Breathe

~0~

"Have you ever felt like you were born in the wrong body?"

My older brother, Michael, turns around from the sound of my mutter. I stare into his green eyes and watch him laugh with his signature grin. "Sadly, I was already born a guy--unlike you. So I'll never know." Playfully, Michael pokes my gauze wrapped breast--and rather than being offended, I laugh along side him. The realization of our loud obnoxious laugh filling the doctor's office makes us silently giggle in embarrassment. Sometimes, I occasionally look back at my life as a female. Of the days that I was forced into dresses, never allowed to cut my hair short, and when I was kicked out of the house. Once I was kicked out, my brother took me into his apartment. He tried not to show it, but I knew he was struggling with money. So, I started working my ass off, and at some point my coworker talked to me about testosterone shots and pills. So, here we are, waiting in a white-ass room with my money in my brother's wallet. Biting my lip, my body fills to the brim with anxiety and happiness. My heart's pounding, but I don't know if it isn't fear or joy.

Michael turns to me, worry glinting in his eyes and I realize my expression isn't very uplifting. He rests his arm on my shoulder and gives me a little shake, his smile unplugging my tub of worry. "This is a huge step, you know that right?" I nod, inhaling my brother's words to keep myself from drowning. "Then don't worry. We'll be fine." I can't help but smile when he says "we". That's what I've always loved about Michael, his "we"s. He never lets me be sad alone, to be worried alone. But I worry about that aspect of him too. Sometimes, I feel like he'll add himself into a situation only I can be blamed for.

The white, solid door slowly opens, revealing a doctor with glasses balancing on the tip of the old-man's wrinkly nose. He looks up from his papers, throws us day-to-day greetings, and then the unnerving process begins. My brother does most of the talking, blocking the doctor from asking questions directly towards me. I can see from the doctor's expression that he understands my brother's protective behavior, but then he throws a question to me that my brother can't reach.

"Are you sure about this?"

With that simple sentence, my blood boils and I can shamefully feel my brows furrow and face blaze. The doctor notices and coughs, looking back at his paper. A ball grows in my stomach, something that bubbles up to my mouth and makes me want to gag and vomit. I can't speak, but I realize I don't need to. I peer through my hair and see my brother's furious eyes as he stares down the doctor. With shaking hands, the old-man slides a file of papers and a pen slowly towards him. My brother goes through each paper, his jaw tense and his knuckles white.

"Let me lead you to another room to check your vitals."

The doctor walks slow, that's the first thing I notice when I walk behind him. He's looking forward, ignoring the small talk most doctors do to ease the tension. We reach the room and I smile when I hear the doctor mark my weight, and especially my height. "5'10" My pride beams. I'm lucky, a guy who didn't ever have to deal with being short before the transformation. I used to always beam when one of my classmates made fun of my height. I know it's small, but I always thought it was something. One of my biggest steps was this, and the next was to change my entire body.

Nothing much happened after that. The shots, the medication forms, and the silence. The silence was the one thing that helped me the most. I still had the ball stuck in my throat, and I didn't let it out until we got into the car.

My brother held me in his arms for an hour. The dam in my eyes had finally broken and the ball began to shrink every time my brother complained that I was soaking his shirt. I never knew what I felt whenever I cried. Whether it was anger, disappointment, happiness, pride or courage. All I knew for sure was that I was crying, and that it was a sign that even if I was transgender, even if I had been beaten my entire life for it, I was human.