Stealth. (FtM Karl)

Call

Trigger warning:
-transphobia
-the father 🤜👨
-deadnaming
(Did I miss any?)

(Recap will be on next chapter for those who need to skip)

I froze at the voice.
I thought I blocked him? How the hell did he... did he get a new phone or something? But why go through that much trouble?

"Hello?" The voice asked, he sounded so casual yet so stern, his tone laced with anger as he clearly tried his best to sound welcoming.
But his voice only filled me with fear.

"Um... hi" I gulped. 'What do I do? Do I hang up? Do I see what he wants?'
It was too late to hang up now, he already started talking before I could decide.

"Kira I need you to come home now." He ordered. I knew I was safe here, he didn't know where Bad lived... right? He had no way of dragging me home whilst I was safely locked inside.
But he always had an authoritative power over me he never dared let me question, one that only a fool of a child would dare challenge.
Somehow, I felt compelled to do as he said.
That's just what I had always been taught.

"Why the hell would I want to do that?" I scoffed, trying to seem tough, hiding my fear as best I could.
'It's just a phone call' I kept repeating, 'he can't hurt me through the phone.'

"Because you're my daughter and I love you. I want you to come home, I want to see you."

I stayed silent, I walked into my room and closed the door behind me for more privacy.

"We can talk about this, I can get you a therapist and I can help you."

I forced a laugh at his stupidity, "help with what, dad? What the honk do I need a therapist for huh?"

"This stupi-..." he cleared his throat, "this... gender crisis of sorts that you are going through. I will help you be yourself."

"So what? Honking conversion therapy or some shit? You have no intention of helping me at all, you're selfish and only care about things being your version of perfect." I spat.

"Don't you take that tone with me, young lady!" He yelled, making me jolt.
"I'm just trying to be nice, be a good father, but you're just so damn disobedient-" he stopped himself, the silence of the room suddenly prominent for a moment, I could hear the distant laughter from the group a few doors down, a sigh echoed through the phone, "look." He started again, calmer this time, "I don't know why you want to be a boy, but I have a feeling that it's because of your mother." He stated, my eyes widened in disbelief at this, "and I get that you miss her, but there's no need to act up like this-"

"Are you honking kidding me right now?" I interrupted, pissed.
"You have no right, NO right, to use my mother as an excuse for being who I am. She has nothing to do with this." I defended, he stayed silent, "and I don't want to be a boy, dad. I am one. I don't know how you expect me to come home when you don't even respect me enough to simply allow me to change my name. MY name, not yours." I choked, I was terrified, just waiting for the quiet phone to start booming with rage, but the silence was worse, it was too suspenseful, "if anyone has been acting off since my mother left, it's you. Non-stop trying to make me more lady-like. I'm not her dad, get over y-"

I was interrupted by loud beeping in my phone signalling that the man on the other end of the line had hung up.

I pulled my phone away from my ear and silenced the beeping.

"Coward." I spat under my breath.

I slipped my phone back into my pocket, my hands shook from the adrenaline, I was pissed. That man had no right to tell me how to live my life. And getting to say those things out loud, things I felt forced to keep inside, my body always reacted the same way, shaking.

By now, I couldn't tell if it was the fear or the anger that made me react this way.

I hated how I couldn't control my tears, the way they gathered in the crook of my lower eyelid, creating a glassy effect in the light, everything starting to blur and reflect certain colours like crystals under the sun. I despised how they escaped before I could even wipe them away, slowly tracing my cheeks down to my jaw before creating a small saturated spot on my hoodie.
Pardon my French, but I detested how those tears made me feel. It's stupid, I know. But I hated how they made me feel, strongly. Whenever I cried, I felt less manly.
I would always say, 'it's okay to cry regardless of your gender' and 'people need to cry' as well as 'crying doesn't make you any less of a man'.

But deep down, that's just always what I have been taught.

My father always picked out feminine features and hobbies I possessed, growing out my nails and painting them, wearing the colour pink or purple no matter what shade. But I never saw a problem with it, it was just a colour? It was just hobbies? Why would they mean anything?

That is what I thought. About others, definitely, wear what you want it really doesn't matter.

But when it came to me. Whenever I did something my father had constantly reminded me was feminine?
I felt like I had something to prove, a standard to meet.
And the expectation was suffocating.
Though it was an expectation I myself had created seeing as he was denying any chance that I could ever, in his eyes, he seen as his son.

And that brutal reality only pulled me deeper.
Till I eventually had no escape from the continuous cycle.

Everytime we would fight, whenever I came out, he would always deny it all, and I would always end up crying.
He would call me pathetic and weak for it, constantly remind me that it was a 'feminine' trait and that I couldn't be a man because men don't cry.
And eventually I myself believed this.
But only about myself.

He only added to my dysphoria. My dysphoria which is my own subconscious creation, made from all my insecurities, all my internalised self-toxic masculinity, and body issues.

All this, just because I was born the wrong sex.