Alice is a less boring, potentially less depressed, passing-but-still-a-little-dysphoric, somewhat average girl… and she is no longer physically (and verbally and maybe mentally and maybe emotionally as well) recognizable as the person she was when she started the fall semester this year. She still doesn’t go to parties, but she’s having fun in her own way now. Being a cat is pretty cool, and Alice is a lot of different things now. More confident, maybe (at least this morning), or perhaps just bitchy due to tiredness. Alice Ekyd is also, above all else, lost. She doesn’t know who she is, who she wants to be, what she wants to be—but at least she looks pretty good, even without makeup. She has cat’s eyes, entirely emerald, and the black, slit pupils stare at me while I take in her appearance. She is short, but that wasn’t always the case. Nonetheless, it is a welcome improvement. She hasn’t taken her estradiol or cypro since Thursday, and she’s more feminine than she’s ever been. She hasn’t kept up with her skincare routine, and her skin is more smooth and pale and soft than it’s ever been. She hasn’t showered, but she feels clean. She still thinks her last name is clever, and she cannot wait to tell Cat about it. Right now, though, she looks sad and… and lost.
She stares back at me from her home in the bathroom mirror.
She feels anxious from being in the women’s washroom, unable to forget the last time she’d used a public washroom on campus and what had been said to her by a faculty member. It’s been a month since she’s used a washroom on campus, and she feels out of place, but she didn’t know where else to go.
I didn’t know where else to go.
I know I’d wanted to sleep, but the moment I’d left that classroom, I found myself drifting towards a washroom so no one would see me cry, if I cried, and so no one would see me switch, if I switched, and I’m not sure if either of those things will happen or not. I can’t feel tears threatening to burst out, and I can’t feel the tinnitus-like feeling of an impending switch.
How do I explain that I am Alice? No one will believe me.
No one does believe me.
No one will believe me.
There’s no point in seeing the director. None of my identification matches me anymore. She won’t believe me, she’ll ask to talk to the Real Alice, which is and isn’t possible, and I’ll get in shit. I’m not sure what universities can do to punish students—all I can think of is academic probation, or outright expulsion—but I’m sure that’s the direction any meeting with her would go in.
Is this it?
Another one of those things that seem to happen to me, and only me? Something designed to kick me down, except more permanent this time? The universe’s way of telling me to give up, it’s easy, I can live out my life as a cat, just do it already?
I’m not sure I get a choice in what’s happening to me (or if I care that I don’t), but I should get a choice in what I want to do. The feeling of having that taken away from me physically hurts. It’s like my heart is being squeezed. If no one recognizes me, if people refuse to recognize me, I won’t graduate, I won’t get my degree, I won’t get the career I came here for.
If that was my decision, I could live with it. If I chose to forego my (frankly, dwindling) humanity, chose the cat part of me, I could be okay with giving up my… my dream, I guess, because what else can I call it? But people not believing I’m me, people wanting to speak with the Real Alice (which is no longer fucking possible), people taking that choice away from me… I cannot abide that.
I can’t live with that, and I won’t.
Fuck it.
This is a horrible idea, but fuck it.
I pull out my phone, place my thumb in a spot that the fingerprint scanner isn’t in, correct myself, and navigate to my emailing app.
It’s 11:20am.
It isn’t one of the listed times, but I ask the director if she’ll be in her office at 12.
Her reply comes surprisingly quick, only a minute later, short and not-quite-sweet.
I’ll be on my lunch, but you’re welcome to interrupt it. I expect you know what this is about, and I can’t say I haven’t found some modicum of humour in the situation. My office is on the 3rd floor of the Arts and Sciences building, room 370. See you at 12, Alice.
O-kay then. Thought she’d have more to say. Guess she didn’t. Feels weird to have her take a meeting during her lunch, but maybe this is more serious than I thought. Follow the newest chapters on novelping dot com.
She said it was funny, though?
I call Gwen, and it goes to voicemail. Right—she’s in class right now.
I debate calling her again. I know she’ll pick up if she sees I’ve called twice, but… I don’t want to inconvenience her.
I don’t have the confidence to call Cat yet, so I text her instead.
Hey, wanna come help me feel safe after I out myself to a department head?
Ten seconds later, my phone is ringing. It’s her.
Nervously, I answer it—
“Are you for reals?” Cat asks.
“Um… y-yeah?”
“I’ll come with you. I don’t have class until later this afternoon.”
“No, I—I wanna talk to her first. Can you show up at like… 12:10? In the Arts and Sciences building, 3rd floor, room 370.”
“I can do that,” she says, her voice confident and steadying.
I’d let out a breath, but I’m not holding one. I’m grounded. A little less lost.
“I’ll see you then. Thanks, Cat.”
“No problem, cat.”
I smile and hang up.
It takes me 10 minutes to get to the Arts and Sciences building. I walk past a red piano I played, once, and take an elevator to the third floor. I navigate to room 370, collapse against the wall outside of it, and fall asleep curled up on the hard linoleum floor, which isn’t too uncomfortable. My hands make a good pillow, but furred paws would be more comfortable.
I am a cat, running across the campus, chasing a bird while Gwen, Cat, and Evan watch me. I am a blur of darkness, crouching low to the ground to sneak up on my prey and wiggling my butt before I pounce… and miss. The bird flies away, but my friends laugh. It isn’t bad laughter. They enjoy my antics. I run after the bird, leaping off the ground as my feline legs carry me across soft grass.
I am the girl I was before this started, running across the campus on all fours, naked and pale and unsightly. My limbs are shorter than they should be, which means I can run faster on all fours, but I have difficulty standing on two legs. People watch me. I sneak up on my prey, a human, and I pounce. I hold them down, and I tell them I am not I am not I am not me me me. The words blur. So does the human’s face. It is no longer a stranger looking at me, but my sister.
“[REDACTED]?” she asks.
I can’t see her.
“No,” I say. “It’s Alice now. I miss you.”
“Who are you?” she asks.
Wait.
Who are you? She asks.
I tell her I am Alice. “I am her sister.”
“I am your sister, [REDACTED],” she tells me.
“I am a cat. I have no sister. She was taken from me.”
Wait, this is wrong.
“I am her.”
“I am not.”
“You are not.”
I don’t recognize myself. I lose track of who was in front of me just moments ago. I can’t remember. I think they were important. He was important… no, it was a she. She was important, but now she is gone, so they are not important anymore.
Miss?
I am pinned to the ground by a monster. Its claws dig into me, but they do not hurt. It drools on me, but I do not feel it. Its fur is midnight, its eyes are a green jewel I can’t name, and it smiles, licking its teeth. It is focused on me, wholly, and it is not letting me go. Deeper the claws go, burying themselves inside of me.
Miss?
Wait! Stop!
I’m dreaming.
What am I dreaming about? A big kitty cat on top of me? I wish I could pet it, but my arms won’t move.
“Miss?” a voice asks, rousing me from slumber.
I blink my eyes open to look up at a woman who smells like cigarettes, leather, ink, and paper. She’s wearing a dark grey, striped pantsuit with a white blouse beneath it. She has, of all things, the alchemical symbol for sulfur (which I only recognize because I’ve played the video game of the same name) on a silver necklace. She has warm skin and is lithe, almost skinny, and her face is all angles and subjugated black hair, but she has a presence.
“Sorry,” I apologize, not knowing what I’m apologizing for. Sleeping on the floor, maybe.
I get up on all fours and stretch my legs out behind me for a few seconds each before raising myself up from the linoleum, freezing as I realize what I just did, and unfreezing when I think about what I’m about to do. “I’m Alice, here for a 12 o’clock,” I say. I’d normally extend a hand to greet someone like her, someone in an authoritative position, but it doesn’t feel right anymore, so I don’t. “You’re… Director Finch?” I guess.
She nods, though her brows furrow and she seems frustrated. “Alice Ekyd? Do you have her student ID with you as well?” When she sees the look on my face, she continues. “What? I expected to be speaking with Alice, not whoever you are—a sister, I’d guess? Let’s talk inside,” she says, fidgeting with her keys to get the door open. I follow her in, frowning and quiet. It’s a nice office, her desk has a nice chair, and she has a nice framed movie poster for Pulp Fiction