Chapter 1: ???

Even when I decided to enter the clothes store, I knew it was a bad idea. I’d been there before, I’d done it before, and it almost always ended the same way, especially since I started gaining weight again due to my depression. However, some small part of me decided to argue — what if it wasn’t the same? What if I actually found something cute? What if I found something that made me look cute? Nothing fancy, nothing complex, just a shirt, a cheap shirt, so I could buy more if it fit.

Against my better judgment, I started browsing the women’s section, and, upon seeing the price tags, immediately heading towards the cheap shirts section, I found a pile of nice pink shirts. It might have been just me overcompensating, despite being on HRT for over a year at that point, but I really liked to get pink things for myself — it felt validating, and pink was a nice color. After looking closer at the selection, I realized these were tank tops, not my usual choice of t-shirts, which would have scared me off, until I realized one of them was size XXL.

Surely XXL was gonna fit, right? It was still a European XXL, but it’s not like I couldn’t put the XL stuff on, it was just tight. The store not ending their women’s selection at XL, and on such cheap products too, was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

And so I proceeded to take it to a fitting room, and was briefly grateful that those weren’t gendered around here. After finding an orientation that let me avoid having to awkwardly look into either of two mirrors inside, I stripped my upper body down to just my sports bra (couldn’t find any proper bras with my band width that also had small enough cups to provide enough support), and put on the tank top.

Alarm bells were ringing. Loud. It was still tight. I could feel it didn’t quite reach as far down as it was supposed to without stretching it as far as it could go. Ignoring my better judgment yet again, I turned to look in one of the mirrors. I didn’t know where my brain got the phrase “obese Russian wrestler” from, but that was how it decided to describe what it saw. Any showing off of my breasts and the bra they were in was much outweighed by just much further my belly was reaching. And my shoulders, oh goodness, my shoulders. The tank top somehow made them seem even wider than they usually were, and that was an achievement on its own.

It had been a mistake. Just how I predicted.

I quickly put my t-shirt and oversized hoodie back on, and left the room. On the way out, almost on autopilot, something possessed me to actually buy it. I wanted to believe it was a good part of my brain, but I wasn’t so sure.

I left the store, and then the mall that I shouldn’t have even entered on my way home in the first place. Mannequins displaying cute clothes I’d never get to wear haunted me on my way out, but I managed.

As I finally got home, I collapsed on my couch and sighed.

I was tired. Far more tired than I had any right to be.

I was very tired, I was uncomfortable, I was miserable, and that was normal.

You’d think that would be it; after all, I’d figured it all out. I’d figured out who I was, and I was taking steps towards realizing that. I figured out what subject I liked and was interested in, and I was studying it. It was still a work in progress, but I was making progress, I was making my life more than what I wanted to be month after month.

Then why did it only feel like it was getting worse?!

I was certain I’d made the right decisions! I doubted and reconsidered them more times than I could count, just to make sure, and each and every time I came to the exact same conclusions!

Life wasn’t fair. I remembered thinking that, looking at all the pretty girls in my class, or even in public in general. Their cute bodies, their nice clothes, their rich social lives. It wasn’t fair that they just had that and I didn’t. But here I was, I was a girl too, I had the same hormones, and I made so much progress, and yet I still looked at them with the exact same envy, for the exact same reasons.

I’d done everything right, and yet nothing had changed.

I wanted to curl up into a ball and cry, but I couldn’t do either. I wanted to shrink, shrink to feel small and secure, but also shrink so I didn’t feel my head slightly spin every time I let myself process just how bigger I was on the outside to how I felt on the inside.

Suddenly, my phone vibrated and I reluctantly took it out of my bag, to see it was a Discord message notification from a friend. Well, the friend, really. My only one. Maddie.

She said she’d be at my place in ten minutes. Right, it was Thursday. How I’d forgotten my literal only social obligation was beyond me, but here I was. And I’d wasted most of my time to rest after lectures in that stupid mall.

I got up, opened my closet, and threw the tank top onto the pile of girl clothes that was full of other things that were too small, or used to fit but I got too fat for them, and sighed. Didn’t even bother folding it; not only was that not nearly the first unfolded thing in there, but I also didn’t see the point in folding clothes. When most people did it, it was always tidy, compact, and consistent, while for me it always came out loose, ugly, and skewed, no matter how hard I tried. It was as if my motor functions decided to work against me even more than usual to provide me with some sort of unsubtle metaphor for my own life.

As if my brain didn’t do that more than enough on its own…

I closed my closet and proceeded to awkwardly wait for Maddie's arrival, not like I had anything better to do. I didn’t even have to change; loose sweatpants were plenty homely already, and my hoodie was not coming off around anybody — not only did it hide my miserable body, it also served to obscure that I was, in fact, wearing a bra.

As Maddie arrived and we started playing our usual games, it became very clear I wouldn’t be able to hide my grumpiness like I usually did.

You could tell by simple hints, such as her literally saying, “Hey, you’re clearly not feeling well, do you want to, like, talk about it?”

Being a terrible liar, I made a tactical decision of saying the truth, “It’s not like I don’t want to talk about it, but I’d need to explain some stuff first and I wouldn’t want to burden you with it and—”

I was cut off by her exclaiming, “Hey!” After making sure she got my attention, she continued, “You are my friend, and I care about your wellbeing. It’s up to me, if I’m willing to listen and help you, and I am. I promise it’s okay.”

“Umm… Well, the thing is, it’s kinda something that I’ve been… hiding from you. Something important. It’s not like I didn’t want to tell you, but I just couldn’t.”

“What was stopping you?”

“Kinda, sorta… me…”

“Are you…Are you scared I’d react badly?” she asked.

“I know you wouldn’t.”

Of course I knew. Not only were some of her other friends trans, she also had a tendency to… sleep around with a lot of queer women, and that included trans women. I didn’t exactly understand the one night stand thing, but I also didn’t blame her — being able to be free to be a lesbian and do lesbian things without all the things that were holding me back must have been very nice.

“That’s not what I asked,” she said.

I looked to the side. “...yes.”

“Well, as far as I know, you never got as far in trying to tell me as now. Maybe you can just try the ‘ripping off the bandaid’ thing.”

That did actually sound like a good idea.

You are reading story This is not a cry for help at novel35.com

“I… Umm… Uhh… I…” Unfortunately though, it didn’t work.

I simply couldn’t get over my insecurities. What was I supposed to do? Just say I was a girl? With that voice?! That’s just asking for the impostor syndrome to come and smite me on the spot!

I’d played this exact situation out in my head thousands of times, and it still didn’t help at all! I was still just as useless as I was scared of being.

Then again, there was another idea I came up with at some point. It was very silly, but it was better than nothing.

I took my phone from the coffee table, and googled ‘trans flag’. I clicked one of the image results, and rotated my phone towards Maddie before I could stop myself.

If I couldn’t tell her, I would show her! In the silliest way possible!

Maddie looked at my phone for a second, and then looked at me, surprise visible on her face.

“Are you saying that you’re a girl?” she asked.

I nodded, very thankful she decided to ask that so directly.

“That explains so much!”

That was pretty much the dream response; screw the fact that I was skewing the scales in that direction by already having transitioned a bit, I was going to take it!

“It does?” The doubtful part of me that does the doubting was still doubtful, though.

“You have no idea!” she said, looking very excited.

But instead of continuing, she took a deep breath. “Before I get too excited, I need to ask — do you still want to talk about the thing that was bothering you?”

As far as I wanted to pretend that the impromptu coming out and her positive reaction were enough to distract me from what had happened earlier, that unfortunately wasn’t the case.

I recounted what had happened, getting more and more emotional with each sentence, to the point where by the end, instead of saying anything, Maddie just hugged me.

After a couple of seconds, she started to pat me on the back and said, “It’s okay, just let it out.”

Unfortunately, those words had the opposite effect than intended.

“I can’t!” I exclaimed. “They said that after I started HRT I would be able to cry again, but they lied! It’s been over a year and I still can’t! Just like they lied about clothes shopping becoming fun, and about the positive mental effects!”

“I know that things may seem really bad right now, but I promise those things aren’t as bad as you think.”

“How? They either are that bad, or I’m just broken! Though honestly, with how stupid and ugly I am, I wouldn’t be surprised if I was broken too…”

“You are not stupid, ugly, or broken, I promise,” she whispered.

“Yes, I am,” I protested.

“Hey now!” She took me by the shoulders, and held me at a distance so that I could look her in the eyes. “I get that you’re upset, but those thoughts will never go away if you let yourself think like that, they’ll only get stronger. It’s very hard, I know that from experience, but you need to catch yourself when you have those thoughts and correct them if you want to ever get better.”

I looked to the side. “Okay.”

It was, indeed, very hard, but I knew she was right.

“Now, apologize to my friend,” she demanded.

I grumbled, but complied. “I’m sorry. I’m not ugly, or stupid, or broken.”

“There, that’s much better. We can’t have you telling such lies about yourself, especially when I’m here kicking myself for not noticing such a pretty girl right under my nose.”

“Wh-wha?”

“Oh, and I just can’t wait until I’ll get to show you off to my girl friends, they’re soooo gonna shower you with compliments. And don’t worry about the clothes situation, it might cost a bit more, but I’m sure we’ll get you some really cute outfits you deserve if we go to enough places!”

“That sounds kinda exhausting,” I said, but I smiled.

Strangely enough, I found myself looking forward to it, despite how scary it sounded.

And, as it turns out, dealing with life’s hardships can be easier if you have a good friend you can rely on; who could have guessed…