cinderblock garden - muke

one

"do you think she knows shes not a guy?" jack whispered to his friend oliver, just loud enough for luke to hear him, purposely trying to irritate the 17 year old
"he has ears, barakat" louise's only friend, ashton responded sharply
"oooooh he speaks" oliver chuckled
"wrong pronoun, dumbass" luke snapped "i didnt think you were that stupid"

louise and ashton had met at a support group for teens in the LBGT+ community, ashton was shy at first, being the only transgender in the group, but when louise was forced into the community centre by his mother, ashton felt more confident to opem up and tell her story. she was born three months before louise, her parents named her ashton, the name she despised for four years of her life. after she had gone through her transition she adopted the name ashlynn, despite it being similar to her previous name, anything was better than ashton.

louise was envious that ashlynn had finished her transition, whereas his mother was still attempting to put his own transition off, which she has successfully done for six months. louise was on a very large doseage of T and had worn a binder up until two months previous. he felt free, without a binder trying to oppress who he never wanted to be. his peers were narrow minded, disliking his choice, using the wrong pronouns, calling him louise instead of luke. he hated all of them.

luke always paid attention to his education, blocking out any transphobic slurs from his peers and his teachers. the one lesson he hated with every fibre of his being was sex-ed, having a 70 year old male teacher who spurted out more homophobic and transphobic comments than everyone else in the hell hole of a school was not luke's ideal thing.

"louise, would you stop distracting mr barakat and mr sykes and pay attention!" the 70 year old teacher shouted at him
"its actually luke" he replied, earning a stern look from the devil himself
mr hilton ignored his response and continued to explain the subject of the sex-ed lesson "today" he began, a devilish grin painted on his wrinkled face "we will be learning about gender identity, as it seems some students do not seem to understand this, and feel as if it is okay to believe they are something they were not born as."

luke and ashlynn shrunk into their seats, there was no dount that this lesson was aimed at the duo who were attempting to hide their faces from the judgemental looks they were recieving from 20+ high school students.

"miss hemmings here at the front with mr irwin know something on this topic as it is apparent to many of you sitting in this classroom" satan smiled menacingly "louise, why dont you begin? tell us why you believe you can choose whether youre male or female?"
"i'd rather n-not" he whispered, what mr hilton was doing would be seen as bullying from anyone who was not familiar with the school and those within it, but this was an everyday struggle for luke and ashlynn
"what about you, ashton?" the old man turned his attention to her
"well, one day i was bored with being a boy, so i chopped my dick off, grew some boobs and changed my name to ashlynn" she replied sweetly, thats another thing luke envied about the older girl, she was confident, would call out anyone who was rude, correct both of their pronouns and correct anyone who used the incorrect name, whereas luke would shrink into the smallest shape he could, which was rather hard being a 6"4 boy, and ignore any slur directed at him.

it was moments like this, when everyone was focusing on him, that he wished that he was never born.