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A lazy afternoon on Sunday — a rare one, just the two of them, him and his mum having tea and cake. He brought his tart tatin, and she made his tea just the way he likes it.
The Rochester skies have hidden whatever remains of the summer under a cloak of grey clouds and the promise of rain. As he listens for an ominous patter, David tries to gather the courage to have a conversation he's been postponing for more than a month.
“Hey Mum.” David tries to keep the nerves out of his voice.
His mum hums in question, her eyes still glued to the window and the dark clouds over her garden.
He doesn’t know how to ask what he needs to, but he has to try. “Do you remember when I was a kid… Did I used to shapeshift a lot?”
This somehow gets her attention. She puts the tea aside and settles back in her armchair. There’s something careful and impenetrable in her expression, and he can sense resistance underneath. He isn’t quite so good yet at sensing the wants of anyone other than Olly, but the edges of feeling are there, a shadow of wanting to leave well enough alone.
“Well, yes dear. You know how difficult it was for us to teach you and Nicky to maintain your human appearance before we sent you off to school.”
It’s near impossible to hold her gaze steadily as he clarifies.
“And what about… What about shifting between different…” He clears his throat, the question tangling in his vocal chords, “...human appearances?”
His leg bounces restlessly as he loses his mum’s gaze. She seems to be searching the pile of the rug for the words she is missing. Then she picks up her mug again, examining the liquid with great concentration.
“You… you made me promise not to talk about it, but I suppose… since it is you asking…” She shakes her head, frowning as if she isn’t sure he wants to hear what she has to say.
But he is sure. The past couple of months made him certain. “Please. I just want to know.”
Some of the resistance he felt from her earlier slips away, clears out of the air like vapours disappearing after a hot shower.
His mum nods, and begins, “You were about three, I think, the first time it happened.” She pauses and corrects. “The first time I noticed.”
The story weaves back memories that have frayed with time — of running around in the back garden, free as anything, body full of joy and energy and endless abilities to shift and change that David was eager to explore.
The memory is vague and faded, like the pictures his dad took at the time. The edges are blurry, but the likenesses are unmistakable.
***
They are so rare, these moments of quiet. Well, relative quiet. It's all you can ask for with a three-year-old.
David is running around in the garden, full of the kind of boundless joy reserved for children his age. He's so good at entertaining himself these days and Sarah feels grateful. She looks down at her growing belly, smoothing down her shirt distractedly. How will things be when this one comes along? Will they play with each other? Or will she spend half her time the arbiter of nonsensical quarrels, like her mum did with her and Diane?
A smile spreads on her lips. She supposes she'll handle whatever comes.
A rustle in the bushes makes her lift her eyes again, startled. David looks at her from near the hedge and giggles, pleased with whatever little trick he thinks he played on her. Her clever boy.
Something in her head blinks at the thought — an odd discrepancy, an eeriness creeping around her heart and twisting it into a peculiar shape. David, standing there, looks just as he did a moment ago. He is wearing the same clothes, he has the same complexion. But he is different in some inexplicable way.
It is so uncanny that she startles herself and calls for him, thinking for a moment that this isn't him at all, but some other creature who has taken his form. But he runs to her and wraps his small arms around her — as much as he can reach — and the wrinkle in her heart smooths over. Her David, undoubtedly her David.
It is only in the evening, as she bathes him, that she sees the change he has been hiding. David giggles again. His big reveal.
“I did a trick, mummy,” he says, delighted at her surprised face. “You couldn't even tell!”
His joy makes her smile. “My clever, clever boy,” she says, although she wonders if her words are right. She'll need to choose more carefully next time. If there is a next time.
***
“What did you do? After that,” David asks, the words arranged carefully like a row of Scrabble tiles.
If he breathes, the world might change irrevocably. So he holds his body very still until his mum shrugs.
“Nothing. I didn’t want to bother your dad about it. He was never around much anyway. So I just didn’t mention it and let you do whatever felt right. You were so young, and it's not like anyone else noticed. I think I only did because I'm your mum, and, well, I just sort of knew. Instinctually I suppose.” It's almost matter-of-fact, an imparting of details, and not a missing piece in the puzzle of his life.
“So, it happened again?” he hears himself ask, the weight of the past at once unbearable and sought after.
She nods solemnly. “Until you were about five or six. Quite frequently, but always at home, never… or I don’t think you did that elsewhere.” Her words run out. The only way he would get answers is if he asks.
And although he feels like he already knows the answer to his next question, he has to be sure. “Why did I stop?”
It takes her a while to say anything at all. She deliberates, maybe deciding on a narrative or how much to share.
“Well, by the time you were about six — I think you were six then — the differences became more apparent. When you’d change, your hair would be longer, and your features slightly… rounder, somehow.” She screws her eyebrows as if trying to make sense of the story as she is telling it. “Your dad was home for the weekend. He was watching over you while you and Nick were playing outside.” Her voice wobbles, and he gets a strong sense of protection, like he’s been covered in a quilt. But the fabric is porous, and it fails to stop memories from flooding in.
In an instant, he’s drowning.
***
David had missed his dad so much that his small body is about to burst with it now that he’s here. He has so much he wants to show him and tell him about, but… his dad isn’t really watching.
For the past hour, his dad has looked up from his newspaper maybe once or twice. He wouldn’t even toss a ball with them, although David brought the one that Nicky can play with, too. It’s softer, and not as much fun, but he was hoping…
It doesn’t matter. He kicks the ball towards Nicky again, and his baby brother chases it with glee, picks it up and throws it ineffectively back.
David laughs, and Nicky laughs with him. He looks at his dad again, waiting for him to join in on the fun, but his dad doesn’t even turn his eyes from the newspaper.
“Dad! Look! Nicky is trying to throw the ball but his arms are too small!” he calls out, forcing more of the laughter that made him happy only a moment earlier.
“That’s nice, David,” his dad says, but he doesn’t even look at them. He doesn’t even look!
David’s brain is running a mile a minute trying to find a way to draw his attention. He wants it so bad.
While he stands there, stuck, trying to figure out how to make his dad notice him, Nicky is making his way over and wraps his tiny arms around him.
His little brother is still giggling, or maybe giggling again. David doesn’t always know what it is that makes Nicky happy or sad, but having a built-in friend is nice, even if they don’t say much.
“How can we make dad look?” he asks his brother, not really expecting an answer.
But Nicky says, “Sip-sip!” which is his way of telling him to turn red.
David doesn’t know about that. They’re outside, and he knows how upset dad gets when he turns red outside the house. His dad yells and grabs him and… tears are already prickling behind his eyes.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Nicky,” he whispers. But David can turn in other ways, ways that Nicky doesn’t. Ways that dad doesn’t know about. And just like that, he’s smiling again, letting that tingly feeling of changing wash over him.
Nicky claps his hands in delight, and David giggles, putting a finger to his lip, not that he’s sure Nicky understands what that means. He runs towards the ball, grabs it and kicks it towards his dad.
The ball makes a perfect arch, landing softly in his dad’s lap and making him fold his newspaper so he can see his sons.
The brief smile drops as his eyes land on David, and David watches, paralysed. His dad is turning into something he has learned to fear.
Nicky starts crying, and the ringing in David’s ears doesn’t stop, but somehow, his dad’s yells still come through loud and clear, if in bits and pieces.
“YOU ARE A BOY! WHY WOULD YOU EVER WANT TO BE ANYTHING ELSE? A BOY IS MUCH BETTER.”
“WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?”
“THIS IS WORSE THAN BEING RED IN PUBLIC.”
“NO SON OF MINE IS EVER GOING TO CHANGE LIKE THIS.”
“THIS IS SHAMEFUL, DO YOU HEAR ME?”
“YOU ARE NEVER ALLOWED TO DO THIS AGAIN!”
It’s a mix of French and English, and all David knows for sure is that he never ever wants his dad to look at him the way he does now.
The sound of sobbing surrounds him. Is it Nicky, or him? He can’t tell. Maybe it’s both. And he already knows how his dad feels about him crying, so he tries to stop, but he can’t, so he just shifts back because maybe then his dad will stop yelling. But he doesn’t, and when his mum comes in from the kitchen, she reaches for Nicky and not him.
David’s tears dry up. He has this emptiness in the pit of his stomach, and he shivers, knowing exactly two things — he’s alone, and it’s his own fault.
***
His mum looks a bit sheepish, sitting quietly, praying to be understood. Her wanting blurs his vision. It moves him to say something comforting but he can’t find the words.
David allows himself one shallow breath. The story came back to him like a fever dream, conjured from her words and made real. Too real, the feelings of the child he was, swishing inside him like a full ocean in a small cup of tea.
And with the feelings comes the knowledge that there’s more to this. That this isn’t the end of the story.
He needs the rest. Maybe then he could forgive her.
His mum is cautious with her words. “I hated the way he spoke to you, but it didn’t feel like it was my place to intervene. Your abilities were always your dad’s territory. It was my job to comfort you later. For a while I thought you would calm down, or only change when your dad wasn’t home, but you just never did.”
The rain falls in droves, drowning the garden, white noise in David’s ears. There is no comfort in it. He cannot navigate the fragments of memories he has, and he wishes Olly were here. He always knows how to help.
David blinks and takes another slow breath that brings no air to his lungs.
“There’s more, isn’t there.”
He can hear his mum swallow.
“You remember?”
He wants to say he doesn’t, but he realises that would be a lie.
***
Some days he wakes up and he wants to scream, claw out of his skin, break everything in arm’s reach. Today is one of those days. He hates it when it happens. Ideally, it shouldn’t happen when he has his Maths GCSE.
“Davey, love, you need to get up if you want me to take you to your exam,” his mum says from beyond the door. He can hear her stepping back downstairs, and he grunts. He hates being a kid. He hates school. He hates this stupid exam, and he hates how weird his body is feeling.
Bleary-eyed, David drags himself out of bed, but something catches his eye when he walks past his mirror — a long strand of hair, and the impression of a hot chick.
Fuck
No
Nonononononono
It’s not a hot anything, it’s fucking HIM!
He bolts in the other direction, burying himself under the duvet and tries to concentrate on changing back. His heart is beating so loudly it’s like it’s banging against his rib cage and there’s no room for that and his lungs so he can’t breathe properly. And his stubborn body doesn’t fucking change back.
From behind the ringing in his ears there’s a sound, a rhythm that interferes with the loud banging of his heart. What the fuck is that?
“David? Mum said to check you’re up.”
Nick. Fuck that. He can’t deal with his brother like this.
He opens his mouth to say something and the voice that comes out is not his. It’s high and reedy. He sounds like a broken frog.
He coughs. Again and again until his throat is hoarse and rough.
“I’m sick!” is all he manages to let out, curled into himself.
The next sound that comes out of him is a sob. He’s shaking, trying to swallow down any evidence of crying. Not only is he a girl, now he’s also crying??? His chest grows tighter and tighter, strangled with pressure that comes from everywhere at once.
A gentle knock on the door startles him.
“Davey? Can I come in?”
“No!”
Silence. Then, “Either you come out or I go in there, but either way I need to see how you are.” It’s her stern voice. He tries to take a breath, but it stops and starts, not doing what it should.
He doesn’t want anyone to see him, but he knows his mum won’t let this go, and he needs her now, even if she won’t know what to do, because how could she?
“Is… Is Nick still here?” he asks.
He hears more mumbles. Rage bubbles under his skin. His body shakes harder, but it still won’t change back.
“I sent Nicky downstairs. Can I come in now?”
“Fine.”
She comes in with a brisk step and fusses around the room for a moment before the bed dips, and the blanket is pried out of his hands with gentle determination.
“Oh, Davey.”
He can’t take the pity in her eyes, or the tears in his own. He wants to scream, but what comes out is a pathetic sob.
Her arms close around him and despite his resistance, warmth spreads over his back, chest, limbs. He takes a deep, shaky, breath, then another, less shaky.
“It’s probably hormones. It’ll balance out. I’ll ring the school. Tell them you’re down with something contagious,” she says, a sensible edge to her voice.
He nods, not trusting himself to speak again. There are no sobs, but the tears keep flowing.
It takes a full day for him to get back to his body. His mum sends Nick to sleep at a friend’s house, he’s grateful and angry and frustrated. He makes his mum promise to never speak about it again.
The only way to survive is to believe it has never happened.
***
“And that was that. I never saw you change again.”
There’s sorrow in the valleys of her skin and the timbre of her voice. It tears him in two, wanting to acquiesce to her, wanting to lash out. Something is wrong with the rain, because it’s outside but it falls into his cup and he’s holding the handle too tightly.
His hand shakes as he puts his tea down.
“I should go. Beat the traffic.”
She looks at him, confused, but doesn’t stop him, although they both know he’s in no fit state to drive.
Outside, the rain trickles down his face and the back of his neck, dampening his jumper. He gets into his car and only manages to drive as far as the next road over before he gets too overwhelmed to cope on his own. His mouth tastes of sea salt. What a mess he is, incapable of facing the parts of himself he buried as a kid.
He needs comfort. He needs Olly.
The line rings too long.
“Sorry, sorry! Was watching a– Fuck, David, are you okay?”
He stares at Olly’s face, beautiful even with his curls a mess and half hidden under his hoodie, and no words emerge.
“You finally asked her?” Olly asks, and David can only nod, just as he does in response to the next few questions, until Olly is satisfied that this isn’t the kind of emergency that requires him to make his way to Kent.
“Do you want me to stay on the phone while you drive home?”
It’s the best alternative to having his boyfriend in the car with him, as poor a substitute as it is, but David will take what he can get.
Somehow, he makes it to his flat without having a full blown panic attack. He has no memory of the road there, only of Olly’s voice in his ear, soothing him with mindless chatter, and of the intermittent patter of rain on the windshield.
He is so cold as he makes his way up to his floor, his hands too shaky to insert the key in its hole, but it’s okay because Olly is there, opening the door for him and wrapping him up in his warm body.
Clothes are shed, and Olly pulls him into the shower, lathering his body with so much attention and care, washing it with water just on the edge of too hot. David is empty, there’s nothing left in him, no thoughts, no words, no tears. His emotions washed clean. What Olly dries with a towel and settles into bed is a pliant shell.
David sleeps, snuggled into Olly’s side as Olly plays with his hair. His dreams are full of confusion, but he wakes up to the comfort and safety of their little cocoon. He takes a deep, satisfying breath.
“Want to talk about it?” Olly eventually asks, as if he doesn’t know exactly what David craves right now.
But he knows what they’ve agreed. He knows to use his words when he can.
“Later. Now I need you to remind me.”
Olly’s eyes gleam with challenge. “Remind you what?”
“That’s okay to love it. That my body doesn’t have to be one thing. That I can still be me, even when I’m… her.”
Olly kisses him, deep and long, until he’s out of breath and panting, until all he can feel is Olly’s mouth on his, and the way every nerve in his body melts into a web of puddly warmth in response.
Wet heat pools between his legs, his body transformed under Olly’s attention. And as he lets Olly kiss and touch this body that he’s learned to love again, as he listens to his boyfriend whispering about how brave he is, how beautiful, his confidence and ease begin to bloom.
He knows he smells of salty sea water, that his laughter is like fresh Seville oranges — bitter and fresh and fragrant. Olly delights in narrating these details as they enjoy each other’s bodies. And when he rides Olly, feeling powerful and so utterly himself because of this ever changing skin of his, he lets the shreds of hurt and shame that clung to his soul in the afternoon fall to the floor like old leaves, to be swept and put away when the time is right.