Alex Foster chapter 21

We slept with the "outcasts", under stars and fumes. Nika came to sleep next to me and wrapped his left hand around me. One would expect that by now I would have already gotten used to it, but being near him still made me nervous. It made me anxious and afraid, but in some weird way also soothed me.

I was just about to fall asleep when I felt Nika`s hand sliding down on my stomach and touching bare skin just above the pants' waistline. It felt like an electric shock, I couldn`t move even though a voice in my head screamed and told me to run away. Then my body betrayed me. My lower abdomen and crotch started burning. When I realized what was happening, I got a panic attack, I trembled and tears blurred my vision. Memories flashed in my mind and made me want to throw up. Probably concerned of my reaction, Nika moved his hand to my shoulder. That freed my body from fear paralysis and I ran stumbling away from Nika.

When I had calmed down a bit, I started to feel guilty. I was the one who had hurt Nika, he would have had the right to feel like this, not me. Nika walked over to me hesitantly and said softly: "I apologize Jan, I should have understood that it was even more traumatic to you."

I grabbed his hand and said firmly: "I don`t want you to feel guilty, what happened wasn`t your fault. I was the one who made a horrible deed, I hurt you." When I noticed the situation`s intimacy, I let go of Nika`s hand and looked away, feeling self-conscious. "Come, lets go to sleep." 

Loneliness and yearning

Do you know the feeling of soul deep emptiness, the burden you feel even on your best days, when you are genuinely happy? The loneliness that can`t be filled, no matter how many loving and supportive relationships you have? The yearning that, yes, does include physical desire. But the hardest to bear is the yearning for love and connection. Every cell of my body aches to be a part of a boy`s live, their friend and a mentor. Is it wrong? And can I ever have it?

A letter to myself and my fellow MAPs

I`m sorry you are treated so cruelly, called a monster and dehumanized even by people who say they love you. Because they simply dont know, could never imagine you are one of them. Those others "who should be locked away, who are all evil".

But that`s not true, you are not evil. You are a beautiful, empathetic being, and your feelings and thoughts dont change it. Thoughts dont cause harm unless acted on, and you have never and will never do it.

I`m sorry you have deeply hated and been disgusted of yourself because of those messages. I am sorry you been deeply hurt, invisible, scared of being seen for so long. But not a day more. You deserve to be treated as a human being as much as everyone else.

You’ve had a rough time so far haven’t you? Stuck with an attraction you never asked for. I want you to take a moment of silence for the pain you’ve felt because of this. You’ve lived with a lot of stress from the fear and secrecy that no one around you could ever understand truly. It’s okay for you to take a moment to mourn that time lost in your life that you might’ve otherwise enjoyed.

During that silence, did you hear it? Your heart beating triumphantly in your chest? That means you won and are still winning. Hold on to that heartbeat. Your anguish is valid and real but so is moving on and living without it.You’re allowed to move past the shame. You’re allowed to live without this being a burden to you.

Alex Foster chapter 20

As we drove, on the roadside alternated vast corn fields and dry, barren desert, in the middle of which stood factories, drilling sites and nuclear power plants. Eventually we arrived at the trailer village. The villagers watched us from a distance, wary, until finally one of the men came to talk to us. "What are you here for?" he asked, sounding suspicious and harsh. At first I thought he was old, as he was stooping and tired-looking, but looking more closely I saw that his skin was not wrinkled - he could not be older than forty yet.




When I told I had helped Arya and therefore fled the police, the villagers welcomed us. They were still watching us warily, but invited us to eat around the campfire. Arya cut off the silence with a laugh: "I came with you here in the middle of the desert, but I know hardly anything about you. Could you tell me your secret? " We were glancing at each other, until finally I started. "Well, I was homeschooled for eight years. And I`m also a trans man." I was a little bit nervous to say the last sentence, Echelon and Frank were the only ones who knew it. Everyone, however, viewed it casually; as Arya said, "It does not matter what you have in your pants, but what you have in your heart. And you're the bravest person I know. "

"I am a former professional video game player, but I stopped competing a couple of years ago when I got tired of being a celebrity. I`m also genderfluid and I have dyspraxia." Frank said, smiling shyly. “Dyspraxia? What it means?” Arya asked. "It`s a neurological disorder that affects cross and fine motor coordination, and sometimes also speech. Daniel Radcliffe has it too." Frank explained.




Echelon told that she worked as a teacher in Unschooling Center, which was far from an ordinary teaching job. “Well, my secret you already know”, Janus said tensely. “Jan..You don`t have to talk about it if you don`t want, they will surely understand.”


“I don`t want to be afraid that they will find out about it and turn their backs to me. Besides, these incidents have made me who I am, how anyone could ever truly know me unless I talk about it?” After the story was over, a long silence fell; no one could find the right words, even though we were empathetic. It was cut off when Nika said, looking straight into our eyes: “And my secret is that I love him, as more than a brother, despite what he has done.”