NOVEL WEB Chapter 13
If I had known that mum would expect everyone to refer to James as a girl, put him in a dress, all against his express wishes, I never would have told her. This could have just been between him, dad, and me. But I’d ruined that for him, and now he was miserable. It was all my fault.
No. It wasn’t. I had a promise to keep to dad. No matter how hard it seemed, I promised him not to blame myself. And at least in this instance, there really was only one person to blame: mum. She didn’t have to do this. She chose this, and her actions had reduced my little brother to tears. I now knew the answer to my question from earlier: James’ happiness and wellbeing was more important.
I may not have been able to stand up to mum, but I didn’t have to do it alone. Dad would stand by James, of that I had no doubt. He and James were in similar situations. I could trust dad to respect my little brother’s wishes.
“Can we go home now?” James asked quietly. “I want to be with dad again. I don’t want to go back to aunty Miranda’s.”
That was a good question. Though I didn’t like the answer, and nor would he. I didn’t want to tell him, but I had to. “I’m sorry James, but not yet. Soon though.” James hung his head. “You’ll just have to put up with mum for the next few hours, then we can go home,” I added, “Can you manage that?”
I received a slow nod in response. Neither of us were happy about this, but we had to pretend we were in order to appease mum for the moment. I ruffled his hair, making it all messy, though in the process, I accidentally knocked off the headband he was wearing.
“Whoops,” I said, bending over to pick it up. As I clasped the headband in my fingers, a thought suddenly struck me. I stared down at it, unsure of whether I should act on my impulse. I shouldn’t. But why not? I couldn’t think of a reason. But I shouldn’t. It wasn’t right. Why?
My hesitation lasted several seconds that felt like hours, remaining hunched over, holding the headband mere centimetres from the ground. I snapped to attention suddenly, standing back upright, not wanting to look awkward in front of my brother.
I held the headband out for James to grab, since it belonged to him, but he hesitated. Of course, he didn’t want it. Why was I offering it to him? In the spur of the moment, I ignored all the voices in my head that told me not to, all the inhibitions I still possessed, and placed the item on my own head. I felt a rush flow through me. My heart beat faster and my breath became erratic. A feeling I’d never experienced before. Simply indescribable. I knew it was wrong. I shouldn’t have felt this way. But I did. Putting on the headband just felt right. No matter how wrong I believed it should be.
The headband was too small for my head however, and it popped back up into an awkward position as soon as I let go of it. I was sure it looked rather silly, propped up above my head, the bottom digging into the sides of my head. But that didn’t matter. James giggled at my new silly look, and I smiled. A genuine smile. A rarity these days.
“Who wears it better? You or me?” I joked.
“Definitely you!” James grinned. It was nice to see him smiling again. We both laughed at my ridiculous appearance, the movement of which caused the headband to droop down in front of my eyes. This only amplified our giggles.
I slipped off the headband and held it back out for James to take. As good as I felt wearing it, and as much as I wanted to continue wearing it, it still didn’t fit properly. “You should probably put this back on before we head back,” I said.
“Do we have to go back?” James pouted while reluctantly taking the headband back from me.
I thought for a moment. It was still morning, though on the later end of it. We didn’t necessarily have to return to aunty Miranda’s right away. “Eventually. But perhaps we could go to the park for a while before heading back.”
“Ok!” he beamed. I pulled out my phone and quickly texted mum what we were doing so she didn’t stress. She definitely would have freaked out the instant she realised that both her children were not at home. I almost texted her that I was taking ‘James’ to the park, and quickly ‘corrected’ myself so that the text referred to ‘Chloe’ before sending it off. I didn’t want to have to deal with mum thinking I wasn’t trying hard enough to encourage my little brother into femininity. For now, I would just play along with what she wanted, and wait until I had dad’s backing before standing up to her.
I opened up my maps app and found the nearest park to our current location. It wasn’t too far, only about a kilometre. James immediately rushed to the playground once we arrived, seemingly having forgotten the events of only a few minutes ago. I dawdled my way over and sat down on the swing set, gently rocking back and forth while watching my little brother run around the rest of the playground like a mad thing. I was glad that he could ignore the outfit he was wearing for the time being and simply enjoy himself.
After a while, he came over to me and squeezed into the swing beside mine which, unfortunately for him, was one of those little kiddie swings designed for toddlers. And he was just a little bit too big to fit in it properly. Still, he fit better than I would.
“All tuckered out?” I asked James, feeling a little embarrassed about how much I sounded like dad just then.
“Yeah,” he sighed in response.
“Ready to head back?”
“Do we have to?” he whined.
“Not yet,” I replied, “But we really should head back before lunch.”
“Fine,” James groaned. He began swinging higher and higher on his swing, when he suddenly leapt out of the seat, landing on both feet. He turned to me, “I bet you can’t do that!” he said triumphantly, sticking his tongue out.
I scoffed at him. “I was doing that before you were born!” I started swinging faster and faster on my own swing, higher and higher, building my momentum. I shortly reached an equilibrium, inputting just enough energy at the back apex to ensure that I regained any momentum lost due to friction and air resistance. I’d swung high enough now that I could really feel the centripetal acceleration pushing into me as I rushed past the lowest point of the swing’s arc; my body feeling as though it were being forced into my seat.
I quickly tried to reason which point of the arc would be the best to jump off the swing. Without access to a calculator and a pen and paper, any answer I came up with would be, at best, an educated guess.
It wouldn’t be the very top of the swing; that would just send me straight back down to the ground with no forward momentum as I would have zero kinetic energy. Not to mention that was a long way to fall straight down – at least two metres. The bottom of the swing wouldn’t work either as I’d have no upward component to my momentum. So, it would need to be somewhere between that point and the apex.
I decided that halfway would be the best. Normally, to maximise a projectile’s distance, an angle of around forty five degrees to the horizontal was ideal (though technically a slightly smaller angle is better when launching from a small height), so I did my best to aim for that.
Once I’d reached my predetermined launching location on the next forward swing, I released my grip on the chains and slipped off the seat. With no other force beside gravity (and air resistance, though that was negligible), my trajectory followed the parabolic arc of projectile motion, rather than the circular arc of a pendulum.
Unfortunately, I was travelling much too quickly upon landing, and my poor little legs crumpled under the impact. I tripped over, my body instinctively tucking into a roll to protect itself. Thankfully, the biggest injury was that to my ego, which was hardly that big of a deal to me. My body still stung, but I was sure the pain would fade shortly enough.
James couldn’t contain himself, bursting into a fit of giggles at my colossal failure. His laughter was contagious, and I couldn’t help but join in. As embarrassing as it was that I was one upped by my ten year old brother, I didn’t care. What mattered to me was seeing him smile again. I didn’t mind if it came a little at my expense.
“Mine was better,” James teased, sticking his tongue out at me once again.
“Nuh, uh. My landing was perfect,” I said, picking myself up off the ground and wiping off the chips of bark which clung to me.
“No it wasn’t, silly!” he giggled.
“What was wrong with it?”
“You fell over!”
“But I went further than you.”
“NOOOO! That doesn’t count!”
“Fine,” I said with fake exasperation. “I’ll concede that. You win this time.”
James stuck his tongue out at me, and I smiled back. “We should probably head back,” I said with a defeated sigh. I didn’t want to see James’ joy snuffed out by mum, but it was getting close to lunchtime. We’d both be getting hungry soon enough, and mum would start to worry about us if we stayed out for too long. As much as both of us wanted to go back to dad’s house – our real home – it wasn’t quite the time yet.
James’ mood dropped immediately – as expected – as we started making our way back to aunty Miranda’s, and I honestly couldn’t blame him. I just hoped that dad would be able to convince mum that she was wrong. That would have to wait until later though. For now, grit our teeth and bear it.
***
For the next few hours while we remained with mum and aunty Miranda, I appeased mum by referring to my little brother as ‘Chloe’ and using female pronouns. I felt it better to wait until I had backup before standing up against mum, despite how it obviously made James feel. She leveraged all the power in this situation; she could simply dismiss me as a child and refuse my input. Adults loved to do that with kids, even though I was almost an adult myself.
James returned to the depressive slump from earlier that I hoped would not become the norm for him going into the future. He just had to hold out for a little while longer, then we’d be back at home, with dad, who would treat James as he wanted to be treated.
He was especially quiet during dinner, only speaking when spoken to, and even then only giving short responses. It hurt me to see him like this, and I struggled to see how mum could think this was for his own good. He was miserable.
When it was finally time for mum to take both of us home, excitement was evident on James’ face, though I could tell he was trying to hide it. He didn’t want to disappoint mum, but he also wanted to escape. Once we were home with dad, he wouldn’t have to pretend to be someone else for the next five days. Of course, we’d be back at aunty Miranda’s next weekend, but hopefully by then dad would have gotten through to mum. Seeing my brother so upset was… difficult. I never wanted him to follow in my footsteps, feeling eternally hollow, but here was mum all but ensuring that he would. It hurt.
The car ride home was quiet, awkwardly so. I didn’t want to speak, nor did James, even if mum had tried, and failed, to spark up a conversation. At the very least, the car ride was short, so the awkwardness didn’t last.
James eagerly awaited the moment he could change out of the dress and into clothes he felt more comfortable wearing. Anxiously awaiting the time he could finally take off the mask mum had shoved onto him and be himself once again. It would also be nice for me to not have to pretend that my brother was suddenly an entirely different person. He looked the same as he always had aside from the outfit, so it was difficult for me to conceive of him as this ‘Chloe’ mum insisted on.
It was fine. Dad would address this. Then we could go back to pretending like nothing was wrong. That James was just a normal boy. Sure, dad himself looked very different. But he was still the same person. It was fine. Everything was fine. The family wasn’t falling apart. It was just a rough patch. It was fine. Everything was fine. Nothing wrong at all. And I certainly wasn’t the cause of all this. Not at all. Not my fault. Nope. We’d be back to how we always were in no time. Everything was fine. I was sure if I kept telling myself it would become true. It wasn’t wishful thinking at all. I was a pragmatist. Wishful thinking wasn’t in my vocabulary. It was fine.
Home. Mum pulled the car onto the kerb, rather than the driveway like she normally would. I supposed it was easier for her that way seeing as she would be driving back to her sister’s place very shortly. It still felt… strange. Just another part of the new ‘normal’.
We each climbed out of the car and made our way to the front door. Unusual for us, but I supposed it made sense given the circumstance. Mum rang the doorbell and we all waited for an answer.
And waited.
And waited.
Mum rang the doorbell again, becoming rather impatient at my father’s tardiness. What was taking him so long? His car was parked in the driveway, and he certainly knew that we would be here at this time, so he should definitely be home at the moment. He could surely hear the bell. He wouldn’t have fallen asleep already, would he? It wasn’t even eight o’clock yet. And even then, I didn’t think my dad such a heavy sleeper that the doorbell wouldn’t wake him.
Finally, after far too long, the latch clicked, and the door swung open. Dad looked positively awful. A worse state than I’d ever seen him. His hair dishevelled, his clothes not quite on straight, and his eyes bloodshot. He struggled unlocking the flyscreen door, but with a bit of effort, that too swung open, allowing entry to the house.
“Hello, Beth,” he spat, putting extra venom into mum’s name. His voice sounded off. Like it was taking more effort than usual for the words to come out. Not to mention he seemed a bit wobbly on his feet.
Oh god.
He was drunk. Really really drunk.
Mum grimaced at the sight of her dishevelled husband, putting a hand protectively on James’ shoulder. She pulled him back slightly, moving him behind her.
“Ben,” he said, nodding in my direction. He then bent over, wobbling slightly, and gave James a big toothy grin. “And aren’t you a pretty little girl? What’s your name?”
Oh god, he was so drunk he didn’t even recognise James because of the dress. My brother seemed to be in shock at the prospect of his own father not recognising him, for which I couldn’t blame him. James didn’t respond, allowing mum to answer in his stead, “Her name is Chloe.”
“It’s nice to meet you Chloe.” Dad smiled even wider to the point of looking goofy. Alcohol did that, I supposed. His expression then shifted, puzzled. “Wait, where’s James?”
Mum rolled her eyes at him. “Have you been drinking?” she asked, knowing full well the answer. Even James could probably tell he was drunk.
Dad held his index finger and thumb close together, though not touching, and brought his hand close to his face. “Just a little,” he said, squinting at his fingers.
Mum scoffed at him and grabbed James by the hand, gripping it tightly. “We’re leaving you two. I’m not letting you stay with a woman so drunk she can’t even stand up straight.”
Dad looked around, off to the side, behind us, behind himself, befuddled. “Where’s the drunk woman?” he said. This wasn’t some retort either; he sounded genuine. He had no clue who mum could be talking about.
Mum scoffed again, becoming rather annoyed at dad’s behaviour. She tugged at James’ hand and began to walk back to the car, dragging my little brother along with her. James protested, trying to free himself from our mother’s grip to no avail. “But mum! I want to stay with dad!” he exclaimed. She simply ignored him.
She opened the backdoor of the car, before noticing that I hadn’t followed her at all. “Ben, we’re leaving. Get in the car,” she demanded, turning back to face me.
I spoke curtly and clearly, “No.”
She frowned at me. “You’re not staying with her,” she argued, pointing at my father, “Now get in the car.”
“Mum. I’m nearly an adult. I can handle myself. Besides, dad is clearly in no position to be alone tonight. I’m staying here.”
“It’s my turn with the kids, Beth,” dad interjected, once again emphasising my mother’s name. “Now, where’s James?”
“Fine,” mum huffed, ignoring dad. “We’ll be back in the morning to pick up Chloe’s school uniform.”
“Wait!” James shouted, struggling against mum as she tried to shove him into the car, “You can’t leave me, Ben!”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I’ll make it up to you though. I promise. I need to take care of dad for now, ok?”
That only made James struggle even more in mum’s arms, but he was too small and weak to escape her grasp. She slammed the door shut once he was inside, leaving James to slump into his seat in defeat.
With mum and James gone, that left me alone with dad. A very drunk dad. I felt terrible leaving my little brother alone with mum like that, worried that I’d made the wrong decision. But I really needed to talk to dad, and it was too late to go back now. Once he was sober. I’d need to make sure he didn’t choke on his own vomit first.
“Where’s James?” dad asked.
“I’ll explain later.”
It was going to be a long night.
