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Clara was no stranger to being awake at ungodly hours of the night, but this was different. It was two thirty in the morning, and she just couldn’t sleep.
Her bed was as good a place as any for the silent war that was being fought in the battlefield of her brain. She had her knees pulled to her chest, arms wrapped around them, warm to the point of mild discomfort – it was the middle of summer, and the sweater she had stolen from Wilbur probably wasn’t the best choice of pyjamas.
She would have gotten changed, but the mere thought of removing the garment brought stinging tears to her eyes.
Her phone was a few feet away from her, resting on top of the crumpled pile of blankets that she had shoved to the end of her bed. The device wasn’t doing anything, seemingly innocent; behind the locked screen, however, her browser history held every piece of a puzzle that had brought Clara’s world crashing down around her in the quiet hours of the morning.
Clara stared at her phone like it was an active bomb, ready to detonate at any moment.
She hadn’t meant for her night to turn into – into whatever this was. An arbitrary question, a seedling of curiosity turned Google query. Whatever it was, it had spiralled badly.
why do i hate my boobs
The first search had turned up a few articles and threads from Twitter and Reddit, none of particularly relevant; they were aimed towards middle-aged women and breast cancer survivors, both things that Clara was not.
why do i want to get rid of my boobs
Nothing useful there, either. She wished she had given up at that point, instead of trying the next approach.
why do i hate being a girl
why do i wish i was born a boy
what is gender dysphoria
how do i know if im trans
am i trans quiz
why does buzzfeed fucking suck
what are the she her words called
pronouns gender
how to try pronouns
The site from the first link had been unassuming enough. ‘Pronoun Dressing Room’ – plain white background, fancy purple lettering like some shitty Disney knockoff website. Clara had put her name in the top box, hesitating before typing in the gender words, the pronouns – he, him, his, himself, boy. She had stared at the button below; ‘try it’ glared at her in swirly font.
She had clicked.
She had read the words that showed up on the screen.
Then she read them again. Then a third time, then a fourth.
Hello! Today I met a boy who goes by Clara. He has a wonderful personality. That smile of his really makes me happy. I could talk to him all day although he doesn’t talk about himself much. I wonder if his day has been wonderful. I hope so!
That had been the point when Clara threw her phone to the opposite end of her bed with a sharp inhale, staring at the bright screen warily until it eventually dimmed and went black.
Now, though, Clara was staring at her hands where they were wrapped around her legs. She used to think they were too big, with spindly fingers that were only really good for piano and knobby knuckles decorating each one. She thought they might be okay, now, though – bigger than her dad’s hands, and Techno’s, and pretty close to Wilbur’s. It was something that made her similar to them, that little bit closer to being…
Being what, exactly? The unwelcome question made her cringe. This whole… thing was hard to even think about, yet alone accept. This was all Clara knew – ‘this’ being the discomfort that had crawled under her skin since she started puberty, the envy she had felt towards the boys in kindergarten, the sickness at the sight of her own body that made her shower with the lights off and drape herself in too-loose clothes. Being a girl was all she knew, though – the possibility that she wasn’t one was almost too terrifying to consider.
Almost.
Clara’s hands shook as she stood up, ducking to fit under the frame of her door. She’d always loved being tall, loved getting her mother’s genes that had skipped Techno and gone straight to herself and Wilbur. The more she thought about it, though, the more she realised exactly why she loved being so tall.
She was realising a lot of things tonight, huh?
Girls are supposed to want to be dainty and small. Girls are supposed to like skirts and dresses and frilly, sparkly things. Girls aren’t loud and brash and annoying. Girls don’t spend their entire life wishing they weren’t girls.
Clara wasn’t a girl. Clara wasn’t a girl, and that was scary.
She checked and double checked that the bathroom door was locked shut behind her once she flicked on the light, squinting with a quiet curse until her eyes adjusted enough to catch her reflection in the mirror.
It was familiar, but at the same time it felt like she was looking at a stranger. The frizzy blonde hair that curled inwards at the ends, brushing her shoulders. The lankiness to her frame, like she hadn’t quite grown into herself yet. The way Wilbur’s sweater hung off her shoulders like she was a coathanger – hiding every subtle curve as if they never existed.
That realisation brought a terrifying joy with it, the kind that made her heart hammer in her chest.
She hesitated, before kneeling and rummaging through all of the crap under the sink – half empty shampoo and conditioner bottles, shaving foam, air freshener – before finding the bag of various medical supplies. She dug through it once she’d pulled it out, eventually finding what she’d been searching for; a roll of beige-toned bandage, the kind that Techno used for fencing sprains or that Wilbur used when his ACL acted up.
Clara thought about how the bandage was meant to compress, to reduce swelling, to hold joints steady so they healed. She turned away from the mirror, inhaling shakily before yanking the sweater off over her head.
It took three tries, and a lot of awkward adjustment, and she was pretty sure she nearly dislocated her shoulder. But Clara got the stupid bandages around her chest, and she stared at her handiwork in the mirror, awed.
Her chest was flat. Really, truly flat. It was wrapped in fabric that felt comfortably tight, and her fingers trembled as they brushed over it. She turned to the side, saw that the planes of her skinny abdomen were uninterrupted by the swell of her chest, and grinned. She pulled Wilbur’s sweater back on, stood up straight, and marvelled at how she didn’t need to hunch over for the illusion.
This is terrible. This is incredible. She loved this a bit too much.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when someone knocked heavily on the door, a drowsy voice filtering through.
“Are you nearly done, Clara?” Wilbur questioned sleepily, and Clara shut the doors beneath the sink as quietly as she could. Shit. She flushed the toilet, and rinsed her hands, so Wilbur thought she was actually in there for a reason.
She opened the door and tried to walk past, but Wilbur grabbed her arm lightly to stop her, frowning a bit in his tired confusion.
Double shit.
“The hell do you want, bitch boy?” She tried to make her voice sound full of her normal attitude, but she felt like cotton had filled her mouth, and her heart was beating a million miles a minute, and she prayed to whatever gods were out there that Wilbur didn’t notice a thing.
Wilbur blinked at her, still half asleep as he let her go. “That’s my sweater,” he stated plainly, before shaking his head a little and shutting the bathroom door behind himself. “Y’know what, as long as you wash it, I don’t care what you do with it. Goodnight, Clara.”
“Yeah, yeah. Goodnight, Wil.”
Clara didn’t hesitate to speed walk to the safety of her room once Wilbur clicked the lock on the door, her socked feet skidding on the floorboards. Once she was inside, door shut, she reluctantly reached under the sweater to unwrap the bandages. They felt too tight to sleep in, so she shoved them under the pillow before unceremoniously flopping onto the mattress.
She plugged her phone into its charger, the screen lighting up. She shifted to lay on her side, watching as the screen eventually dimmed, and then went black. She wasn’t too sure when her eyes closed, but her mind was still racing as she fell asleep.
The last thought she remembered having is that finding a new name might be cool.
…
Clara didn’t think he was a ‘she’ anymore, at least.