant Plagiarism. Which was weird, usually she listened to more gothic music. But still, the song was almost on full volume.
"You're gonna go deaf, you sicko! I question how you aren't already."
"WHAAAAT?"
"I sAID- hold up, you're fucking with me, aren't you?!?!?"
She laughed and I gave her a small punch on the arm. Understandably. She deserved it.

After a brutal... 5 minute walk, we came to Emmy's house. "My dad isn't home, so we are good to go, my guy!" 'My guy'. That made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. She flung her backpack across the room and onto a cyan couch. Emmy had a biiiiiiiiig house. I'm talking 4 stories. Including the attic and basement though. The attic was her room, but i hadn't seen it in so long i couldn't possibly think of what it looked like now. We raced up the stairs and she plopped onto her bed once we were at the top, panting. I looked around the room and I couldn't help but gasp. The bottom half of her room was covered in mainly black stuff, but the top half was covered in posters from different artists, from PATD, Nirvana, Fall out boy, GHOST DATA, Alice Mertin, and others.

A lot of polaroid pictures were posted randomly around the walls, anywhere she could reach. But I noticed there were a lot of sporadic blank places around the room. "What'r... uh.. Those blank spaces for, Em?" Her eyes lit up as she pressed a button on her LED's, purple specifically. Then in all the blank spaces words lit up, random and edgy, but beautiful nonetheless.

"C'mere! This isn't even the best part!"