NOVEL NEXT Chapter 10 – Running away
Ever since I was a child I have always felt like something was missing from my life but I didn’t really understand what it was since there was no one in my family willing to teach me anything that might upset the status quo. That was until one day about five years ago when I was playing outside with my friends and one of them gathered us together to talk to us.
‘Hey, I know this is a bit sudden but I hope you all will accept me for who I am’ Suzie, that wasn’t their name at the time but what it was isn’t important anymore, said a bit nervously. I was confused as to why she was so nervous since, even though she had always been a bit shy, she had long since gotten used to the group and stopped being so shy. She took a deep breath before continuing ‘I am trans.’
‘Trans? What’s that?’ I asked immediately, my confusion not gone at all, since I had never heard that term before.
Everyone looked at me weirdly before Suzie spoke up again ‘I have always been uncomfortable with being called a boy and wished I could be a girl. One day I secretly tried on some of my sister’s clothes and it made me really happy, after thinking about it I realised that I am a girl, it's just that my body was born male. That is what I mean when I say that I am trans.’
I was still a bit confused but I understood enough to know that I should be supportive so I nodded my head and said, ‘Oh ok, I understand now.’
‘Thanks, my new name is Suzie and I use she/her pronouns now.’ Suzie said, we all agreed to call her Suzie and went back to playing around.
Over the next hour our group started to go home one by one until it was just me and Suzie left. We were both tired and most of the games we could play required more than two people to play them so we walked back home together. As we were walking neither of us were talking and I was still really confused about a few things but I decided to ask about one of them. ‘Why were you so nervous about telling us that you were trans?’
Suzie looked at me again before thinking for a minute, ‘Well some people out there don’t like anything that is different to them and that being trans is an affront to nature.’
This surprised me so I was quiet for a minute before saying ‘Well that’s dumb, you are who you are. I would never judge anyone for just being themselves.’ As I said that Suzie smiled and we went back to walking home in silence.
A month later I was still confused about Suzie’s situation but I didn’t think she would be comfortable with the questions that I wanted to ask. Instead I called over the rest of the boys in the friend group one day and when we got to my bedroom and settled down I asked them ‘Hey, I was thinking about Suzie and I thought that every boy secretly wanted to be a girl. She made it sound like it was rare, do you guys not also feel the same way?’
All my friends looked at me like I had gone insane before Fred, a buff guy that had been my friend since we were babies, said ‘No, I don’t think any of us feel that way. Do you?’
‘Yeah, of course I do but I thought it was normal. It just felt normal to want to be a girl.’ I said, still a bit confused ‘I have always been jealous that the girls got to wear pretty dresses and look pretty while I was stuck looking like this.’
‘It’s definitely not normal and if you feel this way then you are probably trans.’ Fred said, none of them were being weird about it, they were actually very kind. We talked for a while longer before they left to go home for dinner. I spent the next hour laying on my bed thinking about what we discussed before I concluded that I was most likely also trans.
It was dinner time by then so I went downstairs to talk to my parents about it, they were always accepting and were supportive of me. I stupidly thought that support would carry over to me being trans. While we were eating dinner I worked up the nerve to tell them ‘Um, so I have been thinking, you know my friend that recently came out as trans? Well I have been thinking about what they said and I think I might also be trans. Could you call me Val for a while to see if I like it?’
The whole room went completely silent as everyone looked at me like I had gone insane before my father put his knife and fork down and stood up, grabbed my arm and practically dragged me upstairs to my bedroom before shouting ‘You had better be joking right now!’
I was shocked so I just opened and shut my mouth like a fish for a minute before I felt anger rising up in me and shouting back ‘What do you mean joking? There is nothing wrong with being trans!’
At this my father was even more shocked before shouting ‘Nothing wrong with it? Everything is wrong with it. You are born the way you are and to deny that is to deny nature. The whole thing is completely unnatural’
As he said this everything that had happened clicked and I realised that I had been a fool to think they would be accepting of me. Being told off for wanting to wear a dress, not being allowed to go to sleep overs with the girls, constantly being told that I was a boy and that’s all I’d ever be suddenly made sense. They were the people that Suzie had warned me about, the realisation made me even angrier.
The anger made me stop thinking altogether so I kept on arguing with him ‘This world is full of magic that isn’t natural. Is fire appearing out of thin air natural? What about creatures like owlbears? How can you say that a creature with the head of a bird and a body of a bear is fine but you draw the line at people changing how they look? What about creatures that naturally change their sex depending on their environment?’
‘Magic can’t change who you are on the inside no matter what you think or what other people say.’ My dad said, raising his voice again and slapping me across my face. ‘Don’t ever bring this nonsense up ever again while you live under my roof.’ I knew that if I said anything I would just get hit again and nothing I said could get through to him so I let him leave my room before jumping onto my bed and screaming into my pillow.
Over the next few years I was miserable as I had to watch as Suzie transitioned while I couldn’t even hint at being trans at risk of being beaten by my father. I didn’t blame Suzie for it at all obviously my feelings had nothing to do with her, most of my anger went to my family for being so stupid. I had told my friends about my situation and they were all sympathetic and agreed to call me Val while my parents weren’t around but I still felt like shit.
It all got worse when my body started to grow body hair and the differences between me and the other girls got wider and wider. This got so bad that I started to lock myself up in my room and refuse to go out. Thinking back on it I am surprised that my friends stayed around me but they knew what I was going through and supported me through all of it.
When I was seventeen I had finally had enough of being miserable and doing nothing but I knew nothing would change my parents views of my situation. Instead one night I snuck out of the house and went to Suzie’s house, when I got there I started to throw pebbles at her window until she opened it and looked down at me, ‘What are you doing here? I haven’t seen you for five months and it’s the middle of the night.’ Suzie said, rightfully confused and a little sleepy.
‘I was hoping you could tell me where you went to help you transition. My parents refuse to let me transition but I refuse to live this lie any longer.’ I explained hoping that she would help me. ‘It’ll be hard to keep this a secret from them but I have to try.’
Suzie looked into my eyes for a minute but my determination didn’t waver. After seeing that I was serious she gave me a nod before saying ‘Hold on a sec I just need to get dressed and then I will introduce you.’ Suzie said before disappearing into her room. Two minutes later she opened her door and walked past me while indicating that I should follow.
As we walked I looked over at her, her jaw was still angular but in a feminine way, her blonde hair went down to her waist and she had curves in all the right spots. It fit the woollen red cape and black silk dress that she was wearing. This was a huge difference from the short, kind of chubby teen she had been two years ago but the starkest difference was how confident she had become.
Before she would always walk behind one of her friends while looking everywhere as if someone might jump out of a shadow and attack her. Now she was walking in front of me while staring ahead of her without a shred of hesitation. I hoped that my transition would help me become even half the woman she was now.
‘So, where are we going?’ I said after we had been walking for a while.
‘We are going to a potion maker that sells potions that can permanently change your body however you desire.’ Suzie explained ‘They not only sell potions that will change your body from male to female or female to male but can also customise the potions to give you whatever features you want. Like if you want a certain size chest or if you want to be slim, big, have big muscles or small muscles they can change the potion to fit your needs.’
We walked for a few more minutes before we came across the potion shop. We walked in and Suzie went up to the seller and said ‘Hi, my friend is here wants to start their transition and I recommended you since you have been so good to me.’
The clerk looked up at me for a second before saying ‘alright I just have some questions for you and then we can get started.’ in a kind voice.
Over the next thirty minutes I awkwardly answered her questions before she went into the back to grab seven potions, ‘Take one of these a day before you go to sleep, you should see some changes after a month but all the effects take about two years to finish.’
I thanked her before paying for the potions and rushing home. By this point I had been out of the house so long that I was starting to worry that someone might notice that I wasn’t there. The potion was a bit expensive but I would be able to buy it on my allowance. I started to get into the habit of going out every Sunday and getting my weeks’ worth of potions before coming back and hiding them under my bed.
The changes felt slow at first but I could definitely tell that they were happening and I started to like my body more and I even started to act like I had before I shut myself off. I went out of my room more often and even started to meet with my friends again and my depression started to clear up. Everyone mentioned how happy I suddenly was and how they were glad that I was back to normal.
Unfortunately it couldn’t last, at first my parents thought that I had ‘finally gotten over that stupid trans stuff’ as they put it. Unfortunately a year after my transition they got suspicious and looked through my room while I was out of the house with some friends. They ended up finding both my feminine clothes that I had slowly gathered over the past year as well as that weeks’ potions.
When I got back that night they confronted me about what they had found and I explained everything, not really seeing the point in lying anymore. When I started this I knew that I wouldn’t be able to hide it forever as eventually the changes would become obvious. But I hoped that when they found out they would see how happy it had made me and accept me for who I am or at least not hurt me.
Unfortunately I was wrong, they were absolutely furious with me, they burned all of my clothes that were even slightly feminine, refused to let me out of their sight and locked my room at night so that I couldn’t run away again. No matter how much I didn’t want to admit it, this incident made me realise that they would never change their mind and see me for who I truly was.
One night when I was sure they were asleep I gathered my savings, packed my clothes, including a dress that they luckily hadn’t found, broke my window and jumped out of it. I landed roughly, probably causing a few bruises, but I knew how to tuck and roll so it wasn’t too bad. The first place my parents would look for me would be my friend’s house and I didn’t want to get them in trouble so instead I ran towards the woods.
The first thing I did was find a small alley that gave me a bit of privacy and changed into my dress before going to the general store and getting as much trail rations as I could afford, a backpack and a waterskin. I didn’t know exactly where I was going but I didn’t really care as long as it was away from that town.
I didn’t really know the forest all that well as I had never left the town for longer than a day before. Somehow I managed to make it to the nearest town and asked around for a temporary job, a kind old alchemist let me work under them as an aid. Unfortunately I didn’t know if my parents were coming after me so after a month I moved on to the nearest town. I hopped from town to town like this for over a year, eventually celebrating my twentieth birthday by myself, before my luck ran out.
I had wandered too far off the path and came across a group of four goblins. They noticed me at the same time I noticed them so I couldn’t sneak away. Instead I ran as fast as I could in a random direction, not caring that my dress was getting torn by branches. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to look at where I was going and tripped over a rock before slamming my head against the ground causing the world to turn black as I lost consciousness.