Almost Perfect - Brian Katcher [52]
I shook my head.
“So I decided to be a girl in secret. Tammi helped me. She let me wear her clothes, though they were always too small. She’d help me borrow Mom’s things, and we’d play house. I’d always be the mommy. I thought that if I tried hard enough, I’d grow up to be a woman. It wasn’t until I was a lot older that I realized how impossible things would be.”
Sage sat, spinning the empty weight bar on the bench, lost in thought. “One day, my dad caught me wearing Mom’s bikini.” She laughed with the voice of someone remembering something that wasn’t funny. “He signed me up for Little League. Jesus, I hated that. I told him so, but he forced me to play. He thought it was good for me. He would have enrolled me in kickboxing if he could have. It took me two years to convince him to let me quit. When I was ten, I was already really tall, and he tried to get me to try out for peewee football.”
I laughed; I couldn’t help it. She glared at me.
“Thank you for laughing at my emotional baggage, Logan.”
“Sorry. Just the thought of you playing football …”
She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, it went on like this until sixth grade. Remember those stupid human development films we had to watch?”
I thought back. “No. Jack and I got kicked out for making rude comments.”
“Shocking. Well, it was then that I realized I was going to grow up to be a man, no matter what. So that night, I locked myself in the bathroom and took out Dad’s razors.”
“Christ, Sage, you didn’t try to cut off your wang, did you?” She’d just crossed the line into uncomfortable territory. But what she said next floored me.
“No, Logan. I tried to slash my wrists.”
The shed suddenly became ice cold. I almost touched Sage on the shoulder, but I stopped myself. I knew being a girl was important to her, but suicide? Jesus.
Sage wouldn’t look at me. “It wasn’t as bad as you think, Logan. I freaked out as soon as there was blood, and I started bawling. Dad had to force open the bathroom door. It was a real mess. Luckily, I’d only scratched myself.
“My parents made me go to a psychiatrist after that. And even then it took me a month to get up the courage to tell my parents why I’d tried to kill myself. But there was no going back. I told them I was going to be a girl, or I didn’t want to live. I think they were afraid I’d slit my wrists for real if they didn’t let me.
“So they pulled me out of school right before eighth grade. Who knows, it was probably the right thing. And I’ve been living as a female ever since. Now please say something!”
I stood up and began to pace nervously in the narrow confines of the storage building. I pictured an effeminate junior high boy who needed to be a girl so badly that he wanted to die if he couldn’t. “Sorry, sorry. I just didn’t know how serious you were about this.”
She cocked a disbelieving eyebrow.
“Okay, I guess I did realize it. This is just weird. I’m sorry, but it is.”
She didn’t look offended. “At least you’re willing to listen, Logan. I wish my parents would just let me try to explain things. Especially my dad.”
The fact that they let Sage be a girl showed they were more open-minded than a lot of people. “How are they taking it?”
“Mom’s resigned. I think she’s terrified that I’ll do something crazy, or run away if she tried to stop me. But she wishes I wouldn’t do this. Dad …” Sage rapidly turned to the wall and didn’t say anything for about two minutes.
“Dad,” she continued hoarsely. “He’s disgusted by me. We never talk. He works constantly. I’m not allowed to visit my grandparents. I know he didn’t want to transfer out here, but I think he liked the idea that no one he knew would realize his son was now a girl.” A sob racked her body, but she got control of herself.