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Heather had been born as the first child and only child to your average looking family in the 90s. Well, at least what looked like an average looking family. Her father was a raging alcoholic who couldn’t keep or job (or fists out of his wife's face.) Her mother was a talented singer-songwriter who struggled to catch her break and worked as a waitress in a diner.
Ever since she could remember Heather had always had a deep love and fascination with cars. It was something her mother would always encourage him about, her father, however, was less than thrilled about it. He was a traditionalist to the bone. Heather often saw the look of pure disgust that overtook her father's face when she talked about cars. She also heard her parent's numerous fights about it. Her father would say ‘I don’t want my daughter growing up to be a dyke .’ Heather didn’t know what the word ‘dyke’ meant but it didn’t sound good, and she didn’t want to disappoint her father. So she often kept her car obsession to herself after that not even mentioning it to her mother anymore with fear that she too would hate her forever possibly disappointing her.
Heather realized very early on his life that she shouldn’t like anything masculine or do anything too out of the ordinary. The only problem with this was that Heather was very masculine and out of the ordinary child. She couldn’t keep her hands still and felt a great need to bang them against any surface she could find, tables, the floor or even herself. Her obsession with cars and music completely overtook her every waking thought. She didn’t speak much but when she did he was almost always quoting things characters on TV had said or she repeated whatever the person had said back to them without even realizing. Most lights, whether natural or artificial tended to hurt her eyes greatly or give her awful headaches. The same thing also happened but with sound. If there were too many sounds going on at once she found it almost impossible to focus on only one of them. All of these lead to many beating and attempted beatings from her father.
She could remember vividly that his mother loved the meaning of names. She said they decided who you were going to when you grew up. She said her name, her birth name , Heather, had a beautiful meaning. She said that heather flowers were used to make brooms, baskets, rope, bedding, as thatch for roofs and to flavour beer or tea. She said that meant she would be a great help to everyone she met. She would bring people together and bring flavour to their lives. She also said that in flower language heather meant good luck and admiration and some people even believed it could have protective powers. She had always told her that she was ‘her good luck charm’. Wouldn’t record a song unless she was there to watch her, made her feel safe.
At the time she believed her. She loved his name, it was her name to own. She was the only Heather she knew, after all, it made her feel unique. That was until not long before the accident she began to feel deeply and strangely uncomfortable in anything even remotely feminine. It made his skin burn to wear dresses, put her on the verge of tears whenever she had to do play sports at school with the other girls and most of all it made bile rise to her throat whenever someone called her Heather .
One day Heather and her mother were chatting while she drove her home from school and she was telling her about a new friend he made at school, Miles . Miles was nice, he shared his cookies with her and Heather let him borrow some of her very nice gel pens when he wanted to colour in his drawings of Batman and Pikachu. A weird pair , Heather had thought but ultimately decided that it was definitely super cool. Her mother smiles at him knowingly.
“Your friend sounds very nice, baby. Did you know that if you had been born a boy I woulda’ called you Miles? I love that name, Miles. It means ‘gracious’ . It’s a wondrous thing to be gracious, you know?”
If she was honest, Heather doesn’t know what ‘gracious’ means but it sounds like a nice word and her mother said it was something good and she always trusted anything she said. She nodded along to what she was saying but she honestly wasn’t thinking. Miles . She liked the name Miles too. That was her first thought when her new friend had told her his name. Something bloomed in her chest, like a flower (that an ironic feeling.) Trying to escape the name of a flower and now she feels one growing in her chest. It’s a good feeling though, a great feeling even.
After the accident she wakes up in a hospital room, staring at the stark white ceiling and hears an awfully loud ringing between her ears. It’s so loud in fact that she can’t hear anything but the ringing. So loud she was having a head-splitting headache. Coupled with the fact that she was now starting to remember what had happened and why she was in the hospital. She couldn’t help but begin to cry and scream. I can’t even hear myself , she thought. That only made her scream louder, desperate to hear something, anything . Her screaming caught the attention of everyone within hearing distance of her room and soon many nurses and doctors were rushing to her bedside to try and calm her down.
She remembered one woman holding her face and wiping her tears away with her thumbs and saying gentle words to her. Of course she couldn’t hear them, but by the way she looked into her eyes with such sympathy and understanding, she knew she was being kind.
She stopped screaming but was still sobbing heavily. She looked into the kind woman's eyes and told her.
“I can’t hear you.”
Everybody in the room froze and she saw the beginnings of tears well up in the woman’s eyes.
She took a few shallow breaths and hoped they could understand what she was saying.
“It’s too loud.” Everyone now looked confused. “The ringing, it’s too loud .”
The doctors and nurses looked at each other in what looked like knowing looks and Heather desperately wanted to know what they knew.
Not long after that, the doctor did many tests on her. Working out what was exactly wrong with her ears. She found that after a few days it got slightly better, it was still loud and awful but she could now at least understand what people were saying. Sort of. She had to really focus on them and try to read lips most of the time but she usually got it right.
They wouldn’t tell her what happened to her parents though, every time she asked they would just look at the floor or away from her and tell her to just focus on her tests. She knew what that meant. They were gone. It both annoyed her and made things a little more bearable that they wouldn’t tell her. It annoyed her they thought they could lie to her and she’d not realize but it also made it easier because if nobody said it directly then it didn’t necessarily mean it was true. She liked to imagine her mother was waiting for her in another wing of the hospital somewhere. Even if she knew imagining such things would only make it worse.
Maybe two weeks or so into her stay the special ear doctor at the hospital told her she had an extremely bad case of tinnitus. He told her that the tinnitus was what was causing her to hear the constant ringing in her ears and that even though it was the worse case of it he had even seen that it was very likely for it to get better or at least bearable as she got older. Heather didn’t speak the entire time she stared at her hands and wondered if she would ever be able to listen to her mother songs again.
Uncle Joe had been visiting her every day since she had gotten into the accident and now a full month later she was allowed to leave the hospital. Se loved Joe a lot. The man had always been kind to her, he even taught Heather sign language so when they did it in school she was far ahead of the rest of her class. She was happy to be going to live with Joe, of course, she wished she could go back to her mother but it was only just now beginning to sink in that she would never see her again.
That day a doctor sat down with her and told her that her parents had passed away. She didn’t listen to the man, he just wondered how they thought this would be news to her. Like it hadn’t been obvious already.
Heather didn’t say a word to him during or after the speech the doctor gave her. The doctor looked at her worriedly.
“Are you okay, Heather?”
She lifted her head up from where she had been staring idly at her lap and for the first time that day she looked at the man.
“I already knew. I knew from the moment I woke up.” And with that Heather stood and left to find her uncle.
Joe and Heather moved to Atlanta after that, to a rundown old apartment building. It was all Joe could afford. Heather was just happy to have a roof over her head. Well, not happy. She was angry, so fucking angry. All the time. She stopped talking after the move, choosing to only sign to Joe instead. She was sure that if the teacher didn’t call out her name on the register every morning none of his classmates would know her name. She honestly would have preferred that. She knew she’d gain the reputation of being the ‘weird girl in old, second hand, hand-me-down clothes who carried around an old walkman around everywhere.’ She didn’t care though, well for some reason the ‘girl’ part rubbed her the wrong way. She didn’t care what the other kids thought about him though. They didn’t like her anyway. Being the mute kid they always tried hard to get her to speak. Calling her names, pushing her and on several occasions pulling her long hair. Which had honestly gotten her to let out a few squeaks of pain, but still she said nothing.
At twelve she had only been with Joe a year and could see the strain she was putting on her guardian. He had taken another job that week. Heather could see by the way he was working that he couldn’t live like that. She felt responsible. Joe had never even considered having a child so financially he hadn’t been prepared to look after a child and now he had a child who constantly needs to go not only therapy for her trauma but also Tinnitus Retraining Therapy. Joe was haemorrhaging money just to keep food on the table and Heather wanted to change that.
Heather had been given driving lessons from her late mother when she was still alive and sometimes Joe let her drive around in the car park when they went food shopping. Not to brag but she was actually a pretty good driver. She had also watched many movies about criminals and thieves and was now sure she could unlock a car if she wanted to.
Of the first time she tried to, it went awfully.
Heather decided that night that she needed to look different then she usually did if someone saw her she could possibly get away from it. So here she was standing in front of her bathroom mirror, scissors in hand and long hair up in a ponytail. She pulled her ponytail to the side, placing the scissors just past the hair tie and hesitated for a second. She thought about how his mother had always told her that her long hair was beautiful. That it looked like her own long hair. Heather felt sick. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath then opened her eyes again and told herself, I’ve always hated my hair . Snip. She pulled the large lump of hair and dropped it into the sink. It was like a lifetime of pain had been lifted off her chest. The relief was so immediate it was incredible. She looked at herself in the mirror and saw someone she liked for the first time staring back at her. Sure her hair looked choppy and her face was covered in acne but she finally saw someone she could be happy as. He didn’t have to be Heather anymore.
With her freshly cut new hair, she practically skipped back to her room and threw on a black hoodie and black jeans. Something that would make her blend into the night, or that’s at least what she hoped. Joe wasn’t back yet and he wouldn’t be back until 4:00am and it was currently 1:00am so she was sure she had enough time to go find a car, break into it and steal anything valuable in it.
She spent at least an hour wandering the streets of Atlanta looking for a car, every time she thought she’d found one hse got so nervous she started to shake and had to run away. She held her face in her head, so incredibly annoyed with herself. Why can’t I just do this one thing! She thought to herself. The ringing in her head was so loud and she had forgotten to bring her walkman with her too, she didn’t even have to option to drown it out right now and that was only making her more anxious.
She finally stumbled across a seemingly empty street by pure luck. After a quick glance around the area, she decided it was safe enough. She walked along the streets until she found what looked like the most expensive car on the street and decided if she was going to rob any car it may as well be an expensive one. She stood nervously stumbling by the car desperately trying to open it for much longer then it should have taken. It was a miracle really that nobody had seen her. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she heard that telltale click of the car door opening and she shakily slid inside.
She rummaged around looking for anything valuable, of course first of she went for the stereo, she knew that out of anything in the car that would get him the most money. Once she had managed to pry it loose and put it in her backpack, she decided to check the glove compartment. There wasn’t much in there, just spare tissues and driving gloves. She sighed, disappointed. But then as she slipped her hand right into the back of the compartment she felt something cold and metallic, she pulled out what she holding realised he had found a sixth-generation iPod. Jackpot! She honestly couldn’t believe she could be so lucky as to find something so valuable on her first try. There were even earphones wrapped around it so she listened to her new iPod all the way home, completely destroying all the anxiety she had been feeling before.
She had a problem. She stole the iPod to sell it so she could get some extra money for Joe and herself, she’d already sold the stereo with surprisingly little to no difficulty (seems criminals didn’t care who they brought stolen goods from even if the person selling them happened to be a twelve year old.) No, you see the problem was that while home alone she had been dancing around listening to her walkman, making herself dinner since Joe was at work and hadn’t been thinking about what she was doing and ended up dropping her walkman and watching it smash into thousands of tiny pieces. At first, all she could do is cry, the only thing that helped her drown out the constant, monotonous ringing sound inside her head was broken and it was her fault. She sobbed and sobbed until she almost passed out which is when she remembered; the iPod. She ran to her room and immediately tipped everything out of her backpack onto her bed, found the iPod and shoved the earbuds into her ears so hard it almost hurt. She pressed play on a random song, it didn’t matter to her what song played, as long as something drowned out the ringing. The song that filled her ears happened to be And She Was by Talking Heads and she let out a few tears of relief as the sweet music filled her head and overrided the horrible noise constantly inside of her.
After that she knew she couldn’t sell the iPod, she’d have nothing to fill the void in her mind and if she didn’t fill it she thought she might go insane. But Joe really needed that money. Sh e needed it bad.
As bad as Joe needed the money, she decided she needed this more. She needed just one thing to make everything less unbearable. She decided she could be selfish this one time.
She began to rob cars regularly but she knew if she could steal the car and sell it she would make more money then she ever would just sell the stereos and other bits and pieces she found in the cars. At thirteen she stole her first car. It was a crappy car so the guy she sold it to only used it for scrap metal but she didn’t care, it made her feel powerful.
It was also around this time that while messing around on the internet on one the computers at the library at her school that she found the word ‘transgender’. As soon as he read what it meant he knew immediately that this what he had been missing his whole life. It was such a massive relief to realize he wasn’t the only one. It filled him with so much joy that that day as soon as Joe got home he told him (he even looked up the ASL sign for it too!) Joe smiled at him and told him he already kind of knew something like that was going on with him. They hugged and cried a little bit and had a lovely chat about what they were going to do about it.
Have you chosen a new name? Joe asked him.
He had. It took him a long while but he remembered the conversation he had with his mother when he had become friends with Miles. He rememberd her excitedly telling him about how much she loved that name and its meaning. He loved the name too, he felt it fit him perfectly.
Miles. He signed back.
He knew he wanted to get on testosterone as soon as possible and Joe agreed but of course, there was that constant, massive elephant in the room. Where would they get the money to pay for it? While Joe was contemplating taking on a new job, Miles knew exactly what he needed to do.
Miles thought he had hit the jackpot. He found an incredibly expensive car in a random car park he had found in the city, and with a quick sweep of the area, he found that the car was almost certainly in a blind spot for the security cameras.
He immediately got to work. Deft fingers expertly picked the lock and he slides seamlessly into the car. It only took him a few moments to hotwire the car and now he was already driving out of the car park and onto the bust street of Atlanta.
It didn’t take Miles long to get to the car dealer. By this time he knew the streets of the city like the back of his hand, and he’d already stolen so many cars going to this man’s illegal car dealership was like second nature.
Stealing cars gave him a thrill. It made him feel so powerful, it gave him the money he and Joe so sorely needed and it was an excuse to listen to some really great up-tempo music that got his blood pumping while he did it. For example, he had decided to listen to Cherry Bomb by The Runaways this time. He bopped and mouthed along to the song while he drove.
He’d stolen so many cars by this time he had a vast collection of iPods and multiple pairs of sunglasses which he always kept for himself even if it did make him feel slightly selfish. He just loved how with each new iPod he could catch a glimpse of this person's life through their music taste. It was also always great to get introduced to all these new and interesting songs that he might never have heard before if he hadn’t stolen them. Like the current iPod he was listening to was a first generation model and while that meant it didn’t have the same amount of space for music as the other generations the iPod was completely filled with 70’s, 80’s and early 90’s songs. It was a blast from the past that he thoroughly enjoyed, quite a few of the songs he recognised from his parents playing them often. While it hurt slightly to remember them he also found such a wonderful sense of nostalgia in them he found it incredibly hard to stop listening to them.
Once he got to the illegal dealership he handed the car over to Daryl, the owner. Miles was given $20,000 for his find. He watched excitedly as the men Daryl employed took the car apart piece by piece.
He felt so happy skipping and dancing along the road back out of the dealership. Listening to Rhiannon by Fleetwood Mac just put him such a happy but still laid back mood that he didn’t even notice the tall, stern-looking man walking toward him before it was too late.
The man came to stand a few feet in front of Miles, blocking the boy's path. Confused, Baby just stared up at the man before he pulled out a pistol from his coat pocket and pointed square at Miles’ head. His blood ran cold.
“That was my car you stole, you know?” The unknown man told him.
Shit.
“And now I can see it’s being destroyed.” He waved his gun in the general direction of the workers taking it apart.
There were a few moments of silence before the man spoke again.
“Not talking? You afraid? ”
He was. He was so afraid. But of course that wasn’t all of it, Miles hadn’t spoken a word to anyone for the last 3 years (except himself when he was home alone and singing along to his favourite songs.)
“Cat got your tongue?” The man asked before noticing his earphones. “Can you even hear me?” He asked again in a more frustrated voice.
Again, Miles didn’t answer, too focused on the gun being pointed in his face. This only made the man even angrier than he already was. Click. He had turned the safety off.
“Answer me!” He demanded.
Miles shakily lifted his arms, slowly pointed to his mouth and then made a cross sign with his arms.
The unknown man looked confused for a moment but then it seemed to click in place. “Are you mute?” He said, seemingly interested now.
Miles nodded.
“Huh, interesting… ” He paused for a moment but then began speaking again. “Anyway, since you’ve destroyed my car you’re now in my debt. I watched you the whole time, you’re good at this. I’d like you to work off your debt to me, that is if you can’t give me the money for a new car.”
Miles didn’t know what to do, he knew it wasn’t likely that he had enough money stashed away for a car like that but he also had absolutely no idea what kind of ‘work’ this man had in mind. It could be anything!
Noticing Miles’ confliction he added, “It’s $3,000,000 by the way.”
His heart stopped. There was no way he could pay this. With tears rolling down his face and held up his index finger.
“One? You mean the first option? You’ll work for me?” He question.
Miles just shakily nodded his head, letting it hang down and stare at the ground.
“Good girl, Heather .”
His head shot up at that. How did he know? How could he possibly know his birth name? For the second time that day his heart stopped.
He shook his head.
“No? What do you mean no? ” The man asked, getting angry again.
He had no idea how he was going to communicate all these feelings to the stranger. Frantically he signed, do you know sign language? To the man but he only gave him a confused look. Shit. Shit! He knew he had to use his words. But he hadn’t used them in so long he was almost sure he had lost them.
Openly crying now with tears streaming down his face he knew what he needed to do. He reached down deep inside of himself and found the words he needed.
“Not a girl, not Heather.” He let out in one short breath, firmly but so quiet it was almost inaudible.
The man looked surprised, not sure how to respond for a few moments.
“Well you are definitely Heather Spencer, just turned thirteen a few months ago, orphaned at ten years old, who now lives with your legal guardian Joseph Simins and goes to Sutton Middle School. Oh, and last time I checked, you are a girl.”
Fuck.
“I don’t- I’m not- I’m not a girl inside.” He confessed.
“Interesting… I’ve never heard of a girl wanting to be a boy before, of course, I’ve heard of boys who want to be girls before but this is the first I’ve heard of this.” He chuckled, “Well I guess anything is possible.”
Miles didn’t say anything back.
“Thought you said you were mute.”
He took a deep breath. “I am- I was, you’re the first person I’ve spoken to in 3 years. At least verbally that is…”
The man gave him an amused grunt. “Well, then Heather- well not Heather you better be coming with me.” He waved his gun in direction of a sleek black car behind him. “You’ll begin your work for me immediately.”
Miles gave him a look of suspicion and took a step back.
“If you don’t then Joe will be getting a visitor at home today.”
Tears began to fill Miles’ eyes again, he could never let anything bad happen to Joe. He had given up everything for Miles and there was no way he could repay him for his incredible kindness with this.
Miles hung his head in shame and fear started following behind the man, slipping into the front seat with him and letting himself be driven to wherever the man wanted.
The car ride was silent until they were back at the car park Miles had stolen the original car from.
The still unknown man turned to him. “So, then since you don’t seem to like your name that it actually quite a good thing for this job. We don’t use our real names here, we use made up ones so none of us knows each other's real identities. For example, my name here is Doc. Well, of course, I know your real identity but it's better if the other people you’ll be working with don’t know your true identity.”
He swallowed the large lump forming inside his throat and nodded.
“Any ideas of what you want to be called?”
He mulled it over in his mind. What should I name myself? Miles? No, it can’t be that. He thought and thought until he remembered the nickname his mother had given him since before he could remember. The name that always stuck in his mind whenever he thought of her.
“Baby, my name should be Baby.” He confirmed.
Doc looked amused at this. “Okay then Baby, let me show you your new job.”
Baby found that this ‘new job’ Doc had told him about was being the driver for bank heists. Doc trained him how to do it, and do it well. He was already an incredibly skilled driver but Doc taught him the best ways to avoid and lose the cops, how to seamlessly weave his way through traffic and many different things.
After a few months, Doc decided it was time that Baby have his first time being a getaway driver.
One day Baby made his way to Doc’s office as usual and was greeted by 3 new people sitting at the table. The people turned their heads towards him and looked incredibly surprised to see him there.
“Yo’ Doc is this your kid or something?” One of the people asked.
“No, this is your driver. His name is Baby.”
Another person spoke up. “Yeah, she's definitely a Baby that’s for sure.”
Baby swallowed, trying to not sure his nervousness and uncomfortableness at being called a girl.
“ He , Baby is a boy. Isn’t that right, Baby?”
He didn’t know what to do. Should I say something? Baby thought, but that would definitely give away that he was transgender. Instead, he decided to just simply nod.
The third person spoke up this time. “Nah, I know guys and that ain’t no man.” She said with venom in her voice.
Doc gave her an unamused look but didn’t correct her.
Baby just slipped into the seat at the furthest side of the table from everyone, not wanting to be anywhere near them. He was so thankful that he had decided to wear sunglasses that day because now none of them could see the tears welling in his eyes.
The man to his right spoke to Baby directly this time in a gentler more softer tone. “How old are you?”
Again Baby didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to do. He just opened and closed his mouth, unable to get any words out.
Luckily Doc answered for him. “He’s mute so you won’t be getting anything out of him.”
The man looked up at Doc. “So, how old is he then?”
“Thirteen,” Doc said, being honest.
“ Thirteen?! ” The new people all exclaim at the same time, descending into incoherent ranting.
“I ain’t working with no child!” The transphobic woman said.
Doc slammed his hands on the table, getting everyone to shut up. “Yes you are, or you’re not working this job.”
The woman didn’t say anything back but she didn’t look any happier about it.
“ Good , now that that’s out of the way here's the plan.”
The heist went pretty well all things considered. Baby managed to get them all out of there within the time Doc had given them and he didn’t say anything to the transphobic woman, who he now knew as Autumn. At the other two people (Velvet and Bear) kept it completely professional, something which Baby very much grateful for.
After everyone was given their cut and left, Doc walked Baby into the car park. He walked them over to his car, opening the trunk and dropping the duffle bag full of stolen money into it. He unzipped it and handed Baby a single bundle of cash.
“This is your cut, Baby, since you owe me the rest. Go get yourself a new iPod or something.”
Baby took the money from him and nodded. “Thank you, Doc.”
He didn’t use his new money for an iPod as Doc suggested. He wasn’t sure how he was going to use it. He couldn’t just hand it to Joe and say ‘ Oh, I found this on the street. ’ It was $10,000! Baby found himself in the predicament of having money but having no way to spend it and it was driving him insane.
He didn’t have to worry for long though because a few days later while Joe was watching TV they showed an image of the bank robbers that had been caught on CCTV and included in that image was the driver. Immediately Joe knew it was Baby. He stomped into his room, where Baby was quietly doing his homework and listening to music as usual.
What have you done!? Joe angrily signed at him.
Baby gave him a confused look.
I saw you on TV. You helped people rob a bank. Why did you do that, Miles?
Baby’s blood ran cold. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t lie, he’d learnt long ago that Joe could see through his bullshit.
Hanging his head in shame Baby signed. I’m so sorry.
Why? Joe signed again.
He made me, he said he’d kill you if I didn’t. Baby began to openly cry.
The anger left Joe’s face. Who? Who made you?
He didn’t tell me his real name. He made us all use codenames.
We have to go to the police, Miles. Joe told him
Baby couldn’t do that. We can’t! He has blackmail on me!
Blackmail? Joe questioned. How can he have blackmail on you, you’re only a child!
Baby now openly cry confessed everything. Confessing that he had been stealing cars for years and that Doc had caught him stealing his car and now he owed him a debt. How he started doing it because they had no money and he just wanted to help Joe.
You shouldn’t of done this. Joe told him.
I know.
Then why did you?
Because I was being stupid and I thought I could help us out, I thought I wouldn’t get caught. Baby hung his head in his hands and sobbed until his throat was raw.
Joe didn’t talk to him for a while and that killed Baby on the inside. Joe would completely ignore him at home, not even looking at Baby. He ended up crying himself to sleep every night.
It only got worse at school too. His bullies seemed to notice it too. Or maybe it was because he came out as transgender not long before that. He already had no friends before but now nobody would even come near him. They would whisper about him as he walked past people in the corridor when before they would just ignore him. He was already the weird mute autistic kid but now he was the weird mute autistic trans kid which only made it easier to bully him. He was the only openly transgender person in his whole school, there was one openly gay kid but he also never gave Baby the time of day either, instead deciding to ignore Baby to his face and openly mock him in private. Not that Baby cared- he didn’t, but he thought that if anyone would be kind to him it would be the other LGBT kid. As much as he didn’t like anyone at school he just wanted someone, anyone, to be kind to him for once. Of course Baby never got what he wanted.
It was around this time that Baby’s dysphoria became unbearable. He couldn’t step one foot outside and not feel like he was on the verge of a panic attack. The mere utterance of his birth name or people using female pronouns for him made bile rise in his throat. He bundled himself in layer after layer of clothing to make his chest look flat but in the awful heat of the Georgian summer, he was almost always about to faint due to heat stroke.
During all of this, he also found out about self-harm while reading someone's blog. It sounded weird at first- almost completely alien but then he read about the reasons why people did it that he began to understand why people did it. The more he understood it the more he realized it that it might be the right coping device for him. People said that it helped them detach from the emotional pain they felt and replace it with something physical. That they deserved to feel pain because they were so worthless and a burden on the people around them.
Baby related heavily to all of these and that's how he found himself back in front of the bathroom mirror that night, razor blade clutched in more hand and the other positioned over the sink. Taking a few deep breaths he rolled up his sleeve and slowly placed the razor over the skin of his wrist. He dragged the razor over his skin and let himself focus completely and totally on the pain, on the way his blood ran down his wrist and into the sink. After the pain began to subside he took the razor blade back to his wrist and began cutting again and again and again.
Baby felt like shit and looked like it too. Joe had noticed long ago, of course, but he didn’t mention it because of just how completely betrayed he felt by him. But now Baby had deep, dark circles under his eyes, deathly pale skin and he had been losing so much weight he now looked gaunt. As angry as Joe was with him he was still incredibly worried about the boy, he had to remember he was only a child, a child who only wanted to help and got himself into more than he could handle. Granted of course that most teens just started smoking weed or drinking underage but Baby had become part of an underground criminal gang that robbed banks.
Joe had noticed that Baby only wore clothes with long sleeves lately. He hadn’t noticed right away but considering it was now in the middle of the awful Georgian summer heat it was getting strange. He wouldn’t take the clothes off even when he was home but then Joe saw something that broke his heart.
He had been coming home from his late-night job, Baby was still awake and doing the dishes when he came in. The music he was listening to blasting through his ears and Baby didn’t hear his adoptive father return. The sleeves of hoodie had been rolled up to avoid getting them wet and before Baby could react in time Joe saw it. He saw the many scars travelling up both of Baby’s arms. They seemed to stretch up the whole of the young boy’s arm (well at least as much of his arm that Joe could see.)
When Baby realized Joe was standing by the kitchen counter watching him, eyes trained onto his arms he gasped loudly and immediately rolled his sleeves back down in a hurry.
Joe’s eyes filled with tears, he couldn’t believe his own son was hurting himself like this.
I’m sorry. He signed to the boy in what felt like forever.
Baby, unable to look Joe in the eyes just hung his head in shame.
Shuffling over to him, Joe pulled him into a tight hug and cried silent tears into his son's shoulder; he could feel Baby’s own tears dampening his shirt.
After a short while of the two of them crying and holding each other Joe pulled back to look Baby in his eyes.
Therapy. He signed. You need therapy again.
Baby opened and closed his mouth to speak and then shakily signed back to Joe.
We don’t have the money for that.
I know, as much as I hate using the money you got from him , we need to. You need this, you need therapy for this, you also need to be able to go get on HRT. I can’t stop ignoring this.
Joe was right. Baby was suffering like this.
Okay. Baby nodded, new tears forming in his eyes and pulled Joe back in for another hug.
Baby got the therapy he needed. He got to get on hormones after a long while of waiting periods and appointments at the gender clinic. Finally, he was becoming the person he knew he always was.
He graduated middle school, just managing to get his grades back up and he was accepted into a relatively good high school. Luckily not many people from his middle school went to his new school and the ones who did didn’t particularly care about him being trans. By now he was a few months into HRT treatment so his voice had started dropping pretty dramatically and he looked like your average acne covered teenage boy.
Life was getting better, if ever so slightly.
Now just because people didn’t give him shit for being trans didn’t mean they didn’t even him shit about being autistic or mute (although he wasn’t strictly completely mute anymore he decided to continue being non-verbal in public). He certainly didn’t make any friends at this new school but by this point, it didn’t matter to him anymore, he didn’t need people to validate his existence anymore. He was beginning to feel content in himself for the first time in his life and it felt freeing.
Of course, as soon as he heard that familiar ringtone and vibrating against his leg his world closed down around him again.
Baby tried to get through the heists as fast as possible and forget about them as soon as they were over. That wasn’t very easy though. He knew for a fact many people had been injured, traumatized and even killed because of their heists and that was a lot of weight to bear on a teenage boys head. The moments he had between the music the consumed most of life consisted entirely of his thoughts his criminal activities. While the therapist he had been seeing was amazing and had helped him get so much mentally better than he could even ever remembering being this was the only thing he couldn’t talk about with her and it ate him up inside.
High school went by quickly and quietly for Baby. He graduated with average grades and promptly moved onto a local community college so he could help look after Joe whose health had started to deteriorate more and more over the last couple years. Joe was a fiercely independent person so even when Baby wanted to help him Joe would wave him off and do it himself (even if doing it himself was needlessly difficult.)
Baby was having a nice time in college. The people here seemed to be less douchey and more just interested in their own education rather than whatever everyone else was doing. It was then that he decided to start speaking in public, nobody here had known him before college anyway so it wasn’t like it would be a shock to anyone that he suddenly started speaking. He was still a quiet person and hardly spoke anyway so he hadn’t really changed that much.
After all of the shit he had to go through he maybe, just maybe it could get better. He still had to work for Doc and well, he hated it. But his personal life was so much better than before, he finally felt like he was the person who he was always meant to be.