Rubber Band Boy

A small twig and rubberband boy shuffles down the hallway, his chest curved inward as though there was a string attached to his spine, tugging, pulling, jerking him backward. His bound chest ached as he breathed. Excitement and worry fought a battle in his tiny curved chest as he thought of the coming class, the lockers around him glimmer and shake as though his worry and anxiety is an earthquake, he takes as deep of a breath as his chest will allow him to and walks into his class. It feels as though the entire class has their eyes on him as he trudges to the teacher's desk, he shakes a little as he attempts to shove the words out of his throat. He clears his throat and says “C-could you please call me Victor instead of V-Victoria?” he stutters out. The words feel like spring honey in his throat, sticky and sweet as if they were waiting to be said. The teacher looks at him, disgusted. She frowns, “I think you should see the councillors about that, Victoria.” Her words hit him like daggers of ice. He forced his face to lose all emotion. His heart pounded against his chest, the smell of the classroom disinfectants was making him nauseous “C-c-could I g-go now p-p-please?” He said hesitantly. His brain screamed to him, reminding him that in her eyes and the eyes of the school he would never be seen as a boy as she nodded and wrote him a pass. He felt light headed, this was a mistake. Why was he so stupid? He felt tears in his eyes as he was handed the pass. “Th-thank you.” He stuttered as he backed toward the door of the classroom. As he closed the door, slowly so it didn’t draw any attention, god knows the last thing he wanted was attention, he heard someone whisper “That’s what you get tranny.” The rubberband boy began to recite the alphabet in his head as he walked, it wasn’t the most grown up coping mechanism but it was the one he loved the most. The hallways seemed far, far too bright as he dragged his feet along the smudged tiles that scaled across the floor like a lizard's back. He dragged edged breaths into his lungs, each breath felt like razor blades against the soft tissue of his lungs. He stumbled into the counselor's office. As he went in the door the secretary yelled at him to sign in. He jumped, startled. His brain was screaming, clawing at the small shred of confidence he had left as he sat down in the chairs outside of the councillors, he nervously pulled down his sleeves over his hands. He didn’t want to be here. “Victoria Fuentes?” The councillor yelled from his office. His heart began to pound against his ribs, he didn’t know how long he could stand this, it felt like November all over again. He stood and walked shakily towards the councillors office. As he opened the door the council gestured towards an dirty old beaten up green chair in the corner of the room. He shuffled in and sat down with his legs crossed, just like his grandmother had taught him years ago, of course back then he didn’t know that he was really a he, or at least he didn’t have the words to describe it back then, he did now. The councillor cleared his throat and said, it tired, dull, emotionless voice “I understand you want to be called by a different name?” Victor felt like he had finally found someone who would help, but then the next, world destroying phrase fell out of his puckered, nasty coffin of a mouth like nuclear bomb on Victor. “ Well the teachers can’t call you anything other than Victoria unless your name is legally changed.” Victor searched the councillors face for a bit of pity, maybe some part of him in some realm understood what he was going through but all he saw was concrete anger. This wasn’t fair, what about Jaime who had requested to be called sprinkles, how was his real name any less important than a stupid joke? He tried to breathe but his throat felt like it had been sewed shut by surgical string implemented by the councillors words. The edges of his vision blurred black as he got up and ran out the door. Thankfully the restroom was right by the counselors office. He collapsed on the floor in tears.

Notes

First Chapter! What do you guys think? I'll update again tonight.