Boy

FIVE

When he wakes up, it's morning, and Daniel is nearly about to miss his bus for school. He seldom has time to throw on a grey sweater and a pair of tight light blue jeans, rushing upstairs and into the kitchen.

He shoves a granola bar into his mouth, running to grab a five dollar bill for some poutine from the cafeteria - Daniel hears a bang as he knocks over something in the kitchen, and when he bothers to look, he sees a frying pan on the ground. Perhaps he doesn't realize exactly how loud the noise was, because when he hears footsteps rushing downstairs to the kitchen he is scared that he'll get in trouble, and barely manages to properly react in time.

"Danielle? What the hell was that," Mary says, looking half asleep and pissed off. When she bothers to look at her son, she scoffs. "And what are you wearing? it's the middle of spring, go put on something reasonable, a t-shirt at least."

Daniel isn't sure whether he should be offended or answer the question first. He does neither while he's in her presence, and only bites his lip angrily as he's marching away back to the basement. When he gets to his bedroom, he curses blatantly into the still air, disrupting it, too.

He forgets about his arm when he takes off his sweater and slides on his peach thing, wincing, putting a dark blue shirt over top of it. He stomps back upstairs, frowning as he walks past Mary. Daniel swipes the five dollar bill from the counter and slides on his shoes, moving towards the front door while looping his school bag around his arms.

"Bye," his mother says, but Daniel is halfway through the front door and marching toward his bus stop.

At school, Daniel stomps into the building. A few people glance in his direction, but aside from them, he's practically invisible and he likes the feeling of power it brings. He's still a little pissed at his mother, but aside from that he's just not in that great of a mood and wants to physically disappear.

And then he sees Alex, already waiting beside Daniel's locker, and god, he tries to still be upset, but when Alex grins at the sight of Daniel; well, he can't help but smile in return.

Alex immediately walks in Daniel's direction, grin only growing wider.

"Hey," he says.

"Hey," Daniel replies, voice monotone.

Immediately, Alex furrows his eyebrows in concern. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" but Daniel's body language speaks a completely different sentence, eyes flickering around the hallway, back slouched and face unsure.

"You don't look good - I mean, you look great today of course - but something's wrong. I can tell."

"I'm fine, Alex." To try to support the sentence, Daniel offers the boy a small smile, but the blue haired boy still looks skeptical.

"Okay. But if something's wrong you know you can talk to me, right, Dan?" The brunette's heart leaps.

And, of course, with that sentence and the look Alex gives him, Daniel's problems are all out the back door. He smiles widely. "R-right."

"Good." Alex smiles and offers his hand, to which Daniel greedily takes. Their fingers lace together as they walk around before class starts, and gosh, Daniel's heart is beating so fast - he knows deep inside of him what he's doing is probably wrong, but it doesn't matter right now.

"Mom, can I talk to you?" Daniel leans against a kitchen cupboard, crossing his arms and focusing his attention on anything but the woman cleaning up after dinner.

She turns to face him, looking interested and a little shocked. "Yes.., of course. What is it?"

"Well, I, um.." there's an awkward stretch where he doesn't know quite what to say. "Uh, you know that boy that I told you guys about earlier?"

Something clicks inside of her because now Mary is bright and smiling. "Yes.?"

"Well, um." Gosh, why is he even talking to his mother about this? Daniel now decides it would be best to walk away, but he's already this far and there's no going back. "I think.. I think I might like him?"

Disturbingly, she seems pleased. "Like like him?"

"Um, yeah, and I wanted to know if that's.. wrong?" Daniel winces. He doesn't like where this conversation is going, because with every second passing her eyes grow brighter and brighter and he knows a mountain can only climb so far up before it comes crashing back down.

She's thinking for a moment, and then she speaks. "No, not at all. It's only natural for you to be interested in males, of course, because you were born female."

For some reason this rubs him in the wrong way. He gnaws on his lip. "But I'm not a female, so it would make me gay."

And Daniel watches as she reaches her peak on her mountain, and Mary's mood comes plummeting down from the sky. Her eyes fade back to the usual dark, grim colour they hold in discussions like this. "You are a female biologically, Danielle. You have a vagina so it's not gay."

He's biting down on the flesh of his lips, drawing blood and he almost likes the metallic taste. "What if I change that?"

"What?" she narrows her eyes at him and looks at him for a long time. Then she shakes her head and turns away. "I don't want to discuss this anymore. Go to your room."

"No! What's your problem with who I am? I'm not a girl-"

"Danielle Rebec-"

"My name is Daniel!" he screams at her, tears forming in-between his trimmed lashes.

And she walks right up to him, raises her hand and slaps him, good and hard. Daniel screams.

There's a combination of footsteps, but all Daniel hears is ringing in his ears as he cups his red cheek, tears coating it over. "Mary, Daniel? What the hell is going on?"

Daniel glances over to see his father in the doorway of the kitchen, Owen peeking in from behind him. The rest of the house is quiet.

His mother stares at Daniel in disgust, and it brings upon the worst feeling in the world for the brunette. Creeping sensations of guilt and hatred and uncertainty and fear rises up into him, making his breathing falter.

And then she says it. "We'll talk about this later. Daniel, go to your room."

But when she says it, when she finally caves, it doesn't cause a feeling of happiness inside of him like it did when Alex first said his name. If anything the feeling already inside of him multiplies. And just because he's feeling that feeling inside of him, he whispers a quiet thank you - he doesn't know what for, maybe her calling him by his preferred name - and he walks away.

When he gets to his basement, he locks his door and sits himself on his bed. He feels like he should cry, but no tears come, no matter how badly Daniel wants them to. It's as if he's simply out of tears to waste away. Frustrated, in defeat, he sighs and takes his face in his hands. A hopeless feeling completely crashes over him, systems failing, and he almost - not quite, but almost - doesn't want to be alive anymore.

He rolls up his sleeve and looks at his arm again, silently running his fingers across the rough scab marks. The wound is now slightly faded but still very prominent. And he scratches at it, skin tingling with a sharp bite of pain that makes his stomach flutter. He doesn't know why he likes it. Maybe it makes him feel something other than emptiness.

His gaze drifts across his room, and he takes note to how pointless everything is. He begins to think about how he'd be better off dead, better off buried deep in the ground. It's not quite that anybody would be better off without him, but they probably would only mind his dying for a short period of time and quickly move on. On the contrary, Daniel would be much better off without any of them.

Except for Alex.

And when his name comes to mind, his stomach twists again and Daniel is immediately brought back to his previous conversation with his mother and he bites his lip. Unsure of his feelings, he sits there feeling lost and hopeless and simply beaten down.