Sam

"So what's his name, anyway?" Rose asks after school, as she gently applies makeup over the bruise on her face. We were lucky enough to come home to an empty house, and she's hoping to avoid a conversation about today's events when our parents get home.

I look up from my desk, where I've been staring at my biology homework for the past ten minutes. "Whose name?" I ask.

"Duh. Your crush? Mr. Cute And Good At Writing?"

I roll my eyes. "Why does it matter?"

"It doesn't, really. I'm just wondering if I have any classes with him."

I raise my eyebrows. "That's all?"

"....Alright, no. I want to find him at school tomorrow and see if he's really as cute as you say he is."

I laugh. "I thought so....and his name is Cody."

She turns from the mirror, her injury now hidden fairly well beneath a thick coat of foundation, and her bangs draped casually over her left eye. "Cody...." She says, thinking. "Cody Foster?"

I shrug in response, just now realizing that I don't know his last name.

"Super skinny? Glasses?"

"Yeah, that's him!"

"I think he's in my English class," says Rose, thoughtfully. "He doesn't talk a lot, but a few days ago he told some guys who were making fun of my hair to shut up."

"Really?" I ask, my admiration for Cody growing.

"Yeah. It surprised me, too. They started calling me a girl - you know, as if that's an insult at all, but whatever - and Cody just randomly turns around and tells them to shut the fuck up. Then they all turned on him, of course, but he didn't seem to care."

"Wow," I breathe. Unsurprisingly, there is nothing more attractive to me in someone than when they stand up for my little sister. "Did you thank him?" Like I even have to ask.

Rose blushes. "No."

"Because that would involve talking, right?"

"Talking's hard!"

"Right..." I grin. "Hey, speaking of talking, are you ready for Speech class on Monday?"

Rose groans, clearly having forgotten that our first speeches are due on Monday. "Right, I should probably get that written." She slides my (her) makeup kit back under my bed and pulls her Speech notebook out of her backpack. "What was our topic again?"

I roll my eyes. "We're supposed to write an oration about the media, and if we think it's impacted our generation more positively or negatively."

"Ugh, why is this a required class?" Rose whines, tossing her notebook onto her desk before taking a seat in front of it. She starts moving her pencil across the page immediately, and I'm astonished to see her getting to work so quickly before I notice that she's actually just doodling flowers in the margins.

I consider lecturing her about the importance of developing speaking skills, but decide against it. She's had a hard day. Instead, I return my eyes to my own homework while my thoughts return to Cody.

Cody Foster. What the hell is it about him? I've never had a crush before, so I can't help but wonder....why now? And why a boy? What does this mean? But most importantly....could anyone, let alone him, really like me if they found out who I really am?

It's this question that brings on the hopelessness. Caught up in my thoughts, I allow my eyes to wander unwillingly to the spot Rose just vacated, and the one I try to avoid at all costs: our mirror.

I see the loose strands of long hair that have escaped my bun. My too-narrow face, my cheekbones. The shape of my chest, prominent even in my baggy t-shirt. I flinch.

Rose notices. "Woah, you okay?" she asks, immediately concerned.

I shrug, putting my head in my hands. I can feel the dysphoria setting in like an unwanted dose of heroin pumped into my bloodstream. Everything starts to feel heavy as I sense the edge of a breakdown.

I try to focus on my breathing, and think about pulling out the ace bandage I keep in my sock drawer and binding down my chest, but decide against it. Yeah, binding helps with dysphoria, but it also hurts like a motherfucker with how tight I do it. It's temporary mental relief in exchange for physical pain every time I exhale. So unless I want to bust a rib one day, what I really need is to invest in an actual binder.

"I'm okay," I whisper.

"Sammy, you're shaking!"

I am? Oh yeah....fuck.

I have no idea when I fell off my bed, but suddenly I'm on my knees and my head is inches from the ground. I try to remember what started this, but it's all a blur. Maybe this has been building up for awhile.

Whatever. I'm beginning to feel cold and nauseous. I want to throw up. I want to cut. I want...

Suddenly we hear the rattling of the garage door. Mom's home.

"Crap!" We both cry simultaneously, jumping up.  We both rush to the mirror. She touches up the coverage on her bruise and I yank my stupid hair from its bun. I also wipe away the tears that fell without my knowledge, slowing my breathing to reduce the redness in my face.

The front door opens. "I'm home!" Mom calls, always expecting a response so she'll know that we haven't been murdered by a wild machete wielder, or something.

"We're up here!" I call back. Thankfully my voice is alright, but I still look like I just ran three miles in the hot summer sun, I'm sweating so bad. All the same, Rose and I seat ourselves at our individual desks as if we've been working on homework the entire time. I hope Mom doesn't come up here.

So of course, she does. Our door is wide open since we've been home alone, and she can see us as she ascends the stairs. I position my pencil over my biology homework, trying to recall the order of taxonomy levels.

"Wow, you guys got right to your homework?" Mom asks, leaning in our doorway. "What are you hiding?"

She's obviously joking, but I still feel incredibly nervous, hoping she doesn't notice the signs of my recent panic attack. "Turns out, high school's hard," I remark innocently. "You won't believe the amount of assignments we have that are due Monday, and it's only September!"

"Well it only gets harder from here, so it's good that you're starting these study habits early on," Mom says, nodding appreciatively. "Anyway, I bought groceries. Spaghetti for dinner tonight. Oh, and George," she turns to Rose, who noticeably stiffens. "Get done what you can in the next hour, because when your father gets home he's taking you to get your hair cut."

"What?!" Rose almost shouts, looking up. "No! Why?" Her voice is uncharacteristically defensive, causing Mom to raise her eyebrows disapprovingly.

"Because, he says he's tired of seeing you walk out the door looking like either a homeless kid or a girl," Mom responds. "And frankly, I agree. Though I pry wouldn't put it as vulgarly as he would, I do think your appearance could use some cleaning up."

I glower at my mother, but she doesn't see. She's too busy eyeing Rose, who is positively fuming at this point. "Well....what if I don't want a haircut?" my sister challenges, and I have to hold back a gasp. Her tone is dangerously close to crossing the line between unacceptable and downright rude.

Sure enough- "Don't take that tone with me, young man," Mom warns him. "I know that you've never liked haircuts, but you're far to old now to be throwing tantrums about it. And your father thinks it will help you look nicer, and what he says goes. Understand?"

She never really raised her voice, but her chastising tone held enough power all on its own. Rose's new, daring persona deflates immediately. She slouches in her chair, looks at the ground, and nods.

"Good," says Mom, instantly softening. She hates snapping at us almost as much as she hates being sassed. "I'm sorry if you don't like it, honey, but that's the way it is."

Rose says nothing.

"I promise that when you grow up and move out, you can grow your hair as long as you want. But while you're living here....well, we want our son to look like a boy. Okay?" And on that note she leaves us, being kind enough to close the door behind her.

As soon as she was gone Rose jumps up, yanking her well-grown hair in frustration. She dashes to her bed, throws her face into her pillows, and shrieks a muffled, agonizing sound.

------------

Rose

Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god oh god. That's all that runs through my mind as I scream into my pillows, sobbing and shaking with every negative feeling imaginable. That and, of course, WHY ME? 

"Rose?"

I sit up and Sam is standing over me, his eyes full of concern. I feel horrible, because I can tell that he's still fighting his own sudden wave of dysphoria, but I can't make myself stop freaking out. I can't get my hair cut. I can't. Not after the months it took to grow it out this long. And I just know Dad will have them use the clippers. He always does.

"God Rose....I wish there was something I could do."

I laugh, wiping my eyes. "So do I, man. This....this just sucks."

He nods and hugs me, because that's all he can do. That's all either of us can ever do for each other.

I hug him back, but only briefly. I know that if I dwell on this for too much longer, my head will enter a dark place that I don't want to visit. "I have to get back to my homework," I mutter, after a few seconds, pushing him away. "Are you okay?"

Sam scoffs. "I'm fine Rose. It'll pass like it always does. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I lie, like I'm sure he did too. "I'll...I'll live. I mean," I lift a section of dark hair from where it rests above my shoulders. "I couldn't have believed they'd let this go on forever, right?" I try to laugh it off, even though it hurts like hell, and I turn back to my desk to hide my face.

Sam doesn't know what to say, I'm guessing, so he doesn't say anything. Which, sometimes, is the right answer.

I return to my Speech essay.

The media has had a negative impact on our generation for many reasons, I write, even though my middle school English teachers would probably burn me for that sentence. 'Restating the prompt in place of your thesis' they'd call it, before scrawling a big fat B minus at the top of my paper. I wish I could write as effortlessly as Sam....

Whatever. I spout out some more introductory crap before moving on to my main points. It hardly matters, I suppose, since there's no way in hell I'm presenting this aloud.

Popular media is one of the major influences on gender roles in today's society. Television and movies lay out the expectations of men versus women for society to follow, unknowingly creating internal conflicts for teenagers across the world....

I stop when the ink in my pen, which has been fading for awhile, runs out completely. Sighing, I dig in my backpack in search for another utensil, and my hand just so happens to graze a thin slip of paper while I'm at it.

I pull it out and unfold it. It's Rose Parker's name, a phone number, and a roughly-drawn smiley face. I nearly forgot that I had shoved the paper in my backpack after gym.

I feel a slight smile tug at my dry lips as I think back to our meeting earlier today. How she volunteered to walk me to the nurse when no one else would, how she didn't even blink when I accidentally told her my real name, the way she smiled at me like she actually cared....

Before I know it, I've pulled out my cell phone and am typing her number into my contacts. I only agonize over what I'm going to say to her for a few minutes before deciding to just keep it simple.

NEW MESSAGE: Hey. It's George :)

I hit send. Now I can only wait.

I attempt to return to my speech, but decide that it's pointless and turn my eyes to my phone instead. I stare at the screen displaying the message I just sent, waiting anxiously for a reply like the pathetic loser I am.

I stare.

And wait.

And wait.

Pathetic creep, my brain whispers in disgust. I ignore it.

Yes! The ellipses appear, the little "...." that lets me know she's replying.

ROSE PARKER: Hey! I was starting to think you forgot about me :P

I breathe out a quiet laugh. She was waiting for me to text her. She actually wanted to hear from me.

Now that we're talking, I find that I don't even have to think about what I say next.

ME: Sorry. It's been kind of a bad day since I got home.

ROSE PARKER: Aw, really? Worse than being nailed in the nose by a dodgeball?

ME: Lol. Yeah, a bit worse than that.

ROSE PARKER: What happened??

I hesitate before responding this time, briefly wondering what I've started. I just met this girl today, after all. No matter how nice she seems, she's still a stranger. How much do I plan on telling her?

I decide to just start with the bare minimum.

ME: My dad's making me get a haircut.

I hit send before I allow myself to elaborate, deciding that this will be the first barrier in this newly budding friendship. I haven't technically lied to her yet, but whatever probing questions she asks from here will determine how long that will stay true. I await her reply nervously.

....

Will she ask why that's such a bad thing? Will she agree that I do need a haircut? Have I said too much, and she's already suspicious of my gender identity?

ROSE PARKER: Aw, I'm sorry. Dammit that sucks! It looks so good long, too :(

I exhale in both surprise and relief, grinning ear to ear. My thumbs race across the screen to reply.

ME: Thanks, I think so too. It took me months to get it this long, and now I have to cut it because I don't look "presentable" enough for my parents.

ROSE PARKER: Wtf?! What are you, a houseplant?

I laugh out loud at this, without meaning to.

Sam turns. "What's so funny?" he asks.

"Uh. nothing," I say quickly, clearing my throat. "Just something on Pinterest. I'm just trying to cheer myself up, you know?"

"Oh," says Sam, nodding understandably before returning to his work.

I immediately feel guilty for lying to my brother, even though it was kind of a gut reaction. I'm not sure why I don't want to tell him about Rose Parker, since I'm sure Sam would be thrilled to know I've found someone else in my life I can trust.

ME: Idk what their logic is. Just that they think long hair looks trashy, or girly, or something.

Maybe it's the fact that, for the first time in my life, I have a secret from Sam. This new friend who has my back, and who nobody else knows about. And in a weird way, it feels kind of nice.

ROSE PARKER: Well don't you believe it. Take it from someone who's been called trashy her entire life, your parents are full of shit. You look perfect just the way you are :)

A secret friend. And a real one, not like Kelsey and Brianna, neither of whom I would ever trust with even the fact that I hate getting haircuts.

ME: Thanks. You do, too. Who calls you trashy?

ROSE PARKER: Oh, you met some of them in gym today. I've heard trashy, ugly ginger, dork, etc. It's okay though, I don't let girls like that get to me.

ME: Good. Because you're none of those things :)

ROSE PARKER: Idk, I looked pretty ginger last I checked in the mirror....

I laugh again. God, she's so funny.

I'm about to reply back when my mom calls up to me, "George, your dad's home! Get ready to go, please!" and my mood drops back to where it was before I started texting Rose. I still have to get that stupid, goddamn haircut....

Sam moves to comfort me. I stand up to let him, and he hugs me tight. "It'll be okay," he says. "I know it sucks now, I know it does. But one day we'll be eighteen-"

"Don't say that," I stop him, tears brimming at the thought of how I'll look when I'm eighteen. How deep my voice will be, how much gross, disgusting body hair I'll have. "Please just....don't remind me."

He winces guiltily, leaning back to look me up and down. Back to one of our oldest strategies, it seems. "You're still so small and thin," he says.

I smile, and respond. "I can't even see your boobs through your sweater."

He winces again, this time at the B word (whoops, dammit), but continues with the compliment game. "You're voice isn't even cracking yet."

"And yours is so deep, you could be a dude with long hair."

He chuckles. "Thanks."

"George, let's go!" Dad calls this time.

One last hug. "It'll be okay," Sam says again. "You'll be okay."

We both know that's a lie, but I leave him without saying so.

At the top of the stairs, my phone buzzes.

ROSE PARKER: Hey, you okay?

I sigh. God, I wish I could say yes.

ME: On my way to get my stupid haircut now :'(. Text you later.

....

"George!" Dad says, motioning me downstairs. "Put down your phone, we don't have all day."

Groaning, I follow my Dad out the door, but not before checking my message.

ROSE PARKER: I'll be waiting. And hey...it'll be okay :)

------------

Sam

An hour later, I hear the front door open.

Mom's first words: "Ah, there we go. See? You look so handsome now, Georgie!

"Yeah, I had them clean up the back and sides real nice," Dad says. "Still plenty to work with on top, but at least he looks like a boy now."

And from Rose....nothing. Just as I expected.

"Don't you think it looks so nice now, sweetie?" I hear Mom try, to no avail

"Don't bother," Dad grumbles. "He hasn't said a word to me either. You know how he gets when he's upset." His voice is obviously irritated. "It's the same thing he did after haircuts when he was a toddler, and he still does it. You'd think a fourteen year old kid would've outgrown some of his childish habits...."

I hear Rosie stomp up the stairs without having been dismissed, but there are no repercussions. They know that she needs time. Unfortunately, they don't know that her needs are a bit more complicated than that.

Rose storms into our room with her hood over her head, and tears streaming down her face.

"Rose..." I reach for my sister, but she shoves past me and falls face first onto her bed. Her cries match those of a girl whose beloved pet had just died.

"Rose, come on," I beg. "Please talk to me."

But she ignores me.

"At least let me see. I know you hate it, but I promise it's not as bad as you think it is."

She sits up to look at me, her face red with sadness and anger. The she yanks down her hood to reveal the same haircut Dad always gets her, with a clean back and sides, and barely enough bangs to cover her face. The same haircut I've always wanted.

"It's not so bad?" she asks, incredulously. "I hate it! It's fucking ugly and I hate it--" she breaks off into more sobs, and I give up trying to reassure her it's okay. I know how it is with dysphoric attacks, how even things that might not be so bad are magnified to seem like the worst way things could be. The things on your chest seem to stick out abnormally large, or in this case, a boyish haircut is unquestionably butch.

"Sam," she says suddenly, wiping the tears from her eyes. "Does it...does it work?"

"What?"

"You know what," she takes a deep breath, trying to calm herself. " You did it the day you got your period. You've done it a few times. And I need to know right now....does it make it go away?"

I inhale sharply when I realize what she's asking me. No...she can't be seriously considering....no.

"Rose!" I exclaim, making her jump. "Don't you dare be suggesting what I think you are."

"Sam, I just-"

"No." I won't let her even think it. It's my fault that self harm even crosses her mind as often as I'm sure it does. And I certainly won't answer her question. Not when the truth is that yes, it does work. It makes that awful feeling we both know too well go away, it always has. That's why I did it, for that soothing, if temporary, relief.

Rose bites her quivering bottom lip as more tears pour down. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I'm just....god, I'm so desperate. It hurts so much-"

"Well, what I did only made it hurt worse," I tell her. And that is the truth, as every time the relief wore off, the pain of dysphoria would return worse than ever before. Because then it would be accompanied by guilt. "It doesn't help, Rose. There are better ways. I promise."

She nods in resignation, looking to the ground in shame. "I'm sorry," she repeats. But I know it's a farce, that self harm hasn't really been cast from her list of options. And it probably never will be, all thanks to me and what I did in seventh grade, and have continued to do at my weakest moments over the years.

"No, I'm sorry," I tell her. I move to hug her, and this time she lets me. "No more of that subject, okay? For either of us."

She nods, and I nod, and both of us lie through our teeth to make the other feel better. Like we always do.