The second Mark changed back into a human, the familiar feeling of hate he had for himself settled back on him, the dysphoria not taking any time at all to make itself known. He did his very best to ignore it as he shut the door to the closet of the library behind him and quickly climbed the ladder into his own closet, not stopping to think about how quickly his body melted and changed into a human from a pony. He did think it was a bit ironic though that the portal was in not one, but two closets, even if that irony made him feel worse about himself. He was in the closet both metaphorically and physically.
He took no time in getting back up to the main floor of his home and heading to the bathroom, checking his appearance in the mirror. It only took a few seconds however to determine that he looked the same as he always did, something that for the first time in his life he felt good about. Only a little bit though. Even despite the comfort it gave him given the circumstances, every single part of his being still wished he would see someone different.
“So I’m not hallucinating then,” he said aloud before covering his mouth with a hand, remembering that his outer and inner monologue didn’t match here. “That all really did happen. There’s a portal underneath my house that turned me into…”
He had to look away from the mirror and head back to his bedroom before he started to get worked up. He shouldn’t have felt the way he did. There was no reason for it. And yet how he felt about himself weighed down on him at seemingly all hours of the day. Sometimes it was the little things; the sensation of hair on his body, how wide his shoulders seemed to be, the pointed nature of his face, the certain stereotypical interests that he had. Other times it was letting himself get caught up thinking about his past, or what he wouldn’t ever be able to do or experience, or the just plain unfairness that he had to feel the way he did. A lot of the time, the feeling was dull enough that he could mostly manage to ignore it, but it was always there, and he couldn’t stand it.
“Don’t get caught up in this,” Mark said to himself, taking a breath as he closed his eyes tightly, clenching his fists. “I’m not gonna get caught up in this feeling.” Even if being transformed helped him to like the way he felt about himself for the first time in his life, he wasn’t going to get caught up in his feelings.
He exhaled and opened his eyes again, moving to boot up his laptop again before stopping. “No,” he told himself. “I’m not…” He let out another breath, having to rub the wetness out of his eyes. Even as happy as it made him and as much as he liked his personality online, he wasn’t Katrina. He really shouldn’t have been entertaining himself with it as much as he did. It was only going to make him feel worse about what he wasn’t. It wasn’t like it was ever gonna happen anyway. Well, except for a few minutes ago when it did.
“I’m going out,” he announced to no one, getting up to put on a hoodie, not caring that it was going to be hot outside. Despite his dislike for going out, he needed to get out of the house and see someone in real life. Eat out, watch a movie, talk about sports, something to help him get over how he felt, at least for a few hours. It wasn’t a permanent solution, it never was, but something was always better than nothing.
He didn’t even bother asking his brother if he was available, simply sending a text to say that he was coming over. It helped that Jason didn’t have a job at all, giving him the ability to go out whenever Mark desired. He might have taken advantage of the situation more had it not been for the person his brother lived with.
It wasn’t very long at all between his text and his showing up to see his brother, Jase already all set up with food to eat for them. It made Mark smile at his generosity as he quickly plopped down into a couch in the living room. He disliked being in this place for a variety of reasons, to the point where he would rather have gone to a friend’s house if he had any in real life. However, he did his best to ignore the sadness that he felt coming off the walls so he could talk to his brother. Before he could say or do anything though, someone he really didn’t feel like talking to walked in.
“Hey, Mark,” his father said, Mark doing all he could to not roll his eyes. “You’re not coming to move back in, are you?” he joked, although without a smile, “cause the answer’s gonna be no. I already have one lazy bum to take care of.”
“Hey, Dad,” he said, not smiling as he did so. “I came here to talk to Jase and hang out with him.” As he said it, he thought to himself that he would never in a million years ever move back in with his father.
“You know, it’s rude to just show up at other people’s houses unannounced,” his father continued. “You should be giving a little bit of forewarning at least. I raised you better than that.”
“I know, Dad,” Mark replied, not wanting to get into an argument. “I asked Jase. He said it was okay. I wouldn’t just show up here without asking first.”
“It’s true,” his little brother told him, Mark knowing that he was trying to prevent an argument between them. “I was the one who told him he could come over. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t ask me,” their father continued, not even glancing Jase’s way. “Does your brother look like he pays the mortgage? You don’t have to give me a fucking attitude about everything.”
He closed his eyes and clenched his fists, taking a deep breath. He wasn’t going to get into an argument about how he didn’t have an attitude. He just wanted to come here to relax, although he should've known he wasn’t going to be able to do much of that with his father around.
“I’m sorry. I’ll ask you next time,” he told his father, almost sarcastically.
There was a long pause after that, his father staring at him as Jase fiddled with his phone. Mark desperately hoped he would go somewhere else. He really didn’t like interacting with his father if he didn’t have to. Out of everyone in his family, he felt like the two of them had the most resistance to each other.
“Please go somewhere else,” he silently begged. “Please, just go somewhere else. Let us have a little time to ourselves.”
He cursed to himself when his father took a seat on the couch, clearly wanting to join them for whatever time he spent here.
“So how have you been, son?” his dad started immediately as he sat down, still pretty much scowling at him. “You never come around anymore. What’s up with that?”
“Oh, I can only wonder why I don’t come here,” Mark couldn’t help but think, barely stopping himself from rolling his eyes. “This is what I get for not having real friends.”
“I know,” he answered. “I’ve just been busy with work and stuff.” Not a lie. He did work a lot, lately taking on a lot of overtime. But it wasn’t the main reason he was hardly ever seen out, especially with his dad, hence the ‘and stuff’ he added to the end of his sentence.
“Are you still doing that work from home shit?” he asked. “You need to go out and get a real job, like landscaping or something. Put some weight and muscle on you or something. Cut off that mop of hair you have, too.”
“I doubt landscaping pays twenty dollars an hour, Dad,” Mark replied, using a hand to push hair out of his face as it fell down his shoulders and back. “Besides, I like what I do now, which is sitting at home, taking about five calls a night, and writing my stories while I talk to my friends.”
“Are you still pretending to be a girl online, Mark?” he asked seriously, his frown deepening at the idea of it. Mark mentioned it once a few years ago in passing, and his father never let it go since then.
“It’s not right, son. You shouldn’t be going around lying to people like that. You’re not gay, are you? You shouldn’t be tricking guys into dating you. You could end up being killed that way.”
“I’m not gay,” he asserted irritatedly. “Just because I pretend to be someone else for fun doesn’t make me that thing, Dad. It’s not real life. And I’m certainly not tricking guys into dating me because I don’t like men.”
“If you say so, Mark,” Jase suddenly interjected. “I bet in three years you’ll be bringing home some completely jacked guy as your husband, and I’ll be here to support you when that day comes. That’s what little brothers are for.”
“I sure as hell won’t,” their father asserted grumpily. “I’ll disown you, that’s what, especially if you tell me your transgender. If you’re gonna be gay, at least don’t go around tricking people into liking you. It should be against the law. A complete embarrassment is what they are, all those fucking alphabet people.”
“Well, I’m not one of those ‘alphabet people’,” Mark snapped. “It’s not like you have anything to worry about with me, but it says a lot about you that you would hate me and be embarrassed over something so stupid.”
“It’s not stupid. It’s unnatural, that’s what. Makes no sense at all.”
Mark couldn’t help but sigh and close his eyes at that. “I know it makes no sense,” he thought. “I shouldn’t feel how I do, and it hurts that you would hate me for being something that I don’t even want to be.”
“Can we just relax and not argue about shit that doesn’t even matter, please?” he asked after a moment. “I didn’t come here to argue about hypotheticals that you created that don’t even exist. I came here to relax and hang out with Jase and watch ESPN and see who the Cardinals traded for. Can you turn on the TV?”
After that terribly awkward and tense conversation, the rest of his afternoon went well, despite a few more back and forths between him and his father. Talking about sports and politics and movies and whatever else served as a good distraction from himself, especially after what had happened earlier with his house. Sports especially was something he and his father could bond over and not argue seriously about. Before he knew it though, the time for Jase and his father to call it a night drew upon them, and Mark found himself waving goodbye and promising that he would see them again soon.
“That was an okay time,” he decided as he drove home, slightly relieved he was away from the small ache he got being in his childhood home. “Even if…”
Mark had to sigh to himself, gripping the steering wheel harder as he did. That was the crux of his problem. Having to tell other people how he felt. Not that there weren’t other problems. It was all just one big problem, but that was the main thing in his eyes. He couldn’t do anything if he never told anyone else, and telling anyone else was something he firmly decided a long time ago that he would never do.
“Just stop thinking about it,” he grumbled to himself as he drove. “It’s never going to happen, so just stop thinking about it.”
Except it had happened, that very day in fact. He replayed it in his mind as he drove. That feeling of peace, the weight being lifted off his chest- it was unbelievable, so much so that he wished he appreciated it more at the time. The feeling of just being able to stand being in his own body…
He sighed sadly again as he pulled into his driveway and headed inside, flopping down on his bed. “It was probably just a hallucination anyway,” he thought to himself. “It’s not like it was real. Just move past the fact that it’s never going to happen. Stop thinking about it every day. You might feel better if there was just one fucking day you could not think about this.”
He couldn’t help but think about it. In his house, there was a portal to what that girl, Twilight, said was another dimension. One that transformed him into who he wanted to be, even if it was as a horse, and let him feel what it was like to be dysphoria free, if only for a few minutes. Maybe he could...
“No,” he said firmly in his head. “Don’t even entertain the thought. You’re just gonna feel worse when it’s not there. It was a hallucination. It’s not gonna be there. You just have to get over it now.”
It was an impossible task when he had to focus every morning on doing what he could to try and minimize his dysphoria, when basically everyone online knew him as Katrina, when even his inner monologue matched who he felt he should be. Even if he went bald and grew a beard and deleted his online account, the voice in his head would still match the person he wished he was.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to keep his emotions level. Giving in and checking to see if the portal was there was just gonna intensify his feelings when it wasn’t. He’d be basically giving into dysphoria, more than he already did every day, and he knew from past experiences that it wasn’t a wise thing to do. Even still…
“Just a quick check,” he decided as he got up, taking another breath. “Just to force it out of my head.”