I've submitted my first manuscript to an anonymous critic today. Stonzi and I are nervous. I went ahead and even rewrote the beginning and added a prologue, and I'm so excited but heavily nervous at the same time because I'm afraid it'll miss the mark. I spent HOURS editing this story, once for coherency, and again to change the format from third omni to a first person POV with third person chapters for outside occurrences relevant to the story's movement.

Wish me luck.

If you'd like to query to also read the submitted works, please reach out via Messages.

I stared across from us at my reflection in the blackened window. Despite it being pitch black dark outside, it wasn’t really what I was staring at. No, I was staring at myself. Because the window had become more of a mirror, giving me the reflection that I was slowly starting to believe was showing what I looked like on the inside. Gaunt. Pale… Two red eyes staring at me that seemed like they were drooping at the corners, pulling my face into this somber and pathetic look that made me look so weak and vulnerable that I wanted to smash the glass reflecting me.

I feel my heart and sol,

like it's been stolen from me.

As if the person took no time to remove it,

snapping each attaching piece attaching it to my body and then promptly yanking it out.

Tearing my heartstring in their profession,

My character's demise is the angle of their direction.

Here, we might bow and greet each other with formalities.

Still, I'll feel gutted post-hand for what I've done to stand up for myself.

For what I wanted to right, where there was wrong.

And somehow in the whirlwind of it all,

I think my own voice might drown out the sound.

"Stop talking, and listen."

"Listen and understand."

"Listen and understand."

"Answer the question."

"Answer it."

"Answer it!"

-sigh-

I just have to be kind... to myself.

Bring myself peace.

I just have to remember that I'm here, and it's not with me.

It's just a memory.

For there is no peace of mind when at the podium with a man who only pays you in kind.

I feel as if I've been gutted, and the creativity in me can't even begin to fathom how much my chest aches. Today isn't a good day. The day prior wasn't either. Too much. Too much at once. I tried to trudge along and all I feel for it is gutted.

Please.

If anyone is there. If anyone can hear me.

I don't feel good today.

My soul feels tired.

My soul feels sick.

I think the angle in which I'm trying to be understood is merely just a trick. It's harsh, and cruel, but it's all lessons learned about people who aren't genuine. People who aren't good.

Strung up,

String away.

Entrails line the walls today.

Mine.

My stomach in shambles,

I try to tuck it all back in.

But my body can't handle.

Can't handle being turned inside out while being inside in.

Down within itself until I'm sick and wishing for him.

Wishing for him to stop digging in, turning me inside out.

His hand is one of many, just like so many before.

Dig and push, dig and push.

Like he's looking for something. Probing.

Ah, it's okay.

I guess he's no different.

Just another person taking a professional turn on the pedestal.

Just another community member making it their endeavor.

Looking. Digging. At my behest.

Turning me inside out,

Making me wish I wasn't here.

I just... want to be whole.

Not twisted up inside,

Not on display for all to see.

Fucking hell. I'm feeling broken and torn.

It's an ugliness I have to lay bare.

I need it to go out of me,

and I need to breathe.

Because if I let it win, it'll break me.

From outside in.

I believe I have some sort of problem within me. Within my soul.

Maybe it has to do with my turmoil of feeling twisted around. Like my words, thoughts, and feelings are being navigated by my perceiver into a manner that is more perverted, and less genuine than my original intent. It's such an ugly remark.

I can almost hear the words on my ears as visceral as it was coming from my wretched maternal grandmother herself. And I hate the similarity that those two instances bore, because one, I am in a position where I feel outraged, and two, some of her words make sense, despite her actions not.

Nonetheless it doesn't excuse her undue cruelty. It doesn't excuse the way she liked to pick and pluck at me, one thing after another, like a hypochondriac over whether I might die or not. Sooner or later I might, but not before her very eyes. Thank all that be.

And in some strange sort of sense, I can see why I might clench my teeth.

I've grown accustomed to "bearing with it" in a sense, where I might stare at someone, because to stare to hard is to glare, and to smile would make me look like I'm either an air-head or someone who has no sense of reality if not the worst case, being completely outright sinister or nuts. None of which that I am.

I believe that I am practical, in all sense to be a realistic, but the high standard that I hold myself to also comes at a fault. It depresses me.

The demeaning way in which when I close my eyes, my ears open up and hear the constant echo of everything my mother did wrong, per her own mother, and everything I was doing was just hurdling me towards my own violent end.

I wish I could cast out her horrible words, because as an adult, with each passing year, I can really understand them in new ways I wish I didn't know.

And I can also hear all the people in the public with their "nasty" comments.

Did I tell you... That I hate the word? Nasty.

Such a grueling and disgusting word. It's so foul, I'd rather curse a hundred times over than use it, because it was her favorite word, for everything! Everything!

And so yes, I might be disturbed. Disturbed in the know that when I called the police twice over in my youth, that I called as a desperate plea for their help. For them to do something. Arrest her. Remove her! Someone! For fucks sake! Remove her.

...

And they didn't.

Oh- Hahaha. Oh god, what cruel sick irony, that anything I brought forward was somehow twisted in a way to be unfounded, unworthy of a case. "Your mom should just move out," one might have said after admittance that my mother had very nearly been strangled to death. Would it have been better if I had opened the door cut up, beaten and bruised, or would they have turned a blind eye as well too? Why? Because my house was quiet. Not a soul was screaming. No one talking. Empty. Devoid of all the chaos that was going on moments prior to his arrival.

Ha. Fuck me, right? I must have told him the story wrong.

I must have been unconvincing. Or maybe it was because I should have called while the house was in full chaos and she was screaming and yelling? Hm? Yes? I'm sorry. I was supposed to know to treat the wound while it was festering, not after all of it has been done and cleaned up. My bad. Sorry, sir.

And so, I've rounded back. Rounded back to "you're an adult now." Yes, I know that. "You should work on healing yourself." Yes, mm, been doing that. "It's the past, you can't hold that against other people." Mm, and- that's where it's not... not quite.

You see, there's this particular way... This reasoning in my mind, almost like the way a man might flinch at the sound of peppered gunfire near him, and he might hollow out some ache of a scream and do something wild. I too feel that way, when I hear a woman of similar facial structure and phenotype, stare at me, pupils blown wide, and screaming at me. My eyes might land on her teeth, looking to see how they jut down from below her lips, then gnash together.

My heart may start to palpitate a little irregularly, and I'll back up, issuing a warning. One to "stay away" while signaling that I want no physical altercation. And the startle reflex in me that if she steps forward, I'm suddenly seeing it like she's angling to wrap her hands around my neck, similar to my childhood, and my fists are clenching, on the ready, and I might start to swing.

I need out. I need out! I NEED OUT!

And when it's all said and done, I'm keeping my composure. Sure. I might look stoic, or visibly pissed, but I'm shaking all over. I'm ready to go down, in a burning flame of glory to the death, like I'm fighting the very woman in my childhood for my last breath. And that's where it stops. And I hate that.

...

I hate that she still has me. Over nearly two decades later.

I hate that I could bear any resemblance to her, because if my mind ever faded, and I saw her in my old age in the mirror, I might take up arms and fists and start swinging erratically. I hate that she lives in my immune system. That she's trained my innate startle reflex so well, that any notion of a threat despite my screaming for someone to step off otherwise might devolve into my wildly swinging and thrashing fists to the death, like someone's here to take me. To end my life. Because I have no intent of dying otherwise! And that's all my fucking mind can think.

Nothing but pure unadulterated terror.

And I hate it.

I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.

Because it's part of me.

And the days following after are nothing but hell, trying to remove that response from within me, when I look at women, and I wonder if they might hit me. Hurt me. Or try to block off all my exits until I'm forced to be in their "loving" arms, embraced in a hug I can't quite get away from, because to reject it would be to given violence. For not loving her. For not being the perfect pretty child like my half-sister, and wearing the clothes she wanted.

Because if I wasn't doing what she wanted, I was living wrong.

I was wrong for not accepting her.

Her gifts. Her love. Her presence. And for it, I have shuddered at the mere touch of a human, and sometimes I abhor touch entirely.

How could you?

You wretched, vile woman. How could you do this to me?

I was just a child. Now I'm a woman, trying to undo what you've done to me, and it won't undo. For fucking years! YEARS! It won't undo. God!

God dammit.

And I don't care to not let the world know. Because I'm not going to suffer in silence for what you did.

Your wretched, hateful woman.

Why can't you let me go? Why can't I get you out of my dreams? Leave me alone.

Jenny Foyer was a woman of principal. She liked to keep her manner of dress outside of conventional social fashions, often adopting less revealing clothing that gave her a bodied slender appearance without it fitting every curve of her shape.

She had a knack for assembling her wardrobe in that manner, because if it wasn't of a more conservative ladylike appearance, it was a barely fitted t-shirt with straight legged jeans, and that was the way she liked it.

On Tuesdays, she'd go to her local Post Office, speak to Carl, the window attendant, casually about the weather and then pick up the mail. On Wednesday, she would meet with Marlene for a dinner out on the town, and on Friday she would spend the afternoon inside to avoid the bustle of everyone preparing to go home for the weekend or begin their weekend activities early while she was curled up on her bed or the open door of her back porch, looking up at the sky while reading a book.

And despite her very tempered activities, Jenny Foyer... was a dreamer.

Jenny dreamed of lands were she could meet men that would spin her across dancefloors, turning her until her skirts spun up to their maximum extended reach towards the world around her, and people gossiped in ways that made you want to investigate as if it might be correlating to the world's biggest news scandal murder. She wanted a life like that. One of adventure, exciting and romantic, but the best she'd ever come close to was a relationship she vehemently protested much to the behest of her close friend, Riley, who asked her to go out with a friend of hers. And that turned into an emotional blunder she wished she'd never vested in.

Sure, she got to kiss him. Once... Okay, maybe more than a handful of times, just to see if the romance of being affectionately adored was as great as the books professed. And it was! But then Jessabelle, Ian's previous relationship, came into the picture and suddenly Ian seemed like he was pressuring her for a little more than a kiss.

And that was were everything came to a grinding halt. For both of them. Jenny made it a clear point when talking to Taylor that if Jessabelle wanted him and they had some "fling" together at some point prior, she could have him if he wanted her bad enough. He asked her out, not the other way around, and... maybe some time after that... Ian had done... something or other that he couldn't get from her with Jessabelle, and then things were called off shortly after that, or maybe even before. She didn't care.

Either way, Ian was gone, and so were the kisses she'd affirmed a more or less visceral sensation to for some brief point and time.

Closing her eyes, she could kind of think on it, smile to herself at how stupid it all was, but she got what she wanted, even if Ian hadn't entirely gotten what he wanted. She was happy.

"And I'm not stupid," she giggled to herself before lifting the book from under her nose, breathing in to return to reading.

Nothing was ever as memorable as the events she read. Not even Ian's, because it only served as a reference for the more enjoyable first-person fictions, and laughable for the ironies spent on reading about men caught in the act of cheating. Oh, it was more delicious! More enjoyable, and even to keep her giggling in a fit from her back porch door all to the privacy of herself.

But that wasn't all that Jenny did. No.

But it was enough.

Jenny loved her life. Loved the solitude of it, because even if it wasn't real, it didn't matter. Because sometimes, even when she felt a smidgen of loneliness, she too, could believe she was just as fictional, and she was reading about someone else who was make believe too. And it made her feel good for it.

I couldn’t help my melancholy. It had a strange way of settling into my chest with a weight I couldn't exactly shove off, but he was next to me… Wren was.

He made it feel— better and I know for lack of words that probably didn't sound convincing but it did.

I looped down the exit ramp that circled the side of the parking garage sharply. I hated how it wound up, and my hands only tightened on the steering wheel as I tried to keep my focus on the tightly curved ramp. We finally made it out on the bottom and I almost wasn't sure that I had made the correct turn until it emptied out into the straits right before we started to jump into line to pay for parking.

I hated how we had to pay for something that was so short. It felt unfair. Eighteen dollars down the drain for less than thirty minutes to say goodbye to Denise. It was like someone was making profit off of my pain and I wanted to scream at them.

“Are you okay?”

I nodded at him. “Yeah—” I sniffed, trying to keep my eyes from watering. “I’m just a little sad.” I downplayed it. “But I'm trying to remember how I’m going to stop by my house just to make sure that we’re good and that they didn’t miss anything.” I felt some calm run through me, listening to his voice. It settled me in a way, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

Letting my hands slide down the sides of the steering wheel, I gave the car a little more gas as we exited onto the interstate. “You know I won’t seriously take that position from you, though, right?”

I heard him shift in his seat, and a warm hand slid over my lap, gently squeezing. Carefully, I peeled my gaze from the road to quickly glance over and see Warren staring at me. He was leaning on his fist with his elbow propped against the door's armrest, and just looking at me. “I’m really not that bothered by it,” he smiled.

My ears warmed a little and I felt my sadness wane. “Why?” I asked him, a soft laugh breaking through my calm mask as a smile made its way onto my lips.

“Because you’re amazing and I know you’d be great at it,” he told me.

“Wh-What?” I scoffed, glancing over at him once more before I turned to look ahead. “No. I am not the leader type. I barely talk to your family.”

Still, I blushed lightly at the prospect of it or maybe it was the way he was rubbing his heated palm against my upper thigh and then back down it. Licking my bottom lip, I sucked my next breath in before pressing my lips together. “I can only be myself around you anyway.” I admitted softly.

He chuckled at my response and it sounded endearing. “Maybe I’m biased then.”

“Maybe a bit,” I smirked, my nose wrinkling at him as I kept my focus dead ahead. I lifted one hand from the steering wheel, my right and pinched my forefinger and thumb together to give a hint to how small I was talking. “Just a tad.” Letting loose another deep breath, I felt my body relax a bit more as I leaned back against the driver's seat instead of leaning forward. “I really hope Denise will be okay. I wanted to see her board the flight.”

“She’ll be okay,” he assured me. It sounded genuine and I really did appreciate him consoling me when I felt so insecure. It was nice to know that he wasn't saying that just out of hope, but also because there was a pack nearby that was going to be committed to making sure that she wasn't going to be a target.

“I know. My aunt is supposed to already be there, waiting to fly back with her and you said your family has connections…” My smile waned. “I just- I worry. I went through a lot and I don’t want her to experience anything I went through, but you’re right. She’ll be fine. I guess- I guess I’m just afraid to part with her.” Admitting that out loud made me feel so much closer to her, like the distance of the years gone by hadn't really made us feel like we were worlds apart. But honestly, I didn't know too much about my little sister. I spent so much time trying to stick around dad until that accident that I really didn't know as much about her as I could readily admit. Denise was her own person and she had her own life and she had been uprooted from that because Dad made decisions that neither of us were able to reconcile. Hell… those decisions had a ripple effect and here I was, riding the wave with Warren. “She’s my little sister. I love her, you know?”

Saying that was the truth. I didn't feel any better putting Denise out in the middle of nowhere, away from everything she knew while I got to stay here. I'm sure that she probably felt like it was unfair, and I know that I told her that the state wasn't going to let us stay together, but it really felt like a cop-out. I felt like I wasn't trying hard enough and that I wasn't giving her the fight that she probably thought she deserved.

She definitely deserved the fight.

It just wasn't as apparent that I was fighting for her as much as I wished it was.

“I understand. I’d be more worried if you didn’t care.”

“No!” I gasped, my grip on the steering wheel loosening. “Of course I’m worried. I’m not a monster.” Though, mentally I felt like I was on my way to becoming one. I blinked, wide-eyed as I stared at the road, and I gaped a little at my internal confession. “I mean, yeah, sure…” I rattled out, my voice shaky, “I was contemplating burning my parent's house to the ground after this as my last ‘fuck you’ to those assholes my dad was working with, but—” I laughed sorely, “I really need money so-” I shrugged, trying to suppress my pain with some dark humor.

Wren laughed at that, and I figured he was ignorant to how much this still hurt or I was just really good at seeming okay. “Ah-” he whispered. “I love you.”

I snorted, smiling through watering eyes. “You love me even though I could pass as potentially insane.”

“Insane?” he asked me. And I nodded, laughing as I tilted my head back and to the right to give him a quick sideways glance.

“Mm,” he shook his head, still smiling. I felt his hand squeeze my leg. “Maybe more– Violent… Yeah.”

Surprise had my brows rising. “What?” I asked, coughing as I choked back a laugh.

Wren shrugged at me. “Either way, I fucking love it.”

My heart felt like it nearly skipped a beat as the weight of the turmoil let up. “I can’t wait to be out there with you.” I wanted to feel the thrill and rush of this new life, to shake off the impending dark at the back of my mind, and I was confident Wren would help push that all back. “I’m sure… I’m sure you’ll show me the ropes,” I snickered low under my breath, shaking my head. I gave him a side-eye for a moment as we pulled up to the gate of my neighborhood.

“I’m sure,” he answered, and I did a quick double take at that devilishly handsome smile. For all it was worth, it definitely made my stomach swirl.

Glancing at the slow gate, I watched it take its sweet time to open from the clicker before I flashed him a half-grin. “What kind of competitions are we going to have with each other anyway? Capture counts? Kill counts?” My brows rose at the last question as it set in and my heart started to race. I let loose a laugh to suppress my nerves, then gave the car a little gas as we rolled into the neighborhood and I felt my ears tune in for his response, eager. When I didn’t hear an immediate response, I quickly added. “Thoughts?”

I think he shook his head at me, probably laughing low under his breath. It was kind of weird. Though all the noises of the car had me distracted—especially because I was still getting accustomed to the louder sounds of noises and smells— and I couldn’t exactly make out his response next to me.

“All of it.”

I internally scoffed, my chest heaving with that exaggerated breath as I shut the car off and hit the clicker of my seatbelt.

“All of it?”

“All of it,” he reassured me, like he was more intent on watching me do the job than engage in competition with me. I had a feeling I knew where his head was going with this, because he had already surprised me more than once before since my transition.

“Why do I get the feeling that you wouldn't try as hard as I would?” I asked as I laughed between my next inhale. It sounded incredulous. This guy… I rolled my eyes, shaking my head at him before I turned to give him my full and undivided attention. My eyes set on him, on the cool jet black hair that made his blue eyes tinge brighter than they probably were. Or maybe that was the predatory refraction of light gleaming through them. Either way, he always gave me such a heated look with them because they almost always seemed to light up when looking at me.

What was he thinking now?

“Wren.” My voice nearly vibrated with the sound of his name pulling up from my throat to my lips, as I tried to take a more playfully chastising tone with him.

He flashed those pearly white canines at me, and I swore I could see the sharpness in the smaller incisors next to them. Even if I didn’t, it got my heart racing because his next words came out rough and almost husky.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he told me. Before I could protest to him, he kissed me, and I shrank back slightly in surprise as he caught my wrist to keep me from jerking back entirely.

I have the same song on repeat. I probably play it at least forty times a day back and forth between the near discography of a small time artist that helps me feel like my emotional state isn't contained in a tiny bottle, waiting to crack and seep out.

And yet... And yet, I still feel like a torn ribbon. Paper scraps on a plane that's been rained on, stepped on and stuffed conveniently in a small class jar. Fingers snap the steel wire mechanism shut, and I can feel the femininity of the fingers, prancing across the lid's surface.

Here we are, playing pretend with 'strength' but with white masks to try to compare each other with. Can you see the difference? Can you spot it?

I suppose not. Not when the real face lies behind, so we can spin around each other with smiling faces while the tragedy masks fall in obscurity. Because I have no intent to let you in. You can stare in, like other onlookers, from the windows of my "room."

And the piano will dance down the keys and back up as I dance with you at the door, letting you know that there are beautiful things there, but I'll never let you past the entrance, because I've tucked my jar deep.

Tipped it and its contents back, until the 'eat me' tag felt small enough and I was big enough to swallow it.

White rabbits and tails prance along my hallways, but you'll never catch them. I won't let you in, because to know me is to be familiar, and I am not so open anymore.

Find another door. Another store. I am closed, and my jar is tucked deep within the depths of me. The lobby music is on repeat, playing the music I've played at least forty times a day. And I'll dance, to show you that I have promise. To keep you interested just long enough to pay me a toll, but I'll leave and close up when convenient.

And I'll grow the legs beneath my house-my place- and pick up the house like the skirts of a dress to run away with it. I have no intention to share my inner self. My inside. My jar... All things I'll play keep away with it.

So we'll play this game of cat and mouse. And I'll open a window to your eyes to view me. From the outside in. But only one room, because I can be anything I want to be when I shutter my doors and open windows at my discretion.

No more pain.

No more cheaters. Liars.

Let them be. Go away from me.

And I'll carry my house away, away from the torches. Your torches, day after day.