The fight started in the summer before my freshman year.
It was verbally bloody and nothing was off-limits; no words were barred.

In the blue corner, my sister, who was five months pregnant
In the red corner, my parents; who were not pissed about the pregnancy but more over the fact she had left home for a week and never said where she went.

She told them and they were still angry because she living with a new boyfriend who lived across town; this was not the father of the baby; at least that’s what she told them.

The argument went on for a few hours with my parents, brother, and sister trading off piss and vinegar with each other.

I stayed in my room—I could hear everything through the wall in pure digital sound. I wanted to ask why my brother was even involved in the discussion to begin with, with maybe the only thing being was that if she left he could have the room to himself and not have to share it with the “fairy princess” which was an insult he tried to pin on me.
And I took and wore it as a freaking badge of honor.

My sister stormed form the living room and out on the front door.
I ran out the back and around the house as she opened the passenger side of a car.
There was a a strange, older, man siting in the driver’s seat.

She was crying, but there was a look of anger on her face, even as she looked at me.

“What!” She barked before looking away as she tried to drive her eyes.

The car’s engine turned over and roared to life.

“Take me with you, please.”
“I can’t right now. It’s all too complicated.”
“But this is Hell.”
“I know. Can you try to hold on for just a bit?”
I didn’t take this as a question but more of a death sentence.
“Hey, just try to hold on longer. You’re stronger than me. I know you can.”
The front door opened and dad stormed out. I stepped out of the way of the car door as my sister closed it.

Dad slammed his hand on the hood and went for the driver’s side door but the old guy driving floored the car in reverse and it slammed into me.

The fall to the pavement didn’t hurt as much as one would think. Unlike my previous fall years ago this one did run in a drug-infused-like slow motion way. My dad’s eyes flashing red like a killer; my sister’s face displaying absolute fear and the guy driving gritting his yellow stained teeth.

She rolled the window down as the continued to move backwards down the street.
“The suit!”
Those were the last words I ever heard from her.

Dad screamed and ranted like a gorilla so much that he collapsed to the ground.
Mom ran out of the house and my brother came out behind her.
She stumbled over to Dad and screamed for someone to call 911.

Everything looked like footage from a camera held onto by a thirteen year-old as my brother jumped up and ran into the house. I never got up from the ground until some time had passed and an EMT had snapped me back to reality.

This probably should be listed as a blog entry...but I would like to get an opinion on it

this novella is about girl who identities herlself as "moonprysim" and various street names. She never gives her name but does give her deadname (as she hated it)and, well
, still working on it.

I'm picturing my own room, the one that I never had.

The one with a sleigh-bed head and footboards with a vanity that takes up the entire wall. The spacious top lined with knick-knacks, pictures and make-up...ones that never dried out or were acquired by stealing. Brushes of different sizes and function, all siting before me.

The medium sized closet to hang clothes; ones bought by benevolent parents who cared what I wore and made sure that I was home before curfew or at least were happy that I was calling after being late.

Maybe a small computer...or an iPad; something to correspond with colleges or chat with a friend or two.

That's all a vision, it's a gumdrop and sugar-induced fantasy played out on television and in books that scream "life is going to be okay...everyone gets a happy ending!"

Mine would be happy if it ended.
That's been my mantra for three years now as my bedroom changes every other night.

Three years of living everywhere but nowhere.
What's the 'hip term'?
Couch surfing?
Yeah, sure...if one has money. Without money, you end up auctioning yourself.
It doesn't start that way. You start with freedom, complete freedom from caring about everything because the people who are supposed to care for you finally told you that you were no longer wanted.

The helling was yell.
And the shouting was too.
But when family doesn't accept it, what to do?

It wasn’t always like that. Yes, there was a time when I existed in the “normal” realm from when I was seven until I urned thirteen. Those were the years where I had a family, a room I shared with my older brother in a mid-size house and a magenta and teal bicycle, given to me by a local church. I was a bit disappointed with it at first as my brother and his friends made fun of it, even though, he himself had a bucket from the same charity program but his was grey and had one of those stunt seats. It was like heaven opened up and the bicycle god bestowed upon him the bike of Hermes while I received one from Aphrodite, complete with tassels.

I tried to not think about it, in fact, the more I rode it the more I accepted it and the more it made me feel less and less about the doubts I had about myself. I had an older sister at one time, before she moved out one day. She usually dressed me in her old clothes. I was never sure why, as I was only five and didn’t think too much about it. My hair was long and I for some reason I was more comfortable in the frills and the spirals on the collars of my shirts and thought nothing of it until my first day of kindergarten.

You would assume that my parents, maybe at least me mom, would have taken a look at my wardrobe choice and assist me to avoid a ragamuffin look. One would even think my eight year-old brother would have said something but they didn’t. I went to school, on the first day. With my long hair, sparkly jeans and a purple shirt with frills on it. It didn’t help that my deadname was Chris.

Innocence

The kindergarten teacher looked at me with a slight bit of concern but then her eyes sparkled as she introduced herself to my mother and myself. I didn’t think about it too much at the time as she invited me to go over to the play area in the middle of the room: model houses and kitchen play sets with small metal bowls and plastic foods; the classroom has more fake food in the refrigerator than we ever had in ours at home.

From what I remember about my parents, they were either always at work or or just away from the house. During the summer I would see them in the morning drinking coffee as they walked out the door and to the car. They would be gone until the street lights came on, this time with bottles instead of cups. Sometimes they had a bag or two from McDonald’s or KFC.
A burger or some chicken strips, never anything beyond that. In fact, it wasn’t until I saw in third grade that I knew that McDonad’s actually served French fries.

As I said, I loved the kitchenette set, so much so that the teacher’s assistant tried in vain to get my interests in drawing or in building blocks. It worked, kind of, as I drew some pretty impressive pictures of a toy blender and rolling pin. The blocks? A square cake with rectangle strawberries sprinkled here and there. The girls would laugh with me as we talked about what were going to do with we were older—what kind of families we would have. I would tell them all that I wanted the princess life: Snow White but mixed in a bit with Wonder Woman where we would all meet together and have fun, tea and not let some dumb old boy tell us what we could do.

The boys in the class didn’t really know what to think about me as I acted like a girl until recess when I could clobber any one of them when they pushed me around. There was a first grader named Tony who would point his fingers at me and repeatedly say “Little boy in a dress” or “boy-girl”. He said that for two days before I knocked his front teeth out but he wouldn’t let me take credit for it and instead said he fell off the carousel. Of course, that was how it was remembered on that day and it just became playground folklore.

His tooth is somewhere on that playground, buried in the dirt with a bit of blood.

Girlfriend

By the time I was in fifth grade home life was the equivalency of going to a liquor store: go in and get what you need, loiter for as long as the clerk can tolerate you before he shouts in a foreign language and get out.

Stealing a Twinkie or a Pepsi was optional.

My older sister had been my best friend for so long but she was in high school and had a life that included me for a few moments as she spent even less time at home than I did. She snuck out at night and day and sometimes wouldn’t come home for a few days. Mom and dad would yell at her but she would scream back that she learned from the best and they should have been flattered.

My hair was still long, I still wore dresses to school.
The school counsoler was always asking me questions.
Child Protective Services had been to our house a few times.
I had been asked if I was ever sexually abused...Seriously a fifth grader who wore dresses to school was being put through the wringer.

Our house had visits from the police too, usually over something I said to someone. Everyone was able to say what they wanted to: including Tony, who would say it with a distinct whistle in his voice.

I also met someone who I called my best friend for four years: April Rothermel.

April was new to town. But she wasn’t the Nancy Drew, Mary Sue, how do you do kind of girl. On the first day of school she slammed Tony’ s head into he wall after he commented on her weight. April weighed close to 145 pounds in fifth grade but one could swear it was all muscle.

She was suspended on the first day of school and before they escorted her off campus I gave her a folded note asking her to call me when she could.

She called that very night and I told her everything about the school and congratulated her on taking Tony down another notch; she had asked why he spoke with a whistling sound and you could hear the smile in voice as I proclaimed: “This bitch, here. Right here.”
The next day was Friday and I went to school with an ever-lasting grin on my face because I knew that on Monday things would be. So. Much. Better. And maybe beyond that as I could imagine how being a teenager would be with my best friend at my side, with us watching each other’s backs.

We got to do that on Monday after school when I walked home with her.

“Fat girl and the gay boy!” Sung in some sing-songsy kind of way. I didn’t know what gay meant but I knew that these guys and one girl were making fun of my friend and we handed their asses over to them. I confronted the sole girl who threw several punches and grabbed onto my hair. I followed suit and tore at the roots of her hair. Her ear-shattering scream was so loud it could be heard all the way to the International Space Station.

April was aware of her weight and it bothered her form the end of the world and back but I could see that her brave front, her violent streak and sardonic attitude tried to hide the little girl who wanted to cry in a corner as people talked about her. She once asked me how I never let things bother me: the condescending looks, snide comments and outright disgust from total strangers.
“Cuz they’re strangers.”
“What if they were people you know?”
“Some of them are, like my family.”

Which was true. By seventh grade my parents put their feet down and took every single dress I had away. I could keep the hair and I could keep the blouses, unicorn shirts and a rainbow pendant but I was not allowed to go to school with anything that resembled a skirt.
I was also told that I would have to take PE. Fortunately, or not, our junior high school was too large and too old to accommodate working showers for PE. So, for the most part I had to wear mandated red shorts with a grey t-shirt.

I hung with April during PE and our math class but our home rooms were different and I stuck in a class where everything started off on the wrong foot after the first five minutes of class when Anthony McGalliard and five of the other boys in the class thought it would be open season on me and ripped my pendant from my neck, shattering it into three pieces.

The teacher was not very receptive to my outburst of emotion toward the pulverized lead-crystal and metal necklace. It was like she didn’t care or thought, “meh, you can get another one.”

And with that, Anthony required ANOTHER crown in his mouth.

Complicated

Seventh grade was a time of extreme ups and downs.

I’m not going to bore with you with my yo-yo-in attitudes as I felt terrified as my voice cracked one day and went like a freaking octave lower. This quasi-baritone like voice (in my opinion) didn’t match up with the rest of me and I hated it.

It was also during this time that my older sister started hanging out with a new set of neighbors down the road. I can’t say I remember her name but unfortunately I can remember her brother, John, too well.

John was more of my brother’s age and there were times I wondered why he hung out with me; or I hung out with him.

All we really did was play video games and maybe with with Lego sets. I had no real feelings for him. I mean there was time that if you asked me if I knew him, I’d say yeah, he’s pretty good at playing “Super Mario Brothers”

However, ask me now, and I would scream out how I wished he was dead and how he lead me to want to die myself.

Well since you asked...

On a late Saturday night John and I rode our bikes through the neighborhood. Yes, I still had my goddess-inspired two-wheeler but over time it had been modified and slowly started to fall apart. It was on that early evening that it became a unicycle as we rounded the corner into our neighborhood, which was on a hill.

It was just like a taking a test that you utterly fail at: everything seemed so okay and then snap!
The front wheel came off-with my hands still holding onto the handle bars. I slammed my knees, legs and arms onto the gravel road. It didn’t happen in slow motion and as much as it sounds epic, it was just a freaky-looking kid slamming themselves onto the street with the rear of the bike skidding past me.

John laughed for a few seconds and I did too until I looked at the condition of my jeans, shirt and the bike itself. I couldn’t go home looking like I had gotten into a fight and lost because the house was actually locked.

Forgot to mention that my sister and I were staying over there for the night as my parents and brother had gone somewhere overnight.

So, we went to his house instead, which was about five hundred feet from the scene of the accident.

I had some clothes in a duffel bag in a room I was supposed to share with my sister. It was just a pair of shorts and a t-shirt; it was summer in the south, after all. I came back downstairs to see my sister playing a video game with a bunch of older girls and boys. They were laughing hysterically at the screen as they moved the character around and kept jumping off of a cliff. I knew the game and I wondered why they kept jumping off into the pit over and over again.

It did not make any sense to my seventh grade brain. Maybe April could explain it to me because John didn’t as he called me to come upstairs. It was spring and I was still trying to figure out myself. There were times when I had an infatuation with April, where talking to her would take me to a dangerous place where I wanted to reach out and kiss her cheek. However, there were also times that I would be lost in a stare of some eighth grade boy who didn’t know me from Eve, until someone should whisper in his ear. His eyes would widen and everyone around him would laugh.

April had told me that one day I would just have to freaking take the plunge once again and wear what I wanted.
Damn my parents and the school board if they cared.

But no, I had retracted into kind of a shell since earlier that year; to just try and get by without anyone asking me stupid questions; like why I had long hair but my voice sounded like I was a “young dude”. I obeyed my parents at home. I listened to the teachers at school. I stopped trying to knock Tony’s teeth out and developed a mellow wrapped in confusion and served with a generous portion of pico de mortal fear of my sexuality.

We sat up in his room talking about our classes with John telling me how things were in high school; that even though he was a freshmen he had power over others in the school. How he could walk down the hallway and no one would touch him, flick his ears or destroy his personal property. He told me that when I got into High School he would be there to show me the ropes, defend me and be there for whatever I needed.

Again, I didn’t really see anything in John.
Not a thing.
He was an older acquaintance who I, and my brother, did a few things with around the neighborhood. That, and he was the only person I knew who owned a Super Nintendo.

However, at that moment, I had delusions of grandeur that I could walk into the high school with my sandals, skirt with tattered a shirt; my repaired rainbow necklace and hold my head up high as I walked either close behind or to the side of him. It was a spectacular thought and I fell asleep in that room with those thoughts.

I woke up, however, to the sound of whispering in my ear.
Quiet, with a hoarse tone.
John was saying something in my ear as one of his hands ran down my back.

I’m pretty sure my eyes were so wide-open they would show up in the dark.

He continued to breathe in my ear which sent a subtle chill up my spine that was cancelled out by the hand moving up and around my chest.

His inaudible mutterings in my ear stopped as he kissed my neck for a moment before he shifted his body and slowly took a hold of one of my hands.

I had my eyes closed and kept my breathing shallow and under control. Even though it was dark, there was a little light coming in through the window from a street lamp. I kept my body limp like a sleeping rag doll and unfortunately for me, that’s what he was counting on.

My hand was soon wrapped around something that I never thought I had would ever would. John continued to whisper something and held my hand in position. If I was braver, I could have crushed it.

If I had been more courageous, I would have bent it in two.

If my sister hadn’t been drunk, I wouldn’t have been assaulted.

Push

I spent Sunday morning in my bed.

I removed my storm window to break into my room and I then slammed my small dresser against the frame. It did squat to prevent anyone, like, say, John, from actually getting in but it made me feel a little better. However the good vibes vanished in seconds as what happened replayed in my head like a bad cut scene.

What would happen now?
I thought about telling my parents but felt they would make John the victim and that I must have done something to “start it”. Then my brother would know and he would take it out on me that, somehow “his life” was now over and he would be an even bigger laughingstock, which was kind of ridiculous as I never set foot near the high school and his friends all knew about me. I guess he had not met that one person who made it their daily mission to make my brother’s life a living Hell.

I had a few, maybe he would have liked to trade?

Everyone came home in the afternoon with no one asking how my night went.
I didn’t volunteer anything even though i could hear the little voice ion my mind trying to scream over the sound of denial to say something, to let them know our trust, life and mind were violated.
But no, my brother’s soccer success was worth more than my life—at least that’s what I assumed as he came home with a gold medal and a massive ego. John came over and the two talked about how his team kicked ass. I spent as much time as I could in any room that they were not in.

I tried to avoid his eyes as he tried to get me to look at him.
True, he was bigger than me but I was sure that given enough stress, anger and pure spite I could have beaten the holy crap out of him.

But I didn’t.

“He put it where?” April asked after I confided in her.
“My hand at first, then elsewhere.”
“Did you tell your parents?”
“Ha,” I replied with venom but really wished I could have said “of course”.
“I’ll kick his ass for you. Seriously, let him try anything and I’ll scream rape or something.”
“We can’t do that.”
“Who’s saying we?”

What The Hell

I was ordered to move into my sister’s room that very afternoon and I made it my business to make sure everything stayed the way it was when she was there until I was ready to move or throw anything away. Not that I felt like leaving it as a shrine to her. No, it was just she had great taste and had left a lot of her old clothes for me, including something she called “the suit”; which was a skirt, with a long dress shirt and a tie.

I wore it on the first day of ninth grade at the high school. The dress code had a bit more room but I decided to come in at second gear instead barreling into the the building, even though April did make a great point to just go all the way; flash my hands at any naysayer and then point them out so she could kick their ass.

But no kicking of the asses occurred that day. It was close as Anthony walked past me, turned for a moment but then looked away. I could see a flashing of braces in his mouth. My brother and his friends kept their distance. John had long since moved. Granted, I never got a chance to tell him off—as I knew he never would apologize— or have the police called on him as they would no doubt would place the fault on me and recommend I needed jail time, or some form of electro-shock therapy. I was content with being with my mind and if no one else ever acknowledged my existence then everything would be okay.

Things did come to a head in fourth period: the first day of P. There were three coaches in charge of the class: two male and one female and all three of them were okay with me until they called roll and my name was announced.

The entire class stopped breathing for a moment and then broke down into light murmurs. I had suspicions they were putting me down: thinking of any synonym a teenager could come up with. These were people who, for the most part, knew me for maybe, say, three years and in Anthony’s case, for almost a decade.

The coaches took me into a room to “discuss” what was going to happen.
They had the standard response and I declined it.
They asked me for my student ID; which I didn’t have.
They asked about my name; yes, it was masculine sounding name but, so was “Bambi” in some anthropomorphic world of talking deer.

I was asked once again to comply and to change my clothes.
I declined and was subsequently sent to the office in figurative chains.

They called my parents.

And then, all Hell broke loose for the Prattville School District, my parents and, even more so, for me.
I sat in the office for about an hour as students and teachers walked in and out. Each of them would stop and look just a second too long at me. There were a few times where I rolled out my middle finger to some of them and the others received a death stare that would make Marilyn Manson say, “damn, chill out, girl”.

The coaches and the principal raised their voices a bit and two of them had a few choice words about me that they repeated many times that I stopped counting and instead wondered if I could sue.
Of course, I’d have to sue my parents first.
“He’s always been dressing like some queer! My Dad yelled; more at me than at the principal. I raised a finger in the air and closed my eyes.
“Do you know what we’ve had to put up with all of these years?”
I raised a second finger up.
“He can’t attend this school dressed like that. We have a code of conduct.”
That code of conduct obviously didn’t cover issues with people flicking the back of my head or slamming my books to the ground. Oh no, it only mattered about how I expressed myself, even if I left everyone else alone.
“There will be consequences when we get home,” Dad stated with a growl in his voice.
Three fingers flashed up.

The consequences were as follows:
Everything my sister had “willed” to me, was removed from the room. I couldn’t hide anything.
I tried to but I was thrown out of the room, at least until I slammed my body against the door and came crashing in and onto the floor.

The posters on the wall were in trash bags long with all of her (my) clothes. I looked up to see my dad slide his hand across the dresser; causing a hairbrush, a picture frame and my rainbow pendant to fall to the floor.

The hairbrush snapped.
The picture frame shattered.
The pendant exploded.

And I lost my mind as I went up and hit my father in his face with all of my might!

Smile

My father was admitted to the hospital and I, without any fight, was admitted into a cell at juvenile hall. I wasn’t as miserable as I thought I would be. I was held over the weekend without visitors.

Dad, of course, would not come and see me.
Mom would take Dad’s side.
My brother—couldn’t care less about me.
My sister, well, I kind of thought it would be great for her to magically appear on the other side of the Plexiglas shield in the visitor’s area.
April-had she known, she would have joined in the fight and would be in the cell next to me, maybe.

They had me in an over-sized orange jumpsuit with no access to personal effects. I could make a phone call and I called April who, not sure how, found a way to come see me.

“Are you okay?”
“I’m at peace. Kind of bored, I guess.”
“You’re in the paper,” April replied. “They wouldn’t let me bring it in.”
“I’m famous,” I said with a weak smile. “Yea.”
“Your dad’s still in the hospital.”
“Let me guess, it’s all my fault?”
“No, you did what you had to do.”
“That’s something I’ve been trying to tell myself all these years.”
April nodded.

“It’s fine. I mean, maybe in a few days we’ll all go see one of those nice doctors who will want us to pay a lot of money to get us to all talk and sit together at dinner. We haven’t done that in years.”
April’s family sat together every night they were at home. Sure, she had a side that pissed her parents off, but they always ate together without a scowl on any of their faces even when April got in trouble at school because of me-they still welcomed me. I wanted to ask her if there was ever a way I could with her, but I felt that would be too forceful and completely rude to force my living conditions on her.
“I asked my parents if you could stay with us.”
“What did they say?”
“They said they’d have to talk with your parents.”
I had a slight smile on my face and then a frown but then a brighter smile.
“Shouldn’t be a problem. I’m sure they want to get rid of me.”
“That’s what I said. They didn’t like how I said it, but-“
“It’s true. I mean, I am here, right? Can’t make me go cool down or something so instead, call the police.”
April looked to the floor and then back to me.
“Are you sure you’re alright?”
“A little time. A little hope.”
“Big friends?”
“Always.”

We talked for the remaining time we had together. April promised that she would come to visit me again as soon as she could, assuming her parents would bring her across town and assuming I would still be in juvenile. I went back to the cell area where I was by myself, apparently I picked the weekend to fight with my dad when everyone else was a perfect angel or had killed some old man and had not been caught. Which was great because I didn’t really want to answer the “why ya here” question.

On Monday, I was still there. I didn’t ask why. I didn’t care really. It wasn’t like I had anything to call my own at home anymore. I was pretty sure Dad had barked-or maybe wheezed-the order to complete what he started: removing everything from my room that held meaning to me.
All of my clothes: burn them-assuming they couldn’t sold.
My notebooks; burn them.
The earrings, bracelets, the destroyed pendant? Toss it into the burning barrel.
Yep, everything could be cleansed by fire.

“Always.”

We talked for the remaining time we had together. April promised that she would come to visit me again as soon as she could, assuming her parents would bring her across town and assuming I would still be in juvenile. I went back to the cell area where I was by myself, apparently I picked the weekend to fight with my dad when everyone else was a perfect angel or had killed some old man and had not been caught. Which was great because I didn’t really want to answer the “why ya here” question.

On Monday, I was still there. I didn’t ask why. I didn’t care really. It wasn’t like I had anything to call my own at home anymore. I was pretty sure Dad had barked-or maybe wheezed-the order to complete what he started: removing everything from my room that held meaning to me.
All of my clothes: burn them-assuming they couldn’t be sold.
My notebooks; burn them.
The earrings, bracelets, the destroyed pendant? Toss it into the burning barrel.
Yep, everything could be cleansed by fire.

It wasn’t until Tuesday morning that my mother, reluctantly, I will add, posted bail for me. We drove home in absolute silence, not even the radio, and during the entire drive no tears were shed, no questions were asked and no “your father” this or “we felt” that. A part of me kind of wanted to be grilled so that all of the feelings they made me bottle up would come gushing out like mentos and Diet Coke.

My room was bare; with the exception of the wooden door and the window , it looked just like juvie, so I guess I was in a familiar environment.

My dresser of clothes, gone. There jeans, shirts, shirts but all of them were the hand-me-downs from my brother and of the kid who once lived into he room with him. I didn’t even have a mirror, probably because they feared I’d shatter it and make a shank or something.

They were probably right.

I walked into the closet and saw that it too was bare—except for the back corner where the wall didn’t seem to fit. This was where I hid the suit and a few pieces of underwear.
They had this battle, but not the war.

At dinner, it was once again the silent treatment. My father didn’t look my way once, but I looked at him to see he had quite the shiner on his cheek. Yeah, I wanted to smile at my handiwork and I think Mike Tyson would have been proud, I knew April would.

Mom made a few faces like she was uncomfortable and maybe she wanted to say something then but it was like the family took a vow of silence under duress, or maybe to make me feel under duress. I mean, if this was how it was going to be they should have left me juvie.

“You came ‘this close’ to me letting you rot in jail!”
I didn’t reply to dad as he stood in the doorway of my room. I really wanted to slam the door in his face but figured it would just erupt into daddy-daughter brawl : the sequel.
“We got rid of all that girl crap.”
Funny, since he was married to and had a daughter that he called it ‘crap’.
“You’re going to school tomorrow and you will wear the appropriate clothes for. A. Boy”
Yeah, he had to emphasize that for the studio audience, my brother, who standing behind him.
“Stop acting like a fag,” he said.
I wanted to flip him off and ask them both about John but instead I refused to look at him or give him any satisfaction.
“Go to bed!” Dad yelled as he turned around and walked away.
I quietly closed the door but my brother forced the it open. He welded a pair of scissors.

My Happy Ending
“My Happy Ending”. By Avril Lavigne

I woke up from, maybe, an hour’s worth of sleep. I laid splayed on a bed covered with what used to be my long hair. The thought of taping or gluing it to my scalp ran through my mind but there was nothing I could do. I wrapped the cuts on my arms, from trying to deflect my brother’s hands. I hadn’t left my room—because they had reversed the lock and nailed my window shut—so I couldn’t get out on my own.

The door lock clicked and the door barely opened.

“Get up!” My dad yelled and then closed the door again.

I went into the closet and pulled out the remaining clothes that I wanted to wear—I would douse and burn the clothes they crammed into my drawers before I EVER wore them again.

“What the Hell?” My brother asked as when he saw me in my remaining shirt and blouse.
“Deal with it,” I flatly replied as I a gesture that was a mix of “up yours” and “what cha gonna do about it?”
“Dad!”

I hoisted up my backpack and ran out of the house. My clothes revealed every cut and bruise to go along with the brutal chopping on my scalp. I would either be ignored by everyone or everyone would ask one lame question after another.

I arrived at school with a few looks from everyone and a lot of whispers. To be honest, I was kind of scared and I wanted to talk to April as soon as I could find her. I would most likely run up to her, crying my eyes out and hoped that she would either console me or tell me to “straighten the hell up and stand tall, girl”. April wasn’t near her locker, so I walked back to my own and opened it. A folded letter fell out and onto the floor.
I knew who it was from, April, so I opened the multi-folded note.

“Dear Taylor,
My parents are pullin’ me out of school; I don’t know what damn place they’re taking me to but it’s going to be shit without you. Let’s try to meet up this week. Can you meet me at the park on Wednesday to help me figure out what we can do. April.”

True to my word, I cried my eyes out, enough to get the attention of the principal and several other teachers. They took one look at my body and assumed I had gotten into a fight and wondered where I must have stuffed the corpse of the other combatant as one of them muttered that I look led like Hell.

Thirty minutes later, I sat inside a locked from the inside room: I had barricaded the door with a table because the school had called my parents and they, in turn, heads called the police.

My first day back, it was supposed to okay. I didn’t want sugar and rainbows; I just wanted my friend, my damn hair, a less-than-shitty family and no one getting in the fucking way of my life!

And I got none of that as a news video camera looked at me through the re-enforced glass in the door, four police officers walked into the office.
“Taylor?” One of them asked and I turned my back. “I need you to open this door for me, Okay, buddy?”
I was not going to be his “buddy” in any way, shape, or form. I knew how it was probably going to end: they would ask, coax, demand, order and then ram their way in without asking me anything. Everyone on the other side of the door would play the ignorance card so the police would drag me out of that school kicking and screaming.

A few hours passed, or maybe it was just a few minutes as I lost count after the repeated requests for me to open the door and hearing my dad yelling and arguing with the police.
“Tase him or something. I’ll do it if it will end all of this!”
“This is your last chance, Taylor. We’re coming in.”
At least they gave me a warning. I grabbed a chair from the blockade pile, walked to the back of the conference room, and sat down. There was not one calm nerve in my body; the last one had fled in hysterics. I sat against the wall as they slammed on the door and everything stacked on the other side slowly buckled and fell. The police were inside the office and walked into the conference room to see me sitting at the end of the table with my hands on the table.
“Did my family tell you how this morning went?” I asked the officer who had his gun drawn.

I guess it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that I was sent home after a severe berating by the police and my parents telling me how I needed to straighten up and act right. I kind of took their choice of words a bit too personal.

“This is who I am. Why are you trying to change me?”
“This is not who you are. Your name is Taylor. Taylor Micheal.” My dad said as he avoided looking at me. “And as long as you are under this roof, and believe me, mister, you will be for a very long time—you’re going to do follow the rules.”
“Was doing this to my head a part of following the rules?” I pointed at the haphazard buzz cut on my head.
“It looks better than it did before,” he replied as I felt at the cuts that were still on my scalp. “Go to your room”
“No,” I replied.
“I said go to your room.”
“I heard you. It doesn’t mean I’m going to do it.”
“You heard what the police said.”
“And you heard me,” I said as I stared him down. I knew I could take him as long as it was between the of us. If my brother was there, they would have taken me down.
“Taylor!”
“You destroyed my room. Hell, you destroyed my life!”
“Your life, as you put it, was going way our there!” He yelled as he pointed multiple times to his left, apparently signaling to me that the way I was living was so far out of whack, so crazy, that the only way to resolve it was to beat it out of me, one piece at a time. “Go to your room!”
“You mean my prison? No.”
I turned around and ran for the front door. I didn’t think about what would happen once I took a step outside, I didn’t acknowledge the Hell that I was about to ignite all around me. It was a fight or flight response.
I will admit, I regretted nothing.

Runaway

I just wanted to yell, scream, cry and bitch to God a little for the first few hours. I had walked into the Alabama countryside and found and old hunting cabin. I sat in the corner of the room and held my head in my hands.
My screams were because of the way my parents treated me.
The tears were that I, most likely, had lost my best and only friend due to how her parents thought of me.
However, most of the streams were because of how I felt about myself . What was I? Not a “who” as my parents always treated me as something different and allowed the rest of the world to throw proverbial peanuts at me. I was young, but I knew what could happen to me…I would fail “to pass” to the rest of the world and I was unsure if I could ever stand up for myself against their stares and grimaces.
“Why did you make me like this!” I shouted to the ceiling. “You never came to help me! Not with Dad, not my sister or with John!”
I stood up and slammed my hand against the wall; it and the ceiling rattled a little bit, so it wasn’t a good idea to take my frustrations out on the poor building.

I admit, I didn’t think about the future. I didn’t think about how I would survive, because, in a way, I didn’t want to survive. It was easier to give in to the desperation and the wishful feelings of just turning my soul off and allow my ugly shell to rot away in a race to see which one would turn to dust faster: myself or that shack.

“Just strike me down!” I yelled as I slammed my knees to the floor. “Kill me now! What are you waiting for? I’m ready! I’ve been ready for years.”

The times of trying to drown myself in a tub—only to have my lungs force me to the surface. The thought of jumping off the highest point in Autugua county, only to chicken out and scream at myself for not doing it.

I contorted my body on the floor and stared up at the ceiling. “Do it! Bring down the lightning! Swallow me up! I can’t seem to do it myself…but you can. Please!”

It wasn’t a request-more like a demand. Yeah, I demanded death. I wanted the damn grim reaper to come down and strike me down at that moment.

Why not?
I didn’t like me
My parents didn’t like me.
The world would never like me for who I was.

“They’ll laugh and then laugh some more. Kicking me down,” I whispered to the darkness. “You’re not going to let me die, are you? You’re just going to let me live like this? Forever! Let my family forever berate me. They’ll be that little voice in my ear. Grow up, Taylor. Be a man, Taylor. You messed up our lives, Taylor!”

I stood up and walked outside the cabin. It was cold. It was very cold for that time of mother year.

“You’re always messing up something, Taylor!” I shouted to the moon. “Yeah, I know, Dad. But, hey, it’s our way and I learned it all from you!”

I looked back to the cabin and pondered if I should stay for the night. Either that, or set it on fire. I’d stay warm at least. I shook my head and started walking by the moonlight. I tried to not let the cold get to me and I did for the most part as I was too busy over-thinking what I was going to do with my life. Maybe I could find my sister or maybe I could find a million dollars.
Either way, I wanted to forget about it all and just run away.
Just to laugh so hard until my sides hurt.

And by then, my sides were hurting, as my lungs were screaming in agony form the cold air. I sat down on the side of the road and then threw myself onto my back.

Maybe it was good to be jaded.
Maybe it was a great thing to feel cold-blooded.

“I can stay in the country. I can hide out in houses if I have to. Winter’s not cold here.”

Which was true, if one was in a house with central heat or a roaring fireplace. There was plenty of wood around. It was a bit too late to think about maybe gathering some kindle and lighting a fire near the cabin.

“No, then they’d find you,” I thought aloud. “Then its either back to the asylum that was home or to juvenile.” I shivered slightly as wind blew. “Nope. Not going.”

I stood back up and walked on the side of the road. Sometimes lights appeared in the distance and I would do my best to run into the thicket on the sides. It was easier to guide to somewhere—anywhere—by using the roads then to blindly trudge through the woods.
True, a car could see me, stop and search or contact the police—assuming they thought I WAS a person and not a mini Sasquatch.

Maybe I could find my sister?
She lived somewhere in town.
But where?

Head Above Water

I had gone camping once before that day.
It was in the backyard in a medium-size pink tent with my sister. We made it through the night and then went inside for lucky charms and Saturday morning cartoons.

Having a tent was something I wished I had that night as I woke up with bugs of every shape and size crawling all over me—including a water bug that’s had no issues with sitting on my face.

I screamed.
Loudly.
It was shrill and high-pitched and as freaked out as I was, it was still the best feeling ever to wake up to the sun with a passing of flesh tone to my skin.

I screamed.
Loudly.
It was a shrill and high-pitched and as freaked out as I was, it was still the best feeling ever to wake up to the sun with a passing of flesh tone to my skin.

I stood up and I felt calm, I felt happy, even in my current hellish predicament it felt great to be on my own.

Real life came crashing down on me as I felt hungry.
Not hungry enough to chow down on Mr. Waterbug, but enough to feel some discomfort. I ran back into the woods and kept the road in my sight as I thought about my sister in a “Sound of Music” kind of daydream—where I would run to her front door and feel welcomed by her a new family.

An hour later I was in the downtown area of town near the churches. I walked on the opposite side of the road, not because I was afraid of being struck by lightning but more because I was angry that I hadn’t been all of the times I asked for fire from above.
Maybe just have my clock stopped on demand.

“Already been down that path…once again,” I muttered to myself as I came up to a row of houses.
I had made it back to town, but what did it matter? By my looks people would assume I was in trouble or had been in some. I walked by two houses and contemplated knocking on a door or just entering inside—maybe to have a drink of water.
No stealing.
Maybe lay on the couch and close my eyes in a Goldilocks kind of way—punishing my luck that the owners would get home. The great thing wash that they wouldn’t be my parents or brother—the three bad bears who didn’t eat me but made it much worse to live.

I moved past the houses, out of the neighborhood and into the downtown area. Downtown Prattville was nothing like the downtown of a larger city. It was rows of churches and small office buildings. I walked across the street from one of the churches—only to be in front of another. I felt disgusted looking at the stained glass windows and well-kept lawns.
“If they only helped others like they helped themselves.” I mumbled as I crossed the street again only to comes within a few inches of a car that I walked right in front of.
“Please, hit me,” I thought as the the brakes of the vehicles screamed. I didn’t turn into a hood ornament.
“Damn,” I thought as I awaited for the driver to roll their window down and scream about how stupid I was for living and walking in front of him.
“You okay?” The driver asked as he got out of the car.
“I’m fine,” I replied as I tried to avoid eye contact.
“Are you lost?”
“No,” I lied. I was lost.
Physically, I knew exactly where I was.
Mentally? An atlas, globe or map wouldn’t help me.
“Are you sure you’re alright?”
I nodded as I walked on.
“Michaela.”
I stopped dead in my tracks at the sound of the name I wanted people to call me. Maybe I was dreaming he said it, so I took another step.
“Michaela Leigh.”
I turned back to the man but I avoided looking at his face.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
I shook my head.
“Come to the side of the street. Let me back my car up. Will you wait right here?”
I nodded as and he nodded to me in reply. I looked at his face for a fraction of a second. He didn’t look familiar. He was dressed in a button down shirt and had some sweat stains, which meant either the abrupt stop of the car scared him to death or the heat was up way too high where he was at.

I walked closer to the parking lot as he got out of his car and met me halfway.
“Do you want to come in?”
I shook my head.
“I understand. My name is Anthony Cox. I’m the youth pastor here.”
I nodded but didn’t look at him.
“You know my son. He’s told me about you. Like your name and about what happened at school.”
“No one really knows what happened.” I replied.
“You do. That’s what matters.”
“I’m sorry I walked in front of your car. Can I go now?”
“If you want. But, I’d like it better if you came inside, out of the cold, and sit down. You don’t have to talk to me. You don’t have to talk to anybody. I’d just like you to rest a bit.”
“Sure, why you call the police?”
“No. We’ll call whoever you want to. Do you have any other family?”

I took another step into the parking lot.
“My sister. She lives somewhere in town, but I don’t know her number or where to find her.”
“We can work on that together, if you like.”
The thought of being struck with a wooden stake through my heart was merged with the vision of calling my sister and having her drive up and take me away from everything.
“Okay,” I said with a bite to my lip and a nod.

We walked into the church, down the hall and into a spacious office area with two women sitting in front of computers.
“Jolene, can you get get me the local phone book and one for Montgomery. Also, we need some clothes from the closet, please?”

One of the women got up and walked out into the hall.

“We’ll make the calls from out here. Have a seat,” he said as he pushed a large roller chair out of his office and invited me to sit down.

I looked around the office, trying to see if there were any bars on the windows or some form of rope or something to tie me down. All I could see were bookshelves full of heavy, leather-bound books; framed certificates and pictures were all over the walls. One picture in particular showed the guy in front of me: Randy, a woman, a girl who looked about eight, and someone who had braces on his teeth—with one of them looking like someone had punched him in the mouth: Tony.

Alone

The woman named Jolene brought out two bins on a cart that also had several clothes hanging form racks.

“There’s a complete bathroom down the hall,” she said. Let’s take this down.”
“Okay,” I replied with a little timidness to my voice. It was almost like my words were swallowed up by my throat. I didn’t know if they were still going to call my parents or a squad of cops. I mean, he obviously knew what happened at school—how I barricaded myself in one office. What was to stop me from doing that here?

Jolene rolled the cart into what looked like a small locker room, or at least a rather large bathroom. She quietly closed the door and left me in the room by myself. I walked back to the door and locked it.

I hesitated removing my dirty, mud-strained below the knees and elbows clothes. They were all I had to my name. They were hand-me-downs and they were my brother’s at one time but they were mine.
“No, no you want to get rid of them. Maybe ask for a match.” I whispered as I got undressed and turned on the water.
It wasn’t hot or cold but more like in that mythical moment of temperature tranquility. If my hair was longer I would have run my hands through it as the water cascaded down.
I kept my eyes closed as I cleaned myself off. Maybe the water could change me. It was church, right? Holy water would wipe out the diseased, the unclean and the unwanted. I could be reborn with a new body and a repaired mind. My soul? I wasn’t sure if had already been sold or I had simply lost it and didn’t notice until then.
My brain went through memories, dreams and nightmares. Other girls sang in the shower or thought out their problems in the steam. They would churn out solutions and would proclaim “eureka” before the water turned cold. My mind, of course, gave me one good scenario: finding my sister; and then the rest were simply doom and gloom.
I had to wonder if there was a window or a door nearby that I could dart out before someone saw me. I could always thank them later, right?

I sorted through all of the clothes on the rack—wondering how many I could layer as they looked better than anything my sister owned. I had to wonder who had given them up to begin with? I chose a basic dress and top. I still assumed that I could just run out of the building and just go…but…it was cold and I would freeze in the dress.

“Unless you stay here and try to make that phone call,” I whispered as I glanced at the door and at dirty clothes on the floor.

I opened the door and walked back in the direction of the office. Jolene stepped out and motioned to me.
“That looks pretty on you.”
“Thank you,” I replied with almost a smile on my face.
“ Randy, she’s out now.”
“Great, I have sone news.”
His tone was chippy, like a happy song. I wondered if he spoke like that at funerals.

We walked into the office with a phone turned to a chair next to the desk.
I sat in the chair and stared at the phone until Mr. Cox handed over a piece of paper.

“We found your sister.”
I looked up at him with surprise. Had he really? Was the number in my hand the magical code to remove me from my prison of life?
“We do need to talk about something before you make this call.” Mr. Cox said as he sat down at the desk.
“Okay,” I replied.
“I don’t know everything that’s been going on in your life, but, there is a chance that your sister-“
“That my sister will what?”
“She may have her own issues.”
“Yes, she does have her own issues. Thanks to the rest of our family.”
“I just want to tell you that no matter what she says, you haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I wish I could believe that,” I said with a deep swallow. “Can I call her now?”
He nodded as he got up from the desk and walked into the hall with Jolene.

I stared at the phone and the number and played through how the call could go:
She wouldn’t answer at all.
She would say “hey, yeah, that sucks, but I can’t help you because I’ve moved on with my life. I’m changing the number now.”
Or she would drop the phone, drive across town, and pick me up in front of the church. We would then leave town and never talk to our former family again.

I picked the handset up and heard the buzzing dial tone.
I stood up and dialed the number.

There was a click on the line and a male voice answered.
“Hello?”
“Hi, it’s…It’s Micheala. Is Leslie there?”
“Who is this?” The question was more like he wondered if he was actually talking to someone, not a confirmation of who I was.
“Mich- I mean, Taylor,” I felt like stabbing myself at the thought of having to say that name.
“Taylor?”
“Her…her brother.”
“Oh, okay, hang on.”
I sat down in the chair, closed my eyes and tried to hear her in the background.
“Who is it?”
“Your brother?”
“My brother, why would he be calling? Hello?”
I sprung up from the chair. “Leslie?”
“Taylor?”
“Michaela. Hey, how are you?”
“I’m pretty good. I mean, it’s a dream to be away from everything. You know?”
“Yeah, that’s kind of why I’m calling.”
“Did you know that we’re getting ready to move?”
“Where?”
“Bill’s got a building job in Colorado. Actual snow, you know?”
“Yeah. Can I go with you?”
“Go with me?”
“With the both of you. You said you’d come back for me. That I would have to wait but I can’t wait any longer.”
The line was quiet for a moment and I must have bit my tongue as I felt blood in my mouth along with the feeling that I was about to explode in a torrent of tears and blubbering.
“Have you talked with mom and dad?”
“What’s to talk about? They practically want me out of the house.”
“Where are you?”
“In town.”
“You’re not in school?”
“You’re not either,” I replied.
“Heh, yeah, you’re right. You should be though. Education’s important.”
“Leslie.”
“So mom and dad don’t know where you’re at?”
“They don’t care.”
“Where are you?”
“So you can come and get me, right?”
“No, so we can let mom know.”
“Mom doesn’t want me! Dad doesn’t care if I live or die. Leslie, what about what you said? Help me!”
“You’re fine. You’re strong!”
“I need help,” I sobbed into the phone.
“I can’t give you the help you need. I’m kind of drifting along now.”
I didn’t reply.
“Taylor?”
I kind of wanted to scream into the phone but I was too crestfallen.
“Taylor? Hello?”
“My name’s Michaela. Remember?”
“Really? I thought that was all over.”
“Wha-?” My throat swallowed up everything else I tried to say. I could feel my eyes dilating from the pain my heart and mind. The person who I looked up to. The one who made me feel like I could tell her everything—was shunning me.
“I’m sorry for you feel like this.”
“Don’t apologize. Don’t talk to me. Don’t. Ever. Talk. To. Me. Again!” I screamed as I slammed the phone down.

I stood up and screamed in a voice so shrill one would assume I had been murdered.
And it felt that way.

I sank to my knees, ripping the dress in the process but not caring. I just wanted to die.

The final person I thought would care for me was gone.

I felt alone.

 

Keep Holding On

Pastor Cox said he found me looking like I was silently screaming with my my hands shaking and a contorted facial expression before I collapsed to the floor.

I woke up lying on a couch in another room with a blanket covering me.
I wanted to think that it was all a dream. That maybe I had fallen into the shower and had felt so much pain that I had imagined my last gleam of hope faded with a phone call. Leslie felt so distant. Like she had forgotten all about me. Maybe she had. Maybe she never meant anything and said everything just to spite dad. I had been used like a bait dog in a fighting ring.

I sat up and looked at the dress. There was a large tear on the right side. It didn’t show anything but it looked terrible. My knees felt numb—along with my mind.

Maybe I could just stay in the upper section of the church, like a resident hunchback, where no one would notice my deformities and imperfections within our perfect world.

Sanctuary from that world.
Or, the most likely, be returned to my mental prison. Be ordered to be who I am supposed to be…at least until the day I could find the courage to walk into an oncoming car or go to the tallest building I could find, smash a window and throw myself off of that window.

That appeared to be my future.

The clock on the wall read four-thirty. I was sure it wasn’t in morning. Either way, I wasn’t yet arrested or taken into some mental facility.
“Or they could do that,” I whispered. Chemicals and therapy to reverse the horrible damage that was done to Taylor by Michaela, a demon, a witch. No, just a simple girl with a sliced-up head.

I got up, walked to the door and opened it,.

The hallway was empty. No police lights in the parking lot, at least from what I could see.
“Hello?” I asked into darkness at the other end of the hallway.
“Michaela!”
I froze at the sound of the voice saying my name: It was Tony. I turned around and expected a posse at his side, all ready to slam me into the wall at his command in revenge for several crowns and ruined braces.

It was just him; but, in my physical condition I knew he could bring me down to the ground. He wasn’t this father. I put my hands up and closed my eyes, in hopes that he would take some form of pity on me. But if he didn’t, then, I would have my wish granted to be taken out of the world.
I heard his footsteps on the tile floor come closer and closer and I clenched up, ready for the punches or some form of punishment.

His hand came on my shoulders—he was going to choke me—I knew he was going to.

He pulled me closer.
“Are you okay?”
My eyes flashed open as he looked straight at my face.
“Are you okay?” He repeated.
I shook my head and laid it down on his shoulder.
“We’ll help you.”
“Why?” I asked as I caught the metal on his teeth.
“Because I care about you. I mean, we care about you. No, it’s both. Ever since grade school.”
“But, I’m not normal.”
“We’re not going to hold that against you. My family’s kind of weird like that.”

I took a step back and looked behind Tony as his father, mother and sister came out from the darkened end of the hallway.

“You’re welcome to come home with us.”
“Until we get everything straightened out?” I asked.
“What’s to straighten out?” Mrs. Cox replied.
“Me,” I replied as I took another step back.

Tony took three steps forward and stood next to me. “The only thing you need to work on is your punch. You hit like a girl.”
“Tony.” His father said with a slight disdain.
Tony took a hold of my left hand and motioned to his parents. “You’re not alone.”