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From Within

http://www.tsroadmap.com/early/from-within/index.htm

Introduction

Welcome to From Within written by Victoria Jefferies. From Within has been offline now for some time however with great thanks to Andrea at TSRoadmap.com[1], it has now returned back online in pretty much it's complete former self. However, many of the articles that appeared on the original website have been lost, and as such only the story will now be found online.

From Within is the story of a girl who to borrow a very well used cliché is born trapped in the wrong body, that of a boy's body. The story sees Vicky travel to the lowest of lows in her despair to find herself within the horrendous pain that comes from being trapped in the wrong body. From this, Vicky finds light in the cold, harsh and upsetting life she leads to find true hope and true peace. This is a story of courage and of what truly can come from within...  

Foreword to this Edition

This is indeed a very long foreword when one considers the length of the original, however there was a very important subject for me to address, and for that reason the words flowed so perfectly for me, that this was the only way I knew how to express this foreword.

I shall be completely honest here, I had written this new foreword once already, and received some feedback, and it was self evident from that feedback that I had been way off the mark that I was intending to strike. I am not entirely certain how it came about that the subject of the joy and wonder of one's female gender and womanhood turned into a rather confused, contentious and indeed misunderstood piece that set a tone of 'making do' and things being as good as they get. If anything, it proves that even someone who considers writing to be one of their defining talents can really miss the mark terribly. This time around I am going to do not just myself justice but to the women I am representing in my writing.

This book beyond all other factors should at least begin to show the amazing and joyous things that come of one's successful transition into womanhood and subsequent assimilation. Indeed for the person afflicted by a crisis of gender, associating themselves as being female but trapped in the wrong body as per the well used cliché or indeed of an intersex condition (like myself) and raised as the wrong gender; finally having the chance to grow and develop physically as well as socially as a woman brings joys beyond all that we would have known. We possibly imagined them, but no one can prepare you for your own experience and journey, because it will be an incredible one, and one full of experiences, happiness, joys and pleasures beyond perhaps the wildest of dreams. These things that we will appreciate and cling to so dearly when they come to you, because they will come, keep your dream alive - simply because you deserve to make your dreams reality.

One of the key matters that dogged this foreword in its original incarnation was in fact the expression of perhaps the less than joyous aspects of womanhood which was a total contradiction from the intended sentiment. Let's take a step back in time, to when I was thirteen, the year is 1996 and the winter was setting in hard, the temperatures lingered around forty degrees with a bitter wind, and nobody was allowed inside the school buildings itself during lunch times. At the time I was still socially living and seen as male, there are no two ways about it, I was seen as a boy, I was living as a boy (no matter how I felt inside, that was the role I was living against my own choice) and that is what was expected of me, a boy.

It is of course a well known fact that I did not identify as male, or indeed as a boy, it is self evident for this book that I identified as female, I was female, and I was a girl and of course that is the case today. But we are not in 2005, it's 1996 - almost ten years ago, and all I can remember is sitting sometimes on my own in the playground just looking at every other girl around me and feeling absolutely awful, for myself. I could see there smiles, their laughs, the little song of joy that seeped from their lips in each other's company. I could see their care-free attitude with their singing along to the current records of the time, and their dancing motion as they visibly loved life, and were enjoying it with an innate naïve attitude. Every girl who I looked at in the groups I yearned to be a part of had a smile on each of their faces. I could feel my whole body yearning for a single moment where I could be with them and be as one with the girls I admired so deeply. And whilst I felt a deep sense of despair, at the same time I began to feel the tiniest amount of joy that they were experiencing, the special bond between women and the wonderful experience of female life that sometimes becomes a little lost, but one that can never be taken away.

My gazes of wonderment would see them flicking through teen magazines, chatting about fashion, make up, hairstyles, music and - boys. I could see them flicking their hair gently, sometimes they would even try out the hairstyles that the magazines had within them on their girl friends and either fall about laughing if it did not look right or rally around when they really felt a style suited one of their fellow girls. Such a warm loving friendship that I was fast learning that only women can experience in such a wonderful, joyous and gentle way, and I could feel that warmth - and if anything it was the warmth that lead me to doing what I had to do.

I would often see the girls I admired with such fondness entering the girl's restrooms, and later coming out with the cheeky hint of lip gloss or lipstick that rebelliously they had snuck on to those joyful and smiling lips, rebelling against the rules of the school, I liked that nature. Their little games of flirtations with boys and the warmness they sought from male company, the very subtle movements they made on the boys who gave those girls that wanted attention. Seeing them reach a lone finger out to touch their hands, or moving their legs to touch so gently, or their legs crossed as their foot gently moved in a circular motion, that starry-eyed look that they gave. There was so much joy and beauty in their whole way of life that whilst made me so jealous, it also made me incredibly happy knowing that they held something so special, something that I yearned for so deeply myself and left the most important impression on me - that though I yearned for the physical 'transformation' of my body to be female at long last, but that I also began to crave and yearn the social assimilation of being a young girl in society - so that I could share in those deep, warm and loving worlds that they had.

In the intervening years, I made some efforts to 'encroach' upon those worlds, by beginning to in some aspects assimilate my girl-hood before I even began to transition or I was even out. I could see there were things that they were denied, and for this reason I began to push for girls to have more opportunities especially in physical education/sports at school at the school council meetings; and thankfully with a great deal of success. I did not do this for the affection, or the possible ego boost that some might seek, but I was doing it for my girls, because I could understand their angst at being excluded from doing certain sports and other activities at school. Whilst it would still take me time to fully take on board the full experience that one can only experience with assimilation into the female role and the feelings that they felt at being denied something they wanted to do in this case, I still did it for 'my girls' because this was at the time the best way I could reach out my hand to say "I'm with you every step of the way!". I may not have wanted to partake in those activities or sports, but it was doing something for the girls who did - learning the importance of being there, and sticking together.

As time went by, I began to soon have far more girl friends than I did boy friends again, and I was included. I was often sought for advice on relationships to get the 'male perspective' which I always felt was curious but nonetheless, I did what I wanted to do so badly in the years prior and that was be there for my girl friends to share their pains when they were low, to give them the reassuring hugs of shared loving friendship, and to encourage and support - and to also share in their joys and times of great happiness. This in itself was a great step forward, and though some of my boy friends of the time always felt it a little odd, I was glad that at long last being able to sit with these girls and giggle about the good, and to console and support during the bad around a table over a bottle of wine began to really bring home to me the shared affinity that women have between us, and it was that that made sure of my transition because for me to socially assimilate as the girl I dreamed to be, I needed to change physically as I desired so heavily, and with that physical change would come the complete assimilation as a girl in society, and so that the girls I viewed with such great admiration as well as envy would no longer just be in my view, but rather I would become one of them as I so longed to be.

My time came soon enough, and my physical transition began, but I knew all too well that I did not wish to be locked into this stage of transition because my girlhood would not be defined by the physical development of my female body, but rather that and the assimilation and full development socially as a girl. The joy of seeing my body grow and finally develop along the lines of which were natural to my mind was a joy beyond all those I had ever experienced up to that point, when I began to feel the tenderness of my budding breasts and the softness of my skin emerge, and seeing that little starry glint grow in my eyes that I had seen in the girls I admired so deeply in '96. If anything having the right body was my passport to the freedom and liberation that I would find in my emotional and social assimilation into female life. As time progressed it became all the more clear to me not to be locked into the stage of transition forever, because if I did that, I knew that I would fall short of all that I desired and dreamed of.

This is by no means an instruction guide whereby A, B followed by C will lead to full assimilation into your womanhood - and maybe that is the point, this is something that comes from within. The birth of your body the way it was always meant to develop is your passport to exploring your identity and place in life as a woman, because there is no one place, and you will find your place within the female world. There are some women who positively cringe at the thought of martial arts for example but for some women that is there way of life, if anything this exemplifies the multiplicities of women's identities, however there are those bonds that run so deep that bring women together, and to me that will always bring me back to those moments at school where I looked on with such envy but the birth of a joy of seeing those girls just being girls and sharing the things that were so important to them in an innate loving and sensitive way.

Being able to develop socially and emotionally as the girl I so dreamed to be brings me experiences, wonders and feelings that are beyond all that I could have ever dreamt. It varies from the simplest of things from the girl's night in, with Chinese ordered in, a few girly videos, a couple of bottles of wine - simply magic. The conversation, the laughter, and even the little gossip make for magic moments. Even though we are now past the age of thirteen, the very same things the girls were discovering then we are still enjoying now and I am part of it. To me there is no better experience than doing each other's hair and choosing outfits, deciding on our makeup and helping each other before we go to dance the night away, to have some real fun, to have a laugh and embrace, cherish and revel in our burgeoning girlhood. Whilst for all my girl friends this is not a new experience, it is not for me either as I have also been living in my female role now for a good length of time - and nothing seems to ever dwindle that wonderful fun loving attitude that we have as girls. We may not go out looking for a man, we may not even go out to get a kiss, but we may go out to flirt and laugh the night away, and before we know it we are back at a friend's apartment singing into the small hours of the morning all huddled bumping to the sweet hip hop grooves and singing along doing what we do best, and that's having fun.

Every time I am with the girls shopping and lunching, running through the reduced racks and gawping at the awful things that lurk within and the stellar bargains hidden within, trying not to giggle in the changing rooms at one of our girls when the outfit she has tried on simply does her no justice, and rallying behind her when that super cute outfit just does her wonders. And then it might be on to lunch, so what is on the menu, it would have to be a bottle of the cheap wine, a shared pizza maybe and where we will take our tired feet next because there is still five hours of shopping left before the shops close!

If anything this is just a very small portion of the joy I have found in my life in my assimilation into my girlhood, and I am so profoundly grateful for the deep joy and wonder that it has brought me, and will bring so many others if this is truly what they seek and desire. So if you were looking today at the girls in the street, who seemed to be a world away from the anxiety, discomfort, envy, pain and the many myriad of feelings that being in the wrong body brings, see their starry eyed glint, that little bit of joy that escaped through those lips? If you want that, you will achieve that. There is so much more beyond physical transition in our journey, because for me having my own body was only half the journey for me, the other half was sharing in that joy that I always viewed from afar. The things I fantasised so deeply about are now a reality every single day, even if I am on my own, just knowing that I am walking down this street, with that confident playful bounce in my stride, seeing the reflection in the windows as I glide by blissfully, seeing the clothes I yearned to wear to express my inner being and personality, a face that is familiar and comfortable to me, and just knowing I am treated in society as one of the girls, it's a joyous and wonderful thing.

The things I have done in the past few years are self evident of my liberation, the feeling I got when I was sitting at Heathrow airport (London, UK) waiting for the call for the Chicago O'Hare bound British Airways flight, by myself was a thrill beyond anything I had experienced before. I was there, on my own, flying thousands of miles away, I would never have done this before! My experience has been truly liberating, my spirit as a girl has been set free, my happy go lucky nature is out, and I am loving every single waking moment of it. Sometimes when I go to bed at night, I can lay there with a smile on my face, not because some cute guy is in my life, but because I am ecstatic inside at every day that I spend as myself. I find myself saying the most simple, but profound things to myself, I love being me, I love my life, I love being a girl. My gratitude is eternal.

I think if we all look deep down inside of us, we will truly agree that living as a girl is not the physical transition alone, it is much more substantial, something that compounds the joy of the physical coming of our female bodies and multiplies the joys we experience many-fold. And if we make it, it's a huge reward for ourselves, but a reward in knowing that we can now make the impact on our girl friends in the way we long desired.

I have been there at the best of times for my girls, I remember the profound thrill I got from being asked if I could do my housemate's hair and make-up for her graduation ball - the acceptance and joy I felt in that was something beyond anything I could ever have dreamt. And beyond that, meeting the approval of the other girls and being complimented was a wonderful feeling, to feel embraced and as one.

But it hasn't all been the bed of roses, I have been there for my girls when times have been hard. On two occasions now I have had girl friends who have been worried sick they were pregnant, and I was the one they wanted by them when they took the home pregnancy test, to give them the hugs and words of support and love.

As I have said there are so many multiplicities of womanhood and how we take that on, for me - being there for my girls is the most important thing for me, I truly want to be able to give them something, even if it's a smile when they feel a little glum, because I hate to see a sad face!

I think the most striking point to make about this, and to end on is that I don't think I will ever fully 'assimilate' or make it to a stage where one meets an unequivocal level of being a girl. How can I say this? Quite easily.

I do not think there will be a day where I do not find a newfound joy, happiness or pleasure of being a girl, and yes there are moments like PMT that can make us feel wretched, but it passes, and our joy is never far away.

There will always be something new, something that adds to me as a person, as a girl, and that defines my personal experience of my girlhood. Something that makes my feet twitch, that makes my lips smile broadly, that brings the twinkle to my eyes, that makes me reach that lone finger out to feel a man's touch when I flirt. My simple message to leave you with is…

…being a girl is a deeply profound joy.

Victoria Jefferies,
April 2005.

2002 -Foreword

I just thought I'd write a little foreword to this book, maybe to bring it into better context.  The story is pretty much a reflection of myself, though I haven't completed my whole journey, I have tried to show that having a gender identity dysphoria can be disabling and distressing, but not forever.  I have trodden most of the path this story will tell and as I say, it really is about me, with a few extra bits, notably the later chapters.

I wish to remain an anonymous author for this book; as I am trying my best to live stealth now; where no one needs to know of my gender issues that have haunted me in the past, and I can carry on with what I feel is normal to me now.  Yes, by strict definition, the medical world calls me a male-to-female transsexual; but I hate being called that.  I am just female, a girl, a woman - that is all I am.  I just hate being labelled.

So hopefully this story will bring further awareness in a truthful manner; and perhaps show that gender issues aren't depraved, perverted or the repertoire of the pornography industry; but real life issues that affect far more people than perhaps we can ever imagine; and it's not a recent 'phenomenon'; world history is littered with gender issues and writings on individuals in the ancient world who felt they were the opposite sex from the moment of self-awareness.

I hope this story will not just show the pain; but above all the joy, acceptance and love that can come from all of this, it's not an entirely bad thing to be 'transsexual', because the result will hopefully be an entirely positive thing, where a mere existence is turned around, and becomes a fulfilled life.  Enjoy.

Vicky x

This foreword was originally written in December 2002

Chapter One

Vicky was just another ordinary girl, and had only just started primary school, aged four and a bit.  She soon made fellow girl friends, even with a couple of the boys there, she didn't know that at the time, she wouldn't be at that school for very long before she and her family moved far away.

Of course, I say Vicky was just a normal girl, but she had something different about her, compared to all the other girls. This for many years to come made her very unique to most, and she soon realised as she began to think for herself what was unique or perhaps so very wrong with her.  You see, unlike most girls, Vicky had a boy's body, and was called by a boy's name and was treated by friends and family as a boy.  It was at the age of four that Vicky soon realised to herself that she didn't feel like the boy everyone told her that she was, but very much like a girl.  I suppose you may say, how can a four year old know she isn't a boy like everyone else says she is and contrary to her body's appearance.  Then, it is the most basic identity issue, and she did not feel or think like boys, she was just a girl.

She carried on playing with what she wanted, and with whom she liked and carried on in the way that she only knew how.  Not before long however, she soon found she was often being picked on, mostly by older boys, being called names and to the extent of being pushed out of the lunch and tuck shop queues, and made to cry, it wasn't fair for such a young thing.

But she still had her true friends and that made her happy, and her family were quite permitting of her not typical masculine behaviour which they maybe expected of her, but being the first born, her parents knew no better perhaps.  She contently played with her teddies having tea parties in her Wendy House, playing with her post office set, riding her yellow bike and drawing away.  There was also a new baby in the household, at last she had the baby sister she so dearly wanted, and she was so cute!  She already had a brother, born the year previous, he was nice enough, but not a sister for poor Vicky!

Now that she had her sister, and instantly took to her, her name was Emily and she played with her as a little baby, but inside felt a little envy creeping in, why can Emily be treated like a girl, and not herself?  It was simply because Vicky's parents saw her as a boy, not a girl, and as she would find out – this would almost lead to her death in later years.  But not to dwell on sad things a year later, Vicky's mum and dad decided that the time had come to move from their current house, to one which was in the country, by this time she was five years old.

Having spent a lot of summers in this part of England, Vicky was alright about moving away; but she as any child was reluctant to let go of her old home which for her, symbolised her security despite the bullying that was already creeping into her life.  And now that a year had past when the emergence of identification of being female, her feelings had deepened further and so had her conviction and the upset was beginning to creep in about her treatment, which was not very much like her sister, though her parents were ‘alright' about her apparent femininity, as her brother was in no way like she was, she was much more like her sister Emily.

As time past, Vicky made new friends again at her new school, predominantly girls as you could expect; but not before long, the bullying curiously started again, she did not understand why other people should be so mean to her for no apparent reason, calling her names and even sometimes punching her.  Even worse, she even started getting beaten up, this was not at all fair.  Especially as her own gender identity issues were deepening in their severity and causing their own distress.  Often crying at night, or screaming inside “Why can't I be normal”, praying that when she would wake in the morning her ‘thing' would have disappeared (the ‘thing' being her penis) or that she would look in the mirror and look like the girls she would draw at night and wish to wake up looking like them.

However, Vicky made the most of her lovely sister Emily who was so sweet and kind to her, they both played with their toys and this was Vicky's means of having toys considered very definitely feminine ones.  Also, her best friend was a girl called Chloe, they often spent much time with each other, playing, watching videos, riding bikes and sucking ice poles from the sweet shop in the summer sun.  However, having such a good unit of girl friends, allowed Vicky something she would not always have access to at home, and that was dressing up in her friend's clothes.  Her friend's felt it was ‘wrong' for her to do so, but they soon let her get on with it, and thought nothing of it.  After all, Vicky's many tantrums in the barbers about having her hair cut meant that her parents had let her grow her hair long like most other girls, and indeed she did look like a girl with the long hair, even more so when wearing a friend's dress!  Of course with Emily being four years her junior, Emily's clothes would not fit her, after all a seven year old is bigger than three year olds.

Many afternoons were spent having tea around Chloe's house, and their favourite videos soon became “The Water Babies” and “The Little Mermaid”, Vicky saw something in that felt so right, a glimmer of hope that one day she would change and people wouldn't think she was a boy as she so screamed from her inner being, but just – her, a girl.  That would be possible, but little did she know that lay another ten years ahead…

Things worsened at school, and then one day, perhaps just as she knew she would, she ended up having a crush on someone.  To add to the confusion of other people's insistence that she was a boy, a new person came to the class, she was now nine.  Immediately Vicky had a huge crush on this person, another girl?  No, this was a boy, she was knocked for six and instead of always daydreaming of her future adventures as a girl, this boy, Alex entered into those daydreams.  She could not keep her eyes off of him, but others noticed this as well.  Her friends that still saw her as a boy, despite her continued typical feminine behaviour, and her insistence to them that she should be called Vicky, they began to get curious about her behaviour around Alex, the new boy.  She had decided on being called Victoria a couple of years prior after going through the girl's names in her class at the time, the name felt so right for her, and she loved the name shortened to Vicky.

Chloe one day after seeing her staring at Alex again asked her
"Do you like Alex or something, you keep looking at him” she said
"Well... do you think I shouldn't?” Vicky replied
“But boys should like girls shouldn't they?  Do you think you love him?” Chloe responded with clear curiosity and a hint of excitement
“I guess I do really like him, but I have told you before I wish I was a girl” Vicky said feeling really down about her inability to act on her feelings.
“But, how can you be, you have a boy's thing and I suppose you do look girly!  But, maybe you are just one of those boys who like other boys, my dad says they are queer, or gay” Chloe said perhaps not realising how wrong she was, but how could she comprehend the issue that was evident, transsexualism, but both had yet to discover the word and its meaning.
“I don't feel like a boy, I feel like a girl, I am a girl just like you, why aren't I like most other boys, I do all the things you girls do and really like it?” Vicky said standing up for herself again.
“I suppose you could be right, maybe you are special and will change one day, anyway you're still my friend and I suppose that being a girl, liking boys is a good thing!” Chloe responded trying to reinforce her friendship with Vicky.

Alex left after a year at the primary school, this made Vicky very upset for a long time, he was after all the son of a father who was in the RAF, and he was posted to Wales in the summer of 1993.  The last year of primary school was much the same as it always had been, except Vicky felt that her ties with her girl friends were harder to keep than ever as she was expected to behave like a boy more and more.  But she couldn't, she just wasn't a boy.  But at least with her friends like Chloe, she still played with them, went to clubs with them and carried on the dance lessons she so enjoyed.  She was still getting on fine with her parents, her brother James and her sweet sister Emily by now seven years old.  Firstly her mum was still OK about her apparent odd behaviour for a boy, compared to eight year old James who was a typical boy, he wasn't a bully or mean, but much tougher than his sisters Emily and Vicky.  Vicky's dad was more discouraged by her behaviour, his absence for four years working away from home had come to an end a year or two prior and he noticed more than ever his “son's” apparent odd behaviour and sometimes shouted at her to grow up and stop behaving the way she did, like any other girl.

Emily however was still sweet as pie to her, but too young to understand sometimes what Vicky said about how she was feeling, they still played together often.  However one day Emily, the inquisitive girl that she was, asked Vicky,
“Why don't you play with toys like James'?”
Vicky had to think carefully how to answer in a way that her sister would understand, she was extremely close to Emily, having looked after her so much and tending her when she was a baby, they shared most things together, and Emily often talked to Vicky about how many boyfriends she had!
“Emily, the reason I play with my toys and yours is because inside I feel like a girl!”, Vicky said slowly and scared of the repercussions that could have on her sister,
“A girl!” Emily giggled, but saw Vicky almost ready to cry “How can you be a girl when you are a boy, everyone says you are a boy and you're my brother!” Emily said kind of scared and confused but ready to try and understand
“I guess I feel like a caterpillar, you know what they do don't you?” said Vicky
“Yes, we did it in class a long time ago” Emily said looking eager to find out more
“I think at the moment I'm like the caterpillar, hiding myself inside, and one day I will hide away for a little bit in my shell and come out like a butterfly does.  Do you understand Emily?” explained Vicky
“No, because you don't want to be a butterfly” Emily said bemused
“No I'm not, but I'm like that, I'm hiding in a boys body and one day I will sleep and wake up in a girl's body, I hope” added Vicky to aid Emily's understanding
“Oh, I see, but you look like a girl now with your hair long, but you have a willy, so when will you be a girl?” asked Emily grinning, Vicky paused at being reminded of her hugely hated member.
“I don't know, when mummy and daddy know I guess” answered Vicky
“Have you got my wedding Barbie doll?” asked Emily going back to the things her and Vicky enjoyed much more
“I think it's under my pillow, and I don't want to be Ken this time!” joked Vicky, Emily giggled and just as Vicky went to get up, she gave Vicky a little kiss on her cheek and said
“I love you!”, Vicky almost burst out in tears, her sister was just so sweet and understanding even being so young as Emily was, and they carried on playing just as they had done many times.

Chapter Two

Time pushed ever onwards for Vicky, and before she knew it she had finished her years at primary school, all that lay ahead were the hot summer days playing out in the garden, or maybe the beach, and plenty of time to play with Emily and Chloe.  The first Saturday of the summer holiday was really hot, and Chloe came knocking on her door to see if she wanted to go out with her on their bikes.

"I'm not sure, because I think we're going to the beach Chloe" said Vicky "I'll ask, do you want to come too?" she asked

"Well, it does sound nice!" Chloe answered not wanting to sound as if she was inviting herself

"I'll just go and ask my mum, Emily's coming too, and I think James is bringing a friend, better avoid them then!" Vicky joked.

Vicky went to her mum and asked if Chloe could come to the beach if they were definitely going, Emily really liked Chloe as well, and she started jumping up and down to try and persuade mum.  Mum gave in easily enough and said she could come, Emily and Vicky ran back to the front door

"Hi Chloe!" said Emily with a big beaming smile,

"Hello Emily, wow those are cool jelly shoes!" Chloe said looking down at her sparkly pink summery shoes

"Thankyou I got them last week in a shop in the town" Emily answered

"Well you are allowed to come, why don't you come inside we'll make you lunch and stuff and you can phone your mum and dad to say you're coming to the beach" said Vicky

"Can I phone now?" Chloe enquired

"Yeah sure!  We'll be in the garden shed getting our beach stuff" said Vicky as Emily rushed out to the garden shed to find the buckets, spades and beach ball she had for her birthday in June.

The three girls had a great time on the beach, making sandcastles and playing with Emily's beachball.  All to often Chloe and Vicky were caught staring at some of the guys on the beach, in one instance Emily knocked the ball to Vicky only for her to get donked on the head by the ball as she was staring at a guy that was much older than eleven!  Emily didn't get too annoyed, it was just distracting.  Emily although knowing Vicky felt like a girl, she still saw her as her brother, so on one hand found it odd that she should like boys, but when she thought about it, if she looked at Vicky as a girl that she still looked quite like and that she claimed to feel like, it was probably quite normal!  In the best sense of the word for a seven year old's understanding!  However they had a fantastic time on the beach, sunbathing, and had an ice-lolly each, and even Emily was caught taking a glance at James' friend, with Chloe and Vicky giggling and then Emily swinging around saying "And?" and smiling with a very distinct blush!  The day drew to an end and all three girls vowed they would go to the beach again, soon.

Vicky having finished Primary School was looking forward to secondary school, she thought maybe she would finally get away from all the taunts she received before and all the physical abuse she suffered.  The outlook seemed good, however for poor Vicky things were to go drastically downhill.  The rest of the summer was quite damp despite a promising start and boredom set in often with Vicky and her sister, puzzle after puzzle was completed, Vicky did some drawings for Emily to put on the her bedroom walls, and they played with all the usual toys.  James and his friends often had a laugh at Vicky for playing with her sister and Chloe with "girl's" toys, which she felt hurt by, but Emily would always be there smiling at her, and just as loving as ever.  They were inseparable, and for Vicky this was fast becoming a lifeline.  Emily asked Vicky a question one day that she had meant to ask for a long time

"Do you ever dress in girl's clothes?" she asked

Vicky paused to see if Emily's bedroom door was shut so that no one could hear her, because she could share anything with Emily and have things kept secret.

"When I go around Chloe's house and my other girl friend's, yes sometimes I do.  And you know I used to wear your nurse outfit sometimes when we played nurses when you were younger" Vicky explained

"I just wanted to ask, just that not many girls wear boys clothes, I know you have to because well mummy and daddy say you are a boy and so does everyone else" said Emily

Vicky tried to smile, but hung her head and felt so much shame, and just as ever, Emily spoke up

"But you can be my sister if you really want to be, and I can call you Vicky if you really want me to?"

Vicky looked up at her sister with big blubbery eyes and wept, and she reached out to Emily and hugged her and said

"Yes, I would love that"

"Ok, so now we are sisters, do we do anything different than before?" Emily enquired

"Not a single thing!" said Vicky.  Emily smiled, it was still raining so Vicky suggested to her that they asked mum if they could buy Strawberry flavoured fairy cakes and bake them, they both liked cakes, and liked cooking, it after all let the time pass by doing something different, something special.

It was the day before starting secondary school, and rather foolishly Vicky's mum had left the school shopping before both girls went back to school, it wasn't a problem, just a rush.  The easy bit as always was going into the stationers and both choosing the same pencil case, pens, pencils, rubber - they insisted on having the same.  That left, the dreaded school uniform problem, that Vicky's mum usually had.  To her mum, she had no idea why her "son" would go all sulky at this point in shopping, after all James never enjoyed it but at least he didn't give her hassle.  Vicky had no problem with wearing trousers and shorts, well most girls did wear them, but she felt annoyed that her sister Emily was allowed trousers, and a skirt, she just had trousers.  For Vicky, there was no way of suggesting that she wanted the same as her sister, well she did when Emily started school, but it ended up embarrassing her mum hugely in the shop and the assistant chuckling to his fellow assistant.  After the trouble that brought for her, she never spoke of it again, and somehow it seemed her mum had forgotten the episode until

"Look, you have to try them on to see if they fit" said her mum

"I can tell by putting them up in front of me that they fit" Vicky stubbornly replied

"No, you must try them on, I hope this isn't another of your tantrums about wanting to have a skirt like Emily, you can't wear them!  You can't have everything your sister does, you're a boy!" her mum responded, trying not to draw attention to the situation.  Emily looked at Vicky and smiled to try and comfort her.  Vicky acknowledged that and quipped

"Sorry I'm just tired, sorry"

"Ok, but please try the trousers on and then we have finished and get the bus home" her mum said trying to at least to get somewhere

"Ok, as long as I can go home afterwards" Vicky sighed and stomped into the changing rooms, a experience she never enjoyed.

Once back home Emily and Vicky helped unpack some of the food shopping for their mum and quickly ran off upstairs to play, and talk without their mum being around, Emily quietly closed the door, and being the thoughtful child she was, so much more grown up than her age she smiled at Vicky as she always did and said to her quietly

"Because you're my sister, one day mum will know and you can wear what I wear, anyway can you draw me Bugs Bunny again I lost that picture, I think James and his nasty friend Adam stole it from my wall and well can you" she asked

Vicky smiled at her sister's wisdom and duly drew Emily her picture, and before dinner, she had just finished, and she gave Emily a big hug and thanked her.

Vicky hardly slept the night before she started secondary school, she was so excited about it, and look forward to a more peaceful time.  It started well, she made a few friends but was split up from Chloe, and put on a table of people she didn't know, but she got along, alright.  However in her tutor group were a group of boys who she knew instantly were the laddish type, and though she did like the look of one of them, she could see they could be trouble.  In different classes, she began to notice them acting like a 'mob' and acting very much in the ways that the boys who had bullied her before.

And not before long, the hard working and studious, and feminine Vicky, soon began to get picked on.  Being called names that she had heard before like "sissy" "girlie" "girl's blouse", and because it was hard to hide her attraction to boys, people noticed this and saw fit to heckle homosexual insults her way.  She was soon back to the stage of deep upset all over again, but none of them resorted to physical violence towards her, yet.  She told Emily about it, but she didn't know what to tell Vicky to do, she said maybe you need to get tougher and answer back, but it would never work.  Emily was a popular girl at school and that was something that made Vicky very happy indeed.  In fact, sometimes Vicky would selflessly think only of Emily's needs and would often hide the suffering that was becoming ever more intense.

The year progressed and she did well at her work, receiving good grades and enjoying her classes and being a very good pupil.  But this only continued her persecution from seemingly an ever larger group of boys, and the girls in general were a bit wary, as they didn't understand her, indeed she was a "him" to them, and with long hair and typical feminine ways, "he" was a very strange thing to them which they steered clear of whilst they went after the popular guys and wouldn't even approach her as she was "the weird one".  Vicky was reminded all too well of her horrible gender problems in PE, being forced to play sports she hated, and always got badly hurt in as someone took a nasty cheap-shot at her, kicking her or punching - anything to hurt emotionally and physically was deemed appropriate.  The teachers knew it went on, they tried to stop her suffering but they were ignored largely.  She wasn't the only one to be picked on, a boy called George was also horrifically picked on, and all Vicky could do when she saw it was freeze as it would usually end up the two of them getting horribly beaten up together.  The worst was just after her twelfth birthday in July, two weeks before the end of her first year at secondary school.  She decided often to stay behind in the library for half an hour, just to read about the things she enjoyed, cooking, drawing, stamp collecting and anything that she felt absorbed by.  This was enjoyable for her; and meant she could leave after the boys had gone home so she could walk home without taunts or being hit.

One day though, a Friday, she left the library with a book for her History homework and feeling quite happy, she walked the same way out of school as ever, past the girl's toilets, out through the archway, and past the bikeshed, and just as she walked past the bikeshed, three boys stepped out in front of her.  They pushed her around calling her names and they heckled

"What can you do to let us let you go huh sissy?"

"Yeah, because we want something good or else!"

"But I just want to go home for the weekend" whimpered Vicky

"Oh so now your crying now, pussy!!!" heckled one of the boys

"I just don't want to be trouble, please can I go home?" pleaded Vicky as they encircled her...

They walked her behind the bikeshed appear all sweet, but Vicky sensed danger, and as she tried to run away, they tripped her up on the tarmac and kicked her on the ground, and picked her up and punched her arms and stomach with such violence it was distressing for the poor girl to go through such a thing.  She screamed and cried and a teacher's voice came yelling from the school entrance towards the bike shed shouting at the boys to put her down, she ran like the wind back home howling tears, opened the door with the key she had and ran to Emily's room hoping she would be there.  She cried and cried and cried, Emily came back from school moments later and saw Vicky in a very bruised and battered heap on the floor, she dropped her bags and ran towards her to see what was wrong and to console her badly shaken and distressed sister, and she cried inside for how people could be so nasty to her sister.  She didn't understand the feelings entirely, she wept inside of how people could permit this brutal behaviour towards those who were different from the 'norm', and how awful her sister's suffering was.  She consoled Vicky and wiped her face with a tissue, undressed her, put some of her clothes on, cleaned up her cuts and put plasters on them.  They sat huddled in the corner of the room with Vicky saying what had happened and Emily cuddling her and crying why anyone could be so nasty to her big sister, it was all because she appeared to everyone else like a feminine boy, and femininity in men was a bad thing, for no good reason.  Mum called them down for tea, and Vicky crept down wondering how to explain her cuts and bruises and her black eye.  Mum noticed immediately and yelped.

"What on earth has happened to you!?" she frantically asked

"It was Rugby in PE" Vicky quivered

"But I thought that finished ages ago?  And how come you always get hurt?" her mum asked feeling a little sceptical, Vicky could only muster a little whimper

"I'm just, extremely, unlucky"

Chapter Three

It was not long into Vicky's second year at secondary school, by now twelve years old, she dreaded going back to school, not for her studies but the people who made her life so unbearable at times.  She never had a prominent profile but she always made an extra effort and as such received certificates and work credits, however in the new term she felt apathetic to the work more than anything wondering if there was ever any point.  After all if she could never be who she really was, there was no point in her eyes.  Such a sad thing to have happened to someone with so much potential.  Also at home things were far more strained, she felt as if her and Emily were beginning to grow apart as Emily found her own interests outside of the home; but they still got on so well.  Vicky kept her attendance up at school though, some mornings especially on Mondays she would feel so awful about going she would fake sickness, just for a day or two to get away from the bullies; but often her parents were firm insisting she went, even when she was genuinely ill, but she had faked it so many times by then!

She still got good grades, but she didn't try too hard, she got picked on just the same as she always did no matter how she tried to get the horrible individuals off of her back.  At this time, it was cold and it was winter, she would hide away in the library at break and lunchtime reading anything as per usual that took her fancy.  But her growing isolation and ever deepening gender issues, began to prompt her to look for 'answers'.  The library at the school was actually rather good, and she found they had a section on things dealing with society, and sexuality.  She was very intelligent for her age, but despite this she still found it hard to understand the books.  In order to read these books she often found that a bigger book was required to hide the often much smaller books on sexuality inside so that no one knew what she was reading.  She could not afford to be seen reading books on homosexuality when she was already being taunted over being gay heavily; and if people found out she was reading such a book, they would have pounced on her and have hugely intensified the homosexual taunts.  She had her own doubts too, maybe she was just a very feminine homosexual man?  But she never felt that way, she never felt she was gay, if she was gay - that would mean she was a lesbian, in her mind she was just your average heterosexual girl.

During a week in December, the library was closed for refurbishment as though its collection was diverse and very well stocked, it was a bit drab and in need of a lick of paint.  Unfortunately for Vicky she hated the cold, and it was a bitter winter.  She only knew it all too well as she was often forced to do PE when she didn't have a sick note as she quite often had, she detested it.  She found that in Rugby and Football (that she could not stand) people deliberately hurt her, and because she was never very good at catching she was taunted at and shouted at for dropping a ball - and this was from her PE instructors too.  Once she was on the pitch as the instructor got so fed up with her she burst into tears as he shouted in her face, and all sorts of taunts and heckling ensued, she was an emotional carnage being pushed ever closer to the brink.

As the library was closed, Vicky had to sit outside in the cold as she sometimes found cruelly her coat had been hidden over lunch hours only to be put back when lunchtime's finished, she dared not say anything and shivered in the cold; sitting on the ground reading a book she would bring in from home, every lunchtime the same lads picked on her and said the same taunts that you would believe you would become tired off and desensitised to, for Vicky, being such a sensitive soul, that never was the case and she often welled up when the heckling and abuse came forth and it never stopped.  After the incident by the bike shed, she thankfully hadn't suffered such a beating in around six months, but still she had no hope it had stopped for good.

As she read up more and more on the books in the library she found a book on sexual identity, it turned out it was written by a psychologist many years ago as it was an old dusty tome.  She read it with fervour as she found it dealt with gender, and in the book she read with such eager anticipation; she found out she was not alone, there were other girls in boy's bodies.  Also to her surprise she never really thought there could be boys trapped in girl's bodies but it made so much sense that it happened to boys!  She read and read until she read the words which were what she was technically know as, a "male to female transsexual".  She could not believe it, the relief this afforded her no matter how short lived was immense relief to know she was not alone with her problems.  She ran home that day smiling for the first time in an age, and Emily was in her room brushing her hair as she had got in from school and changed.  Vicky ran up to her and told her the good news, Emily understood what Vicky was saying, sure she did not understand why her sister was called such a long winded name by the medical profession, but she gave her sister a great big tearful hug and she said to her,

"Since we know this now we know it will be possible for you to be corrected, yes?"

"I know, I know, it's fantastic!  I want to be put right tomorrow, but I know it won't happen" sighed Vicky.

"But in time sis, it will, won't it?" Emily smiled as looked her sister in the eye and saw they both were crying a bit.

"I really do hope so honey" Vicky said back with an essence of her glumness that was plaguing her life.

"It will and I will be there for you" Emily said as she reached out for Vicky to hug her and they cried together.  At last they had some good news, and for Vicky her sister as ever was such a dear source of inspiration and love.

Life was also physically becoming much more stressful, she began to notice changes in her, and she had long tried to hide the fact other girls had already started developing in the normal female way a few years ago, she never really believed that as she got older she would start to develop correctly, but that never stopped her childhood prayers she so often held all of her trust in.  But she knew as she saw girls developing, their breasts and their shape changing and their faces remaining clear and feminine, she began to see her face change as it drooped from the stress of life and also the wrong puberty beginning to attack.  She had a very high pitched voice as well, higher than most other girls, but she never really expected the first of the worst things to happen, she turned thirteen in July, at the end of year eight and began to notice her voice faltering, and becoming like her dad's voice, deep and booming, not graceful or sweet or a reflection of the soul inside.  She noticed herself getting taller, she was always short for someone who appeared to be a boy; and this only added to her being an easy target, but so quickly she grew whilst she saw other girls not shooting up as fast; she feared that she was fast becoming like her dad and would be far too tall, by the age of thirteen Vicky was 5'4", only an inch shorter than her mum, and much taller than Emily who was so small and petite, but then she was only ten.  But for Vicky this brought further anguish and even envy, as she saw her beloved sister begin to change and develop normally, and see she was happy that her femininity was being established.

But this was not the worst, as time progressed, and as Vicky began year nine, she was thoroughly depressed, she was suffering just as much verbal abuse and being beaten up on a monotonous regularity, held in headlocks and punched in the stomach, footballs kicked at her, and being shoved around and tripped up.  Once again she found herself being kicked to the floor and suffering from bloody noses and bruises and deep pain, physically and emotionally.  She felt totally abused by others and by her own body, she had facial hair starting to grow and the pain was so much initially she was stunned that such a thing should happen to her, and typically for her she was one of the first ones to get facial hair and suffered taunts of "ape" and "monkey".  She gave up most times on her appearance and did not care for how she looked.  Her voice had dropped as its low sullen nature perhaps showed how she felt, her delightful friendly voice, was replaced by a monotone drone.  It could not escape her attention however that her nose seemed to be getting bigger like her dad's nose, and she wanted her smaller petite nose back, she wanted her smaller graceful body back, but the shoulders broadened and her pelvis remained narrow like boy's pelvis' were, unlike her sister's and other girls.  Most of all, all she ever wanted when she was younger was the hope one day she could bear children and have babies, but she knew it would never happen - probably, and that the disfiguring parasite that was her wretched penis was getting bigger when all she wanted was for it to disappear.  It was no wonder that she was soon on anti-depressants; and nobody but her and Emily knew why.

Emily sensed the seemingly unstoppable downward spiral Vicky was falling into - she was by this time 15 and in year ten and Emily had just started secondary school too aged eleven.  She couldn't help but notice that her sister's dark foul mood swings and reclusiveness were driving a wedge between the two of them when it shouldn't be that way.  The two sisters had been close to each other for all their lives.  After all, Emily only had to look at some of the photos around the house to see herself being held in Vicky's arms when she was a baby and many more of the two girls.  They had been that close for so long, from the beginning really.  Emily knocked on Vicky's door, as for evenings on end she hid away in her room, after school playing on her computer to try and amuse herself.  As well as her usual reading and drawing, and writing about her frustrations, which seemingly never ended and could neither be satisfactorily explained.

"Vicky, it's Emily!" she knocked

"Yes..." Vicky prompted and Emily walked in

"I have noticed for a very long time you seem to be getting more and more depressed with yourself, are you OK?" asked Emily, though asking Vicky if she was alright was a silly question.

"Yes, I'm fine as usual..." sighed Vicky as she turned her chair around and put her drawing pencil and pad down, and she frowned and looked at the ground

"...actually I'm not alright, I haven't talked to you in ages about my problems because I don't want to bore you, anyway you have your own life to get on with" said Vicky in her usual self critical manner.

"Look" Emily said as she shut Vicky's door "I have been looking at those photos of you and me when I was a little baby and toddler and how you looked at after me, now it's my duty to look after you now in your time of need"  said Emily firmly knowing her sister would try and say she wasn't in need of help but really was.

"You don't owe me anything, I did it because I love you" Vicky said with a little smile as she thought back to the days of singing to Emily in her cot as she snoozed.

"And I'm going to help you because I love you too" Emily said putting her hands on her hips and grinning in a statement of firmness.

The two girls went into Emily's room where Vicky started mouthing off about everything she hated about herself, and she was very scared of getting taller still, she was 5'5" but already short for a 'boy'; as most boys were taller than her, though she was one of the taller girls in her year, she feared that she would soon shoot up to six feet tall and loose all sense of gracefulness, something her voice had taken no sympathy over.  Emily sat beside her on the bed with an arm over her shoulder as Vicky poured out all of her self hate and tears, and Emily could not believe that such a cruel twist of fate should ever have been afforded to her dear sister.

"Look, you may not look like you want to, or how you used to, but I can help you look right again" Emily smiled trying to give Vicky some hope

"But I can't look like it all the time can I, when I step out of this room, downstairs, at school or if I dare go outside, I have to take off everything and look horrible again, I don't even talk like girls now, nothing is right"

"But I can help you with that too, you need to say something to mum and dad before you do some serious harm" Emily said with deep concern

"I almost have on many occasions, wanting to, well you know, end it".  On saying this Vicky burst into tears again, Emily jumped off the bed and in anger almost she yelped

"Don't you ever, ever, try doing something like it again, I want you as my sister and I'm not going..." Emily paused, held back as the shock turned back into understanding as she sat back on the bed and hugged Vicky and gave her a kiss on her cheek. "Just don't do anything, we all love you too much!"

Emily had recently started wearing makeup sometimes, not much, but a sign of children losing their innocence much earlier than perhaps in past years, but then - she was just as bad as Vicky was at her age, looking at all the boys and having the odd crush or two!  She sat Vicky down, and combed her ragged long hair

"You should look after your hair better, it could be really nice but it looks yucky!" Emily frowned

"I know, but I never see the point" sighed Vicky

Emily made best of the unkempt hair, and combed it straight and it did look quite a lot better, but it needed a really good wash.  She then asked Vicky if she had ever tried using makeup.

"I have, but I can't get it right, no one has shown me properly" answered Vicky

"Ok it's simple, just take your time at first, you'll get quicker and soon have it fine" Emily said reassuringly only to feel her sister's cheek and chin

"Hmm, you should shave off this hair, it's spiky, I don't mean that nastily but you need to get rid of it to look like a girl again honey!" Emily said, and Vicky stooped off to her room, grabbed the cursed facial shaver and dumped it on Emily's dresser.  Emily picked it up and gave Vicky a shave, which was a very humiliating thing for Vicky, she should never have to do such a thing.  Emily looked at her face and pulled a few items from her small makeup box, and looked at her sister's face with an artist's fervour, both of the girls after all had some talent in the arts.  She pulled out a lilac eyeshadow and her black eyeliner pencil, a black mascara and as Vicky's skin was pale, a rosy blusher and some Vaseline to make her lips glossy.  She applied each item one by one and instructing Vicky to close her eyes at points as she applied the makeup with a sense of eagerness to see her sister for real.  Vicky quipped that she had got the hang of most things, but had difficulty using the eyeliner and not prodding her nose with the mascara wand.  She always got upset when she tried herself and made a mess, as she could either just laugh at herself or just cry with feelings of  "I can't ever be a girl, I can't even do simple girl things".

Vicky saw her face take shape and a smile began to emerge as as Emily leant out of the way as she made her final movements with her blusher brush, she moved her head out of the way from the dresser window and Vicky saw a pretty face she had not seen for so long and she began to weep with happiness.

"Don't start crying, the mascara will run!" joked Emily

"Hehe, I know, I'm just so happy!" beamed Vicky looking at Emily as if she was a magician of special qualities

"Now, I will lend you one of my tops, you'll have to wear your trousers as you're a bit too tall for mine and your trainers" said Emily reaching into her wardrobe

"I wish I had trainers like you have, they're so much nicer than my grubby black ones" said Vicky looking at Emily's baby blue slip on trainers and adorable pink lace ups, as Vicky remembered the envy she had for the other girls when she was at primary school and seeing some girls in PE with cute pink trainers.   She fetched her trainers and her best jeans and walked back into Emily's room, not in a hurry, she didn't even think about James or her mum and dad seeing her with make-up on, it just seemed normal to her.

"Do you want a plain white top, or there is pink, pale yellow or baby blue Vicky?" asked Emily waving four colourful strappy tops, two with embroidered patterns, one with a cute cartoon flower and the other was just the plain pink top.  Since pink was one of Vicky's favourite colours and one that was a strict taboo she could not wear usually, she picked the pink top and being careful not to ruin Emily's efforts with her hair as she slid the top on. She grabbed Emily's hair brush to tidy her hair and looked in the portrait mirror adoring Emily's wardrobe.

"I can't believe it Emily!" gasped Vicky in shock

"I know, you look fab girl!" smiled Emily seeing the huge positive impact the makeover had on her sister

"Thanks so much sis, I love you so much!" Vicky said still beaming, hands on hips swinging on the tips of her toes and wishing she could run out into the road like it.  But she still had her deep rotten voice, she thought of this and it hurt thinking about it, but she did not want it to ruin the moment!

"See you can look like a girl still" smiled Emily as she looked at Vicky, who wasn't so desperately out of proportion as she had feared.

"I know Emily, but I just feel wrong" responded Vicky

"You know I am going to help you with all of that, you must tell mum and dad, you could be so much happier, look at you now!  They will understand, it just may be a huge shock!" Emily said with sincerity and hope her sister would say something soon

"I know, I know that all too well, I'd say something now but I am so scared" Vicky sighed and looked a bit glum

"I will help you tell them, and I mean soon..." said Emily.  She had seen how happy her sister was seeing more of her real self in the mirror, but she knew the next day she would feel so down, what with school and the facial hair creeping back, the worry of if she could tell her parents, the various insults she was still getting. However thankfully this was with less intensity than in previous years and so many other things that brought her to her knees.  Thankfully Emily being young and naivem thought that perhaps, and correctly too, all those things could be overcome in time, it was this that made her pledge in her mind she would do everything she could for her sister.

Chapter Four

Vicky was in her final year at secondary school, with her GCSE exams coming up.  This was a very stressful period for her with all of the revision and coursework that was due in.  She worked hard though, and her mum and sister helped her where they could, but as ever Vicky was usually far more consumed by her gender issues.  She managed to concentrate well enough and her parents were pleased with her predicted grades, she was set to do well.  However the pressure was mounting heavily on her, the people who in previous years that had made her life so difficult had over time learnt that picking on her was not a productive idea, and besides they were all too consumed by their girlfriends.  They would still sometimes pass a comment when they saw Vicky with a few books to revise from as she left the library but much to Vicky's relief they had eased right off.  Unfortunately the scars remained, and her physical appearance was forced to look masculine, and her sister's persistence towards her saying "you must tell mum and dad!".  This was constantly on her mind.

Vicky's mum and dad were also getting worried about her lack of concentration as time passed on revision, they had high hopes for her GCSEs and for poor Vicky their pressure although it was well meaning; she began to get very stressed that yet again she wouldn't live up to other people's expectations.  One night two weeks before the start of her exams, she shut her bedroom door and laid on her bed crying her eyes out, nobody else was in, she was at the lowest she ever felt.  She had no friends, her parents were demanding seemingly more from her, her sister wasn't around like she used to be, she looked horrible, she still had problems at school... It was just far to much for the poor girl to handle.  Sitting on her desk was a razor blade, she sat there, staring at it, looked away and around her room.  She took her jumper off, unbuttoned the cuffs on her shirt, and rolled her sleeves midway up her arms and picked up the razor blade, peered once more out of her bedroom window, it was a red sunset outside, she looked down and with the blade slashed her left hand wrist with the razor blade.  She made a shrill noise at the quick action and stinging pain, she looked at her wrist and blood at first seeped slowly from the cut, and before long she had her whole lower half of her right arm drenched in blood, she felt nothing anymore for herself or anyone else for that matter.  As she was deliberating slashing her other wrist to finalise her suicide attempt, she did not hear someone's footsteps up the stairs, they were Emily's footsteps.  She knocked on Vicky's door and entered, Vicky was facing away from her as the window was opposite from her door, and as Emily entered

"Hey!".... Emily entered just as Vicky had slashed her right-hand wrist as well she froze when she realised Emily was in her room.

"...we have Chinese tonight..." Emily paused as she saw Vicky was frozen rigid with her left hand clutching her right wrist in a rather peculiar manner.  As Emily walked around her bed to look at her, she at an instant saw Vicky's by now very pale face and screamed, and being a very squeamish girl, passed out, collapsing on the floor as she saw her sister's arms drenched in blood and dripping on to the carpet.  At an instant, Vicky's mum and dad ran upstairs

"Emily, Emily!  Where are you... are you OK, where are you?" her mum yelled running up the steps, as she turned around she saw her daughter lying on Vicky's carpet passed out, she ran into the room and by this time Vicky had also passed out on the bed, she screamed for her life seeing her two daughters (not that she knew she had two at this stage), one of whom was on the carpet and Vicky who was drenched in blood, Vicky's dad then ran in and grasped her mum by the arms from behind and saw the distressing scene, immediately, he told her mum to phone for an ambulance, she was frozen, until her Dad shouted "GO!".

Dad then ran over to the bed and saw a t-shirt lying on a chair near the bed, he tied it into a very tight knot around Vicky's right hand wrist, and ran to her drawers, opened them up and grabbed another tshirt and did the same for her left wrist, he then placed Vicky on the floor and managed to revive her, her eyes just opened so slowly as if almost to say "Fuck, am I still here?", Vicky's dad quipped

"Are you alright?" a silly question by any stretch of imagination, her mum then ran back in the room and saw Emily stirring on the floor and tears pouring from her eyes as she aroused, she got up and ran to mum and grabbed her so hard pointing to the floor jibbering with sheer fear.

"Don't worry honey he's going to be OK" said Emily's dad "You have phoned the ambulance Ellen?" he furthered asking their mum

"Y-, yes I have,  He will, will b-, be OK?  Oh m-, my, G-, god!  I wish they would bloody hurry up!  Why!  W-, what did w-, we d-, do Chris?!" Ellen exclaimed trying to get her words out, confused as seeing what she saw as her son on the floor, barely conscious and covered in blood, and almost innocently the offending razor blade sitting on Vicky's duvet gleaming in the setting sun.  Barely moments later the sound of sirens could be heard, Chris picked up Vicky in his arms and walked carefully down the steps and Ellen and Emily rushed after him, and opened the front door.  The ambulanced screeched to a halt outside their house and the paramedics jumped out, opened the backdoors and pulled out a stretcher as a matter of urgency, Chris placed Vicky onto it, and quipped what had happened to the best of his knowledge

"He's cut his wrists a-, and he's barely conscious, do something!!!" as even he began to panic.

The paramedics rushed Vicky into the back of the ambulance wrapped her up to stop her getting too cold and fed drips into her to hopefully keep her conscious.... Ellen, Emily and Chris stood at the back of the ambulance clutching each other and the back doors slammed as the ambulance roared off.  Chris ran inside and grabbed the car keys, shut the front door and ran to the car, and they all got in and sped off to the local hospital...

After much commotion that evening, Vicky was returned to a stable state and conscious again but worn out, she lay in the hospital bed staring at the ceiling tiles and the stripped fluorescent lighting that lit the ward, to her side her Dad, Chris and Mum, Ellen, sat by her bedside waiting for her to say something to them.

"Son, we're not angry" Chris sighed as he tried to cajole his 'son' into perhaps explaining events to them.  Ellen sat quietly occasionally peering up at Chris, but mostly fixated on Vicky whilst resting her head or her husband's nearby shoulder.  Emily returned from the coffee machine, it was dark and 9pm almost, the TV in the ward was on, showing some drama, but a faint mumbling in the background was all its output in amongst the coughs and the occasional patter of footsteps on the corridors from the doctors and nurses.  Emily passed the coffee to her mum and dad and sat down with her bottle of water and all three frowned staring at the silent creature laid on the bed, Ellen sighed - tired from an evening that should have been like any other except a bit more special.  Emily sipped the water slowly peering up at the wall clock all too often, not before long Vicky's brother James appeared on the ward, he had been playing an away match for his local football team and rushed back as quick as possible to the hospital on hearing the tragic news.

"Is he alright?" James asked

"He's stable, but not saying anything to us at all" responded Chris sounding less than hopeful, and unaware Vicky could hear every word and the reason she was in that bed, was because she was still him, he, a son, a brother, when all she wanted was to say "Actually, no I'm not that at all!" but she didn't feel angry at all.  Angry her suicide attempt failed?  Not at all, she already was regretting it, and saw how much her family loved her with their patience waiting and sitting by her bedside.  She was thinking long and hard and realised that more than anything in the world she had to say something, soon, preferably promise to tell her parents the reasons for her suicide attempt on getting back home.  Emily knew full well why her sister had done what she had, but she was both deeply hurt her sister did not even say anything to her to suggest she was very depressed, and on the second count, that she was so low and had sunk to the depths of wanting to end her suffering.  Vicky laid silent, a thousand thoughts every second all spinning around her head in no order and with no sense.  She rolled onto her side away from her family...

"I'm Sorry" she managed to creep out from her previously solemn lips, Ellen jumped up and immediately shouted,

"How can you be sorry, trying to" she could not muster the words but continued "We love you, don't you know...."

"Ellen, calm down, he's still in shock, we do not know what is wrong, the last thing he needs now is you screaming at him making him feel worse" Chris said as he jumped up too and stood in front of Ellen, hands on her shoulders.  Ellen looked down, and bit her lip softly with regret

"I'm sorry honey, I didn't mean that, I'm just, just too lost for words" Ellen said, reeling back, there was a pause

"I still love you all, I always will" Vicky muttered further, she rolled over and looked everyone and smiled as best as she could, she wanted to cry, but male hormones in her would not let her, a feeling she knew all to often, her mind told her body to do things it would not respond to...  She reached her hand out to her mum just to touch her, and that drew her in and the two hugged dearly, though for Vicky's mum and dad many questions remained unanswered, James sat equally as flummoxed but Emily could only try and pretend she didn't know the reasons when Vicky was asked "Why?", she could manage the occasional uncomfortable smile whilst looking at Vicky...

Two days passed and Vicky was discharged from hospital, and was back at home again, her wounds had started to heal very well, although she was very exhausted from the ordeal, as was everybody in the family, Ellen wrote a note to the school which was a blatant lie, but she wrote that Vicky had tonsillitis and would be off until next week, at least, there was no way that she could tell the school that in her eyes, her son had cut his wrists.  Emily took it into school with her, and that day Vicky stayed upstairs until the end of school working on History coursework, a subject in which she enjoyed a lot, especially the topic of the Cold War which absorbed her.  Ellen occasionally yelled up to Vicky to say there was a cup of tea made, or that it was lunch, usually Vicky would talk to her mum in the day over a morning coffee, but the recent events had made that impossible.  She had one thing on her mind, she had to say something to her parents and her brother James too.  At least she knew from the very unpleasant suicide attempt that she did truly love her family, and they had not in any way deserved her to commit suicide.  With that in mind, she also knew if she didn't do something soon, she could try again, and maybe then succeed, and then it would be too late for regrets.  She did not want that to happen at all.  She waited eagerly until Emily came back home, she went to her room and laid on her bed waiting.

At around quarter to four, Vicky heard the door open as she gazed at Emily's ceiling and various posters of handsome men and at least managing a smile for them.  It was Emily, she was downstairs for a while until Vicky heard her ask mum where she was, she came upstairs shortly afterwards, entered her room to get changed and there was Vicky lying on her side towards her, Emily rushed over to her

"Are you alright" she asked.

"I'm, fine, ish, well..." Vicky replied hesitantly.

"So what's wrong now?" Emily sighed as she sat down on her dresser stool.

"I, well, I've been thinking, and well..." Vicky uttered slowly

"What?" said Emily leaning forward intrigued by what her sister was going to say

"I, want to tell everyone" Vicky replied.

"Tell them what Vicky?" Emily asked, then realising her door was open!  She closed the door.

"Tell them, about, everything" answered Vicky.

"Ahh..." paused Emily "....ok, well, you know I think you should, do you really mean this, you mean you aren't going to bottle out?" Emily asked, trying not to pressure her sister who had only been out of hospital a matter of days.

"No.  I am not going to bottle out, but can you help me please?" said Vicky looking at her sister deep in the eyes, and by now sitting up.

"Of course I will sweetie" smiled Emily.  The two hugged very dearly and even some tears fell, they drew back and Vicky smiled at Emily again, comfortably with tears running from her eyes, the way they should when she felt emotional, she wiped them, and blew her nose on one of of Emily's tissues, all of a sudden, Emily said to her

"..come on lets work things out, I want to have my sister soon!" she joked but with an essence of truth in it.  The two girls giggled and began to quietly work out what to try and say, and when.

Chapter Five

Ellen called for dinner a couple of hours later, and the two girls went downstairs and sat at the table, occasionally glancing at each other for reassuring looks, Vicky was absolutely petrified, this could be the moment she would be thrown on the streets, abandoned, with no family, no friends, nobody - but she had nothing to loose in her eyes, but she did have Emily definitely on her side.

"I have something to tell you all, err, after dinner" mumbled Vicky out of the blue, Ellen's ears pricked up at an instant over the sound of a voice in between the clatter of cutlery on plates and such like, she paused as she finished her mouthful and said

"Oh?  What is it honey?" Ellen asked promptly but trying not to sound like she was jumping down Vicky's throat

"She said after dinner mum" Emily replied firmly to Ellen

"So you know something" Ellen answered back.  There was no answer for a few seconds, until Vicky perked up again and quite placidly rather than getting annoyed,

"After dinner, please?" she sighed, Ellen frowned and also sighed and returned to eat her dinner in a half hearted manner, she had lost her appetite with recent events, Chris and James just remained silent not wishing to stir the fragile nature of the evenings of late.  Nothing was said at the table, except for who wanted pudding and nobody did.  So they sat quietly by now Vicky was clutching Emily's hand under the table quite hard for reassurance.

Chris took control of the situation and said

"Would you rather talk about this here or in the front room son?" he asked innocently enough, not realising his choice of last word was, not very apt.

"Ok, that would be better" said Vicky

"I'll make tea" said Ellen "and then you can tell us all together what is so wrong honey" she continued.  Ellen made a pot of tea, placed it on the tray, five mugs and a milk jug.  And carried it into the front room where everyone was sitting, Chris looking at the local paper that had come through, James reading his car magazine and Vicky and Emily on the sofa whispering and keeping each other's spirits up.  Ellen poured the tea, but left it on the tea table, taking hers in hand and sitting in one of the armchairs, she sat down for the last time on