4.07: Betrayal

I didn’t get four steps out of Instruktanto Cooper’s van before Mum pulled me into a suffocating hug. When I was sure the lack of oxygen would kill me, she pushed me back to arms’ length and looked me up and down.

“Aww, you still haven’t changed a bit,” she said affectionately. “Except for needing a haircut.”

That… hurt, actually. I’d been careful to shave the patchy beginnings of my beard and it was good that she hadn’t noticed anything in that sort of department (although I couldn’t put off that forever), but I was pretty sure I had changed.

“He’s a bit taller,” Dad pointed out, taking my bag. “It’s good to see you, Kayden.”

“You, too,” I said, shrugging Mum’s arms off and checking, surreptitiously, to make sure that my own arms were still covered by my sleeves.

“We’ve arranged to meet up with Chelsea and Melissa for dinner,” Mum said as we headed for our motel room. “You must be looking forward to seeing them.”

I nodded. She didn’t know how recently I’d seen them. Or that I could test them. (I hadn’t told Mum and Dad about our illegal texting system. They’d probably be relieved if I could contact them on short notice, but bringing it up would just raise the question of why we couldn’t have phones all over again. So over dinner, Chelsea, Melissa and I had to pretend to be more excited and have a lot more to talk about than we actually did.

It was, in fact, nearing the end of the holidays before my parents pulled me aside and Mum said quietly, “Kayden, can we talk?”

“Uh, yeah?” I sat on the couch with them. “What’s up?”

“Your… curse. You’ve learned to control it, right?”

“It still doesn’t do anything, if that’s what you mean.”

“Are you sure? We know it didn’t hurt that boy, but are you sure it’s not hurting you?”

My confusion must have shown on my face, because Dad reached over and rubbed my chin. “She’s talking about this, mate.”

Ah. I supposed it was too much to hope for that diligent shaving would hide it from my parents indefinitely. But that explanation didn’t exactly explain anything. “What does that have to do with my curse?”

My parents exchanged a glance. Dad shot Mum a sort of ‘let it go’ expression, which Mum ignored. “Honey, you have to know that biologically, this isn’t… I mean, someone in your condition, when unusual things happen…”

“You… you think my curse is active, and what it does is give me a beard?”

“Curses can do all kinds of – ”

“No, I don’t have a magical cursed beard. I’m just taking testosterone.”

A pause. They both looked at me in disbelief.

Mum spoke first. “You what?”

“I’m on hormone replacement therapy,” I explained, trying to sound reasonable ad unaffected and not like the conversation had a similar feel to slowly slipping off the edge of a cliff. “You know? Boy puberty?”

Another pause.

“You sure about this, Kayden?” Dad asked.

“I’m going to sue the hell out of that school,” Mum growled.

“You – why?”

“You’re fourteen!”

“Fifteen.”

“Whatever! They can’t just – what happened to parental permission? You can’t just go prescribing life-altering hormones to kids without – ”

“They had my permission,” I snapped. “I asked for it. Don’t go getting mad at Refujeyo.”

“Why are you defending that place?” Dad asked.

“I’m not! It’s creepy and weird! But you’re mad at them like you think I don’t have any autonomy in this! I made the decision, so stop treating me like my choices don’t matter!”

“You want me to be mad at you, instead?” Mum asked.

“If you have to, yeah! But you shouldn’t be mad at anyone. It’s my body.”

“You’re too young to be making those sorts of decisions!”

“Fifteen is pretty old to start going through puberty, actually.”

“You know what I mean!”

Yes, I was worried that I did. But even though I’d been aware that this conversation might happen, I hadn’t really believed it. My parents had always, always been supportive of my gender. They’d backed me up from the start, bought me boy clothes when I was little and called me Kayden, gone to bat for me whenever anyone gave me trouble. I’d never, ever doubted their support or belief in me. Sure, i’d been worried about how this conversation would go, not looking forward to their shock and anger at the school and me for not asking them first, but… that wasn’t what this was, was it? This was worse.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” I said, surprised by the cold anger in my own voice. “Why don’t you explain it to me?”

Mum sighed. “Kayden, you’re making decisions that are going to permanently alter your body.”

“Yeah. Puberty does that.”

“Natural puberty, sure, but… you wouldn’t give a tattoo to someone who was fifteen, right?”

I contemplated showing her my mage mark, but that would just derail the conversation into a new ‘that’s different’ about something else. I wanted to hash this out. Even though it felt like the ground had fallen from under me, even though I felt more betrayed over this tiny little resistance than I had over the invisible scars on my chest, even though this reaction didn’t make sense. “You’re comparing me being a boy to getting a tattoo? Really?”

“It’s just a decision that you might regret – ”

“How? How, exactly, do you think I’m going to regret this.”

“Alice,” Dad said, warningly – the first thing he’d said in a while.

Mum ignored him. “Sweetheart.” She put a reassuring hand on my clenched fist. “You’ve been under that curse for a really long time. I know it’s hard – well, actually, I don’t know how hard it is, do I? I’ve never had to deal with it. I know it’s all twisted up and warped you, and you’ve spent your entire childhood under it, and that’s… that’s going to be really hard to untangle. It’s awful, that this has happened to you. It’s going to be so hard and confusing ti untangle it, when the curse is finally under control. But there is an end, okay? If that school can’t help, then I’ll move heaven and earth to find someone who can. And when we succeed, I don’t want you to have to deal with any more permanent consequences than necessary. So just be patient, alright?”

Why were we talking about my curse again? If she was mad about the HRT, what did the curse –

A thought occurred to me. An unwelcome, horrible one, that made a lot more sense than I would have liked. I remembered years of unwavering support for my gender, years of salt at the door, years of reciting charms backwards and being taught to make the perfect tea and remembering to keep my emotions under control and –

I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “You think I’m cursed,” I said, quietly. Accusingly.

She blinked. “You are cursed.”

“But that’s what you think this is all about, isn’t it? You think I’m cursed to be transgender. You think my gender is just the thing in my heart, lying to me and making life difficult.”

“I love and support you, and I know it feels real to you from the inside, but – ”

“By the Points, you do!” I pushed her hand away and leapt to my feet. “Is that what this has been the whole time? You supporting me because you’re just relieved that the curse has found some outlet that isn’t killing people or something?”

“Hey,” Dad said, “we did the best we – ”

“What about you?” I asked him. “Do you believe this? Are you just waiting for this big bad horrible curse to go away and your little Kelsie to come back?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Mum protested. “Boy or girl, I love you and you’re still the same pers – ”

“Dad?”

“No, son. I know who you are. But do you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Ever since you went to that school, you’ve been different. You don’t listen to us any more, you keep secrets – ”

“I’ve always kept secrets!”

“Childhood mischief, sure! Not big thing like this! What else aren’t you telling us?”

I brushed my hands against my sleeves, making sure they were down. “Oh, like it’s any of your business. Mum’s pulling this whole cursed gender bullshit and you don’t even care!”

“Your mother has a right to her theories! She’s worried about you! How are we supposed to protect you if you hide things from us and blow up over every little thing?”

“Every little – okay, you know what? Fuck you.”

“Kayden!” Mum gasped.

“No. Shut up. I was so worried about how you’d take my HRT and I didn’t even imagine it would go this badly. Stop treating me like I’m eight years old. Stop acting like I can’t make my own decisions, like I don’t know my own mind, like I need you to make all my fucking decisions for me and the big bad school is evil for not agreeing with you. I just… everything you two think is clearly garbage, so I don’t care any more. Alright?” I turned to storm off to the exit, but Dad blocked the door.

“Apologise to your mother,” he growled.

“How about you apologise for cutting up my chest?” I snapped.

He frowned. “What?”

“When I was a baby! The school doctor found the scars! I don’t remember getting them, and somebody put them there, so it had to have been you, or someone you hired. How could you do that to a baby?”

“Kayden, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, you forgot? You did so much cursebreaking that you forgot some of it? That’s all I am to you, isn’t it; a dangerous vessel for a dangerous curse that you need to get rid of to get your real kid back. I couldn’t figure out how you could’ve done it, why you’d cut up your own baby like that, but after this little conversation I think I understand. So tell me why, or get out of my fucking way.” I jabbed a finger into Dad’s chest. His eyes widened, and he immediately stepped aside.

I slammed the door behind me and ran off before either of them could come after me, already making plans to break in while they were at dinner and grab my wallet and stuff so that I wouldn’t have to see either of them again before returning to Refujeyo.

I didn’t want to look either of them in the face ever again.

My mum really thought that about my curse? About my gender? Really? And my dad might disagree, sure, but when it came to taking sides between us, he clearly thought I should just accept her opinion as an act of love and protectiveness and be happy or grateful or something. My entire childhood, all of my memories of their love and support, had been…

No, they still had love for me. They supported me, to an extent. They… they didn’t have faith in me, that was it. They didn’t trust me to make my own decisions, to know who I was, and defending myself – which I shouldn’t have to do – couldn’t achieve anything, because they didn’t take anything I had to say seriously.

I’d thought they had faith in me. They had none. I’d thought they believed in me. Mum thought I was a different person, and that ‘I’ was just a symptom of my curse. It was always about the fucking curse.

I leaned against a wall, put a hand over my thundering heart, and tried not to cry. I imagined I could feel the curse in there, heavy and cold, pressing against every heartbeat. I couldn’t get away from the damn thing.

And I was tired of it. I was just so fucking tired.