Hey, so here's part 2 of this more IRL style story. I hope you like it. I'm sure a part 3 & epilogue will follow. (Also, I understand this probably isn't what some of you are waiting for, but this is where I'm at, inspiration-wise, atm)I’m Not Sick Part 2
Somewhat emotionally drained, but oddly validated and proud of Flyn, I step out of the living room and gently close the door behind me. After honest tears and deep secrets shared between us, Flyn fell asleep in my arms.
The poor kid's eyes are red from so much crying, but there’s a small smile on their face as they rest easier after our long, very emotional conversation. I feel like I’ve connected to Flynn on so many levels. Part of me feels uplifted and… happy.
Slowly, having to drag myself, I make my way into the living room. My sister Wren sits at the table, scrolling on her phone. She smiles as she looks up at me.
“Flyn’s stop crying?” she asks.
I nod. “Sleeping.”
I stand for a moment, looking around my sister’s kitchen, but I rub at my arm and check the time.
“Rudi….”
“Yeah?” I look up to see she’s staring intently at her coffee, gently rubbing the handle with her finger.
“He really was terrified.” She looks me in the eyes, and a look of concern follows. “He was saying things that really worried me. Talking about giving up. How he hates his body and wants to get out of it by any means—” Wren pauses, bites a lip, and looks away.
“I’m glad he had you to come to,” I say, standing at the table, placing my arms on the back of one of the dining chairs.
“He got caught, didn’t he?”
“Yeah.” I agree. “Seems my wife caught him trying on her underwear. Told you, did he?”
“No.” She shakes her head before taking a small sip of her drink. “I’ve seen that sort of behavior before. I just put two and two together.
I raise an eyebrow. “Has Flyn done this before? Come to you in hysterics, I mean.”
“N-No. Not exactly.” Wren softly places her cup down onto the table before brushing her hair from her face. “I don’t know if you remember that one time I caught you.”
I remember it as if it happened yesterday. The scars, they’ve never healed, and they’ve shaped me into the person I am today. I look away, force a smile, and try to move the conversation forward.
“I’ll…erm….” I reach for my phone. “I’ll just tell my wife what’s going on. I’m sure she’s worried, and then we’ll be out of your hair, Wren.”
“Rudi…” Wren gets up from the table, making me look around at her before I press my wife’s contact to ring her. She stops at the kettle and flicks it on, then reaches for the tea bags. “I'm guessing you do remember. You’ve gone red in the face. How about a cup of tea before you go?”
I wave away the idea with my free hand. “No, thank you, Wren. Flyn and I should really get out of your hair.”
The kettle starts to boil, and Wren places a cup on the counter. Then, just as I’m about to ring my wife once again, she throws the tea bag at me, hitting me on the chest.
“Please.” She says.
I stare at the tea bag missile on the floor at my feet after bouncing off me.
“Wren, really…?” I look up to call her immature, but that’s when I see she’s crying. I lower my hand with my phone to my side. “What’s the matter?” I ask.
“You…!” She throws another tea bag at me, then wipes at her eyes.
“What have I done?” I reply, confused as yet another missile bounces off my chest and to the floor.
“Nothing!” she throws yet another tea bag at me.
I laugh, but it’s out of awkwardness. “Stop throwing tea bags at me, Wren. You’re supposed to put them in the cup. Now you see why I don’t want to stay for tea.”
She takes yet another tea bag to throw at me, but stops and slumps, leaning on the counter.
“You never want to stay for tea. You never want to engage with the family.” She stares down at the floor, wiping the tears from her face as she speaks. “You’re also so quiet and depressed, brother.”
“Depressed…?” I rub the back of my neck. “I…guess I am a little tired, yeah.”
“I did that to you!” she sobs and throws the tea bag in her hand at the floor in frustration. “It’s my fault! After that day, when I caught you, you changed. You became so quiet, almost like part of you had died!”
“Erm…” I shift uncomfortably as I stand in front of my sister, crying. “I-I…I was quiet, Wren, because I didn’t want to disappoint anyone again.” I rub my neck again and let out a long breath. “I do remember it, yeah. I upset everyone that day, and I… I… never wanted to do that again. So, yeah, I went quiet.”
I feel my eyes misting. I close them. It’s unbecoming of a man to cry, so I stop, take a deep breath, and center myself.
“I’m sick, Wren. Whether you believe it or not. The more I put it to the back of my mind, the easier life for me will be, okay? So, please don’t bring it up again. My wife doesn’t know about all that teenage silliness from my past, and I want to keep it that way. She’s already hard enough to keep happy, so….”
Her shoulders sag as my words make her more upset. Silence follows, and that’s when I take that as my signal to leave. However, as I’m about to exit the kitchen, yet another tea bag is thrown at me, hitting me on the back of the head.
I look around, unimpressed, but there’s my sister, makeup running down her cheeks, complete with a devastated look on her face.
“You’re a woman on the inside, aren’t you, Rudi?!”
I stare, frozen for a moment at her outburst.
“No.”
She throws yet another tea bag.
“The real you was coming out, and I slammed the door back in her face!” Wren says, banging the counter with her hand as she leans against it.
“Wren, it’s been a long day for everyone….”
She interrupts me with a tea bag missile to my forehead.
“You’re a woman on the inside, aren’t you?!” She takes a step towards me and roughly grabs at my shoulders with both her hands. I’m surprised, but she continues, looking me deep in my eyes as she cries.
“It’s all my fault, isn’t it!?
“Wren, let go of me.”
“No!” She shouts, biting at her lips. “It’s thanks to my stupid actions that Mom did all that stuff to you. I just stood back and watched, believing her actions to be just and…and—”
Slowly, her hands slide from my shoulder. “I never stood up for you, Rudi. I never even tried to understand.”
As much as I try to hold myself together, I remember all those times Mom ridiculed me. She’d say I’d make an ugly woman or tell me that I’d die alone if I even considered wearing women’s clothes again.
I begin to crack, tears forming in my eyes. “W-Wren….”
“I was so…STUPID!” she cries out. “Such a stupid girl, thinking our mother knew best when really she was breaking your spirit so you’d be who she wanted you to be!”
Memories of conversation therapy spring into my mind. Forced to go—for my own good.
I say nothing.
“Forgive me, Rudi!” Wren pleads, taking hold of my hands tight. “I never realized just how painful this must have been for you until Flyn turned up here telling me they wanted to kill themselves. Rudi, Flyn wanted to take his own life because of your wife—his mother!”
With my fingers, I rub my eyes so she can’t see me crying. I clear my throat and step away.
“Well, I’m sure she’ll forget about it soon enough. Flyn understands he’s not to do that again.”
The tension rises in the room. Wren’s expression twists from sadness to irritation. She wipes her eyes before speaking.
“Forget?” she questions.
“Yeah.” I nod cautiously. “I understand how Flyn feels about his gender, and I’ll support him, but it’s for the best if it’s never spoken about again so my wife forgets about it.”
“Rudi….” Wren says plainly. “Don’t you dare.”
I furrow my brow. “I’m sorry?”
“Look, I hate what I did to you, Rudi, but don’t you dare try and brush Flyn’s issues under the carpet like our mother did with you.”
“I’m not. I just know this is for the best. Trust me.”
“Bullshit!” Wren takes a step back from me, eventually standing back at the kitchen counter. “That’s total bullshit, Rudi!”
She throws a tea bag at me.
It hits me right in the face. I get mad. “Flyn is my child, Wren. It’s up to me and my wife what’s best for HIM!”
“You sound just like our spiteful mother….” Wren snarks back.
I bring my hand to my face and rub at my tired eyes before letting out a long, frustrated sigh.
“I’m going—”
“Coward.” Wren interrupts, and I snap
“What the fuck am I supposed to do, Wren?!” I shout at her, clenching both my fists and my jaw tight. “My wife won’t accept this for one second, so it’s best for everyone to ignore it! So if you really do regret what you did to me, you’ll keep your nose out of my family's business!”
“Do you want him to grow up depressed, Rudi!” Wren shouts back. “Do you want him to end up killing himself because you’ve been taught to think it’s a sickness!? DO you!?”
“No, of course I don’t!” I yell back, kicking out in frustration at the dining chair to my side. “Don’t talk to me like I haven’t been living my life for the last thirty years, Wren! Every single day is a struggle, and I do my absolute best to survive!”
I kick the chair yet again.
“Mom hated me, Wren!” I break, my voice strained as I cry before her, tears streaming from my eyes. “S-She Ha—Hated me so much.” I catch myself from falling by holding the same chair I just kicked. “I have no idea who I’m supposed to be or what I’m supposed to be!” I glance at her. “So don’t stand there telling me this is all so simple, because it’s not!”
Tears dropping from my chin, heart thudding like crazy, and my breathing shallow and sharp, Wren rushes across the kitchen. Her arms snatch at me, and she wraps herself around me. She holds me tighter than my wife has in years.
“I’m sorry,” I say, full of guilt for shouting, but her arms embrace me tighter.
“I can’t let it happen again with Flyn. I can’t let his spark fade because the people who are supposed to love him and support him are so cold-blooded to his pain!” She grips my shirt as she cries into my side. “I know it’s thirty years too later, R-Rudi. But let me help you….please!”
I blink several times, slowly, as tears as pushes out the sides of them. My body sags, depressed, but I hold my sister. She’s right that it’s a little late, but part of me is glad she’s changing for the better.
“Okay, help me…” I say softly. “I’m not happy. Flyn’s clearly not happy. What do we do, Wren?”
“What do you want to do?” she replies.
“No matter what we do, we’re both going to upset a whole bunch of people. I don’t know about Flyn, but I don’t want to be selfish. I’ve got a family to support and a wife. I…I…can’t just go change my life because sometimes I feel sad.”
“Only sometimes…?”
I hold my eyes shut and concentrate on my breathing.
“What do I do, Wren? Tell me. What should I do?”
“Yeah, I get it’s hard.” Wren pats my shoulder with one hand. “But I’m here for you, and together, we’ll work it out. First, tell me you don’t think you're sick. Tell me you don’t believe in all that shit Mom used to say about you.”
I look away, hating how I caved into her whims.
“I don’t believe, Wren. I never did. I know who I am.”
“That’s a start. Maybe it’s time to share that with your wife. She has a right to know who she’s really married to.”
“R-Really?”
“Yes. Maybe you and Flyn can talk to her together. Just be honest with how you feel and how it affects you.”
“You really think that’s the right thing to do?”
“Yes.” She smiles at me, finally letting go, before turning back to the kettle to flick it on. “Please, Rudi. Let Flyn sleep a little longer and have a cup of tea with your sister. I’d really like that.”
“Fine.” I wipe away any tears that linger and give her a soft smile. “M-Maybe I’ll put my tea bag in my cup.” I then look around at all the bags scattered on the kitchen floor. “Seems you don’t have the best aim, sister…”
She giggles, then, after a moment.
“Fuck…” she then groans, lightly tapping the side to show her annoyance. “I really am sorry, Rudi. We could have had such a better relationship growing up, but I was so childish to see past it all.”
I step past her, take one of the tea bags, and, giving her a sarcastic look, drop it into a cup. She smiles in reaction, before once again letting out a frustrated breath.
“Let’s just have that cup of tea before we both get into lamenting the past, huh?”
“Yeah…”