Make an Effort

Chapter 4: Community

A cool breeze floated through the open window causing the curtains to flutter. The heat wave had come and gone, and the weather had decided to change things up a little. Ethan had even seen some brown leaves floating absentmindedly on the current.

Although it had only been a week it looked like Dr. Daniels had decided to change her office around so that he was now able to see out the window that overlooked the town. The fresh air combed through his hair and made goosebumps rise on his arms. It was nice. The heat had become oppressive and a reminder of how shitty his summer had been. The fact that it clung on so vehemently somehow made it even worse.

“I talked to someone at school this week,” Ethan began, breaking the silence that lay thickly over them like a blanket. He had never been good with conversation and usually preferred to wait for someone to start up the conversation and if he had something to add to it he would. “To someone new, I mean.”

“That’s good, how did it go?” Daniels asked enthusiastically, writing down something along the lines of ‘found friend?’

“Not that good, I kind of f****d it up.” He confessed. “Not surprising really, I’m good at that.”

“It’s more likely that you just need more time to get to know them.” She saw his face and rethought his answer. “Why don’t you think it went well? What do you think went wrong?”

That made it sound like she didn’t believe him, that she thought he was lying or over exaggerating. But he wasn’t. he didn’t think it could get any worse.

August had ignored him the whole week. He had failed to hand in his homework and everyone continued to talk about him like he wasn’t even in the room. Ethan was sure August had gone on to b***h about him to his new friends. He could even tell everyone that he was a ‘tranny’ if he wanted. The sad thing was the Ethan didn’t know how to fix it. Every time he tried to catch his eyes in Bio he would pointedly turn away as if he were a bad smell.

Ethan almost felt worse than how he had felt before meeting August because now he knew what it was like to make someone laugh and have fun with someone. He had thought that he hadn’t made any friends in a long time because he didn’t know how to make any. But now he was realising that it was to protect himself. It felt terrible to find someone you like only for them to begin to resent you.

“I don’t know what I did, I said I didn’t need his help with something and he got angry.”

“Did you need help?”

What a stupid question. What did it matter if he needed help or not? August just got angry for no reason, he was the one that overreacted.

“Yes, but that’s not the point, he-”

“I think that is the point, Ethan, he wanted to help you when you needed it and you wouldn’t let him. A lot of people want to help others but not everyone wants help. It can be frustrating for the former to deal with the latter.”

“But now he’s not even talking to me!”

“Try to think about it from his perspective. Here is a boy who needs help and you know how to give it, but when you try he says that he doesn’t want your help, even if he needs it. You don’t understand that it’s because he doesn’t believe that he can learn from you, so you get angry at him.”

“But I don’t,” Ethan began, not knowing what to say. He had never thought about it like that and he wasn’t how to rationalise it even in his own head.

“Ethan, you have shown that you have extremely low self-esteem and self-worth, but I have gaged that through these sessions. Someone you just met isn’t going to know that about you, they’re just going to think you’re a lost cause. I’m not saying you need to always accept help from others, sometimes you need to do things alone, but if you need help with something, like, for example, classwork, it’s okay to ask the teacher or a classmate for help.”

“I just didn’t want to take up his time or stop him from doing his own work.”

“That’s what I’m talking about, you see yourself as less important than him, but you’re not. You are just as important; your learning is just as important, and you deserve to get help as much as anyone else in your classes.” Daniels said, looking sympathetic to how he was feeling. It was clear that this experience had hurt him in some way, though she wasn’t entirely sure how she had never seen him like that before. “Look, Ethan, you seem really sad that this friendship didn’t work out, so I suggest you give it one more try, talk to him about it, see if you can fix things. You might be surprised how empathetic people can be if they know a bit more about a person.”

Ethan’s mind went blank. He opened his mouth to respond but nothing came out. It was the first time Dr. Daniels had been brutally truthful after weeks of sessions. If he had to be honest, he would say that being confronted with the brutal truth was more useful than using picky language and dancing around certain issues.

His brain screamed at him, telling him how stupid he had been, how selfishly selfless. He was so blinded by his own issues to think about anyone else. And it was all well and good to feel ashamed after the fact but in the moment, he had thought he was in the right, that he was helping August. He couldn’t stop the way he felt in those situations, he knew it was the depression that stopped him from thinking that he deserved help. Because that’s how he felt in the moment, like he didn’t deserve it.

“How do I fix it?” He asked in desperation. He felt like a child standing over a broken family heirloom, he didn’t even know where to begin to fix it.

“You just need to go to him and explain what you were thinking, I’m sure he’ll understand you, and if he doesn’t, you can always find someone else.”

The room lapsed into silence. He didn’t want to find someone else; there was no one else at school that he had ever connected to in such a small period of time, not to mention they were both trans. Ethan had never even met another trans person before meeting August and he was amazing, he was everything Ethan wanted to be. No, Ethan liked August and would try anything for the boy not to hate him anymore.

“There’s a support group, run by Headspace, which helps out transgender people here in town. It’s rather new so it’s quite small but it’s a good place to meet and get to know other trans people, of all ages. Does that sound like something you’d be interested in going to?”

“Yeah,” Ethan said, trying not to jump out of his sit. How had he never heard of this before? Talking to other trans people sounded great. His brain buzzed. It sounded too perfect, there had to be a catch, like you had to join their cult to get in or something.

“It’s at 36 Gilbert St, it’s the doctor’s clinic there. You can take family members if you want.”

“Is it overseen by a doctor?” Ethan asked, his stomach twisting painfully as bad memories flashed behind his eyes. He didn’t want to deal with any more doctors, not after being surrounded by them for such a long period of time. He had a feeling they would know what he did and give him that disapproving yet sympathetic look that everyone else had given him. He hated that, and they all gave him the same damn look.

“No, it’ll just be you guys in the room, it’s held there because there’s enough space for it.” She reassured, writing down the address on a loose piece of paper for him to take.

“What time does it start?” He asked, taking the slip. It was on the other side of town; he would have to ask someone to take him if he decided to go.

“Around four-thirty and they usually stick around until six, but there isn’t really any set time.”

“That sounds good. The guy that I talked to is trans too. Except he’s a boy. It was good to talk to him about that kind of stuff, it made me realize how good it is to talk to a real person about it and not just read things on the internet.”

“That’s great, Ethan, you might even get more inspiration for a new name at these group sessions.”

Ethan didn’t say anything to that. He still wasn’t sure what his name should be even after thinking about it for what felt like months. None of them felt quite right.

Ethan had Biology first period the next day, he was trying more to listen and take down as many notes as he could.

They had begun learning about mitosis, which he understood to be a fancy way of saying ‘the cell spits in two’. Unfortunately, he had only brought a pen to class and his cell diagrams were almost illegible.

He kept glancing over at August, who was sitting on the other side of the classroom, it seemed to Ethan that he was as far away from him as possible. He was probably drawing his diagrams with a pencil.

The lesson was slow and boring, the highlight being an animated video of mitosis in action. He was wondering if the class would ever end when the bell rung through the classroom, jolting people awake.

Ethan grabbed his stuff and almost ran out of the classroom before grabbing the homework. He wanted to get to August’s locker before he did, so he would have to talk to him. Ethan hadn’t been able to sleep the night before, so he had begun to make a plan, he just hoped it would work.

“Can you get out of my way?” August’s voice was cool as he looked up at him with a blank expression.

“Not before I talk to you,” he said, determinedly, standing directly in front of his locker.

“Then go ahead, what do you want?”

“There’s a support group for trans people across town and I thought we could go.”

“I don’t need support,” he snapped back.

“Yeah, I know that I just thought it would be nice to meet some people.”

“Could you just get out of my way?” August snarled, giving him a shove, which almost sent him sprawled on the ground.

“Could you please just listen to me,” Ethan pleaded, lowering his voice so he didn’t attract the attention of the other students in the locker hall. Some were already looking over at them with questioning expressions.

“Why, so you can complain about how s**t your life is?” August screamed back, beginning to stuff books roughly into his bag.

“No! I never meant it like that, I just - I don’t know,”

“That’s right, you don’t know. You don’t know anything.”

Anger boiled up inside him, making him shake violently almost immediately. How dare he presume he knew what Ethan had been through. How dare he think he was the only one going through something terrible. Sure, Ethan had been a little selfish, but he knew what he did was wrong and was trying to correct it, only to be shot down unfairly.

“August, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean what I said. I wanted to fix things but if you're going to act like this then fine, I don’t care. I just thought we were less lonely together.”

“Whatever, see you ‘round.”

Ethan felt the urge to yell out f**k you too as August left without a second glance. But he didn’t, as quickly as the anger had come, it was gone. Leaving him feeling nothing, again. How had things gone so wrong so quickly? He didn’t even know why he was angry anymore. He had said that he was sorry, what more did he want?

Dr. Daniels voice floated into his head ‘you can always find someone else’. But he didn’t want to do that. He wanted to fix this. He hadn’t felt this determined to do something in months, maybe even years. He wanted to get to know August more and more simply because he made him feel something. Something different, and Ethan couldn’t even place it. The best description he had for it; warm.

He liked talking to him, about biology, about being trans, about life. He had never felt that at ease with a people in such a short period of time before, and he enjoyed it. Their conversation had ended too soon, and Ethan didn’t want it to be their last. He thought that by going to the trans group together they would be able to calm down and forgive each other. But now it seemed that would never happen.

The days leading up to the support group were some of Ethan’s worst when he looked back on them. He felt terrible that he was unable to mend his relationship with August and it made him lonelier than ever.

He lay in bed, overthinking their argument and subsequently every glare August had shot his way. He thought about what he might have said to make him happy, to make him accept his apology. Ethan didn’t know what to do, in all the movies he had seen after the main character apologizes the apology is always accepted and the ending is always wrapped up in a neat little bow. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do if it wasn’t accepted.

Ethan still intended to go to support group. It was the only thing he was looking forward to, and Dr. Daniels had said that if he was feeling… really bad… he should think about things to look forward to. He had finished the book about the trans man and he was beginning to get excited about getting to know more people in his own town.

He knew that everyone would be dressing how they wanted at the meeting, but he hadn’t even begun to look for more feminine clothes, so he wore a pale pink t-shirt, a jacket and a pair of his sister’s shirts. He hoped that no one would judge him for not wearing a dress or something.

It ended up being his sister who drove him to the meeting. Taylor still hadn’t forgiven him for what he did and refused to talk to him the entire way there. She had taken it personally, rarely talking to him at all, and when she did she would scream at him.

She was the one who he had woken up to, asleep on the end of his bed, her face tear-stained, when he was in the hospital. She held onto his leg like it was a lifeline, like if she let go he would disappear. Ethan did feel bad about it, but there was no way to say sorry, he didn’t deserve her forgiveness.

The receptionist kindly pointed him to a room off to the side. He could almost feel the warmth as he opened the door. A large circle of school style chairs was set out in the centre of the room and a few people were already sitting down. A middle-aged man with a thick beard and two ladies; a young woman with wild, shiny hair which was an odd strawberry blonde colour, and an older woman, older than his mum, with warm olive eyes and a business-like dress to match.

“Welcome, a new-comer, grab a chair, we don’t know who else is going to show up so if no one else does we’ll just make the circle smaller.” The older woman said, waving at him invitingly.

“How did you find us?” The man asked as he sat down in one of the chairs, closer to the women. “We don’t advertise, and I wonder how people find out about us, was it through word of mouth?”

“Um, yeah, my psychologist told me when I came out about it.” He said shyly, trying to tuck his uncut hair behind his ear. He had been trying to grow his hair out over the past couple of months, but his hair grew slowly and all he had was a long fringe that fell into his eyes, not yet long enough to tuck behind his ear.

Unfortunately, the chair that Ethan had chosen had it’s back to the door, so when it opened he had to twist around to see who it was.

“We’re here, bitches, the party can get started,” came an all too familiar voice from behind him.

August, along with a person with pastel pink hair and another older woman entered the room, swinging the door wide open so that banged against the wall loudly, causing Ethan to flinch.

“August! Thank God you’re here, the women were outnumbering me,” laughed the man, patting the chair next to him.

“Fear not, I have come with friends to even the odds,” August announced loudly, flourishing dramatically, continuing the act. He hadn’t noticed Ethan was there yet.

Ethan was beginning to notice how August lit up any room he stepped into, smiling widely and talking loudly, his joy was infectious. All the other people in the group seemed to know August and greeted him like he was an old friend.

August hadn’t acted like this when they were at school, he wasn’t a different person, it was just like his personality had been turned up to eleven.

“We have someone new this week, Gus,” the woman with sweet olive eyes spoke up, pointing at Ethan, who was praying that the ground would open up a swallow him. He was getting the feeling he shouldn’t be here, that this was August’s domain and therefore not somewhere he was allowed be.

Ethan could feel his face turning bright red as August outlandish personality was turned onto him with full intensity.

“Flesh blood, get ready for initiation though we can’t guarantee you’ll survive,” August said looking at Ethan directly for the first time. His face visibly dropped, all flourishing and showing off forgotten. “You?”

“I told you that I was going to a support group,” he reasoned, giving the other two in the doorway a little wave.

“But I wasn’t listening to what you were saying, was I?” He snapped, sitting down with the bearded man.

“Well that’s your fault, isn’t it?” he pouted, knowing that their fight was petty and childish, but he didn’t care, he was the one who started it in the first place.

“I understand that there’s something going on between you two but how about we just get on with it, shall we?” The younger woman cut in, glancing between them as if they might jump on each other a wrestle around on the floor.

“Fine,” August said sharply, crossing his arms over his chest.

“How about you go first, Michael,” the kindly older woman said, smiling over at the man next to August. “We usually say our names and tell everyone what we’ve been up to,” she said to Ethan.

Over the next half hour, Ethan was given a crash course of everyone he didn’t know in the circle.

Michael, the man with the beard, was coming up to his tenth year on testosterone. He talked about how his daughter had taken his transition into being her father instead of her mother and was pleased to say that she had taken it well.

Ethan marveled at the idea of being on hormones for that long. He couldn’t quite comprehend it, as if being on testosterone or estrogen for that long couldn’t happen. The thought that transitioning might be a lifelong exercise hadn’t even crossed Ethan’s mind. Yet Michael sat there, living proof that it was.

It didn’t scare Ethan as much as it might have if he hadn’t already committed, he had found the missing pieces of the puzzle, he was whole; finally. He wasn’t going to give that up.

Ari, whose hair reminded Ethan of fairy floss, used they/them pronouns. They explained to Ethan, who must have shown how confused he was. Which was very. He hadn’t read much about ‘non-binary people’ as Ari called them, only about transitioning from being male to female and vise via. They said that they don’t feel like a man or a woman, much like Ethan didn’t feel like a man. It wasn’t about masculinity or femininity, they said, it was about not feeling like either and dressing accordingly.

They told the group that they had only just returned to university after a relaxing holiday in Canada. They had been skiing and noted that the drastic change in weather had been a shock to the system. They said they were beginning their third and final year studying photography.

Lilith, the woman who had come in with August, was in talks with a doctor about bottom surgery. Everyone in the room congratulated her on her brave move forward and she commented on how this might help her at her workplace as she was currently unable to come out fully.

That had been one of the first things his mother had asked him; ‘does that mean you want a v****a?’. He had told her that he did, he knew that was what she wanted to hear; to make sure that he was transgender. But if Ethan was being honest he really didn’t know whether he wanted one or not. He had read somewhere that hormones would stop the itch, the need for s*x that crawled underneath his skin. He didn’t want that but if hormones could do the job, why pay thousands for something he didn’t really want or need. Not yet, anyway.

Or maybe it was unfair to ask a seventeen-year-old something that monumental.

Marline, the kind older woman who had greeted him, didn’t have much to report other than upping her dosage of estrogen. She had finally decided to take the plunge and fully transition after years of not quite knowing what or who she wanted to be. The group welcomed her warmly and told her that they were proud of her.

Again, Ethan was shocked, the documentaries that he had seen never followed women as old as Marline. They were always about children or young adults. It was almost as if trans people who were aged forty or over didn’t exist in media.

And Emily, the younger woman, had recently been offered a full-time job and had been on estrogen for half a year. Marline commented on her beautiful hair and she said that it was brand new and really expensive.

Ethan was shocked by her voice; so high pitched. He had all but resigned himself to having a baritone voice for the rest of his life and it sent chills of excitement through his body. He would have to ask her about it later.

August seemed to know these people really well and was engaging with them the same way he had just come up to talk to Ethan when they first met. He seemed to love being around these people, around people in general. It was something Ethan couldn’t quite relate to; his shoulders were hunched, and his palms were sweaty. He knew it was a weird reaction considering those people had been nothing but kind to him, but he just wasn’t used to being in a room of complete strangers because, although he had talked to August once, he didn’t really know much about him at all.

Before Ethen knew it, all eyes were on him, he had become so enraptured with these people’s lives he had completely forgotten to be anxious about telling them about himself. He had never seen anything like this before, people caring about strangers, wanting them to be happy, wanting them to succeed in their goals.

“Oh, um… I haven’t really thought of a name yet,” Ethan began, tugging awkwardly at his too short hair. He felt out of place, surrounded by people who looked how they wanted to look when he didn’t.

“That’s ok, we all started out without the name we wanted,” Marline said with a wink. “You can tell us your current name, or if you don’t want to, you can just say you don’t have one, yet.”

“Well, I don’t have a name yet, I was told this was a thing by my psychologist because I’m a girl. But I can’t do anything about it yet. My parents are okay with it, they just want me to get a bit better before I do anything drastic.”

“What do you mean a ‘bit better’?” Ari asked, their brows furrowed in confusion.

“Well, I’ve had a rough couple of months, I don’t know whether I should tell you this but, I tried to kill myself a few weeks ago and I think everyone’s just trying to make sure I won’t do it again.”

The room fell silent for a moment and Ethan felt terrible, instantly knowing that he had said the wrong thing. Everyone else had only said the positive things going on in their lives. No one was saying anything bad and he had gone and f****d that all up. They all had shocked expressions on their faces, but Ethan could only look at August. He couldn’t quite read his expression, he thought the closest thing might be a pity.

Ethan didn’t want that, he didn’t want pity, especially not from him. He opened his mouth to say that he didn’t mean what he had said but was interrupted by Marline’s deeper motherly voice.

“We’re a support group, Sweetie, we’re here to support you, no matter how long you’ve been here or what you’ve been through. If there’s anything we can do to help you, let us know.” Marline started, giving him a kind look and reaching over to hold his hand tightly in a comforting grip.

Ethan couldn’t help but look over at August whose face had twisted with guilt at Marline’s words. He couldn’t even look him in the eyes.

“We all know what it was like pre-transition. We understand the feeling of being lost and confused. We’ve all had dark thoughts and we’ve been able to pull through them.” Emily continued, flicking her hair over her shoulder and turning to smile at him.

“Yeah, you hear about so many young trans people doing that to themselves and it’s horrifying to think that that person thought killing themselves was the only way, but we’re here to tell you that it isn’t. We can help you through it.” Michael assured him from across the circle.

Ethan felt a warm glow bubble up inside of him, these people, who didn’t even know him, were comforting him. They were actually worried about him and wanted to help him. It felt weird but in a good way, it was a recognition that you didn’t need an ulterior motive to care about someone’s wellbeing. Their expressions of concern and kindness were so genuine that Ethan couldn’t help but believe them. He couldn’t help but trust them.

Ever since he walked through the door they had acted like he was one of them and maybe he was, but he felt that it wouldn’t matter regardless, they would still care about him and listen to what he had to say.

“We’re glad that you shared this with us, and we’re here to help you, we are a support group after all.” Ari laughed shyly. They gave him an impish smile and punched him lightly on the arm. “If you ever feel like that again, le us know before you go and do something drastic, okay?”

August stayed silent, with the same weird expression that Ethan couldn’t quite place. He looked… like he was in shock, as if he hadn’t known. Ethan wasn’t sure why though, he had been hanging out with people who knew at school, he would have had to have known by now, wouldn’t he?

He felt his stomach drop horribly, what if this was the first time he was hearing about this? What had he done?

August walked back along the street with him in silence, his hands buried deep inside his pockets. It was like the roles had been reversed and now he was the one looking down at his feet. Ethan was glowing, he was the happiest he had been in a long time and it made him feel lighter than air. The golden sun shone down on them from behind, making their shadows spread meters ahead of them.

August had asked if he could walk with him to the bus station down the street. And he had agreed, hoping they might be able to make up or at least start talking to each other again.

“I didn’t know,” August whispered to his shoes, his hair falling into his face. “I didn’t know what happened; what you did.”

“You never asked anyone at school?” Ethan asked. He had been surprised by August’s reaction, he had expected August would have known. He honestly hadn’t expected the reaction his confession had garnered from the group. He didn’t know what he had expected, he had just said it without thinking about the consequences. And now it was like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, like he was free to move on without worrying about what others thought of him.

“You didn’t want to tell me, so I thought it wasn’t something I should know. It would have been wrong to ask questions about you behind your back.” He admitted, looking ashamed, even though that was the most respectable thing he could have done after their fight. It was something Ethan didn’t expect from anyone.

“I’m glad you didn’t, that was really thoughtful of you,” Ethan pointed out. He knew not many people were like that, especially not people their age. Everyone wanted to know everything about everyone else and that was sometimes confronting to him; he had never wanted to be the center of attention.

“No, it wasn’t! I yelled at you, told you that you were selfish, told you that you were conceited, that you didn’t care about anyone else but yourself. I yelled at you because I didn’t know!” August almost screamed, his voice rising in pitch as he became more frustrated. He had stopped then and Ethan turned to face him. His face was cast in shadow as the sun created a golden glow around his head. He looked like an angel. Ethan immediately pushed away the thought.