Sarah to John

none...kinda self explanatory

Have you ever felt pain beyond imagining? Have you ever felt as if the world has casted you out? Have you ever felt truly desolate, truly lost? I have. Many times. In one short night, I lost everything. I lost my best friends. Im one short, short night, I lost my will to live.
    You see, I know what all of that feels like. I know what true pain really is. Even now, as I cry, I write this, drops of blood falling upon the keys, decorating my fingertips with brilliant crimson. My scream to the world. My stand against every little screwed up emotion that everyone feels.
    Because you see, emotions are lies. The worst kind of lie. They tell you a story that you believe. That you always fall for. With these kinds of lies, not even the most skilled lie detector can find them. I have nothing left. The one person I have left…the one thing that I rely on for my sanity sits alone, in a room hundreds of miles away from me.
    Yes, this person is someone I met online. Someone that I met on a computer. Someone that knows my worst secret. No matter how strange it sounds, I wish I was with that person right now. My best friend. I have never met this person, and they probally don’t wish that they were with me, but I want more than anything to just have one hug. To have one little ounce of SOMETHING that will tell me im not useless.
    Think me insane, think me crazy. I don’t care. When you lose everyone that you thought cared about you, you end to not care about anything anymore. Well, that is, when you lose everyone but one. But im not a fool. I wont delude myself into thinking that there will never come a day that I wont lose her too. I know I will. My entire life, I have lost everyone. I’ll lost her too. I just hope…I pray that it will be a long time from now.
    Because, no matter what anyone says, that one person keeps me alive. Has kept me alive. Where everyone else has left me, where everyone else has betrayed me, she stands still at my side. I’m starting to think that she’s an angel. One that I don’t deserve.
    My angel? I don’t even know her real name. I don’t know what state she lives in, or even if she lives in the USA. I know almost nothing about the real her, yet…I know everything. I know the kind of person she is, the kind of person that she makes me want to be. I know that she loves me for me, despite knowing about who and what I am. I know that she has defended me against everyone, against people that were her friends, because she loves me. I know that she’s lost everything just as I have, and for that….for that she is my angel. Sent from god.
    Why? I don’t know. I’ve never been a real big believer in god…he has never really given me any reason to believe in him. But, I have to admit. I am grateful to him for her. Anyway. Now that you know about my best friend, let me tell you about me.
    I was born a girl, named Sarah Waters. My mother would always dress me in sundresses. I hated them. I would scream and beg her to not make me wear them, but still, she did. For that, I hated her. I hate her still, or at least a part of me does. Anyway, when I was about 7 years old, she took me to the doctor, saying that something wasn’t…right. That I was messed up. Mother never did love me like she did my sister. She never really loved me at all. Still, she took me to the doctor, saying I was not…right. That I was messed up in the head. She was right.
    After running many tests, the doctor finally came to my mother and told her this: I was a freak. Well, he didn’t LITERALLY say this to my mother, but still. Generally the same thing. He told my mother, in doctor launguage, that I had Gender confusion disease. You see, I was born a girl, but I have the mind of a boy. I think like a guy. See? Told you I was a freak. From that day on…my life just got worse. This is where I take about a zillion chapters to tell you just how pathetic I am….and how it ends. You’ll just have to wait and see if I die or not. I cant tell. Not yet anyway. Well here goes. Chapter one.

CHAPTER ONE
Moving day. Ah, what can one say about moving day? Its nothing but a parade of idiots packing boxes and shoving them into a big truck. But our moving day was special. Our moving day had a freak in it. Our moving day, unlike any other typical American families, involved a reason far more terrifying.
We were moving so that I would not die. We were moving so that the freak (me) could live a ‘normal life’. But what is a normal life? Nothing I have ever known. You see, it’s quite impossible for me to experience a ‘normal’ life. Every time I catch my mother or my older sister or my father looking at me, I see the disgust on their faces. But why should they be disgusted with me. Its not like I could help that im a freak. Not like I could help being what I am.
And, hey, im the one that should hate them. IM the one that should be looking at the with disgust. You see, my…condition was caused by the exposure to a pesticide when I was in the womb. My mother, the fool that she is, was out in the yard spraying all the bugs that were eating her rose bushes. Thinking she was killing pests when she was really killing me. She didn’t know it at the time. She didn’t know that when I was born I would have the body of one gender and the mind of another. She didn’t know that she was poisoning me. And most importantly….she didn’t know that eighteen years later, I would kill myself because of her mistake. She didn’t know it THEN. She knows it now.
So, I sit in the corner of our almost empty house, watching as they walk by and give me a look that makes me feel like im the devils child. I endure it. When the house is finally empty, and everyone is outside packing the last few boxes, I stand and walk toward the door. Only to stop. Stop when I hear my name mentioned, and when I hear the sound of my mothers voice. Talking to my older sister. I can hear them mumbling, whispering and then chuckling. At that age, I didn’t know what they were doing. At that age, I thought that they were being nice. Only when I get older did I realize that they were making fun of me. Even still, I was young, so it didn’t matter at the time.
But, I am forgetting to tell you about my YOUNGER sister. Her name is Jessica waters. By the time I had gone to the doctor and been diagnosed, she was almost five. Only a few younger years than me, but we had always been close. I used to always watch out for her, when she was playing in the playground, or just out in the yard. I was like her…well, older brother. She was too young to understand then that I was a freak, that I was a disgrace to genetics. She was too young to understand any of it. So, while my older sister, Amanda, and my mother were laughing about me, about something that I could not help, and indeed my worthless idiot of a mother had CAUSED, I was with Jessica.
She was sitting in her room, playing with what few toys we had left unpacked, just as happy as could be. Until I entered the room. When I walked toward her, cleared the doorway and started my way forward, a look of such joy overcame her face that I almost want to cry when I remember it now. While writing this, I do cry. I loved her even more from that day on just for her acceptance of me when the rest of my family had shunned me. Let me recall for you the events of the rest of the day in a more…present tence form.
~~~
“ Sarah look!!” my sister screeched, showing me her newest trick with her Barbie’s, even as I winced at the name. Still, she did not notice the expression, and so she just kept on saying…it.
“Sarah Sarah!! Loooook!!” the repeated word like daggers in my flesh. It was…horrible to be called that name. Now, I know you are probally thinking ‘it’s just a name!’ But to me, a name was more than JUST a name. My name was a lie. It was then and there, as I moved toward Jessica and set down Indian-style beside her, smiling as she continued to play with her dolls, that I decided I would not be called Sarah anymore.
“Jessy?” I asked, using my favorite nickname to catch her attention. I smiled as her big blue eyes turned to look at me, her toothless grim inspiring a small chuckle. “Can you do me a favor Jessy?” I asked once more, watching her face as she nodded frantically, attempting to assure me that I could ask her anything, almost as if I was about to tell her a secret. You know how little kids are with secrets. Anyway.
“Can we pretend that im not called Sarah? Can we pretend that my name is….” It took me a few seconds to come up with a name that I wanted, a guy’s name that fit me. In the end, I think I made the right choice. The name I chose is common, nothing to cause so much fuss over like some of the names they have now-a-days.
“Can we pretend my name is John?” I asked her, watching as her face became, if possible, even brighter at the concept of a new game. Once more, she nodded, making me chuckle at the thought that if she nodded any harder, she would surly break her head right from her shoulders. I gave her a quick hug before I picked up a doll as well, looking from her to it, asking silently what she wanted me to do.
Catching my silent question– Jessy is a very intelligent girl- she grabbed another doll and swayed it back and worth a bit, as little girls do when trying to make their dolls seem real, and spoke, as if the Barbie itself was speaking.
“hello there Mary. It’s a pleasant day out, don’t you think?” she said in her too-high-Barbie voice. Then, I watched with slight horror as her eyes turned to me, waiting for a response. Did she really expect me to play one of these things? I mean, gosh, I barely could stand watching HER play with them, let alone having to do it myself. But, God help me, I love my sister, and so, before I even knew it, biting back the disgust, I was replying.
“why yes…” I paused for a moment, waiting for her to give me the name of the Barbie, continuing when her soft voice told me it was Angelina. “…Angelina.” I replied, those three words all I could force out of me. But, we continues playing with the dammed things for about ten minutes when my mother, this being the only time I really was grateful toward her, came to rescue me.
“ time to go kids! Grab your stu…” She started speaking as she was walking down the hall, her voice coming to an abrupt halt as she realized what we…no, I was doing. The look on her face would have made me cry if I had not had the self control at that age that most kids don’t learn until their twice my age. But, hey, freaks learn faster and harder to control their emotions. Still, the look she gave me was one of utter hate, the kind of hate that one bears for a snake or a school bully.
I met her gaze, my own holding my own degree of dislike. But still…even to this day, I have never looked at my mother like that. No matter how many times she has looked upon me that way. Still, the defiance within me flared to the surface. “We’re coming. But I want you to call me John from now on” the words were spoken with harshness, leaving no room for discussion. I had made up my mind, and nothing would make me change it.

Author's Note

uh....

Reviews

[Lauren Marie]

This was good. I really felt the characters emotions, and I learned of something I've never heard of before.

If this story is true, I'm sorry that you have to deal with stuff like that.

This was really sad and thought-provoking, and shows that we need to accept people for who they are.

Great read!
~Lauren