Take me (WxIntersex)

3

"Xhenia, time to get in the tub."

Young Xhenia looked up from her coloring book and shook her head. "I don't want to play the game this time."

"Don't you wanna be a good swimmer," her mother tried to coax her. She knew the little girl adored swimming more than anything in this world.

"I do," Xhenia nodded as she spoke.

"Then we have to play the game."

"But you never let me up," Xhenia said. "I can't breathe if you don't let me up."

"I promise I'll let you up if you can't breathe," her mother easily lied. Words were easy to say, but meaning them was hard.

"Okay."

Xhenia sat her crayons down and rushed to the bathroom for her bath. Her mother watched her run into the bathroom and hoped this would have to be her last attempt.

As always, the water was scorching, but she had gotten used to the temperature her mother forced her in.

"Alrighty, let's get you bathed and dressed for bed."

Xhenia happily received her bath and sat when she was told.

"Are you ready," her mother asked her. Xhenia noticed her mother was only happy when they played these kinds of games, and like any other child, she wanted to make her mother happy.

"Um...yes."

"All you have to do is lay back."

Xhenia was skeptical, but she held her breath and did as told. She laid under the water and opened her eyes. The water stung her eyes, but she held them open. She needed to see her mother's face.

She's lying again, isn't she?

Two minutes had passed, and the girl could hold her breath a little longer. She tried to get up, but her mother held her down.

I knew it! She lied to me!

Xhenia fought back as hard as she could, hoping her mother would let her up, but she wasn't going to. She wasn't going to let go until Xhenia's heart stopped beating.

Unknowing to her, Xhenia knew how to lighten her heartbeat. It was a trick she had learned from a homeless man.

She didn't think it would come in handy until her mother started making attempts on her life. She started by slowing her breathing and then decompressing her chest, giving her heart little room to move.

She did this until her heartbeat became faint, then she released her chest and slumped her body.

Xhenia jumped out of her sleep, gasping for air and holding her chest.

I dreamt of her again.

She hated dreaming about her past with her mother. She hated how her mother easily manipulated her.

Because she was a child, she didn't notice her mother would try to kill her every chance she got because she called it a game.

Now, her mother was nowhere to be found, and Xhenia would rather keep it that way.

"Wait, where am I," she asked.

She had finally noticed she wasn't at the office but in a bedroom. Her bedroom.

"When did I get home?"

She looked at her clothes and noticed she was no longer in her business attire but in her sleepwear. Who changed me?