want people to think he was a girl just because he was
dating a guy, granted a guy who was one of the most
vocally, out and proud gay men on campus, but still. He was
afraid of being seen as something he wasn’t.
Blake stared at the vial of testosterone, the hormone
suspended in oil and waiting. He knew taking it would
make all the dysphoric thoughts disappear. It’s been a savior
in a bottle.
“Need help, babe?” Ethan asked from beside him, and
Blake licked his lips, shaking his head and glancing over to
him with a small smile.
“Nah, I think I’m good. Just stay with me,” he said,
keeping eye contact with Ethan for a moment, drinking in
strength from his bright, loving eyes, then he picked up the
small syringe. He slid it gently into the bottle and measured
sixty milligrams with precision, his bottom lip caught
between his teeth. He withdrew it and shifted, pulling up his
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basketball shorts and exposing his thigh. He always felt a
flutter of nervous excitement whenever he was about to dose
himself with hormones.
Blake reached out for Ethan’s hand and laced their fingers
together as he injected the needle in with the other hand,
taking a deep breath and pushing the testosterone into his
system slowly. The pain was a small flare, and honestly he
almost enjoyed it as he injected himself. He could almost feel
the hormone coursing through his system almost instantly,
blasting the dysphoria out of the water. He shut his eyes
after pulling the needle out, leaning into Ethan’s shoulder.
“You okay?” Ethan asked, running his fingers through his
short hair, his voice soft and bracing. Blake nodded a little
and looked up at him with a small, affectionate smile.
“Mmm hmm, more than okay,” Blake replied in a soft
voice. His voice was a little low, definitely lower than it had
been before he’d started with the hormone replacement, but
he was hoping soon his voice would drop even more the
longer he was on the testosterone.
Blake relaxed against Ethan with a soft sigh and shut his
eyes, just letting the whole thing roll through him. Thinking
was never a good thing for him. Questions came at
him—questions he didn’t want to think about, let alone ask.
“Do you ever…think about me as a girl?” Blake asked
after a moment, glancing up at Ethan with furrowed brows.
Ethan looked back at him with a slightly confused look. “I…I
mean, have you ever? Like back when we were in high
school and whatever.”
“No, never.” Blake’s eyes fell shut, just letting the words
go through him as relief surged through him just like the
hormone had. Ethan’s voice was firm, confident, as he
explained, “You’ve always been Blake to me, even before
you came out to the school and everyone else. I’ve never
thought of you as a girl, it just felt wrong. You were never
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anything other than my best guy friend Blake to me.”
Blake opened his eyes and looked back up at Ethan.
Giddiness made his chest tight as he leaned up and wrapped
his hand around the back of Ethan’s neck, pulling him in for
a quick but intense kiss. “Thank you, babe,” he whispered.
“You’re welcome,” Ethan murmured, his hand resting on
Blake’s cheek, fingers cupping his jaw gently. Blake
hummed softly as Ethan stroked his thumb along his
cheekbone. “I love you.”
Blake shut his eyes and bit his lip around a smile, letting
the words sink in—really sink in—because even though
Ethan had said those words to him before, they felt so much
different this time. So much deeper. “I love you, too, Ethan,”
he said in a soft voice.
“You know what I mean, right?” Ethan asked, and Blake
opened his eyes, his smile now open and unfettered. He
didn’t have to bite it back anymore, nor did he feel the need
to. He didn’t want to hide his happiness. It’d been so rare
before now. He’d just always been settling before.
“Yeah, babe, I know what you mean,” Blake replied,
nudging his nose against Ethan’s affectionately. His gold
eyes glittered with an ethereal happiness. Everything just
felt completely right in Blake’s world at that moment.
Blake jumped back when he heard the door crash open,
hitting his head against the wall of Ethan’s bunk.
“What’s goin’ on here?” Dominic’s voice grated on
Blake’s nerves as he lifted his head, rubbing the back of his
head with furrowed brows.
“None of your business,” Ethan replied before Blake
could. Pride warred with the desire to fight his own battles,
but pride won, and he shot Ethan a quick look of gratitude
before turning his attention back to Ethan’s roommate.
“Aww, defending your girlfriend?” Dominic spat with
venom in his words at Ethan and Blake took a deep breath.
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He would not take this bullshit any longer.
“I’m not his girlfriend, thank you very much,” Blake shot
back, venom just as potent in his voice as he stood up and
faced Dominic eye-to-eye. He was actually half an inch taller
than the other man. “I’m his
boy
friend. Get it right for once,
asshole.”
“I do get it right,” Dominic replied in a tone of smug
satisfaction, like he knew something no one else did.
“No, you really don’t,” Blake demanded, tilting his head
up defiantly. He was
so
tired of this guy’s bullshit.
Before Blake could stop him, Dominic grabbed his t-shirt
and tugged at it so hard that it ripped at the seam. Crushing
embarrassment set in immediately. Blake crossed his arms
over his chest, his binder on full display, and he hated it. It
didn’t look like it wasn’t much more than a very controlled
sports bra, and that’s what Dominic saw as he let out a
vicious cackle and shoved him out into the dorm hallway,
sending him sprawling.
“See?
Told
you she’s a girl!” Dominic crowed, looking at
Ethan, who looked completely shocked. Blake knew it was
because of what Dominic had just done to him and not
because of what he’d just revealed. “What, kid, you didn’t
know he’s a she?”
“Fuck you, Dominic!” Ethan snapped. Blake sunk to the
floor of the hall, completely embarrassed, red-faced and
mortified. Ethan launched himself at the larger man, landing
a hit to his jaw and knocking Dominic back, sending him
reeling onto his own bed. “Don’t fucking talk about him like
that!”
“Why not? It’s the truth!” Dominic yelled, though his
voice was tinged with pain and a little slurred from the hit to
his jaw.
Blake curled his knees up to his chest and let his head fall,
squeezing his eyes shut to stop the tears from coming. He
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could feel other people’s eyes on him, staring, sizing him up
and judging him. He was so ashamed and completely out on
display. There was absolutely no going back now. He heard
commotion and a lot of yelling, but after Dominic’s
victorious shout, he didn’t hear any of it. He was lost to the
tears as they rolled silently down his face.
He’d been completely ousted in front of everyone and he
could feel them judging him and changing their minds about
him, admitting that Dominic and the RA were completely
right about his gender, that he’d just been pretending to be
something other than the girl he was. This was a fucking
disaster and he hated what Dominic had done to him.
He’d been subconsciously afraid of this scene since he
first came out. He’d expected it to be at home, not here. He’d
expected this college to be a source of freedom, not prejudice
and bullying. Hatred and anger roiled through him and
made him feel sick.
The whole damn thing made him want to crawl out of his
skin and never come out of his dorm room ever again. The
suicidal thoughts kicked up again, thoughts of violence and
blood overtaking everything else again. He let out a silent
sob and tried to push them away, not wanting to open that
up when he felt like he was finally getting back on track
with everything. He felt so disgusted and shameful, and he
just wanted to disappear.
All the commotion around him just turned to the static of
his thoughts.
“Hey,” he heard Riley’s voice behind him, and he flinched
away from his big palm as he felt it press gently against his
mostly-bare shoulder, curling hard into himself. He didn’t
even want to breathe, because he could feel his chest
moving. “Hey, Blake, it’s all right. M’not gonna hurt you.”
“Guess the secret’s out, huh?” Blake murmured thickly,
his tone pure self-deprecation as he dug his fingernails into
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his forearms.
“Unlike Dominic, it doesn’t change anything for me,”
Riley replied, and finally Blake lifted his head to see the
other man smiling at him as he held out an oversized hoodie
to him. Blake took it with shaking hands, watching Riley
warily as he continued, “You’re still one of my best friends,
Blake. I don’t claim to know much about this kinda stuff, but
I’m sure you can teach me.”
Blake nodded tearfully before he uncurled and wrapped
his arms around Riley, hugging him tightly and shutting his
eyes. “Thanks, Riley. So much,” he murmured.
“No problem,” Riley replied, patting his back firmly a
couple times before drawing back. Blake let him go and
turned his head toward Ethan’s dorm, hoping to God that he
wasn’t hurt, that Dominic hadn’t hurt him, too. That would
be the last straw.
As he heard Riley yelling at the crowd of people to break
it up, Blake saw his boyfriend standing half-triumphant,
half-shocked in the doorway, holding his wrist and staring
at his bruised knuckles in awe. “I can’t believe I just did
that,” he said in a very faraway voice, but he seemed to snap
back to reality when Blake threw himself at him and hugged
him as tightly as he could. “Hey. You okay?”
“I think so,” Blake muttered, keeping his face tucked
against Ethan’s hair, breathing in shakily and willing some
of the flush to drain from his cheeks. He took a breath and
asked in a stronger voice than he’d expected, “Where’d he
go?”
“He ran away,” Ethan said with a light laugh. “After I hit
him, he tried to hit me back and then when he realized
people were staring at him like he’d grown four heads, he
ran his douchebag ass out of here faster than I’ve ever seen
him run.”
“And how many people were staring at me?” Blake
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whispered, gripping hard at Ethan’s shirt as he tried to
regain the composure.
“Not many. Most of them were staring at Dominic
because he was the one who was making a scene,” Ethan
explained in a lulling voice, and despite the fact that Ethan
had never lied to Blake, he didn’t really believe that no one
had at him when he’d been sitting in the middle of the
hallway, curled pathetically into himself in nothing but his
basketball shorts and binder.
“Good,” Blake was able to manage, taking a deep breath
and letting go of Ethan after a moment, straightening and
recovering from his breakdown. He drew back and wiped
his tears with the sleeve of Riley’s hoodie. “Um, let’s go to
my dorm so I can put on a shirt and give this thing back to
Riley.”
“Okay,” Ethan said with a small smile, lacing their fingers
together and letting Blake lead the way down the hall to his
dorm. He ignored the eyes on him, and gripped Ethan’s
hand harder.
“Hey, tranny, nice dupe-job,” a guy he’d never met before
spat at him, and Blake stared at him in shock, so floored he
stopped walking.
“Excuse me?” he asked, and even as he felt Ethan’s hand
on his shoulder, he felt the rage rising in his chest. He was so
fucking frustrated with this.
“You heard me, tranny,” the guy spat. He didn’t even
know this guy’s name and he had the nerve to say
something like that? Not even Dominic had dared to
actually call him that, so it fucking stung more than anything
Dominic had done.
“Fuck you,” Blake spat, taking a step forward even as
Ethan’s grip tightened on his shoulder. “Do you realize how
much of a fucking asshole you are right now? How would