“Steady.”

They were talking about my breathing. I was both floating through a dizzy haze, and weighted down by sheer aching pain in my chest. The night was freezing, but my stomach was burning. I couldn't quite draw in enough breath to give them mom's number coherently. The men rolling my stretcher into the ambulance kept their eyes above me. I must have appeared to them a mangled mess, but when I peered down over my own body, my vision started to fade and blacken slowly. The dull throbbing in my head was a pair of heavy boots stomping slowly away, slowly into the distance, as I blacked out.

The first week before school started had been literal hell for me. We'd packed up all our stuff and moved to a nice little apartment in Illinois. We had plenty of space for the two of us, a neat little kitchen and a full bathroom. We even had an extra bedroom, that I insisted we turn into a game room, but to know avail . Mom fought the school for hours over the phone, rambling and screaming about my rights as a student, but afterward,she would only give me an icy stare, her tired, grey eyes shadowed with confusion. It hurt to wonder what she was thinking behind those eyes. I knew she was still getting used to things, but it had been a whole summer.

We'd won the fight with the school board, so I strode through the big, beige double doors with confidence. (It also helped that I had on my lucky shirt, a forest green and blue striped polo.) Of course no one sat by me in the commons in the five minutes before class started. I was new, and didn't expect anyone to approach me. I noted the location of the office and the restrooms and grinned to myself at the sight of Doritos in the vending machine. It was a fairly large school, with two levels, grey floors and white walls. Motivational posters covered them with racially diverse teenagers all smiling into the camera. I was late to my first class after spending forever trying to find my locker and room 218. The teacher gave a soft smile as I tried to make myself invisible on entering the room.

“Sorry,” I muttered, finding his eyes to be much kinder than one would expect a teacher to be towards a tardy student. He was short, with broad shoulders and black hair starting to turn silver. It was shocking to hear such a godly bellowing voice come from deep in his gut.

“Well, you must be Tod! Don't worry, son, we're just getting started. Take your seat anywhere.” He gestured to the desks, which of course were full of strangers with all eyes on me. The trick is to sit next to the prettiest girl in the room, so after a quick scan, I found an empty desk next to a gorgeous redhead. This gave the idea that I was confident and open. It worked like a charm and in seconds, she was batting her big pale blue eyes, full lips curved up into a smile.

We were given text books and introduced to the first lesson. Mr. Heckle gave us a syllabus and went through the same spiel that all teachers do. “Don't stick gum under desks, do your homework, take good notes...”

By lunch, I had several people asking if I wanted to sit with them. I wasn't actually planning to buy lunch or eat, because the cafeteria was stained with the pungent odor of the schools mashed potatoes. I longed for the Doritos in the machine, but the smell had my appetite shriveled to nothing.

I sat with a group of three tall guys, a shorter and chubbier one and two lovely ladies, one of which being the aforementioned redhead. They introduced themselves, chuckling stupidly and slapping each other on the back, as Trent, Mitch, Detonator and Fluffy. (I found later in the conversation that Detonator's name was actually Alex, but due to his unbroken wrestling victories, it was common for everyone to refer to him as such.) The two girls introduced themselves as Alicia, (a curvy brunette, that Mitch wrapped his arm around) and Ashley.

“So, stretch,” Trent raised his thick, black eyebrows as he eyed me. “You run track?”

“I'm thinkin' about joining the team this year.” I grinned, leaning forward on the table.

“Dude,” Fluffy chimed in. (It hurt to call him this, but he seemed to embrace the nickname with open arms.) “Let me see your schedule.” The six passed it around, commenting on each class and teacher and making some admittedly rude remarks about the fact that I was taking child care.

“What's wrong with a guy learning to take care of kids? There are other guys in that class.” Ashley hissed, followed by a momentary silence, then smiled brightly as her eyes fell back on the paper. “We have three classes together.”

“Well, what do you know about that?” I purred, giving a wink. Perhaps a bit forward, but she hadn't taken her eyes off me all day.


Within a week, I'd gotten Ashley's phone number and been invited to hang out with the guys after school every day. They were all pretty cool, but I couldn't stand the incessant deep chortling following every sentence. I had friends and a potential girlfriend. I liked all my classes, and was doing pretty well for being the new guy.

I was texting Ashley one night, who was insisting I trim my locks, teasing me about looking like a twelve year old from some one hit wonder boy band, when I sent, “You tease me a lot. One might think you were crushing on me.”

“Maybe I do.” She sent back. I took the opportunity and asked her out, and by the end of the night, we had a date for Saturday.

The day came that I had been dreading, though knew I would have to face at some point. We were to change in the locker rooms for the first time. I got away with this by hiding in the stall. After a few days of this, however, the guys began to tease.

“Weight conscious, Stretch?” Trent had slapped me on the backside and chuckled.

“Nah.” I shrugged, and left it at that. No one questioned me directly, but I overheard mention of it a lot. My ability in basketball had them forgetting the stall thing, and I was showered with praise and approval.

I'd been dating Ashley a while, and it was going pretty good. We went out formally for a while and were just getting to that point where we could hang out at home comfortably. Her parents liked me, which was a big relief. Not that I was some chivalrous gentleman or anything, but I'd had relationships fail in the past due to parents hating me. My own mother liked Ashley just fine, but meeting her freaked Ashley out a bit.

“You look JUST like your mother.” she marveled.

“Thanks.”

We were watching a movie on the couch one night and she was under my arm, cuddled up next to me. It was pretty sweet until out of nowhere, she began kiss me... and kiss me... and before things got too heated, I pulled away, face flushed.

“Look...” I began, swallowing thickly. “I think before anything happens, I need to tell you something.”

She only shrank back a little, a pained look in her eye. “It has nothing to do with you, don't worry, but uh...” My heart began pounding in my ears, which felt on fire. My throat tightened and I squeaked as I spoke. This would be harder to explain to her than it was to my mother.

“I don't exactly have male parts.”

“What?”

“I have a … Look.” I swallowed, trembling hands lifting my shirt to reveal a portion of my binder. When she only stared, I nearly lost it. “I wanted to t-tell you.” I choked on my own throat, feeling both a tinge of guilt and of embarrassment. “But I wanted you to get to know me first.”

“That's disgusting.” She stood to her feet and grabbed her purse and keys from the closet. The, without another word, she left.



I was cornered in the locker room several days later and received a good hassling. Several beefy guys, one being Mitch shoved me into the lockers with a loud 'clang'.

“We don't want you in here. Think you can fool us?”

“We're not stupid, we knew you were a b****.”

“Stay away from Ashley or you'll f***ing choke on it.”

I remained silent until they left. One of them had insisted on ripping my binder off and flushing it down the toilet, while another suggested they throw me into the girls locker room.

I'd gotten called at by random strangers all day and isolated at the same time. Since they didn't know my birth name, they'd begun to chant “Toddella” and “Toddetha.”

By the end of the day I was circled behind a gas station on my way home. I don't remember much of that after my face had soon met the ground, but I remember a kick to the throat and the warm blood soaking through my shirt. The guys fled the scene at the sight of so much blood and I only lay there until the sirens arrived.