Scraps - Authenticity

It was the first time that I had been back since I left for college. Not for a lack of trying on my parents part, of course. I always seemed to have just the right excuse when they asked me to come visit for holidays or events and for two years, I didn't even feel that bad about the avoidance. 

It was unavoidable now, though. If I wanted to go back to any kind of normal relationship with them, I would have to tell them. Even if it destroyed whatever barely working system that we held onto, I still had to do it, face to face. 

I pulled up in front of their house, the same one that I had lived in from the time I was eleven until I moved out at nineteen for college, and sighed as I killed the ignition. It had been a very conscious decision to go as far away from them as I did. Not that we had an extremely turbulent relationship, but it was rocky enough that I wanted the distance to figure myself out. And moving twelve hundred miles away really seemed to do the trick. 

Over the past six hundred or so days that I'd had to meet new people outside of the limited circle that I was forced to deal with in this tiny Midwestern town, I'd learned a lot about myself. Barring what I already knew about being a queer person, something that caused tension with my parents whether they wanted to admit it or not, I realized so much more about myself that I never had the bravery to admit before. I let myself try things that I would have never been allowed around under the watchful eyes of my parents and the judgemental people that I once called 'friends' in this podunk little hick town. I was free and I was happy and more importantly, I was learning how to be authentic. 

That wasn't something I had ever been good at before. It was easy for me to slap on the face of Isabelle, the sweet, mild mannered girl that my parents paraded around at church as the good child, the one that didn't cause them any problems. Aside from that little confusion about attraction, of course, but didn't every kid grow out of those quirky little phases eventually? 

It was so much harder to be the real me, the one I had hid since I was a young. The child that wanted to wrestle with the boys against her mother's request. The one that begged to be in cub scouts and not girl scouts. The kid that pretended to shave her face next to her dad and run around shirtless with her brothers -- at least until those were deemed as unladylike behaviors. 

As I sat in my car, hesitating, I slipped my forearms on top of the steering wheel and rested my chin on top of them as I began to let my thoughts wander backward. 

I recalled the first experience I had with a trans person. It was my second semester of college, creative writing class. She sat down next to me, despite there being plenty of open chairs left around the room, before turning to me with a wide smile and holding out her hand. 

"Natasha," the girl said pleasantly.

I wish I could have said that I shook her hand and smiled back with my own introduction, but I only stared at her, dumbfounded. Not because there was anything wrong with her by any means, but her appearance, her dress, her very presence pinged with me in a way that I couldn't quite understand. It made me uncomfortable and, quite frankly, a little irritable at the confusion suddenly brewing inside me. 

"Isabelle," I muttered after a long moment of staring at her before I turned in my seat without ever shaking her hand. 

Despite my cold and rather dickish first response to her, it never deterred Natasha from being kind to me. She sat next to me every day of that class, as if she could just sense something coming off of me that she was drawn to. It left me feeling endlessly frustrated with myself as I continued to come up empty with whatever answers eluded me. More than anything it made me curious about her. 

It hadn't escaped my notice that Natasha wasn't like the other women around me. There were some physical tells, but I would be lying if I said that was what gave it away for me, because it wasn't. It was the way she carried herself. 

There was bravery and confidence in her steps, as if she had earned each and every one of them. Like no one could take anything away from her. There were plenty of other girls on campus that had swagger and enough money, charm or looks to back it up, but none of them walked with the grace and determination that Natasha had.

The more time I spent around her, the more it made me want to know the how's and why's. It made me want to know more about her. It made me brave enough to ask her what I had always been afraid of asking myself. 

I finally brought it up to her one day before class, just barely mustering up the courage for my words to come out more than a mutter. 

"How did you know?" 

Natasha turned to me and smiled, the same bright, generous smile that I felt I had never deserved, before she put a hand on my arm. "I think I always knew," she told me simply. "But it took me a long time to be brave enough to accept the truth."

That wasn't the answer I was expecting. It definitely wasn't the answer that made me feel comfortable. If anything, it only made the endless questions grow louder in my brain.

I looked towards my hands on my desk, always too big to be girl's hands it seemed, and bit my lip as I held back a strange surge of emotion that suddenly wanted to flood through me.

"I think that…hmm…" Natasha continued, slowly choosing her words as if she were trying to tread very carefully. "The most important thing we can do for ourselves is to be authentic. Not for anyone else but for ourselves." She nodded in agreement to her words. "I think that's when I really knew. When I started to live my life for me and no one else. When I started to be authentic to who I really am." 

That bright, megawatt smile was back on her face as she stared at me, warming my cheek as if it were radiating its own heat. "And it's ridiculously liberating, Belle. Let me tell you what."

I chuckled darkly at the nickname she had given me. It wasn't something that I liked per se, but it was different then what everyone else called me. I guess that was good in some ways, but it was still too feminine to be my name. Isabelle had never fit me and it most likely never would.

"I can imagine," I mumbled and ran a hand through my straight, hazelnut locks. 

"Any reason you wanted to know?" Natasha asked as she pulled her laptop from the messenger bag slung over the back of her chair. 

I shook my head fiercely. "No," I replied, a little too quickly, and busied myself with mindless doodles to avoid looking into her curious gaze. 

It was another three months before I finally found the courage to answer her question honestly. There was a lot of self reflection, questions, denials, breakdowns, and all manners of unpleasant emotions, but at the end of all my confusion, I came out with a clearer picture of who I was in my head. It was a little unsettling but it was authentic. As authentic as I could be in that moment.

"Hey, Nat?" I asked her one day in the library. 

We had moved forward from those awkward one sided conversations in creative writing to something more akin to friendship as the days moved on. I had never been good with friends, especially not girls, but as I often thought before, Natasha wasn't like any other girl I had ever known. 

Even the girls I was inevitably attracted to didn't capture my attention like she did. They didn't make me curious like she did. They didn't make me want to spend all my time with them like she did. 

Maybe it was because Natasha wasn't that traditional girl that we got along so well but I always believed that was just her. She was beautiful and witty and so very perceptive, so unlike the other girls in all the best ways. Natasha was special, and for some reason, despite the cold shoulder I had once butted her with, she saw something in me too. Enough to want to waste her time with me nearly as much as I wanted to with her. 

"Mm," she replied a half second later, her eyes idly scanning the textbook laid out in front of her. 

I smiled at her easy nature before lifting a hand to tuck a stray lock of tawny hair behind her ear. Natasha glanced at me from the side, a slow smile forming on her own face, as she propped a hand under her chin. I stared deep into her warm brown eyes for a few moments, and then just as quickly looked away and cleared my throat in embarrassment.

"I've been thinking a lot about what you told me a while back. About, um...you know, authenticity…" I trailed off, suddenly feeling stupid for bringing this up to her. 

Natasha closed her textbook and then reached across the table to slip her hand on top of mine gently. I stared at the place where our hands met and swallowed a dry lump in my throat as I tried to find my courage.

"It's okay," she whispered and squeezed my hand in hers. "Whatever you have to say, it's okay. I'm here for you, Belle." 

"Isaac," I said, without much thought, and then met her eyes with my wary blue ones. "I want you to call me Isaac." 

Natasha's eyes softened toward me and she squeezed my hand again with a nod. "Of course," she murmured and ran a soothing thumb across my knuckles. "Was that all you wanted to talk about, Isaac?"

"I…" I let out a dry bark of laughter and shook my head. "Well, I feel like I'm doing this a little backwards to be honest…" 

It was Natasha's turn to shake her head. "There is no wrong way," she assured me and scooted closer with her chair. As if she could sense my need for comfort unconsciously. 

"Hm," I hummed, a little unconvinced, before I looked up and met Natasha's eyes. 

They were warm as always, so understanding, and filled with more love than the world surely deserved.

"I don't think I want to be a woman anymore," I admitted and then looked down to our clasped hands in shame. "I'm no good at it. And I don't like it." I drew in a shaky breath. "And I guess, meeting you, it's made me realize that I don't have to be this thing. That...I can be…more." 

"You can be whatever you want to be," she assured me and this time she squeezed my hand even harder. 

There was a fierceness to her words. An undeniable strength that she believed in. It was hard not to be swayed by that conviction. She made me want to believe too.

I swallowed another nervous lump in my throat and cautiously met her face with tight furrowed brows. "I want to be a man," I practically whispered and searched her eyes in near panic. 

Natasha's expression didn't change much at this confession. There was no surprise or disgust there. Not even curiosity or intrigue. It was almost as if she were… expectant. As if she had been waiting for this to happen.

After a long staring match between the two of us, her lips pulled back to reveal her brilliant, megawatt smile and she asked me, "How do you feel, Isaac?" 

With a shaky breath I let out a laugh, this one more relieved than my last, and smiled back. "Lighter," I said and sighed. 

Natasha nodded and then, in a very unexpected move, she lifted our linked hands to her lips and kissed the back of mine. "I'm glad," she muttered against my skin. 

I smiled in thought of the memory as a chuckle, much like the relieved one I had let out in the library that day, escaped me. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. I thought to myself and tapped my hands along the steering wheel. There was so much more that led up to here but… I glanced out the drivers side window to look at my parents house once more with a sigh. But I'll never go inside if I think about everything that led to this moment. 

As if sensing my thoughts, Natasha reached over from the passenger side to untangle my arms from the steering wheel and seize my hands in her lap. "Why are you so stressed? It's gonna be fine." 

I didn't pull my eyes away from my adolescent home as I answered her. "What if it isn't?"

"Well," she drawled and yanked on my hands so that I was forced to look at the beaming smile she was setting me with. "No matter what, you'll always have me." 

This made my anxiety dissipate a little bit in my chest. Looking into her beautiful, confident face, I knew that was one truth I could rely on no matter what. It warmed my insides from the desperate cold front of my emotions trying to push in. 

"That's good enough for me," I murmured and leaned in closer to press my lips against hers with a gentle brush.

Natasha hummed and pushed against me, crashing our lips together in a fierce kiss that was easy to get lost in. When I finally found the strength to pull away from her we were both panting, fogging up the windows, and - at least for me - rethinking this whole meeting the parents business.

"Okay," she murmured and placed one more quick, chaste kiss against my lips. "Are you ready?" 

"I mean, not after the boner you just gave me," I replied and pointed to my crotch. 

I wasn't wearing a packer today - the mere sight of me was going to be enough for my folks without the blatant outline of my 'dick' to shock them - so the motion didn't have as much impact as it usually did. Regardless, it still made Natasha giggle and that was enough for me.

"Just trying to give you a confidence boost, baby," she purred and grabbed between my legs with a squeeze. 

I let out a rough breath and shook my head at her. "Tease," I growled. 

Natasha grinned and gave me a cheeky little wink. "You know it," she said and stepped out from her side before circling around to get my door. "And if you're a good boy in there I might even do something about it…"

"Mm, she knows the proper incentive to get me going," I murmured and cast her a wicked grin as I stepped out from the car finally. 

Natasha laughed again and wrapped her arms around my shoulders before leaning down for one last kiss. She had a good five or six inches on me so she had to dip at the knees and I unconsciously pushed up on my toes but neither of us ever seemed to mind. It wasn't conventional by any means, but we fit well together. Perfectly, one might even say.

"I've got you," she reminded me again and kissed my forehead before standing up straight. "Always."

"Always," I agreed and held my hand out for her to take. She did so without any thought -- slipping together seemed as natural as breathing for us -- before we walked up to the front door hand in hand. I had no idea what to expect from my parents when they saw me and my statuesque girlfriend but for the first time in a long while, I didn't really care. They could accept me and respect me, or they could not. Either way, I would be okay. 

As my finger reached out to touch the doorbell, my eyes cast up to Natasha's calm, beautiful face and I smiled. No matter what happens, I know I'm loved. And more than that, I know who I am. The confidence that I had been training in myself for nearly a year and a half now surfaced on my face with an easy grin. And they can never take that away from me again.

***

AN: So, anyone that's been following me on social media probably know about the transition that I've been going through and how it's really made me want to work with more trans characters. To tell their stories and let them speak up in a way that I so rarely get to see in this genre. It's always been my ideal that if I can't find what I'm looking for or what I feel like I need that I'll create it myself and that's definitely been a desire here. So, this makes me really happy to give to you guys because it's very inspired by a lot going on in my life and more than anything, it's honest. I hope you enjoy it and more than anything, I hope each and everyone of you are having a fantastic day.