by Tej Turner
“Can’t you see?” she said, bringing out another photograph of me, taken a year ago, and holding it up.
I looked at it again. The proportion between my hips and shoulders had swayed, and even the shape of my face had altered a little. My skin was thinning and becoming softer and the fat was being redistributed, just as I read it would.
And even though the buddings on my chest could hardly be called breasts yet, seeing the whole picture of what had happened to me over a space of time made me appreciate that it was still a beginning. I stared at the screen for a long time.
“You know… I haven’t seen you smile for a long time, Tilly,” she said.
She also looked happy, and I realised that I had not really seen that for a while, either. She was happy because I was happy. It was a moment I would always remember because it marked a transition not just for myself, but for her too: she had finally let go of her grandson and learned to love her granddaughter.
I think it must be the boys at school who are really psychic, or maybe my happiness was too obvious and I had too much of a spring in my step, because it was the very next day that they brought me crashing back down again.
It was lunchtime. I was on the green outside the humanities’ building. It was spring and the sun had just come out so I was sitting on the grass reading a book.
And then Jarvis and three of his friends walked over to me.
“What’yer reading, Tilly,” he said cheerily as they closed in.
He tried to grab the book from me but I jammed it into my bag and ducked away from him. I was practised at making a hasty retreat by then.
“We were talking to you, Tilly!” one of his friends said, pulling me back. “There’s no need to be rude.”
“Leave me alone!” I said, shrugging him off. I started to walk away but a foot appeared between my legs and tripped me over, sending me rolling down the bank.
By now others had noticed something was going on and I heard laughter all around me.
“Clumsy!” Jarvis yelled sardonically, and then he turned to the gathering crowd of spectators. “Charlie is still not used to those heels. I’m not surprised though, with those massive feet!”
“And that swinging thing between his legs! It’s bad for balance!” another added, dangling an emphatic finger from his crotch.
“My name is Tilly!” my voice cracked.
“Oh, really?” he said. “A girl are you? Why don’t we check?”
They came for me. I tried to run but by now there was a ring of people around me and they blocked my path. One of them grabbed my legs, another grabbed my arms. They turned me over so my face was in the grass. I kicked and thrashed but they were all bigger and stronger than me.
“Let’s see what Tilly really is!” Jarvis howled, as he reached for my waist and pulled down my skirt.
“No!” I screamed. “No! Stop it! Stop!”
But he and the other members of the pack carried on laughing as they tore open my tights.
With shaking fingers, I finally came clean to Ben that night and told him about what had been happening at school. He was mortified and shocked at the extent of it all and plied me with endless questions until I ended up telling him about everything that had been happening over the last couple of years.
You can’t go back there.
I have to, I typed back. If my grandmother finds out how bad it is she might blame it on me being a girl and try to make me be a boy again. I can’t do that. It is the only thing I have keeping me going.
Have you ever heard of a place called Janus? he eventually asked, after a long silence. I used to go there when I was younger.
Janus? What is that?
It’s a club. I made a lot of friends there. It’s a place where people are accepted, even if they are a bit different. I always felt safe there.
I don’t know if I can, I replied.
Why?
I am… nervous. About going to places.
Tilly, you are one of the bravest people I have ever met.
I frowned.
You don’t know me, I eventually typed back. I am weak. That is why they pick on me.
Tilly, I only dared to admit to the world I was transgender when I was seventeen years old. You came out in a school that was already bullying you when you were thirteen. Don’t you realise how outstanding that is?
No, I replied. I did it because the thought of turning into a boy scared me. There was nothing brave about it.
You think that turning into a girl didn’t scare me? Tilly, I felt the same but the difference is that the reaction it would cause from others scared me more.
I have just never been able to… pretend I am something I’m not. I admitted.
And you think that is a weakness? Tilly, you let them get away with murder because you are too timid to stick up for yourself, but you have something that none of them will ever have. Integrity.
I stared at the screen for a while and different kind of tears came to my eyes. They were because I knew what Ben was saying was true and I finally felt the beginning of something I had never felt before: self-worth.
Thank you for talking to me, Ben. I then typed. You are my only friend, and I don’t know what I would do without you.
It is always a pleasure chatting to you, Tilly. Be brave, and whatever you do, don’t let them break you. You are worth a hundred of every one of them.
I am just scared that something bad is going to happen, I admitted.
Why?
I just have this feeling… I have lost faith in everything. The school. The kids. The teachers. I have no respect for them anymore. I’m afraid of what I might do.
“You just want attention,” Alexander said. He was one of those kids who are always trying to get in with the cool crowd but never quite achieve their ranks. One of his favourite methods for his repeated attempts was to ridicule me while they were around. On this particular day both he and I were sitting in our Art lesson within earshot of Jarvis and some of his friends, so he was exploiting the situation. I kept my eyes glued to the paper, carried on scraping the pastel across the page until the curve went completely black. Hoping that maybe, if I pressed harder, it would drown out the sound of his voice.
“I mean, first it was that animal rights crap,” he said. Some of the others around him sniggered. “That presentation you did in RE about how you don’t eat meat because the poor little chickens can’t flap their wings. I mean, come on, who actually cares about that shit?”
“Then it was the whole, ‘I’m a girl really’,” he pitched his voice high and flapped his arms around. “And then when we got bored of that one—”
If only, I thought to myself as the temperature of my blood rose. If only you and the rest of you sad kids got bored of me. If only you had something else to—
“You came in with those little cards, pretending to be all witchy and supernatural. You’re not even a real girl, Charlie.”
A lump twisted in my throat. No matter how much armour I gathered around myself to try to stop them hurting me, there was always their endless supply of that particular ammunition. My piercing weakness.
More cackling laughter.
“Where the hell did you get them from, anyway?” he said, once the laughter had died down. He was obviously missing the adulation. “Is there a special website where sad little attention seekers like you buy that shit from?”
“My mother,” I whispered, a flashing memory of the way she swung from the ceiling flashed before my eyes. I tried to blot it out, but it lingered. “They were my mother’s.”
“I bet she’s a freak too. She must be.”
“She’s dead.”
There was a flicker of guilt for a moment, and his friends must have felt it too, because they all stopped laughing and turned their faces down to the table. But Alexander carried on staring at me, his face going red.
Typical, I thought, the hatred in me simmering. He just overstepped the mark and all he cares about is that he lost face i
n front of his friends.
“I think you’re just making that up as well,” he eventually said. By now his friends had acquired shreds of decency and were no longer backing up his starlight show. “It’s all just a load of bullshit. Come on, just admit it.”
I turned away, looked back at the picture I was creating. Tried to think of what else needed to be done to complete it. All I could see was red. I clenched my fists under the table. Tried to ignore him.
“How did she supposedly die then?” he asked. I made the mistake of peeking up at him and saw that he was grinning. “Did you choke her with your cock?”
And then something snapped within me.
I pushed the table over, and the whole class jumped as it toppled, skidding across the floor.
“Why don’t you just fuck off!” I screamed as I ran across the room and grabbed him by the hair, yanking his head back. His eyes went wide.
“Listen to me you little cunt! When I was a child I saw shit that would make your skin crawl! I am sorry, I am so fucking sorry if my pain and the way I deal with it is inconvenient for you! I am sorry that your life has been so fucking perfect you can’t understand the way I am. But just do me a favour and stay the fuck away from me, you little fucking maggot.” I growled, slamming his face onto the desk.
I turned to the others. Clarissa, and the other girls who instigated my ban on the female toilets. Jarvis, and the boys who yanked my skirt down on the green. “Why don’t you all just fuck off? If I am such a fucking attention seeker then why don’t you all just rise above it and leave me alone?”
I slammed my palm on the desk of one of the boys, not remembering why, but just knowing that I hated him. “Can’t you see that all I want is to be left alone?” My eyes circled the room. All of them. “Just fuck off! If I was so fucking desperate for you all to notice me, then why is it that sometimes I just want to fucking die!” I kicked the supply cupboard. “What is it which is so sad about your lives and makes you all so fucking fascinated by me?” I grabbed the nearest jar someone had been swilling their paintbrush in and flung it at the window. “And then you have the fucking nerve to tell me that I want this shit? Tell me, retards, if I really wanted this shit, why is it that I would quite happily never see any of your fucking faces ever again? Just fuck off. Fuck off! Fuck Off! FUCK OFF!” I grabbed a chair and threw it at the door. “Fuck off!” It skidded across the floor and two boys had to jump from their seats to avoid it. “Just fuck off!”
And then I caught my breath and realised where I was.
Alexander had a hand cupped to his face; he was bleeding from the nose. A line of kids had dirty paint water splashed over their shirts. A window was broken. My pastels were scattered everywhere. A cupboard was dented and hanging by a single hinge. A table was upturned. A chair was on its side. Everyone was staring at me. Everyone was silent.
I ran. I knew my grandmother was at a WI gathering that day so I went straight home. I had no idea what I was going to do next. Within five minutes the phone started ringing. I tried to ignore it but it just carried on and on. Eventually I picked it up.
“Is a Mrs Harper there?” I heard my headmaster’s voice on the other end.
“No, she isn’t,” I said.
“Tilly?” he said, swiftly sounding flustered. “Is that you?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Look, Tilly… what has happened is very serious. We need you back here. With your Grandmother.”
“I’m not going back.”
“Well… er… I am sorry you feel that way, Tilly… but you are enrolled at this school, and unfortunately there are going to be consequences for—”
“Oh will you just fuck. Off!” I cried. “Listen to me. I am not going anywhere near your shitty school ever again. So forget about suspensions or whatever you want to do. I quit—”
“It is not as simple as that, I’m afraid. You have abused a fellow student and vandalised school property.”
“I’ve been abusive?” I exclaimed, and shockingly, I started laughing. After everything that had just happened I was laughing. It was like I had finally snapped and gone crazy. “I’ve been abused by those little shits of yours for years and you’ve done nothing to stop it!”
“We have been more than… accommodating to your… needs.”
“I’m not coming back. So you can take your meetings and your procedures and your stupid, bloody gender-neutral toilets, and shove them up your ass!”
He gasped and then I heard some scuffling noises. I was just about to hang up when another voice came on the line.
“Tilly, this is Mrs Hodgeson, deputy headmistress, here,” she said (as if I was going to forget who that silly little bitch was). “Please report to the headmaster’s office now, or I will have to call the police.”
“Do it!” I exclaimed. “I could tell them some very interesting stories.”
I ran straight upstairs to my room and hurriedly got ready for a swift exit. I didn’t actually want to be there if the police came round because I didn’t trust them either. I ripped off my uniform and got changed into a skirt, corset and black coat. I let my hair down, gave it a quick brush and coated my mouth in lipstick.
I remembered that place Ben told me about – Janus – and did a quick search for it online to find directions. This was the push I needed to go there. There was nowhere else left for me to go. I was on the edge. If I didn’t find something there to turn my life around, I didn’t want to carry on living.
I turned over some tarot cards before I left, asking if I should go. The answer I got was a definite “yes”, but it included The Death card and The World card – which inflated the nervous bubbles which were already burbling in my stomach: whatever was about to happen to me there would be life changing and dramatic.
Just before I left, I piled up all my school uniforms into an old bin we had rusting in the yard, poured methylated spirit over them, and set it alight. It was cathartic, and would serve as a message to anyone the school sent over.
Janus was a little flashier than I was expecting. It had a shiny new sign above the door and the walls looked like they had been painted very recently. When I first entered the main bar downstairs it was more or less deserted, which was not surprising for that time of day. I got a glass of cola and sat in the corner, waiting for something to happen.
It stayed this way for a couple of hours, which gave me more than enough time to brood over everything that had just happened, everything which had led to me being here, and then, suddenly, in the early evening there was an explosion of people filing in through the door. Most of them were dressed in black and didn’t seem much older than me. Angry rock music thundered from the speakers, making the floor tremble.
I began to feel nervous.
I was also confused. Didn’t Ben say this was a place where people were free to be different? Everyone seemed very much the same to me. Eventually someone caught my eye, not just because they stood out from the others in the fisherman’s pants which ballooned from around their legs and the black netted top they were wearing over their t-shirt, but also because those figure-hiding garments combined with their wavy hair made me realise that I could not tell if they were male or female. They walked straight up to the bar like they owned the place and, after a brief chat, the barman handed over to them a bindle stuffed with possessions.
I was intrigued by this person and ready for a refill so I went over to the bar only to find that when I got there I didn’t have enough courage to start a conversation. I stood there nervously, not knowing how to introduce myself. I didn’t need to in the end because they waved at me.
“Hi…” I said.
“What’s your name?”
“Tilly,” I replied. “What’s yours?”
“Sam,” they said, which of course gave no further clues to their gender. Their voice was no indication either, because I couldn’t figure out if it was a low alto or high tenor.
“You new here then?” they asked.
I nodded. “A friend told me about this place…”
Sam studied me. “This place has seen better days,” he/she then said, turning their gaze to the newest horde of people making their way to the bar. They were all dressed in black. “I don’t come here so much anymore… the vibe has gone a bit sour.”
“Why are you here then?” I asked.
“Frelia – a friend of mine – told me to come here tonight. I hope it’s bloody important… I also had to collect this,” they said, tapping the stuffed cloth tied to the end of the stick. “I left it here a while ago… crazy night…”
Just then I heard a snigger behind me and turned around. My heart skipped a beat when I caught sight of a face I recognised. It was one of the girls from school. I couldn’t remember her name, but she laughed at me and then whispered into the ear of someone next to her.
“Are you okay?” Sam asked, his/her eyes going from me, to the girl from my school. The whole gang of people she was with were now staring at me.
I shook my head.
“Come with me,” Sam said, taking my hand and pulling me away from them. I didn’t look back but I could still hear them sniggering.
Ben told me this was a place I would be safe, where people wouldn’t care, but it was all a lie. There were wolves here. There were always wolves.
I felt a degree of safety with Sam around though, and he/she fascinated me. Everything about this stranger I had just met conveyed an aura of bold indifference. I could feel those kids watching us as we walked up the stairs and it made me nervous, but Sam maintained a care-free grace and the laughing seemed to fall to deaf ears.
At the top of the staircase we had to skirt around a guy in a big coat who was staring at faces of everyone who walked past. The odd thing about him was that he was dressed so plainly that it actually made him stand out.