Alone and unwashed

TW SEXUAL ASSAULT, TRANSPHOBIA, TRANSPHOBIC SLURS, MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES INCLUDING NEGLECTING HYGIENE

“Is nobody going to say it?” Indeed, nobody was. Michael was alone, which ought to have meant he was safe from questions like this, but his mind still formulated them, still thinking back to the time when he wasn’t. When he both wasn’t alone and wasn’t safe from questions, the time not that long ago when Michael was once all too aware of what was said. 

All Michael could do was focus on the words instead of the tangible sensations, the violating hands that gripped him while Michael was asked rhetorical questions: “So that’s what you’ve been hiding, huh? You probably hid behind your clothes because you knew when we found out, you’d end up learning what it really means to be a man. You’re not one; you’re nothing but a he-she. A liar, pretending to be one of us.”

Michael hadn’t said a word, had silently shaken his head as the larger hand squeezed his thigh, moved up his crotch, under his waistband. Michael stayed silent as the questions and insults became simple breathing on Michael’s face, pleasure having stolen the older angry boy’s capacity for words entirely. 

Is nobody going to say it? Or at least insist we get a goddamn room?! Michael wondered. Had not telling his friends that he was transgender really meant he deserved this? Nobody was going to save Michael, that much he knew, but his eyes beseechingly pleaded at the spectators, guy Michael had thought were his friends, to stop this in spite of that knowledge, in spite of Liam’s insistence that they all felt the same about Michael, about how a lying little bitch had infiltrated the friend group. 

Evidently Liam was telling the truth - Michael felt the eyes, two pairs, that avoided his gaze, avoided even peripherally acknowledging what was happening. Two other boys were in the same room, playing some stupid video game on the computer, ignoring the quickening pace of breathing, one caused by pleasure and one by terror, the rustle of Michael’s clothes being removed, and… 

Michael wasn’t still in that room, internally begging for someone, anyone to say a word that countered the narrative he had been fed. He was alone. He was capable of saying it, right? He had lungs and vocal cords; he could have screamed. He could have said something, vocally demanded his friends fucking react to the crime Liam was committing in front of them. Had Michael’s silence meant that he had on some level accepted the reaction because he wanted it? 

Michael didn’t enter that situation having wanted anything besides friendship, besides other guys to hang out with, play video games with. But the longer the friendship lasted, the more Michael began trusting his friends, until Liam had noticed the distinct difference between their bodies when they wrestled, and Michael had tried to explain himself, only for Liam’s reaction to be insults, slurs, and an act Michael couldn’t name even in the safety of his solitude. Is nobody going to say it? Michael had nobody he could trust, nobody he could talk to anymore, nobody to say anything to. But there was a resource he did still have. 

Michael had gone to the internet for help hundreds of times before - that was how he had discovered that being transgender was even an option, that he didn’t have to grow into a woman simply because he had once been a little girl. Still, this wasn’t typing in ‘what is my gender’ quizzes or buying a binder. This wasn’t something he had always known but didn’t know the words for until recently. Michael needed help though. He hadn’t showered in days. He didn’t know where to start, so he started with Wikipedia. He started with the simplest place to start: human sexual activity.

Michael would be lying if he claimed to have actually found the help he needed - he followed the links to the page on sexual assault and then lost his motivation and followed links to pages on sex and the law, eventually reading about laws in countries he had never been to and likely would never go to. It was a good distraction, if nothing else. At least until Michael had to use the bathroom. 

Then he fell back into the cycle of memories he had been trapped in for days - he’d be reminded he lived in a body and then again horrible memories of what had happened to that body washed over him like - well, like what he had been avoiding. He hadn’t been washing himself. Might as well try, he thought, and he did just that. He was able to run the water over him, actually wash at least theoretically for about two minutes before the feeling, the irrational feeling of eyes watching him had him turning the water off and retreating to his clothes.

 Michael briefly thought about how lucky he was that he had already had a double mastectomy, as the ridiculous heat and sweating from his inability to remain naked for more than a few minutes would have been unbearable had he still had breasts. He remembered boob sweat, and at least that memory was slightly different from the one he had been drowning in for days. Only remembering having breasts then reminded Michael of another body part he had, one that disgusted him and made him a goddamn joke, that had him being called a fucking he-she. His private part that wasn’t private, would never feel private again because he had been invaded, violated. Michael curled into himself, knees to his chest, hating everyone and everything about the world. Maybe if he stayed like this, he would stop. Michael felt like the world had stopped spinning, like at some point in that bedroom he had entered an alternate dimension where nothing that happened after was real. Michael didn’t feel real.

Is nobody going to say it? Why can’t I say it? I know what Liam said was wrong, that I didn’t want this, that I’m not - my body doesn’t make me inherently worthless as a human being even if he’s right about me never being a real man; women don’t deserve to be touched that way either, and I would never fucking judge a woman who had gone through this by people she thought were friends - then again women wouldn’t trust a group of guys that easily. Why had I trusted them so easily? What’s wrong with me? I hate myself. Michael’s thoughts spiraled in that direction for minutes at a time, until he fell into an unplanned but very much welcome nap.

Maybe when he woke up, he’d gather the courage to use his words. Google what he already knew deep down but needed some confirmation to actually believe: was I raped?