ALL NOVEL 6. Day 22, Noon
"Come on Kevin," I sighed, "Just talk to me ok? I want to help."
The sound of crying from inside his room paused long enough for him to scream "Fuck you! I hate you, I hate everything!"
Then the sobbing resumed.
I sighed again, "Well if you change your mind I'll be in my room. I just want to help. I'm here for you little brother."
He didn't reply, so I went back into my room and flopped on the bed.
Kevin was freaking out. Cheryl was freaking out. And mom was ignoring them both. She was ignoring me too, but at least I was marginally prepared for the situation.
All three of us hit our first period this weekend. Cheryl was the first, hers started yesterday morning. Then mine began last night, and Kevin's was this morning.
I had my first bit of nausea last night after dinner, and originally I thought I'd eaten something that disagreed with me. Then there were some cramps and I started to suspect. And when I got undressed for bed, I found the blood spots and knew exactly what was happening.
Fortunately I guessed this was going to happen, and as soon as the stores opened up and people were going crazy buying clothes again I stocked up on pads.
Now almost half the human race would be having their first period, and we were one of the few families who weren't scrambling for feminine protection or whatever euphemisms they used on TV.
The thing that pissed me off the most wasn't Kevin being stubborn, or Cheryl freaking out. It was mom.
I asked her about this stuff a week and a half ago and she flat out refused to discuss it. She also refused to say why she didn't want to talk about it, but I could read the subtext. She still saw me as a guy. As her son.
And at the same time she still treated Cheryl like a stranger, like some girl who showed up and moved in with us. Cheryl lived in the guest-room now, she and mom hadn't hugged or kissed or even touched since the phenomenon happened three weeks ago.
For the first two weeks when Cheryl was still trying to be a guy, mom insisted on seeing her as a girl. Yet at the same time while I'd spent the past three weeks insisting I was a girl, mom still thought of me as a guy. And I was losing my patience with her about the whole thing. She was basically just going with whatever was the most painful, the most hurtful, because she was a bigoted queerphobic bitch.
She paid lip service to me and Cheryl, like she'd use the names and pronouns we asked. But deep down inside she still treated me like a guy while I wanted to be seen as a girl. And she treated Cheryl as a girl when she wanted to be seen as a guy. And now that Cheryl embraced her femininity, mom basically stopped talking to her at all.
So I had to figure all this stuff out without my mom's help. I learned everything I could off the internet, and thank goodness for places like Planned Parenthood and Teen Vogue because they were there to pick up the ball when parents like mom dropped it.
Which meant last night when I had my first cramps and stuff, at least I knew what was coming and I knew what to do about it. I talked to Cheryl and found out it already started for her. And Kevin wouldn't discuss it. Now he was experiencing it and he still wouldn't talk about it.
And it fell on my shoulders to teach Cheryl what to do and how to deal with it, which was not a task I was mentally or emotionally prepared for. But I did it anyways, because mom sure as fuck wasn't going to help.
Now I wanted to help my little brother with it too, but he was too upset. He was freaking out about this even more than he did about the change in the first place.
I sighed as I lay back on my bed. I was supposed to head off for college next week, but I was having a lot of second-thoughts. Last month I couldn't wait to get away from my family so I could transition on my own. Now it felt like Kevin and Cheryl needed me more than ever. They needed me to help them adjust and keep everything together.
The other thing weighing heavily on my mind was from the news last night. They were saying it was up to forty percent now, the number of former men who either accepted or were 'thinking about accepting' their new situation. It was only three weeks ago that the whole thing happened, now almost half the guys in the world had accepted that they'd become girls. They were picking new names and starting to wear women's clothes and stuff.
Just three weeks after it happened and stores were already scaling back their selection of mens clothes.
That made me worry more for Kevin. On the one hand I worried what he'd do if he couldn't get new clothes he liked. But on the other hand I worried what would happen to my little brother if he decided to 'give up and stop fighting' the way Cheryl did.
It felt like there just weren't any good answers, and all I could do was worry.
At least Cheryl was doing better with some stuff. She was doing ok with work, and she seemed happy enough with her new life. As the clothing shortage ended she even bought herself some skirts and blouses and things like that. She wasn't going hardcore girly or anything, but she was exploring and figuring herself out.
Personally the only new clothes I spent much money on were shoes, panties, and bras. I was still using the sewing machine on a regular basis and I'd become pretty good at turning old guy clothes into new girl clothes. I wasn't going to win any fashion contests, but it was functional and I saved money. And it gave me something to do.
The sound of renewed crying from my brother's room brought my mind back to the stuff I was worried about most. It felt like our family was on the verge of falling apart and I seemed to be the only one even bothering to do anything about it.
My parents' relationship had completely disintegrated. Now Kevin was having a breakdown about his first period, and I knew that was just going to keep happening every month. I was seriously worried what would happen to my family if I wasn't here for them.
And part of me resented that. This was mom's job. She was supposed to be here emotionally supporting the rest of us.
Instead she just seemed to exist, she bought the groceries and made the meals, but she didn't talk. She didn't want to talk. She treated Cheryl like a stranger, she acted like she still thought of me as a guy which alienated me and made it hard for me to deal with her, and she only interacted with Kevin when it was a safe 'normal' subject. Anything to do with the phenomenon or how we'd all changed, mom would just shut down.
I knew it was depression, she was showing the symptoms. And we all knew it wasn't just her, the TV news was always there telling us the grim statistics and stuff. Suicides were still way up. Depression and anxiety were way up.
Ontop of everything else, it was clear the world was heading into a huge mental health crisis. But nobody was doing anything about it. The government was treating mental health the same as always. They paid lip service when they were put on the spot, then went back to ignoring it.
And mom refused to talk about what was going on with her. In spite of everything I wanted to help her. I tried to help her, but mom refused. So I didn't know what else to do.
So there I was, thinking about giving up or postponing my education so I could stay with the family I was desperate to get away from, so I could take mom's place and look after all three of them and try to keep us all together.
And this was just us, just one family of four. Multiplied across the whole country, or the world, I was amazed that society hadn't already completely fallen apart.
"What a clusterfuck," I said to myself.
I tried to distract myself, I grabbed a book I'd been attempting to read for the past three weeks and wasted another fifteen or twenty minutes failing to get into that. Eventually I gave up and tucked the bookmark back into the same place it'd been all month.
Next I looked at my phone, I checked my messages and emails, but there was nothing new. I hadn't been on Twitter for a while, but couldn't bring myself to give it another try. I stopped going there because it got too depressing, there was too much hate and doom and gloom.
Discord was better, at least the servers I was on. Instead of being all doom and negativity, most folks on there were trying to be positive and helpful. At the very least you could see all the regulars being supportive of each other.
Though the fact that so many people needed that support was still kind of crushing. Trans guys weren't changed, but nobody was unaffected. And in some places, being a trans guy wasn't safe. Like for one thing you stuck out like a sore thumb, if you were a guy everyone knew you were trans. And gay guys had it bad. If they were cis, they weren't guys anymore. And no matter who you were, if you were attracted to men you were pretty much out of luck now.
I found myself getting depressed. Whether I looked at my family or at the world in general, it was too much for me to deal with. As much as I hated to admit it I needed to talk to someone, and right now the only person who wasn't locked in their room crying into a pillow was mom.
She was in the living-room, sitting on the sofa watching some movie on TV. I stayed quiet at first as I sat down to watch with her. I quickly determined it was some dramatic romance. There was lots of angst and longing and within ten minutes I could tell there was some sort of love quadrangle.
The two female leads were each secretly in love with each other's husband or boyfriend or whatever. And apparently the two guys felt the same, and like the movie could have been over in fifteen minutes if the characters just fucking talked to each other, but instead they had to drag it out with lots of innuendo and longing glances and a dump-truck full of guilt and tears.
Since I really wasn't in it for the story I found myself thinking about what I was watching in a different way. Movies and TV shows were starting to feel weird. Like they were all made before the phenomenon and it made them feel so awkward and fake. Like they depicted a world that was no longer real, a world where there were men and boys and most of the cast were in their thirties or forties.
That wasn't our world. Not anymore.
Eventually the movie ended and the credits started to roll. I turned towards my mom and asked, "Mom? Can we talk for a bit?"
She looked at me for a few moments, then shook her head and said "Not right now. I need some time to myself."
Then she looked back at the TV and picked up the remote. She was on some streaming site and as I watched she clicked to the next movie in the 'Romance' tab and hit play.
"Ok," I mumbled as I got to my feet.
I shuffled out of the living-room as I blinked back some tears. I told myself it didn't mean anything, I reminded myself she was suffering and struggling, but damn that hurt. Like my own mother would rather sit there and watch ten-year-old romance movies on Netflix than talk to her child.
I stood in the hall for a few minutes as I tried to decide what to do with myself. I didn't want to go sit in my room again, and I sure didn't want to sit in the living-room with mom anymore. Kevin was probably still crying and feeling sorry for himself, same with Cheryl.
The whole house suddenly felt dark, stuffy and oppressive, and after three weeks of trying to stay positive and trying to help my parents and my little brother, I realized I'd reached my limit. I needed some time to take care of myself, and I couldn't do that at home.
I hurried up the stairs to my room to grab my phone and wallet and keys, then as I made my way back down the stairs I stuffed everything in my jeans pockets.
"I'm going out for a while," I called out to no-one in particular as I headed for the front door. And without waiting for a response I stepped outside and started walking towards the park next to the ravine.
