Just A 'Tomboy'

I was born in the wrong body, this much I know. I came into this world as pretty, popular Jessica Hastings. I have loads of friends, a boyfriend and a family that loves me. Everything really sounds like it’s coming up Jessica doesn’t it? But that’s where you’re wrong. 

At college I’m the bubbly brunette everyone wants to either be with, or be friends with. But little do they know that it’s not the real me walking the hallways every day, smiling with the masses. The real me exists behind the comfort of my closed bedroom door. Where I tuck my long brown locks beneath a baseball cap and throw on an oversized sweater to disguise my feminine figure. Then I stand in front of my mirror analysing each and every part of my body that doesn’t feel truly me. I can’t see Jessica when I look in the mirror. I see Ollie, the boy I always was supposed to be. Only there are things in the way that prevent me fully from being him, curves where there should be straight lines.

Showering is the worst time, the time where I’m completely alone with the body that does not belong to me. I avoid seeing myself naked at all costs, I can’t bare to look in the mirror and see someone else staring back at me. It makes me feel inhuman, almost alien. 

I throw my clothes on the floor as quick as I can, not even pausing as I jump in the shower. The water’s not even warmed up yet, I’m just so desperate to get back inside the comfort of my oversized sweater that covers everything feminine about me. 

I quickly scrub my body with soap that smells too sweet to be used on my skin. I leap out the shower, anxiously reaching for the towel, but in my haste I slip. I grab onto the side of the bath, narrowly missing smacking my head; I look sideways still searching for my towel, but that’s not what I find when I glance to my right. I see a stranger looking back at me, a tall brunette girl with breasts and a narrow waist. I look away quickly, not wanting to acknowledge the alien in the glass; I find the towel and wrap it about myself, taking comfort in the covering. 

It’s been this way for as long as I can remember, I’ve always felt as though my skin doesn’t properly fit me, and no matter what I do to try and force it, I just end up feeling shittier than ever. Even when I was little, I never wanted to be the princess, always the knight, much to my mother’s dismay. She’d try and dress me in cute little dresses when I really just wanted to wear what the boys were wearing. My mum dismissed it as a phase, even thought it was cute and referred to me as her little tomboy. Only I was not playing dress up, I realise that now. It was Ollie bursting through the cracks, trying to tell me who I really was. 

I don’t dare to tell my mother that I still have those feelings, as far as she knows I’ve grown out of it and become yet another Barbie doll in society. She’s part of the reason I tend to dress so girly when I leave the house, a part of me still can’t bear to let her down. 

I could never tell my father about how I feel, he’d disown me for sure. He’s the kind of guy who makes fun of people like me, I’ve even heard to him refer to gay people as ‘god’s greatest mistake’. I think that quote alone is reason enough to why I stay hidden. 

So I wake up every morning, don my prettiest outfit, do my hair and makeup with my plastic smile to match, and pretend to be the little girl they’ve always wanted.