Teach Me How to Fly

“Go, Wells!” somebody shouts. “You can do it!”

But I can’t. I’m only even still in the game because everybody tries to score hits on the popular kids.

I back into the far corner of the field, my body tense, never taking my eyes off the kid with the ball. Our eyes meet. I can feel my heartbeat. I could count it.

By the time I realise that the ball’s in the air, it’s already too late. I don’t even move and the ball hits me square on the chest.

“Wells!” my whole team groans in unison.

The teacher blows her whistle and seconds later the bell rings and we leave for the locker rooms.

Henry pats me on the back. “You’ll get it next time.”

Except I won’t.

“He won’t,” Leon says from his other side. He seems to agree with me.

With just a few steps, he disappears into the crowd ahead of us.

Henry shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s just a game.”

We arrive in the locker room and the door closes behind us. I stop by my locker, open it and begin to change.

Somebody says, “Ew, Wells! You’re in the wrong locker room!”

My face flushes. I turn around, frowning, try to spot the person who said it. But I can’t pinpoint the voice to a single face. They’re all grinning, though. Because they think it’s funny.

“I heard the virus comes for weak boys first. The way you play dodge ball it’s only a matter of time until it you’re changed.”

“Maybe he wants it and that’s why he’s playing so bad. There’s no way he’s really that bad, right?”

Everybody laughs.

“Wells wants to be a girl!”

The heat on my face grows deeper.

“No I don’t!” I shout, but they don’t listen.

“The virus wouldn’t even have to change anything about you,” somebody laughs.

“We should call her Wellsie from now on,” somebody else says.

They start chanting. “Wellsie! Wellsie! Wellsie!”

I turn away from them and go back to changing. Ignore them, I tell myself. You’ll prove them wrong.

They continued using the name on and off for the next two years until the teachers finally caught on and threatened serious repercussions. And even after that, I always knew what they were thinking. I wasn’t ever popular until recently. I was never chosen for a team in PE until recently.

And now? Now I’m sitting in Mum’s car, staring out of the window, watching the dunes race past, and I know that all their teasing is going to come true.

I am going to become a girl.

Or I’m supposed to, anyway.

Mum’s already bought the medication to slow down the virus. I’ll take the first dose later. But the effects of the virus will still show. Not immediately, but it’s only a matter of time.

Weeks? Months?

How long is it going to take until everybody judges me for something that was never my choice to begin with?

Will they see that I didn’t choose this? Will they see the nightmare I’m trapped in or will they only see what I’m going to turn into over the next months?

I want to throw up.

Mum puts her free hand around mine and gives it a light squeeze.

I pull my hand away.

She takes hers back and sighs.

“I know this isn’t going to be easy,” she says then. “But we’re always going to love you, okay? No matter what happens. Please remember that.”

I don’t say anything.

What good does their support do me if I don’t even have my own support? I already hate my body for the way it’s going to change. I already feel like my skin is crawling off my flesh. I’m going to hate myself! It’s going to be the worst year of my entire life!

And they say you should enjoy your youth. Good luck with that.

At least the side effects of the virus, the dizziness spells are going to go away once I start taking the medication.

We arrive home and I immediately make for my room.

“Do you want to tell Dad yourself?” Mum calls after me when I’m already on the stairs, medication in hand.

I want to throw up. She’s so eager, isn’t she?

“Admit it,” I say, my voice hard. “You’re secretly happy I’m turning into a girl.” Because girls aren’t as good at parkour. Like she’s already getting ready to parade me around town. Am I gonna wake up to a closet full of dresses tomorrow? Is she gonna try and teach me make up?

Her face falls. “Wells, that’s a horrible thing to just say about me.” Her tone is very serious, but even now she’s not angry. She looks like she’d like to be angry right now, but is still holding back. For my sake.

I want to throw up even more.

“I want you to be happy, okay?” she says now. “Even if you might not always realise, all I care about is you and your well-being. And I hope you’ll appreciate that sometime.” There it is, finally. The snappiness in the last sentence shows just a little. She barely ever takes that tone with me. But she did just now. Because I hurt her feelings.

But I can’t apologise. Not right now. Later.

So I don’t say anything more and disappear up the stairs and lock myself in the bathroom.

I lean over the sink and inspect my face in the mirror, feverishly search for visible differences. Have my eyes changed? My eyebrows? My cheeks? My lips?

I can’t tell. It looks normal enough, right now. I’ve never really been one to extensively look at myself in the mirror. Well, not at my face, anyway. And I don’t really take selfies, either.

Should I start now? So I’ll remember the way I look?

My face won’t ever completely go back. The medical procedures may take the virus out of your body, but they can’t change the bone structure. Hormones will take care of a lot, but not everything.

I take out my phone, open the camera app, raise my arm and take a selfie. Then I look at it.

I hate it.

A quick movement of my finger deletes the photo and I put my phone away again.

Then I lean in again and try to commit that face in the mirror to my memory.

A narrow but sharp jaw, that’s going to change. Prominent, thick eyebrows. Are they going to change, too? Probably, right? Hair growth is supposed to be one of the first things to change. The hair on top of your head grows very fast and everywhere else it slows down. It doesn’t stop except for the beard, but it definitely slows down.

Gently, I trace my jawline with a finger. No stubble. I’ve never really had a lot of beard growth, so I’m not going to lose much there.

I do have pimples, though. Not on an acne level, but definitely enough to alter my appearance. That’s going to change too, isn’t it? There’s gotta be at least something positive to this. Not that it helps me deal with this much.

My eyes are grey. They aren’t going to change, are they? I wish they would. Grey eyes are so boring.

Slowly, my eyes shift down to my shoulders. They are going to change, no doubt about it. I’d have to have the surgery within the next two months and even then I’d lose muscle. Probably none of the bone mass, though.

Finally, I open the carton I brought. There’s a dispenser inside, a little like for soap. It’s a sort of gel, the doctor told me. There are pills, too, but at the rate I’m going to take them, my liver’s probably going to collapse. And anyway, the doctor said the gel was more effective anyway, because that way, the medicine goes right through the skin and into the bloodstream.

What did he say again? Four pumps?

The gel is see-through, cool against my skin as I spread it over my upper arms.

And that’s supposed to have an effect?

For a whole while I just stand there and watch my arms as the gel slowly disappears into my skin. I’ll have to do that every morning and every evening now. For at least a year.

Strangely, the anger has gone away by now. I feel hollow. Like I want to go to my room and never come out again. Never talk to another human being again.

But that’s not an option, obviously. Mum will want to talk. I already hate the thought. She always does that. Talk. It’s not like it doesn’t help ever. But she doesn’t seem to understand that there’s times when I just don’t want to talk. Especially not to her. She wouldn’t understand for so many reasons. She’s my mother. She’s a woman. She was never picked on for being ‘girly’. Not that I know, anyway.

The weather outside is still wonderful. Like nature doesn’t even care in the slightest about what’s happening to me.

And that’s the moment I decide to go outside. Because I really don’t want to continue feeling awful. Because I hate this.

Maybe the sun will help me think of something different.

Quickly, I get my headphones from my room, plug them in and turn on the music. Something loud and energetic. Something that lets me forget my thoughts.

I ignore the texts Henry sent me and make my way downstairs, take my shoes and leave. I think Mum says something when I walk past her, but I can’t make myself turn around. I can’t live in this reality right now.

The air outside is hot. But it’s a pleasant kind of hot. There’s a lot of wind. Still, it’d be too hot to do any hard work.

What luck I plan on doing anything but.

I find the wooden walkway through the dunes and follow it until I can see the sea. The view does little to make me feel better, even though I have to admit that it’s pretty. The way the light is reflected in the waves makes it precious. Like liquid diamond, maybe.

I can see the sea from my room, too. Our house is a little up a hill, so most rooms have on the east side have a good view on it.

Would I find this pretty if I hadn’t grown up here? Would I like it, rather. Would it make me feel better?

Ugh. I’m being so melodramatic.

I turn up the music and let myself drop at the foot of a dune. I should’ve brought sunscreen, I realise, but I’m not going back.

I close my eyes but the sun is still too bright, so I place my right arm over it. But my thoughts won’t shut up. I have to actively sing along the music in my head to block them out. That does the trick, though. Now it’s nice. Warm and dark, noisy and calm still.

Somebody taps on my shoulder. I take the arm off my eyes and try to look at the person, but the sun blinds me and I have to close my eyes again. Awkwardly, I roll onto my stomach and fumble the headphones out of my ears.

Then I look again.

Henry.

Right. Who else?

“Hi,” I say.

He grins. “Hi, shitface.”

He drops a bottle of sunscreen right in front of me. “Why didn’t you answer my texts?” he asks then, finally sitting in the sand next to me.

“What texts?” I ask, then remember. I didn’t read them.

“I asked you about your ankle.” He grins. “And whether you wanted to go to the beach.”

I don’t grin back, though. The knowledge of what’s about to happen presses down my thoughts. I’ll have to tell him, don’t I? There’s no way he won’t realise. And there’s no way he’ll make fun of me either, right? At least I know him well enough to be sure of that part.

I still hate the fact that I’ll have to tell him, though. Because I don’t want him to feel pity for me. I don’t want to be the poor guy who caught the virus.

“So, what happened?” Henry asks, lying back, still looking at me.

He’s not dumb, obviously. Of course he’s figured out by now that something must’ve happened for me to act this way. I don’t really ever go to the beach without telling him.

I notice that I’m absently playing with the sunscreen bottle in my hands and stop.

“I have the virus.”

There. And now the truth is out. My stomach goes light for a second. Four simple words and my life will never be the same. Our relationship will never be the same. I will never be the same.

I glance in his direction. He’s sat back up and our eyes meet. I can’t read his expression.

“And you don’t like that, do you?” His voice is cautious, like he’s not sure how I expect him to react to the news.

I gawk at him. “Are you kidding? Remember how everybody used to say I’d get the virus?”

“Fuck them if they still give you shit for something like that. This isn’t about them.” He says it immediately, like the words were waiting inside his mouth.

I hesitate for a moment. “Of course I don’t want to be a girl. I’ll lose all the progress I’ve made in parkour. I’ll shrink. I don’t even like boys.”

I feel his gaze consider me for a long moment, then he shrugs. “I’m just saying. If they give you shit, they’re not worth your time. It’s not your fault after all.”

My thoughts exactly. But if I know for a fact that it isn’t, why does it still feel like it is?

“So…” Henry says after I haven’t said anything for a while. “What’s the plan now?”

I look around. There are a few families closer to the water, but really not that many. The prime time for tourism is already past. Not like there is all that much here to begin with. The weather out here is known for how quickly it can change. Not exactly ideal for a beach vacation.

“I already took my first dose of the meds.” I shrug. “I guess I’ll just have to try my best to keep my strength. Work harder….” I know it’s a Sisyphus task. I know I don’t really stand a chance, but if I can at least keep a little more strength than normal, wouldn’t that make it worth it?

Henry grins. “Guess we’ll work out together, then, huh?”

But I don’t grin still.

“Can you promise me something?”

The breeze gets stronger but it’s still not cold. Not by a long shot. It should be cold right now. It should be rainy.

But it’s not.

“What?” Henry asks, blinking into the sun.

“Promise me that our relationship won’t change because of this. Promise me that we’ll stay the same.” Because if we manage that, then no matter what the rest of the world says, I’ll always have Henry.

He gives me a light slap on the back, his grin broad and confident.
“Of course, bro. I promise.”

And finally, I smile.

I’ll have Henry.