Chapter Text
------------------ At School ------------------
It was just another day in middle school for you: being bored in class, keeping to yourself and occasionally getting picked on by the other kids. You were walking down the hall when you heard a shout
"Hey!" you heard Sophie, one of your few friends calling for you from down the hall "Almost forgot to ask you during break but, you coming to swim practice today? You missed the last one so the coach wanted me to check with you."
"Yeah I'll go today" you shouted back "last time there was a family emergency and I got held up."
"Kay, see you there!" she shouted as her voice got farther as she started running to her class, after you made sure she's out of earshot you let out a deep sigh, " I probably should go this time, I might get kicked from the team if I don't" you think to yourself.
As you walked to your Science class you saw the usual group of bullies walk into the class, you tried to ignore them and walk to your seat, but you saw them approach you. "Oh look it's the little bitch" the leader of the group, Jack says, coming uncomfortably close to your face. You attempted to walk past him and push him out of the way but refused to budge and shoved you to the ground, making you drop everything you were holding which included your sketchbook.
Before you could even start to reach out to grab it, Jack picked it up and started flipping through. You tried to get back up and grab it out of his hand but the other members of his gang grabbed you and held you in place on the floor.
You heard him burst out laughing as he turned the book around to show everyone else "Look!" You felt as if the world was starting to weigh down on you and you're about to crumple at any moment " He thinks he's good at art! Look at all these shitty drawings of mermaids, if you could even call it that, it looks more like a fish got rammed into a wall really."
All you could hear was laughing, laughing by the members of Josh's gang, laughing by your classmates, you just wanted to just disappear, you could feel tears start to form at the edge of your eyes.
Before they fall, you heard him turn the page, "OH?" He pointed to a picture of you in a dress that you had drawn. "Is this supposed to be you?" "N-n-n-no" you managed to stammer out. "Yeah right, so you have a twin sister with the exact same name? Jeez, at least you draw a good self portrait, it's just as ugly as you."
Tears were pouring out of your eyes at this point, every noise and voice around you was just a blurry mess, you could hear your heart pounding in your chest and it felt like the air you're currently breathing in wasn’t enough for your lungs. You needed to get out of here.
Now.
You broke free from Jack's buddies and booked it to the bathroom, not caring about your sketchbook anymore(he'll never return it to you anyway seeing how much value it held for you).
After hiding in a stall for what felt like an eternity, the bell rings and you realize you basically skipped Science(not that you care but it does tell you that it has been about 50 minutes). After collecting your stuff (minus a sketchbook) you made your way over to one of the few classes you actually liked, English.
The reason you liked this class so much was: One, it didn’t have anyone that you hated and two, the teacher of the subject, Ms Klara, actually cared for all her students.
After the greetings, she gave out the work for that day: "everyone will be writing a self-introduction, I would like it to be a full paragraph, so don't just say 'hi my name is' and call it a day, try to include things like your hobbies or small anecdotes about yourself."
"This should be easy enough." You think to yourself.
Nothing of note happens for the rest of the class until the end when Ms. Klara calls you over to talk after everyone left.
“Hi, I’d like to talk to you about what you wrote down on your work today.” She said with a concerned expression on her face. “Is everything okay at home?”
“Uh, why do you ask?” you asked back, trying to avoid the question. “Well you wrote here that when you told your parents about wanting to wear a dress they yelled at you.”
“You know you can trust me, I won’t tell anyone else” she said, giving you a slight smile.
You realize that you had written that subconsciously and start to panic, you trust her, but your parents told you to not tell anyone else or else they’ll punish you. “Alright I’ll tell you, but you can’t tell anyone else.”
“So I told them one day that I want to try wearing a dress and I want to feel beautiful which made them yell at me.” You start to tear up trying to recall the event “I d-don’t know w-why they were mad I-i just w-wanted to tell them h-how I was feeling, I I-I.” Eventually it was too overwhelming and you couldn’t continue anymore.
She held you in her arms “Shhh, It’s okay I know it’s hard for you to remember this, just cry into my arms and let everything out.” After a bit, you calmed down and she started to talk again. “There are a lot of boys that feel the same way as you y’know? They don't feel comfortable having a boy’s body and being considered a boy and want to be a girl instead. This is what people call being ‘Transgender.’ After what you said you might fall into that label.”
You were a tad confused by this sudden piece of information “So, I’m Transgender?” you asked.
“Well, not exactly” she replied “This is a complicated topic that you have to figure it out yourself and it takes time. But you can speed up this process by doing research on this topic to understand it better and the identity that you feel the most happy with.”
“Okay, I’ll search for it online” you replied, now curious about this ‘Transgender’ thing. You thank her for talking with you and start to walk out.
“Oh, right one more thing, being trans isn’t accepted by everyone, be careful who you talk about this topic to like your parents for example.” Ms Klara adds before you leave. “Have a nice evening!”
“You too Ms. Klara!” you respond back.
------------------ After School ------------------
You started packing stuff up to go to swimming practice and thought about what Ms Klara told you.
“Hey sweetie?” your thoughts are interrupted by your mom “Are you done yet?”
“Oop, coming mom!” you responded and grabbed your stuff and ran downstairs and into the car, ready for swim practice.
You arrived early and headed into the changing room, found your usual stall and began to change. You feel the same usual feeling when you change, slight discomfort, you usually pay it no mind but you begin to wonder if it’s connected to what Ms. Klara said or not. “They don't feel comfortable having a boy’s body” Those words linger in your mind before the commotion of boys flooding into the locker room snaps you out of it.
“Am I trans?” The question cycles throughout your head for the entire practice, which makes your performance sub par, catching the attention of the coach and Sophie.
Your coach notices first. “You okay there? You're doing worse than your usual.” “I’m okay.” you respond almost immediately. “What, a girl caught your eye?” he teases.
“N-no.” you timidly responded. He gives you a smirk, “Alright whatever you say kid, get whatever you're thinking about outta there, or else I might make you a substitute” he laughs and continues on with practice.
Sophie then comes up to you after that “You seem a bit out of it today, something on your mind? Is it your parents? I know how strict they are, did they upset you or something?”
“No, it’s not them,” you reply. “Hey whatever you are concerned about you can tell me alright? I want you to be happy alright?” she gives you a smile and goes back to her breaststrokes.
------------------ A Couple of Weeks Later ------------------
After a long period of questioning your gender identity without any outside help, you finally found the time to look more into Transgender people and discovered lots of resources online for youths figuring themselves out.
“WHAT ARE YOU SEARCHING YOUNG MAN!” but, unfortunately your mothers walks in on you looking up resources and yells at you. “THESE TRANS FREAKS ARE ALL DELUSIONAL AND DON’T EVEN THINK THAT YOU ARE ONE OF THEM, MY SON WON’T GET THIS ‘TRANS DISEASE,’ I DON’T WANT YOU ON THIS WEBSITE ANYMORE AND I’M NOT LETTING YOU ON THE COMPUTER FOR THE NEXT WEEK.”
You started to cry uncontrollably, you tried to speak but only whimpers came out and you ran out of your house. You didn't want to deal with this anymore, you just wanted to be free from this suffering.
You cried and cried “Why do they hate trans people so much, I just want to know if it would make me happy.” you didn’t know where you were going you just ran and ran until you wound up at the beach.
You sat down on the sand and began to calm down a bit, it was your comfort place after all, you always came here when you felt stressed from school.
And yet, this time the beach felt different, you felt like it’s beckoning you to go into the water, like it’s telling you ‘I’ll soothe your sorrow’.
Your body moved almost involuntarily, your legs moved on it's own and you found yourself slowly descending the depths of the seawater.
And below there you saw… a beautiful mermaid.
She holds you in an embrace and then says, “I’ve been watching you for sometime now, since the first time you entered these waters now. I’ve seen your plight and I want to help you, I can’t really do anything right now, you are a tad too young for that but, after that outburst, I couldn’t just sit by idly, and so I called you here to calm you, I just want to say that everything will be alright and happier times will come in the future.
You cried into her arms and felt a weight being lifted off your shoulders.
“You must get going now, your parents are probably looking for you right now and they might get even more mad than they already are. Here, I’ll give you this bracelet. Whenever you feel stressed just hold this close and think of the sea, it will calm you down, don't let anyone tell you what you are, be yourself and you’ll be happy alright? You’ll grow into a beautiful girl.”
Suddenly, you wake up in the same spot you were before on the sand.
“What a weird dream” but then you felt the exact same bracelet in your hand as the one in your dream.
“Sweetie!” you hear your mother call out, “We thought you got kidnapped or something” She hugs you. “Never run out like that again alright?” She sobs while holding you. “I’m sorry for yelling at you like that, we just didn't want you to be mentally ill like those trannies.”
That night, while laying on your bed, you replayed that ‘dream’ in your head again and again, ‘You’ll grow into a beautiful girl’ for some reason it makes your heart tingle a bit as you drift off into slumber.