The following story is fictional, any resemblance to events or persons is unintentional. It can be posted or archived on any site provided (a) the site does not charge for it, and (b) I am notified and accredited.
Their Reaction
by Zoe Burgess
© 2003 by Zoe Burgess, (New Zealand) All rights reserved.
Jane slowly walked into the kitchen. Her heart pounded in her ears almost to the exclusion of everything else. Her mother was finishing loading the dishwasher after dinner. Everything seemed simultaneously to be going infinitely fast and yet infinitely slow.
"Mum?"
"Yes, love, what is it?" As always, her mother was not looking towards her as she said it.
"Mum, this is kinda important." God, she was so scared right now.
Her mother turned around and looked at her, her face growing obviously concerned.
"What is it, hon? Is everything okay?" She walked over and placed her hand on Jane's arm.
"Can I talk to you and Dad right now? I really need to tell you both something." There. Done it. No backing out now.
"Sure, hon, he's through in the lounge. Come on, we'll go sit down."
Jane's Mum had obviously worked out that something big was up. She walked behind Jane, keeping one hand placed comfortingly on her child's arm.
Jane had the incredible feeling of everything happening without her control, like a large rock beginning its run down a hillside. She was aware of everything, the touch of her mother's arm, the vivid darkness outside of the windows, every noise around her. This had to be done, she knew that. It had to be done.
They walked together into the lounge and Jane's Mum spoke up.
"Thomas, John wants to talk to us." Jane cringed inside, she hated that name.
Jane's Dad looked up at Jane, then his eyes shifted to look into his wife's, then they went back to Jane. He put his book down.
"What's up, boyo?"
Jane took a deep breath. It was all she could do not to turn around and run from the room.
"Mum, can you sit down beside Dad?" she asked and sat down on the couch opposite its exact match where her father was sitting.
"Sure hon, is everything okay?" Jane's Mum sat down without talking hr eyes off Jane.
Jane looked at the ground. "No, not really." She said quietly.
Jane's Dad shifted in the couch and looked at his wife. "John, you're scaring your mother, and me too I might add, what's going on here?"
Jane lifted her face up and looked at them.
"Come on, love, it can't be that bad, you know that you can tell us anything." Jane's Mum said.
"I'm scared you won't love me anymore." A single small tear trickled down Jane's cheek.
"Don't cry, boy, come on, what is it?"
Jane looked her mother in the eye and then her father. *Stick to how you worked it out.* She thought.
"You know how I haven't been all that happy the last couple years?" She began.
Her mother and father looked at each other and then back at Jane.
"Well, we had noticed that you were kind of down recently, but we thought that you were just going through a phase. Lots of teenagers do." Jane's mother said
"I wish it were that simple." Jane looked down at the floor. There was a pause of silence and Jane tried to get up the courage to say the next bit.
"John, are you trying to say that you're ... well ... you know ... gay?" Her father looked really worried; particular given how much trouble that last word had in coming out of his mouth.
Jane would have burst out laughing had it not been for the fear inside. As it was she just smiled slightly and looked at her father.
"No, I'm not gay, Dad."
"Oh thank God!" Her father let out a gush of breath and lent back into the couch. "You had me worried there for a second, John."
Normally that kind of statement would really piss Jane off, what the hell was 'worrying' about having a child tell you they're gay? But right now, however, she was having enough trouble just keeping her strength together.
"So, John, what is it then?" Jane's mum spoke up.
Okay. This is it. "I have been feeling down for longer than just recently, Mum. Pretty much as long as I can remember. I have always felt off, like there was something wrong. About four years ago I worked out what it was."
She paused and took a breath. Time slowed down, her world shrank down to just the space that her parents and her occupied.
"I want to be a girl." The words slipped out one at the time, like deja-vu. It was as though she had heard them a million times, which she had of course, over and over in her head, rehearsing for this exact moment.
Silence reigned supreme.
"What ... what did you say?" Jane's father spluttered out.
"I need to be a girl, Dad, I feel like I am one."
Jane's father stood up. At this moment he towered over her like she remembered him to when she was little. He stared down at her.
"What the hell do you mean, 'you need to be a girl'?!" His anger was starting to become evident on his face.
Tears burst out. "Dad! I've always felt like this, as long as I can remember I've always felt like a girl!" She started to cry. "Like I was meant to be a girl."
"This is just bloody stupid! How can you be a girl? You're a boy!"
Her head jerked up. "I am not! Not on the inside!" She looked pleadingly at her Mum.
Jane's Mum got up, walked around to where her crying child was sitting and put her arms around her.
"John, your father's right, you're a boy. This is just a phase, it'll go away."
Jane stared at her Mum. "It won't, Mum, not ever! You might think it might, but it won't! Why do you think I had to tell you?!"
"John." With her arms around Jane, her Mum started to gently rock her. "You're too young. You can't know this. It will all go away, you'll see."
Jane wrenched herself out of her Mum's grasp and stood up. "Mum! I'm seventeen! How old do I have to be?! You have me already picking out universities and courses! I am old enough to do that, to work out the rest of my life, but I can't work out if I'm a boy or a girl?"
"Don't speak to your mother with that tone John."
Jane's head swung between looking at her father, and looking at her mother. "I just want your love, that's all, and your help in this ... please!"
Jane's Mum stood up too. "Of course we love you, son, and we will help you I promise." Jane's heart soared.
-----
"Get the fuck out of my room." Jane said patiently, hiding the surging of anger and fear that was boiling beneath those words.
"HOW DARE YOU?!" Jane's mother screamed and raised her hand. "AFTER EVERYTHING WE HAVE DONE FOR YOU ... YOU UNGRATEFUL ... !!" Her hand started to swing down towards Jane's face.
Jane reached up and grabbed her mother's hand. This was the first time she had ever put her hands on her mother in her life in anything other than affection. They were now eye to eye. Not blinking, she stared directly at the anger that shone brightly therein.
"No." she said simply. "Get out."
Her mother wrenched her wrists out of Jane's hands and stormed out of her room, slamming the door loudly behind her, rattling every picture in the room and causing one of her little soft-toy bears to fall down off the shelf above her bed.
Jane just let her shoulders slump for the first time after arriving back from the shrink. Her mother's eyes had so been expecting the cure, as they did every time Jane arrived back from her appointments, every time to be disappointed by the fact that the cure hadn't happened yet.
Jane just slowly lay down on the bed, cuddled the bear to her chest and begun to cry. Again. Always.
-----
She stood there looking at the front door, as she had been doing every afternoon at this time for quite a while now. Eventually she sighed and opened it.
The twilight in the entranceway was as still as the quiet that pervaded the whole house. She walked in, her shoes making loud reverberating noises on the large tiles. Walking by the stairs she dropped her school bag and books down and wandered through to the kitchen ... she would take her school uniform off, with its wonderful grey pleated slacks and grey long-sleeved shirt, once she had gotten something to eat.
Her mother wasn't in the kitchen, probably elsewhere in the house. Jane refused to call it home, as she was pretty sure a 'home' had a certain feeling this house lacked for her.
Opening the refrigerator she pulled out some lettuce, tomato, gherkins, spring-onions, capsicum and hard-boiled eggs that her mum always kept in there. Ripping and cutting a small amount up she threw it into a bowl with some herbs and a light vinaigrette that was in the fridge. Tidying stuff up she walked back out of the kitchen into the hall. Her mother was coming the other way.
They stood there, about a metre apart. As was usual, the air needed a knife to part. It was always like this. Since.
Her mother looked at Jane and then at the salad Jane had in her hand.
She snorted in derision and walked by Jane, not looking her in the eye.
Jane sighed. Great. Now even her food wasn't masculine enough.
She walked over and picked up her books and bag and wandered up the stairs to her room.
-----
"John."
Jane looked up from where she was cuddled up on the sofa, intent on her magazine. Her father stood there looking down at her.
"Yes, Dad?"
"Stop sitting like that, and put that magazine down, I need to talk to you."
She looked down at how she was sitting. Legs curled up under her. She didn't get it ... it was comfortable. She sighed anyway and swung her feet down to touch the ground. Her father sat in the big chair next to the sofa, clasped his hands together in front of him and looked down at the floor between his feet.
"Now, look son, your mother seems to think that all this business with the shrinks isn't really going anywhere. She seems to think that you aren't getting over this ... thing. Is that true?"
This was SO her father. He, of course, would be thinking precisely the same things, but by saying that it was her mother thinking it, which she was, he could appear to be rational and unemotional.
Jane sighed and looked at her father. "No, Dad, I'm not getting over this, I told you I wouldn't."
"That's the thing though, son, you're not trying. Both your mother and I feel that if you just gave this a chance it might help. You're being stubborn and close-minded to how your mother and I think. If you just ... "
The hypocrisy of the moment threatened to overwhelm Jane and the world spun around her.
"I'M CLOSEMINDED?!! ME?!! FROM THE MOMENT I TOLD YOU ABOUT THIS YOU HAVEN'T FOR A SECOND TRIED TO THINK OF THINGS FOR MY PERSPECTIVE!! AND YOU'RE TELLING ME I'M THE CLOSEMINDED ONE?!"
Jane quickly closed her mouth as she suddenly realised that she was shouting at her father.
Her father's face just got redder and redder and veins started to become more visible. He clamped his teeth together to obvious try and keep from shouting himself.
"Now, listen boy. We are spending an awful amount of money on this and you are going to do what you are told. And you WILL NOT speak to me like that. I am your father! You will try and you will get over this disgusting fantasy you seem to be living in!"
"Dad, don't you get it? Don't you think I have tried? I have been trying. Do you think I wanted you and Mum to hate me? I didn't. I tried so hard. But it never went away, all these years I tried."
Jane fought back the tears. The last thing that this situation needed was her crying in front of her father. That would really set him off.
"Apparently you didn't try hard enough."
"But, Dad!"
"Enough! You are going to change whether you like it or not! End of subject. I expect to hear some more positive results soon."
"But ..."
"I said enough!"
Jane looked up at her father's angry face and started to cry. She couldn't help it.
"Oh for God's sake! Pull yourself together!"
Jane got up and ran out. Crying. Up to her room. Crying. Again.
-----
Jane walked into her room. It had been a nice Saturday afternoon, quiet, just the way she liked it. Away from home. Not having to deal with her parents.
Suddenly she looked around her.
The meagre few soft toy animals she had on her shelf above and on her bed were all gone. As were her women's magazines, her feminist books, her 'Lilith Fair' posters, her vases and flowers, and her candles. Her bear.
Tears came quickly as a lump of fear rose in her throat. Nervously she opened up her drawers and found her moisturisers, cleansers and small supply of makeup also gone. Finally she opened her closet door and checked way in the back, to find that the girls clothes and shoes that she did have were also not there.
The world spun around her and she collapsed to sitting cross-legged on the floor, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Why? It was her stuff, pieces of who she really was. Her small parts of reality amongst all the things around her that had no meaning for her.
Then next to her on the floor she found a little trial plastic bottle of a cleansing cream she had been wanting to try. She picked it up and looked at it. Staring as though it was the charred remains of a home one had once had.
Finally she screamed and threw the bottle at the wall. It made a loud noise as it impacted, splitting the cap and sending cream everywhere. She just screamed. And screamed. And screamed.
Her door opened slowly and her mother walked in, standing there in the entranceway, looking down at her.
Jane stopped screaming and looked up at her mother through tear fogged eyes.
"Why?" She managed to get out.
Her mother folded her arms. "Because they aren't the kinds of things a boy should have. And you are a boy. We let you have them for far too long."
"But they were mine! You had no right!"
"We had every right. You are our son and this is our house."
Jane felt all the strength go out of her. She stretched out her hands and pleaded. "Please Mum, please give them back ... please!"
Jane could tell that her mother was affected by the sight of her child crying and pleading with her from the floor, but she could also see that her mother wasn't going to budge. She asked anyway. What else could she do?
"No. Besides, it's too late now. Your father already took them to the refuse centre."
Jane's hands went to her face and she sobbed through them.
"Now, perhaps, you'll see how serious we are and give up this silliness."
Jane just continued to sob.
"You shouldn't have any distractions now. So start thinking about how you should be acting. You'll thank us for this."
Her mother quietly closed the door behind her as she turned, leaving Jane alone.
She just continued to sob.
-----
Jane pushed the piece of meat around on her plate aimlessly. She wasn't hungry, so she really couldn't see the point of being down here to eat with her parents. But it didn't matter anyway. Nothing really did.
She could see on the edges of her vision that her mother was trying to prompt her father non-verbally into saying something to her. But, again, she didn't really care.
Finally her father put down his utensils and spoke up. "So, John, how would you like to pop down to the rugby tomorrow night? I have two tickets given to me by a client, and I thought it would be fun to go ... you and the old man. How about that, eh?"
Oh, for fuck's sake. Jane pierced the piece of meat with her fork and looked up at her father.
"No." And she looked back down at her plate again.
Her father must have been taken aback by Jane's abrupt answer for he was silent for a good long moment.
"Oh come on boy, it'll be like old times ... "
She looked back up at her father.
"Whatever gave you the idea that I liked rugby?"
Her father looked shocked. "But all those games we went too when you were little ... you seemed so in to it!"
Jane sighed. "I was in to spending time with you Dad. What we were doing didn't really matter. Sure, I like some sports, but I was never crazy about rugby at all."
"Well, then, how about spending time with me now?"
"Because you're not doing this for that."
"OH? And what, pray tell, am I doing this for?"
"To get me to do the 'guy' thing with you, that's what! To try and make like how I feel doesn't exist, to try and turn me into something that I am not."
"And what, the hell, is wrong with that?!"
"Rodger!" Mum hated it when he swore. Even a little bit.
"No, Margaret, I'll have my answer out of him!"
I looked into the anger in his face and glared back at him. What the hell, it couldn't get any worse.
"Because I'm an embarrassment to you otherwise, that's why! You just can't stand the idea that all the other dad's have sons that aren't pansies, that aren't queers, aren't girls!"
Suddenly I realised I was standing, and so was my father, towering over me.
"You little ... " His hand rose back.
"Yeah, that's it! Hit me! Go on!! I obviously must deserve it, I'm such a little freak!"
Jane didn't really think she even felt it hit, all she knew was she was on the floor, there was blood in her mouth and the side of her face was screaming in pain. Her father stood over her with his fists clenched, his face contorted in anger.
She looked back at the table and her mother sitting there, her hands over her mouth, looking deathly afraid. But not doing a thing.
"Go to your room!" Her father spat at her through clenched teeth.
Jane slowly got up and backed out. She would have been crying but she was feeling disconnected from everything.
The tears would come later anyways. She knew they would.
-----
Jane winced and jerked back from where her mother had touched her face.
"Ow."
"Oh, sorry, love. But we have to get this cleaned up."
Jane sighed and let her mother apply an anti-bacterial wash to her cheek and arm.
Things were quiet for a little while, as her mother ensured that the wounds were clean. This had been something that had been echoed a number of times in the past.
"I'm sorry, Mum." Jane finally said.
"I know you are, honey."
"I never ask for this to happen ... why do they pick on me?"
The guys (she assumed they were guys as she hadn't actually heard them, all she had heard were the 'faggot' and 'queer' epitaphs and then their fists and boots hitting her) had jumped her on the way home from school. You'd think being a final year student would afford her some safety, but no. Apparently being a freak ensured it was open season for anyone regardless of seniority.
"Well, love, maybe ... "
Her mother was still checking out the wounds for dirt and started dressing them. At least the one on her cheek wasn't too bad this time, but the one on her arm really hurt.
Jane looked at her mother. "What, Mum?"
"Well, maybe if you just ... just changed the way you dressed or something?"
She couldn't believe what she was hearing coming out of her mother's mouth.
"Mum, I wear a school uniform! How could I change that?!"
For a second Jane almost suggested that her mother buy her a girl's uniform, but what she was hearing from her mother kinda overwhelmed everything.
Her mother went quiet.
"Mum! What are you talking about?" Jane pressed.
"Well, honey, it's just that don't wear it like other boys do, and these boys can really see that."
The thought *Well, duh, that's because I'm not a boy* went through Jane's head.
"Anything else?" She decided that she would see what on earth her mother was thinking at this moment.
"Well, maybe tone down the way you hold yourself a little, stop ... well, stop moving like a girl a little."
Jane could feel the heat rise in her face steadily. Coldly, using all the restraint she had at her command she formed a coherent sentence despite the anger and bitterness rising inside her.
"Let me get this straight, Mum, you think I'm asking for this by the way I dress and act?"
Her mother stepped back for a moment as though she had just realised what she had said. Finally Jane could see she was steeling herself.
"Look, John, this isn't the first time this has happened, we both know this. And it's been getting more frequent the past year or so. So maybe you should think about whether or not you are bringing this on yourself."
Jane just sat there with her mouth open, gaping at what her mother had just said to her.
Her mother continued. "Maybe this is something to think about when you are at your sessions. This might be a way to end what has been happening."
Jane found her voice.
"End what is happening?! Mum, you aren't even going to lodge a complaint! How about maybe using that as a tactic?!"
"John, you said yourself that you didn't even see who they were, how are we going to lodge a complaint if you can't even identify them?"
"So the only other option is to blame me, the one that got beat up, eh? Real good plan mum! Brilliant! You know this is what they used to say to rape victims? That maybe if you didn't dress so provocatively, then you wouldn't have gotten assaulted like that. 'Hey, yeah, she was asking for it, man!'"
"John! You know that isn't the same thing!"
Jane got up and looked her mother in the eye.
"It's precisely the same thing, Mum. If I came home raped would you still be suggesting the same thing?"
Her mother just stared at her for a bit before throwing her hands up in the air.
"FINE! You're a victim! I'm a terrible person and you're the saint! All I am trying to do is help my child, my son, and you just throw it back in my face! Well then, you get your way; I am a bad mother, an evil woman!"
Containing the scream of frustration that went off inside her just about caused Jane to explode on the spot. As it was she moaned in what escaped from her control.
"MUM!! Don't pull that with me! This isn't about you!"
"Of course it isn't! It's just about only you! It's always about you! You won't think about how anyone else might feel!"
"Well, fuck it, I just copy the example given to me by my parents! Because they obviously don't care about how I feel!!!"
"Don't use that language with me!"
"What are you going to do about it? Take my stuff away? ... oh, that's right, you've already done that! Ground me? I'm not going out anyway because I'll get the shit kicked out of me. Give me the silent treatment? You've been doing that! I am sick and tired of being the understanding nice one here!"
Her mother's eyes went wide and then narrowed as she glared at Jane.
"Just you wait till your father gets home!"
Jane glared back at her mother.
"Why? So he can hit me again too like those guys outside? Because you know you can't?"
"You ungrateful little ....!!"
"Grateful for what?! Telling me I'm sick, that I'm a freak, that I need to be cured?! Sure, yeah, I'll be grateful for that!"
Jane was just inches from her mother's face at this point, both of them glaring at each other. Finally her mother threw the cloth she had been using to clean Jane's face across the bathroom, causing bottles to fly everywhere.
"SO HELP ME, CHILD!!"
Her mother stormed out of the bathroom screaming unintelligibly. A moment later she could hear the back door slam shut and then the squeal of tires as her car peeled out of the driveway.
The adrenaline hit Jane's nervous system, causing her to shake. She wrapped her arms about herself and the familiar feeling of sobbing came to her in an almost distanced sensation. Slowly, shakingly, she slid down the cabinets behind her as all the strength went out of her body. The pain of her arm and face just merged with the pain inside her, the pain that was all that was her at that moment.
Crying. Again.
-----
Jane hunted down the supermarket aisle for something her mother wanted. She had no idea why her Mum wanted her along for this, but she kinda figured it had something to do with the fight they had had a few days ago.
Finally she found it, pulling open the big glass fridge door and picking frozen low-fat yoghurt containers out.
She shivered as the near freezing air flowed out and went right onto her feet, exposed in her burkenstocks, sucking in a breath at the shock of the cold.
This has possibly been a bad thing to go get.
As quickly as she could she grabbed the two containers out, trying to remember which ones her mother wanted, balancing that choice with which ones she would like.
Her mother had this weird thing for Orange and Mint.
Quickly she let the door close and shivered, trying to will herself to be warm.
"You'd think they almost did this on purpose, just for a sick prank, wouldn't you?" a voice suddenly said next to her.
Jane's head turned around to see a guy of around twenty getting out some dessert of his own next to her, smiling.
Oh wow, but he was cute.
She felt her face heat up and managed to stumble out something witty like "Yeah."
Jane continued to blush even more, her hair tie deciding at that moment to let go of some of her hair, letting it fall forward, giving her something to hide behind.
She managed to smile back though and he grinned in return as he turned away to walk back down the aisle.
She bubbled inside as she started to turn to walk back to where she thought her mother was.
Looking up, however, she saw her mother standing there, a look of disgust and disappointment on her face.
Jane got to her and popped the yoghurt into the cart.
Her mother turned away without saying a word, radiating dissapproval.
Jane sighed and just stood there for a moment before quietly moving on, folling her Mum.
This was never going to end.
-----
Jane snuck down the nearly pitch-black hallway, her heeled boots in her hand, padding along on her socks, with even the hems of her bootcut jeans turned up so that they would not make swishing noises as she made her way to the bathroom at 3am.
It had been a good night. Really fun, out with her friends, just girls hanging out together, catching a movie, scoping out cute guys without letting them know they were looking at them, laughing their heads off, and even having one boy catch Jane's eye and smile at her. Then there had been the popcorn war.
She grinned in the dark.
She quietly got into the bathroom and ever so gently closed the door, only then turning on the light. Momentarily blinded she blinked and then finally looked into the mirror in front of her. The girl there smiled back at her. Not a fashion model, but in women's jeans, a white tank top with a dark brown corduroy fitted denim-style jacket over the top, she was kinda attractive. She had spent ages styling her shoulder length hair with her friends and playing around with makeup before going out. She'd had to pad her bra out, of course, but that was just the way things were going to have to be. For now.
*For now.* She smiled at that thought and then remembered the guy that had smiled at her earlier in the evening and grinned some more. The girl in the mirror grinned back. She had been out like this a number of times before, but this had been a really great night. The mother of one of her friends knew what was going on and was being wonderful, telling Jane that any time she needed to get away from her parents her door was open.
Thank goodness for alcohol though; she wouldn't have had the guts to do this otherwise.
She smiled again and did a little twirl on her socks in the mirror.
Finally she sighed and decided it was time to get cleaned up. She pulled the small clip-on hoops off her ears, her mind wandering and remembering the evening.
Clumsily though, with her concentration elsewhere, an earring slipped through her fingers and dropped down to hit the tiled floor, the impact almost like a rifle shot in the dead silence of the house at this time of the morning.
Suddenly then it was all she could do not to be overwhelmed with the sound of her beating heart as it thudded up to high speed in her chest. She could swear that the neighbours could hear the pounding as she stood there, stock still, willing that the sound of the earring hitting the floor had never occured.
She strained her hearing, trying to figure out if she had been heard, wondering if her parents were moving. The seconds ticked by agonisingly, and finally she slowly let out the breath she had been holding in ... she couldn't hear a thing.
She reached around and moved her boots into her backpack that she had with her and pulled out the clean pajamas she had put into the dirty clothes hamper earlier that evening before going around to her friend's place to get changed.
Then, suddenly, the door opened.
"John? Is that you? You're home?"
Time just stood still as Jane froze in panic and shock. Standing there in the doorway was her father, blinking at the bright light streaming out past him into the hallway.
Then he saw her.
"WHO THE HELL ARE Y ... ?! JOHN?! IS THAT Y ... ?! JESUS CHRIST!!!"
Her father's huge hand streaked out and grabbed hold of her arm, gripping it to the point of pain as she tried to duck away from his reach.
"YOU FUCKING LITTLE FAGGOT!!! LOOK AT YOU!!!!"
"Daddy, please ... !!!" Jane whimpered back as the pain grew, lancing through her arm.
Her father's eyes went huge and round.
"'DADDY'?! I'LL GIVE YOU FUCKING 'DADDY'! COME WITH ME BOY!!"
He jerked Jane along, almost making her fall over. She struggled, trying to get out of her father's grasp as he pulled her out of the bathroom and down the hallway to the kitchen. But while Jane was stronger than her mother, her father had always been stronger and bigger than her and she couldn't do anything but just try not to fall over and be dragged.
He entered the kitchen, breaking the switch as he slammed the light on with all his strength and strode over to the drawers, pulling Jane with him. He rummaged through before he pulled out what he was looking for.
Scissors.
Jane screamed as she realised what her father was going to do; he had been threatening to do this for a while.
Her hair.
"NO!!! Please, Dad, don't!! I'll do anything, just don't!!!!" She cried out.
Her father pulled her so that his face was right by hers.
"Yes, you little shit! It's about fucking time I did this! I should have a long time ago!"
"But I kept it tied back like you told me to! It was just tonight! Please Dad, not this!!"
"NO! I'll teach you to sneak around our backs, dressed up like some fucking fag!! After everything we have tried to do to help you with this, you throw it back in our faces, prancing about like a fairy!!!"
Tears streamed down her face as the only thing that she could think of came out. "I'm not! I'm just a girl!" she sobbed.
Her father sneered.
"You might look like one, you little freak, but this will be your last fucking time you ever will!! This is for your own bloody good!!"
He jerked Jane around so that she was facing the kitchen window, the reflection of herself and her father looking back from the darkness in the backyard outside. Mascara streaks trailed down her face and a distant part of her was shocked at how terrified she looked.
"Now stay fucking still or I swear I'll nick you." Her father said as he opened the scissors out.
"NO!!!!!!"
She reached out and tried to hit him, but he seemed to not even feel it as he grabbed hold of her jaw and the first cut went through her hair, just missing her ear.
She screamed as she saw the hair in the reflection fall down.
"DADDY!!! NOOOOOOOO!!!!" She sobbed as the fight leeched out of her.
She sagged and he cut again, taking off the same from the other side of her head, moving quickly to go around the back.
Jane just looked up, pleading at him with her expression, but he didn't even show that he was seeing her. Then over his shoulder she could see her mother, in her dressing gown, her hand covering her mouth in shock, pale and white as a ghost. But doing nothing.
"Muummmmmm, please ..." she cried.
Tears going down her own cheeks, Jane's mother just shook her head at her child as Jane's father continued to cut her hair away.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he stopped.
"There."
He turned Jane's head so she could see her reflection again. A boy with hacked up hair and smeared makeup on looked back.
"Take a good fucking look. This is who you are, who you REALLY are. Don't you ever forget it! Now go and wash that shit off your face and throw those clothes away. I'll take you to get it cut right tomorrow morning at the barber's."
Jane staggered back as her father released her finally.
Hollow, in shock, Jane stumbled across the kitchen, her mother stepping to the side to allow her to go past. Suddenly Jane ran, down the hall to the bathroom. She made it just before she vommitted, throwing up everything her insides could get a hold of, again and again, trying to get out the pain that simply would not go. Not now. Not ever.
Her insides heaved again, this time with nothing to get hold of her insides cramped up, and physical pain blended again with the pain everywhere else inside her.
She sagged down to collapse on the tiled floor.
Then her mother was there as Jane sobbed, clutching her child to her body.
"Oh my baby, I am so sorry, I am so sorry it had to happen like this."
Jane just cried and shook.
"He did the right thing baby, you'll see, it's for the best."
Jane's mother rocked her back and both. In the bathroom. On the floor.
Jane didn't remember much after that.
-----
Jane sat on her bed looking at her reflection in her bedroom mirror, the buzz-cut was really close and for the millionth time she moved her hand over it, feeling the alien stubbliness of it.
Her parents were out, talking to the shrink apparently. It was time for a report as to how Jane had been progressing. She knew that they would come back in a bad mood; her father silently angry, her mother dissapointed and sad. Exactly the same way they came back each time, because nothing had changed.
She couldn't take this any more.
The hole inside her had grown, to the point where it was eating up everything inside of her. She was aware of all the pain she was feeling, but even that was inside the hole. She was just numb, not feeling anything. She would have cried, but she couldn't. She hadn't since that night her father had cut her hair off.
Her friends were really worried about her. They were so shocked when she showed up for school that Monday. Silently they just looked at her hair, one of them even cried. But she couldn't do anything nor say anything back to them. After all, the three that knew, knew that they couldn't say anything at school, in case anyone heard. Though of course the short hair hadn't dissuaded the guys who had always seen her as their punching bag.
Even now she could see two messages on her caller-id from her friends, but she wouldn't return them. For some reason she just simply couldn't.
All there was, was pain.
She stared down at her lap.
Lying there was the kitchen knife, the big chef's one her mother had paid a small fortune for.
She picked it up and looked at the near perfect edge of it glinting off the orange and red light of the sunset coming through the windows of her bedroom.
Steadily, and without hesitation she moved, slicing length-wise down the veins in her wrist, first the left quickly, and then the right, making slices of about four inches long. She felt the sharp pain that quickly turned into a throb as the blood flowed out of each arm, watching with detachment as the flesh turned up angrily and red.
She put the knife down on the bed next to her, blood covering more and more of her jeans, and leaned back against the wall that her bed was next to. Remotedly she felt a little bad that her Mum was going to have to tidy up all this mess, but she simply couldn't do this in the bath like she had seen in the movies. She wanted to be comfortable. She pulled close the little bear she had just bought for herself and smuggled into the house and hugged it, trying not to get too much blood on it.
The blood was really coming out. She was actually quite amazed there was so much of it.
Jane knew this was going to hurt her mother. And her friends. But there just simply did not seem to be any other way out. This was the only way. Her mother was crying quietly nearly every night now and her Dad was drinking lots. It was her fault. Even her friends were hurting because they couldn't do anything.
This was the only thing to do.
She started to get a dizzy feeling, like she was light-headed, or had a little too much to drink. Then her stomach churned some and she closed her eyes.
She would be able to stop hurting everyone. She was scared, but knew this was right, after they got over the initial pain it would be better for everyone.
At least she finally got to tell her parents her real name. She opened her eyes again and looked over at the note on her bedside table, signed off as Jane. It probably wouldn't be the name that would end up on her grave, but at least her parents would finally know. And her friends would remember her, they had known her name for a while. She smiled at that.
She was a little sad that she wouldn't get to see them all grow up. They'd had such big plans for college; they had all been talking about going to the same one together.
But this was better. They could get on with their lives and she wouldn't be there to hurt them in any way. It would all stop.
As would the pain. It would be all gone. Finally.
Her stomach churned again, and she closed her eyes as she was getting tired. Her parents wouldn't be back for hours. Her father always wanted to go for a drive to cool down after a session with the shrink, not to mention having a drink or two.
She hoped her mother wouldn't have to drive him home again, her mother hated his huge SUV.
Boy, she really felt tired.
She opened her eyes up again and looked down at her bear, smiling up at her. She smiled slightly back at it.
Jane sighed.
And closed her eyes.
-----
Epilogue.
Margaret stood there in the darkness on the front lawn. The flashing lights of the ambulance and the police cars seemed almost surreal, as though they were there for someone else.
Her husband's rigid body stood next to her, holding her. The tears that just wouldn't stop seemed to be happening to someone else too as she silently tried to not believe this was occuring.
She couldn't, however, take her eyes off the black bag they were about to load into the back of the coroner's vehicle.
The black bag that contained her child. Her only child. Her baby.
The door of the vehicle was finally closed after the bag was slid in and she closed her own eyes. Now she could hear the voices. And the crying. She looked around to see three neighbourhood girls holding each other, screaming, crying and sobbing.
One of them saw her looking and howled at her, running over.
"THIS IS ALL YOUR FUCKING FAULT!!!! ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS LOVE HER!! THAT WAS ALL SHE WANTED!!! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO HER???!!!"
Margaret stumbled back against Rodger as the girl sagged to the ground in front of her, crying. A woman who seemed to be the girl's mother ran over to pick her up, glaring at Margaret but saying nothing. Nothing at all. She started to pull her daughter away.
Rodger held her up as he starting talking quietly again to the police officer next to them, telling the woman in the uniform what they had found when they got back from the session with John's psychiatrist.
She herself couldn't remember much about when Rodger and she arrived home. She knew she had gone into hysterics trying to get her child's body to come back to life. Throwing the plush toy he had been holding across the room. But nothing would work. Nothing.
As the paramedics tried for a short while to revive John she saw the note that was written in his nice handwriting.
They had given up, having known before they had started that it was really futile.
So she read as she cried and sobbed.
And now, as she looked down at this girl crying on the ground in front of her, her mother finally pulling her away, she remembered what she read.
Jane.
Her name had been Jane.
FIN.
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