Vanessa-Victor

May 7th: Victor

The sun blasts through the gap between the curtains and perfectly aligns to my eyes, waking me from a rare consecutive seven hours of sleep. Still exhausted from last night, I force my tired limbs to turn me onto the other side. This small move costs me significant energy as I quickly fall into a deep state of unconsciousness again.

Enough time has passed for the sun to reposition itself to reflect directly into my eyes from the mirror across the room. I figure that if I can't hide from our sun, there's no way I can hide from my mother's morning call. As though on cue, I hear four loud knocks on the door and my mother saying, "Vic, it's time to get up."

If there's one thing I'm grateful for from this obnoxious morning call, it's the hot breakfast downstairs. Mom always makes sure I eat my three meals and albeit patronizing, it's also delicious. The scent of frying bacon slowly slithers its way into my room and gives me enough motivation to move my tired ass downstairs to the dining room table.

As I stand, my ugly lumps of adipose tissue on my chest jiggle and bounce uncomfortably. I wish I could tear them off of my ribcage, but for now, I'm forced to hold them in even closer with my body wrap.

I flick off Vanessa's tiny pink thong and tight tank top and throw the articles into our laundry basket. I pull on my boxers and a pair of basketball shorts. Quickly, I wrap my breasts tightly to my chest until they're barely A-cup lumps of fat. I can wrap myself much quicker now that I've done it for a few years. Before I came out, I wouldn't eat when I was in the body because I wanted them to disappear. I tried to starve the body in an attempt to degender it, but Vanessa ate too much during her days and I quit trying after a few months and started to use saran wrap. My parents never noticed I wasn't eating. Probably because it didn't look like I was starving myself.

Luckily I started to eat again for my own good and now guilt-free. This morning I enjoy buttery eggs accompanied with a pile of crispy bacon.

"What are you drawing?" I ask as I squirt ketchup onto my eggs.

"It's an eye."

"Is it for school?"

"Is it an eye?" She repeats in a low, mimicking tone. "Duh!" Stella is a little bitch. And I know what you're thinking, "oh she's only thirteen. everyone goes through that phaze." but NO. Even for a hateful eighth grader, she has an outlying amount of bitch in her personality. Nobody can be surprised exactly sinceeveryone in this family is fucked up in someway. Stella happens to be extremely rude and snappy all the time. I'm kind of surprised she hasn't been to the family therapist and been given some mood disorder diagnosis like the rest of us.

"And it's going to have grease all over it if you don't move it off the table, now," my mom interjects, standing above Stella with the skillet in her hands. Stella rolls her eyes and heavily sighs as she gathers her pencils and the picture to move. "Now that is enough!" my mother yells, "I'm tired of your fucking attitude!" I try to chew my food as quietly as I can. I don't want to draw any attention to my presence in this awkward situation. "Roll your eyes one more time," my mom orders. Stella sheepishly sits down at her spot again, hiding her tear filled eyes from my mom, but I can see them clearly.

My mom dishes Stella's food, continues to shake her head in disappointment, then leaves for work. With five feet of oak table between us, my sister and I finish our breakfast and leave for school.

I stop and park the car outside of the middle school and she utters the only word she ever says on the ride to school, "bye". She's greeted by her posse of young, beautiful friends. All of which are blonde hair, blue-eyed, and tanned besides her. At least her ethnicity is one piece of originality she'll never be able to conform. Still, their similarities of beauty, exclusiveness, and arrogance keep them popular friends amongst the middle school populous.