at first she was experimenting with it, until she found herself craving her next fix and sleeping with the men who could provide it for her
up against damp alley walls, behind warehouses on the wharves, inside hallways, behind bushes, on dirty mattresses
the relief when blood stained her pants, when tests came back negative
she slept with the women who took a liking to her
discovered she preferred them
her parents charged rent seeing as she’d ruined her life by dropping out of school
she made sure to get up for work every morning, even when she’d come in at dawn completely off her face and her head vibrated to a concert of amplified heavy metal sounds and her brain cells were fused with vomit
she snuck downstairs as her parents busied themselves in the kitchen
she made sure to slam the front door so hard the house reverberated with after-shock
as she headed for a McBreakfast of McSausageBacon&CheeseBagel
at her McJob
one night, unable to sleep, Megan made the mistake of returning to social media to spy on her former classmates
the academic achievers were celebrating their ‘A’ level results, posting about the universities they were going to attend
others were showing off the jobs they’d got, the boyfriends who’d proposed, the babies on the way, the countless nights on the lash where they’d had the best time of their lives clubbing-partying-festivalling-getting-drunk-high and being happyhappyhappyhappy happyhappyhappyhappy, with complexions filtered to perfection, waistlines digitally slimmed, their smiley friendships and relationships, and even though she knew a few of these girls were annies, bulimics, had been bullied, were depressed, had social anxiety
you wouldn’t know it from their posts
it was still a wake-up call
she decided not to head off to the riverfront that evening to hang with her homies, her bezzies, who accepted her as one of them, who lived for their next hit, with their scabby dogs and petty crime lifestyles, who annoyed the hell out of the regular people who walked along the Quayside to visit its venues, restaurants and bars
Megan went cold turkey when her parents went on holiday to Majorca
Mark was at Camp America (of course he was), she stayed home, turned off her phone, watched her parents’ videos to distract her, showered several times a day to rid herself of the sweaty toxins that made her stink, flushed herself out with water, got the shakes, scratched herself raw when legions of ants bit into her flesh, took enough painkillers to subdue the headaches but not enough to kill her
went to sleep on Day Nine and slept (blissfully) through the night
for the first time in as many months
she woke up
born
again.
3
On her eighteenth birthday Megan walked into Tattooz 4 U on Nelson Street, its walls smothered with photos of tattoos etched into every body part imaginable (and unimaginable)
her birthday money was stuffed into her jeans pocket to give to Rex, the bald tattooist, who had a second (younger, handsomer) version of his face tattooed on to the back of his head
she wanted a design that reflected the story of her life: flames, she instructed him, to show that she was living a life consumed by the fires of hell
Rex said her tempestuous feelings as a teenager wouldn’t last, was she really sure she wanted to create a tattoo that would?
she wanted to snap that he was patronizing her, reminded herself that this man was going to be scraping an electric needle over her skin for the next few hours
as slowly her pain transmuted into bloody body art
to show the world how upset she was with it
and to really piss her parents off
which it did
when she returned home flashing her first full sleeve of raw tats
at which point Mum
having prepared a birthday tea of homemade chicken pie, chips, mushy peas, trifle, cake and candles
pulled it all off the kitchen table via her best tablecloth in one dramatic bullfighter moment
the entire contents ended up scattered and smashed on the kitchen floor
whereupon Dad threatened to throw her out for upsetting her mother
she shouted back that she was the one who was upset, it was her birthday and they’d ruined it, and in one equally dramatic moment stormed out of the house without any money or keys
only to turn around and ask to be let back in again
which they did, without hesitation
to apologies all round
cosmetic, as it turned out
her mother couldn’t get over the tats, which she saw as symbolic of the beginning of the end of her daughter’s life as a normal person
Megan came to the conclusion she was never going to find herself if she remained living with her parents
she dragged a black rubbish bag of her possessions down the stairs, refused her father’s offer to drive her to wherever she was going, ignored her mother’s pleas that she stay: we can work things out, we love you, we really love you, Megan, talk to us
too little too late, Megan said (she’d heard that somewhere)
she moved into a hostel with other teenagers
determined to live a life
no longer defined
by her parents
she spent the first few hours in her newly independent republic staring out of a window that framed a small square of pure sky
all hers
over the next few months she felt herself shedding layers of what had been imposed, hoping to reach the core of herself
she wondered if she should really have been born a man because she sure as hell didn’t feel like a woman
perhaps that was the root of her problems
she came home from work to the noise of fellow youngsters having fun through the partition walls
exacerbating her aloneness
yet she knew this was exactly what she needed
solitude
to register what she was feeling
forcing herself to become deaf to all sound except her own
it felt like meditation as she concentrated on the concertina of her own breathing
for moments or was it minutes?
at a time
finding
peace
momentarily
enough to consider her next move
which was to explore the internet, that held the answer to all questions
while lying in her single bed in the chilly early morning hours, wrapped up inside the dark insulation of her duvet, lit by the glare of her laptop
she found sanctuary in chat rooms with other young outsiders as pissed-off as she was, discovered the trans world, engaged in conversations with people on the trans spectrum
sometimes saying the wrong thing online, encountering someone called Bibi who wrote back, I’m going to hit the next person who confuses transsexual with transgender, I swear! people won’t tolerate ignorance on here, love, transgender people are only transsexual when they medically transition, okay?
right
fine
Megan clearly had to walk on eggshells or risk setting off a land mine, none of it really made sense to her, weren’t manhood and womanhood set in stone? she asked Bibi
wrong again! Bibi replied, gender’s a social construction, most of us are born male or female but the concepts of masculinity and femininity are society’s inventions, none of it is innate, are you following?
no, not really
hey, it’s actually ‘Feminism 101’, where you been, Megan? head in the clouds?
yeh, ’spose so, living on Planet Parents, don’t bite, btw, just curious
ah, a sensitive one, I’ll go easy on you from now on, do your research, seriously
Megan discovered that feminism was massive right now, how could it have passed her by?
she thought of her mother who’d disparaged feminists as man-haters, not for me, she’d say whenever it came up, I like men, I like being domesticated and I love your father, so how can I be a feminist?
Dad would nod his head and say something like, you’ve seen what happens when I try to hang up the washing or make the beds