Link: The Road to Hell Title Page and Description

CAUTION - Indirect Reference to Suicidal Thoughts
CAUTION - Intense scenes involving a minor
CAUTION - Highly Emotional Content

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Josh was 'sick' the next week, which wasn't far from the truth as he was lost in a near constant fugue state. Friday came and he was taken down to Dr. Biggs's office and got his first three-month shot of puberty blockers. The next Monday, he went back to school and met Tracy at the bus stop.

"Joss!" she said excitedly as she ran up to him. "I tried calling you, but your mom said you were sick! Did I give you that awful cold? I'm sorry! You shouldn't have come to see me! I..." she paused when she noticed he was like a zombie. "Joss? What's wrong?"

"They... they made me stop seeing Jennifer." he nearly sobbed.

"Oh, Jocelyn!" Tracy gasped. "Why? What happened?"

Knowing she was just like his parents, wanting him to be a girl, he couldn't tell her what happened. Lacking the will to fight back, all he did was shrug.

"Joss, you have to tell me!" she insisted. "I'm your BFF! It's like a law or something!" She giggled in hopes that it would be infectious, but her laugh died when she saw it didn't work. "Joss, please. Just tell me what happened."

He shrugged dismissively as the bus pulled up next to them. "It doesn't matter. Nothing matters."

Getting on the bus, Tracy moved to their usual seat so he could sit with her, but saw him instead take the empty seat up at the front of the bus. Just like the days Tracy had been sick, Josh rode to school alone.

For months, Josh only existed. He went to school, but he barely did any of his work, just drifting from class to class in utter despair. After reaching out for weeks on end with no response, Tracy inevitably stopped trying to get him to engage with life and the two began to drift apart. David had never really reconnected with him, so even sooner the two friends ceased to even acknowledge one another. The two twins, who he'd practically grown up with, slowly became like all the other kids in the school; cold strangers.

Melanie and Fred were worried. When they'd forced the Healy family to have no further contact with Josh, they knew it would hurt him, but felt that after a while his attitude would rebound to be like it had been before he'd met them. Instead he just seemed to get worse with each passing day.

He found the first note in his locker the day he returned. Josh tried to read it, but hearing how much Jennifer missed and loved him hurt so much he just cried. Once home, he put it in the box where he'd put the other notes, including the love letter she'd written him.

Two more notes came that week, then three more the next week and each week that followed; one every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. He couldn't bear to read the words of tolerance, love, and hope. For him, there was none, especially hope. They went in the box unread because, as much as it hurt to ever read them, they were from Jennifer so he couldn't part with them.

He saw her sometimes, watching him as before as he went around the school pretending to be Jocelyn. The terrible sadness in her eyes was worse than having to pretend to be a girl. He wanted to go to her, but knew if he did his parents would punish the Healys, and he cared for them too much to do that.

Just after his thirteenth birthday that he spent alone, he came to school the next Monday and there was no note. There was also no Jennifer. No matter where he looked, she wasn't there. Worried, he hoped she wasn't too sick.

She never returned. After two weeks he realized she was gone and had no idea what happened to her and no way to find out if she was even still alive. He'd tried calling the Healy home from the solitary payphone out in front of the school, but their number had been disconnected. That was when he concluded that something terrible must have happened, and it was his fault.

It was then that the sadness that permeated him turned to anger.

He'd been on hormone blockers for six months when he got in his first fight. The boy had called him a sissy fag, and Josh slapped him hard enough to knock him to the floor. The school looked the other way because he'd been harassed and afforded him special privileges, but that only encouraged him. By the end of the school year he'd been sent to the office three more times and his grades were poor, but no matter how little work he did, his teachers passed him. The Principal ensured that 'Jocelyn', their first openly trans student, wouldn't be failed since it would make them look bad.

That summer he refused to go off to camp. Instead, he just spent the time hanging around the house and going for long walks alone.

Eighth grade was no better. If anything, it was worse. As his peers grew and developed, he remained the same; trapped in a body that wouldn't mature and in a life he hated but couldn't escape.

When he'd been on hormone blockers for a year, his parents tried to force him on female hormones.

Melanie was at her wit's end that October evening when she first brought it up. "Jocelyn! It's for your own good! You can't stay on blockers forever! You have to grow into a woman!"

Josh stared at her with a glare that would freeze steam. "No!"

"But sweetheart, they'll get you out of this horrible cycle of depression you're in!" she insisted. "I'm making the appointment!"

"Try and make me go, Melanie!" he spat. He hadn't called her 'Mom' since the day they'd forced him to stop seeing Jennifer. She in turn just excused it as his 'becoming her own person'.

"Oh, you'll go!" she stated boldly.

"Only if you tie me up and drag me there!" he sneered. "And if you do drag me there, I won't talk and I will not let them shoot me up!"

"Jocelyn! Why are you fighting me on this? We're just doing..."

"...whatever you want to do to me!" he interrupted her. "Like I'm some doll for you to dress up and put on display for your progressive cred! 'Look at us! Aren't we so progressive? We have a trans child!'"

"You can't talk to me that way!" Melanie shouted.

"Why not? What're you gonna do about it, Melanie?" he scoffed.

"Just leave it be, Mel." Fred tried to defuse the situation. "Engaging at her level won't change anything. She's just being a teenage girl."

"Fine." Melanie growled. "Ever since she went on blockers and fell out with Tracy she's been absolutely impossible!" Refusing to accept that his troubles had anything to do with the forced breakup, Melanie chose to blame his anti-social behavior on everything other than the truth.

When the subject came up again later that month and he refused HRT once more, he became suspicious she'd try to sneak it into his food. The following Monday he found a lunch made for him as he got ready for school.

"What's this?" he questioned her suspiciously. Melanie had never made him lunch, even when he was in Primary school, claiming it 're-enforced gender stereotypes' to expect her to make a lunch for her child.

"Oh. I... I made you lunch, sweetheart!" his mother stammered. "I... I was thinking that I could make some things easier for you, since you're having such a hard time lately, so you won't have to make your lunches anymore!"

"Nice try, Melanie!" he huffed as he tossed the bag in the garbage. "I'll get lunch at school." At that he stalked out the door in his black jeans and top; a style that was all he would wear of his considerable wardrobe. When he searched the house later that day while Melanie was at still work and Fred was practically hiding in his home office, he found the opened prescription bottles in his parents' room. He took them to the toilet and flushed them all.

After that Melanie became desperate and dragged him to therapy sessions with Dr. Williams. The first day Josh threatened to stab him with a pen for signing off on his transition after only a five-minute talk. Within a few visits though, he used the time as a bitch session to complain about school, the kids that snubbed him, his parents, and anything else that came to mind.

Eventually, the anger melted away, leaving only a severe depression in its wake. He started giving in on things. Slowly at first, but soon he was passing his classes legitimately and dressing more femininely again. He was back to just drifting through his days as he had been right after Jennifer had been literally ripped from his arms. His anger still unspent, it seethed inside him.

It suddenly snapped one day when Jason Dexter passed him in the hallway. He called Josh a name. Josh in turn sent the boy to the floor crying.

"Jocelyn?" Mr. Tanner said sadly as Josh sat in his office. "I'm going to have to suspend you for three days for this. I can't look the other way this time. I've called your father and he's on his way here to pick you up. I have to say, I'm extremely disappointed. What ever happened to the girl that was sweet, kind, and helpful like you used to be?"

"She's dead." Josh growled.

"I... I suppose that's just the anger talking. You escalated way too far this time, though." the man chided him. Seeing Fred enter his office, he sighed. "I'm very sorry about this, Mr. Ryan. Jocelyn's suspended for three days. Please sign this form and take her home. She can come back next Tuesday."

Fred stopped halfway in the room. "What? No discussion? What happened?"

"She assaulted Jason Dexter, Mr. Ryan. She's suspended. Please just sign the form or I'll turn it over to the district legal department."

Resignedly, Josh's father signed the form. "Alright. Get your things, Jocelyn. I'll take you home."

Puttering away in the rusty Microbus, Fred glanced over at Josh. "Well?"

"Asshole called me a fruitcake, so I kicked him in the nuts." he answered.

"I thought you worked though this with Dr. Williams." Fred whined. "I wish you'd start gender appropriate hormone therapy! It would help stabilize..."

"No! No hormones!"

"Jocelyn, you have to start puberty!" he begged. "You're fourteen!"

"I'll start when you let me off the blockers." he mumbled.

"What?" Fred asked, not having heard him over the car's engine.

"Nothing." Josh spat. He knew trying to assert his masculinity again was just a waste of breath, so he didn't even bother to try.

When Melanie found out he'd been suspended, she scoffed. "What? They've never suspended her for standing up for herself before!" she cried. "That school is to blame for all of her problems! They're bigoted and backwards, targeting Jocelyn just because she transitioned!"

"Mel..." Fred countered softly. "You can't blame them every time something like this happens. Jocelyn is at least partly to blame."

"It's the hormone blockers!" she redirected. "They... they have side effects... emotional lability, aggression, depression... so it's not her fault! Those damn pharmaceutical companies! Milking their patients for every dime for drugs that are so loaded with side effects they're almost worse than the disease!"

Josh just lay on his bed in his room brooding. He'd long ago ripped down the girly canopy, the framing sitting there all around him like the bleached bones of a dead animal, almost a cage. He knew he'd overreacted. Jason Dexter was a know-it-all jerk, but he didn't deserve being attacked like that, even though the boy had mildly threatened Josh that one time. He was roused from his continued self-loathing by a knock at his door.

"Go away!" he shouted.

Trying the knob, Melanie found it locked. "Jocelyn, sweetie! It's Mom. Please let me in?"

"Go away, Melanie." he grumbled.

"Sweetheart, I know it's not your fault." she tried coddling him. "You were provoked and are suffering from severe social anxiety! It's not your fault!"

Rolling his eyes, he turned his back to the door. "Just leave me alone."

She tried bringing him dinner, but his paranoia prevented him from eating; certain that she'd laced his food with a new supply of estradiol.

The next day Melanie stayed home from work, something she hadn't done since Josh's first week of Junior High. He came down wearing his torn black jeans and ratty loose-fitting top, going to the kitchen to make breakfast. After they'd forced him on hormone blockers, he'd refused to drink the soy milk or eat anything with soy when he'd learned it contained phytoestrogens. His still pre-pubescent body could mistake them for real estrogens and begin a mild form of female puberty. It was something he'd ironically read on a transgender forum intended for trans girls whose parents wouldn't let them get hormones. Instead he went to make some toast.

"Jocelyn?" Melanie said softly. "Would you come here, please?"

Turning around, he saw she was sitting at the dining room table with her usual cup of tea. "Why aren't you at work?" he asked suspiciously.

"I need to talk to you." she said gently. "Please?"

Rolling his eyes, he stalked over to the table and dropped heavily into the seat. "What now, Melanie?"

Clearing her throat, she only glanced up at him. "I've been talking with Dr. Williams about your... problems... lately."

"So much for doctor-patient confidentiality!" Josh jeered and rolled his eyes again, crossing his arms defiantly.

"Honey, I needed to know what's wrong with you, and now I understand." she said contritely. "You... you want to be able to have your own children. I know that it's bad to contribute to global overpopulation, but Dr. Williams explained it to me. It's actually a common issue with transgender girls. You... you'll never be able to carry a baby like I did, and that hurts. I understand."

Eyeing her with a dead expression, he snorted. "Sure. That's my problem!"

She sighed patiently at his sarcasm. "I know there are other issues, but I see now that this is why you've been so much against starting HRT! So, I talked it over with your father and... and we've decided that it's in your best interest for you to skip the shot of blockers you were scheduled to get next week."

Sitting forward, the tiny ember of hope that still clung to life in the frozen wasteland of his broken heart began to flare. Swallowing hard, he gaped at her, hopeful over something for the first time in a year and a half. "You... you're going to let me become a boy?"

"No, sweetie!" she said sympathetically, willingly mistaking his eager tone for one of fear. "We'd never do that to you! We're just going to let your body develop enough to produce some... genetic material... have it harvested and frozen, and then you can be free to start HRT without any regrets!" Seeing the life die in his eyes, she thought he just didn't understand. "Don't you see? You'll be able to have your own children someday and become a woman! It's true that you won't be able to carry the baby, but your partner could! Assuming that you're still a lesbian, that is." She turned to study his reaction curiously. "Are you?"

Having the flicker of hope snatched away from him so dismissively, he answered absently. "Yeah."

Smiling as though she'd just solved world hunger, Melanie got up. "Alright then! Dr. Biggs already knows and will need to see you once a month for a while, to monitor your progress. We don't want you developing too much! As soon as he thinks you're ready, you'll go down to a clinic, they'll get what they need, and then you can start HRT! I'm really very thrilled for you! Finally we can get past all this craziness and get you on the proper path!"

Months went by and Josh started feeling changes in his body. Excitedly he began to think that when he was to begin HRT he might somehow convince his parents he really was a boy. Just after school ended for the year and he was passed on to High School, Dr. Biggs told him that the time had come.

Josh went down to the clinic willingly. He didn't feel he had any reason to fear what they were going to do. When he was taken in to see the doctor, he was told he was being prepped for minor outpatient surgery.

"Surgery?" he asked curiously. "I..." He paused a moment and considered his words carefully. "That is, I didn't know I had to have surgery for this."

The attending doctor raised an eyebrow at that. "Jocelyn? Are you certain that this is what you want?"

With an embarrassed shrug, he looked away. "It's not a big deal. I mean, I thought it'd be done the 'old fashioned way' is all. Yeah, it's fine with me. I just want to get it over with and go home."

"You have her informed consent release, Doctor!" Melanie hissed. "You also have her psychiatrist's letter! If you don't proceed, I'll sue your whole clinic for discrimination... which isn't covered by malpractice insurance!"

Cowed by her threat, and having gotten a verbal acknowledgment from Josh, the physician nodded. "No need for that, Ms. Ryan. I'm required to verify patient consent prior to surgery, is all." Facing Josh, he smiled weakly. "No, we don't use the old-fashioned methods at this clinic, Jocelyn. Don't worry! It'll be quick and almost painless! We'll put you to sleep for a little bit, take what we need, then bandage you up and you'll be on your way home!"

It wasn't until Josh woke up afterward that he found out what the doctor had meant when he said they were going to 'take what they need'.

"You... you had me castrated?" he said with shock through a mind and body that were barely functional due to the anesthesia that was just wearing off.

"You would have done it eventually." Melanie said happily. "This way it's done, you don't have to take anti-androgens, and you have genetic material frozen for the future! Now, lie back and the doctor will let us know when we can take you home! You can start hormones tonight! Isn't it exciting!"

Josh blacked out. The next thing he knew he awoke in his bed wearing his Little Mermaid nightie, still fitting since he hadn't grown much in the last twenty-one months. Slowly becoming aware of his body, he felt a mild sting between his legs as it all came rushing back to him. Horrified, he felt down. Slowly pieces of the previous day came back to his mind.

He remembered his mother dressing him after the surgery, then the warm breeze as he was wheeled out to the microbus. Then he remembered her handing him some pills and him taking them. It's too late. he realized. It's already started. He lay back down and sobbed uncontrollably for hours.

By the time summer vacation ended, Josh was beginning to develop like a normal teen girl. He was also convinced that all hope was lost and stopped fighting his parents' efforts to push him through transition. He even took his pills without a fight. For most of the first month Melanie made him open his mouth and checked in his cheeks and under his tongue to make sure, but he just didn't care enough to try. He continued to see Dr. Williams, but instead of spending the time complaining as before, he spent it sitting there; ignoring the man and contemplating his own death.

Walking to school in his short denim skirt, tights, trainers, and V-neck top, the High School being less than a mile from his home, he was neither happy nor sad. He just existed. Finding his assigned locker, he absently went to his classes; first Math, then Biology, English, and Spanish. As he sat eating his lunch, he looked up to see a girl standing across the table from him.

"Mind if I join you?" she asked cheerily.

Cautiously, Josh nodded and gestured to the seat across from him as he chewed his salad.

"I'm Grace!" she greeted him enthusiastically. "What's your name?"

"Jocelyn." he said flatly. "You can call me Joss, if you want."

"Hi, Joss!" she chirped as she opened the small paper carton of milk. "Isn't High School cool? It's almost like being a grown up!"

"Thrilling." he answered lifelessly.

"Are you OK?" she asked concernedly. "Did some senior girls pick on you, too? Some girl that thinks she's God's gift just 'cuz she's three years older tried to make me kiss her shoes in the bathroom! Man, if I didn't think I'd get suspended, I'd of punched her out! As it is, I just scrammed outta there!"

He shook his head sadly. "No, nothing like that. I just..." As he spoke, he spotted Tracy sitting at a table full of other girls, laughing happily. Sighing, he shrugged. "I just don't have any friends anymore."

"Awe!" Grace empathized. "I know how you feel. I don't either. Mom and I just moved here over the summer from San Diego. I don't know anyone here!" Taking a bite, she slowly stopped and swallowed before a smile grew on her face. "You and I could be friends!"

Seeing she was sincere and just trying to be friendly, he felt he owed it to her to have all the facts first. "Um... thanks, but you don't wanna be my friend. If you are, nobody else will be." He lowered his voice. "I... I'm trans."

Without a blink she asked, "No kidding? The way you dress I'd of never guessed you wanna be a boy! Your mom make you dress like that?"

"I'm male to female." he answered curiously, taking a bite of his sandwich.

"Wow!" she replied wide-eyed. "You'd never know it! You look totally hot! This T-girl in my old school, you could tell. Her parents were supportive and all, but she was, like, built like a boy, ya' know? Supposedly as she develops she'll look more girly, but you? You look like you were destined to be a girl, though! Like the hand of fate was pushing you that way all along!"

Shaking his head, his long light brown hair flowing around his shoulders, he laughed sardonically. "Ha. More like the hand of my mother! She's the one that pushed me to transition. I don't care anymore, really. It is what it is."

"Were you afraid to?" she asked quietly. "Like, afraid you'd get picked on?"

"I was picked on." he answered plainly. "A lot in seventh grade, but not as much last year. I also lost my two best friends." At that he peered up to see Tracy eye him, then turn away and pretend she hadn't seen him.

Grace turned, glanced at the table, then looked back at Josh. "Which ones?"

"The girl with the dark brown hair in the jeans and white top? That's Tracy." he sighed. "She used to be my BFF. I guess forever doesn't last very long anymore. Not that I blame her... I was kind of a bitch to her for a bit. She was pushing for me to transition, too. Her and her brother David, he's not here right now, used to be my best friends. Now I don't have any friends."

"I don't get it." Grace wondered. "OK, you were scared. It's understandable. It's a rough thing to be so different from everyone... let alone realizing that in Middle School! Still, they shouldn't of pushed 'til you were ready!"

While the two finished eating, he watched her. She was small, but not nearly as small as he was. Her honey blonde hair was in a pixie cut and her skin was like alabaster with only faint hints of a fading tan. Two large blue eyes stared back at him with kindness in them and not a hint of revulsion.

"Wanna go sit outside while the weather's nice?" Grace asked. "I hear you actually get snow here in the winter!"

Josh nodded and the two got up and dumped their garbage, walking out under Tracy's watchful gaze.

Sitting together on the grass behind some benches and soaking in the warm late summer rays, Grace turned to him. "Can I ask you a personal question?"

"Shoot." he answered with his eyes closed and his hands behind his head.

"Um... do you like boys, girls, both, neither?"

"Neither, really. Girls if I had to pick." he answered absently. In truth, Josh's heart was still locked away, mourning the loss of his beautiful Jennifer.

"That's cool. I'm Bi, but I've known asexual girls. They're usually easier to get along with! No like, hang-ups or drama with boy or girlfriends, dating issues, angst over unrequited crushes... blah, blah, blah!" she giggled, only to stop when she noticed he didn't join in. Silence passed between them before Grace spoke again. "Joss? Do you care that I think you're cute?"

Sighing inwardly, he felt the empty half of his heart ache in loneliness. "No. I don't mind. I know I'm pretty, you like girls. It just sorta happens, I guess."

"Cool!" she said with a smile. "Not that I'm like, asking you out or hitting on you or anything! I respect your boundaries! It's just cool!"

As the bell rang ending lunch break, the two got up and dusted themselves off. "Listen, I have R.O. next period. You?"

"PE. What's are oh?" he asked.

"R.O.T.C.?" she annunciated each letter. "It's totally cool! I don't gotta take PE and I bet I look fabulous in uniform!" she said, striking a glamorous pose.

Josh honestly giggled for the first time in nearly two years. Catching himself and feeling self-conscious about it, he suppressed it and put his hand over his mouth. "Sorry! I didn't mean to laugh!"

Blushing, Grace touched Josh's shoulder as they walked toward the freshman lockers. "It's OK! I like your laugh! I think I'll try and make you laugh more just to hear it!" When he stopped at his locker and got out his pink bag, she snorted. "My turn to be sorry! I didn't mean to laugh at your bag. It's just..."

"...really girly. I know." Josh sighed as he hoisted it onto his right shoulder. Following Grace to her locker, he waited. Getting out a black bag, identical to his old one, he smiled at the happy memory of when his parents had only pushed him to date boys. "I like your bag." he complimented her.

Blushing again, she looked away shyly. "Thanks! Mom found it in a second hand store last week. It's a little used, but sturdy! I like it!"

Josh examined it closely and noticed the tiny scrapes on the rainbow across the back that made his eyes go wide.

Seeing his reaction, Grace furrowed her brow. "What's wrong?"

Collecting himself, he took a breath. "That... that bag. It... it used to be mine. Back in sixth and seventh grade. I guess Melanie, my mother, gave it to the second hand store over the summer."

"How do you know it's yours?" she asked as they headed toward the gym.

"The scrapes on the rainbow?" he explained. "I took it the last time I went to summer camp before going to Middle School and scraped it on some trees. I'd know that pattern of scratches anywhere!"

"Are you serious?" she asked. "Holy cannolies! Talk about the hand of fate! What're the odds of that?"

The two giggled together before separating at the gym doors. "See you later, Grace!" Josh said almost happily.

"Catch ya' 'round, beautiful!" she answered back with a finger point before she began jogging down the hall toward the ROTC classrooms.