Coming Out Of My Cage

by Boopy Doopy

(26) Thank You

Katrina woke up with a start in the early morning light, her eyes wet and tears running down her cheeks. She had a dream, no, a nightmare, that she was forced to be someone she didn’t want to be and that there was nothing she could do about it. It wasn’t a nightmare she had very often, only a few times over the years. However, every time she did, her whole body shook in terror, and today was no different.

She had to hug her pillow, burying her face into it. She was so glad to be awake right now, knowing it was just a dream, but was still terrified that one day that dream would become real somehow. Even now at nearly forty years old, she was afraid her nightmares would seep into reality. It was reality at one point. Nearly two-thirds of her life was spent waiting to wake up from a nightmare. What was stopping it from becoming reality again?

She reached for her phone to call her friend, someone she met years ago who helped her through that time. She didn’t know what she would be doing right now without her, except probably being miserable. It was almost unreal how much she helped her, and Katrina was nothing but grateful.

“I’m sorry for calling you so early, but I had that dream again,” she said quietly, talking through her tears as soon as her friend picked up. She took a breath and shivered. “I'm so worried that those feelings are going to come back. I don’t want to go back to hating myself.”

“How long ago was it that you felt that way?” her friend asked. “Almost ten years now? Has it ever come back since then?”

“No, but… I’m so afraid that this happiness is going to be taken away from me. I don’t want this feeling to be snatched from me.”

“It’s not going to be, Katrina. I promise. Trust me when I say that.”

She didn’t have a response, other than to get choked up and start to sob, letting her tears fall onto the bed. She cried for the years where she didn’t acknowledge herself, where she hated everything about herself and did nothing despite knowing who she was supposed to be. She cried for the childhood she had, one where she couldn’t stand to look in the mirror and didn’t know why. It was tears for a past that couldn’t possibly be hers, one that had to be nothing more than a bad dream, one that was reality for as long as she could remember. It was years that she was never going to get back.

It was so unfair that the person who was before had to go through that. It wasn’t right that the kid in her memories had to hate themselves and not know why, not fair that they had to be too afraid to do something for the longest time. It shouldn’t have taken as long as it did for that person to fix herself. It shouldn’t have taken a lifetime for her to wake up.

“Okay,” she said after a few minutes when she finally started to calm down. “I’ll trust you,” she told her as she wiped her eyes. “Thank you for talking to me. You really are too nice to me.”

“There’s no such thing as too much niceness,” her friend said. “And it’s no trouble at all. I’ll talk to you later though. I do have a few important things to do, as I’m sure you do, too.”

“Yes, I do, a meeting about my book this afternoon and then another meeting with my publisher later tonight. I’ll see you next week, okay?”

“I absolutely look forward to it. Have your brother stop by, too, if he wants to. I know he lives all the way out in Las Pegasus, but it’s always a pleasure to see him and his family as well. We’ll be having tea and cucumber sandwiches with my friends that day.”

“I’ll see if he’d like to come. It sounds like a wonderful time. Thank you again. Bye.”

With that, she sniffed as she got out of bed, heading to the bathroom to start her morning routine. Twenty minutes under a hot shower, a few minutes to blow dry and tie up her hair, a few seconds to take her medication, and a little time spent doing her makeup if she wanted to. Even so many years later, it was still such a strange feeling to be able to look in the mirror and not flinch at the sight of herself. It was unbelievable, and every day she was thankful for it.

Every day she was thankful that the moment she’d been waiting a lifetime for was here.

Her closet was filled to the brim with clothes, thousands of dollars worth up to that point. It was more than just dresses and skirts however, as much as she loved those things. Today she opted for something simple to go out in, nice looking blue jeans and a light blue shirt with patterns of yellow flowers on it. It wasn’t the best piece of clothing she had in her closet, nowhere near it, but it was perfect for the springtime that was March.

Her children were still asleep, and probably would be for a couple of hours longer, so she decided to go out alone for a little while. She ignored the trapdoor on the floor for today- there were plenty of other days in her life for that- and grabbed her purse and keys from the shelf before heading out for breakfast. It felt a bit chilly given her choice of wear, but not too bad, and combined with waking up so early, it was the perfect temperature for coffee with her breakfast.

She made her way to a local restaurant, somewhere she could sit down and be waited on, and stretched her arms with a yawn. She didn’t normally wake up this early, but since she was, she decided she would do her best to appreciate it, opening the blinds on the window in her booth and looking at the bright blue sky. It was a lovely scene, a perfect looking Saturday morning.

“Ma’am?” a waiter asked after a while, catching Katrina off guard. He was a young guy, probably a teenager around eighteen years old, looking like he just got out of school and was ready for bigger and better things in the world.

“Can I start you off with something to drink? Maybe take your order?”

“Oh, yes please. Coffee with sugar, if that’s okay. And bacon and eggs if you have it.”

“Of course, I’ll have that right out for you… wait, you look familiar to me. Have you been here before?”

“Not that I know of,” she responded, “but I am an author. Maybe you read one of my books?”

“You- you’re Katrina Wiley, aren’t you!” the teenager said excitedly.

“The one and only,” she smiled proudly. It wasn’t that often she got recognized by someone, maybe a couple of times a year, but it always made her day brighter when she was.

“I read your book a few years ago during a vacation I had, and I gave it to my parents to read recently, too. It… it helped me come out to them as a trans man.”

“I’m so happy to hear that,” she said kindly. “It always makes me happy to know that what I write helped even one person.”

“You are an inspiration,” he continued. “For the longest time, I was so afraid to tell someone who I was, but reading that book- it was like you were speaking directly to me. And- oh, and I went to Equestria for the first time ever a few weeks ago. Walking into that place and changing… it was the best feeling I’ve ever had in my whole life. I’m actually working on getting citizenship there, it felt so amazing. Thank you so, so much for writing that. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

Now she was blushing as she shook his hand, giving him a thank you for reading it before he left to submit her order. As he did, she went back to staring out the window with a wide, happy grin, enjoying the view of the clear blue sky.

Things were better now.

Comments

[Chatoyance]

She... could have adopted those children of hers. That would be the human option. Bottom surgery can't grant you a uterus.

Or.

Or, she could have had those children herself, in Equestria. Which would make bringing them up on earth a very curious choice fraught with difficult ethical complexities.

[Scohinyha Sanka]

This chapter and story has hit me quite hard.

[tsaukpaetra]

It's too bad the portal doesn't work like how Mark's does. But then the story would be depressingly short, wouldn't it?