Hi! This is the fifth short story from my upcoming LGBT+ short story/advice collection, Everything Under The Rainbow! You can find out more about it on my Upcoming Releases page – just click here! Three Years covers the worryingly-long waiting lists for the NHS gender clinic and how it can affect trans people waiting for their first appointments. Read on to find out how Jessica comes to terms with this in Three Years!
Three Years
Three years.
Leaning down, I clipped Sunshine’s lead to his collar. He was a skinny thing, meant for running–Greyhound, or Greyhound mix, or something like that–probably more suited to a track than our tiny back garden. At least he had the fields, I guess. Every day, I’d clip that lead on and we’d walk right out of the cobweb-covered garage, down the alleyway behind the house and then… freedom.
Freedom was long grass which led to shady trees, a metal fence surrounding a horse racing track and then, beyond? The fields. Acres and acres of swaying corn, wheat, whatever the farmer chose that season. Sometimes grown, sometimes green. The little shoots pushing their heads up through tire-ruts and footprints were inspirational. The older plants, heads bowed, made you think.
Life, they seemed to whisper, life has been and gone and will come again; won’t you think about that for a while?
We left the garage without any fuss. Between the ages of eleven and fifteen, I would call out to my mum every time I left with Sunshine. ‘I’m leaving!’, or ‘Goodbye!’, or ‘See you later!’. The habit died off at around sixteen. Now eighteen, with a job and ‘rent’ and a university course, the words hadn’t left my lips for a while. Not in that specific situation, anyway.
Three long years.
Other things had happened since then, as well. Life was never easy. It always had some spanners to throw in the works: failed tests, breakups, discovering I was trans–oh, did I accidentally mention that last one? It snuck up on me, so I guess it’s only fair it sneaks up on you too.
Sunshine didn’t know I was trans. At least, I didn’t think he did. He sniffed me just the same as he did when I was five and he was brought home, barely as big as a bean. Or so it seemed at the time–I think he was a bit bigger if I’m being honest. I’d put him on a cushion and stroke his tiny back at least once a day, after he tired himself out with all his playing and exploring. Every silver-grey hair needed to be smoothed down.
His hair was rougher than it used to be, as I took him down the alleyway. He had this peculiar thing where he’d only step directly on a cobble, meaning he looked a bit like a weird dressage horse when he went down the alleyway. Only the alleyway. As soon as we got to the grassy path, he relaxed into a normal walk, just by my ankle.
It’s going to take three years.
Remembering the important part of the walk which I had fatally forgotten, I thrust my hand into my jacket pocket and pulled out some black earphones, already connected to a tiny iPod. Definitely not the newest, but not the oldest either. One of the little square ones. I forgot what it was called half of the time and forgot that it existed for the rest of it. Some music, whatever sort you want to think that it was, blasted in my ears. I winced.
I think Sunshine winced too. Sensitive dog ears and all that.
For whatever reason, music didn’t seem so loud after a few hours, so I’d turn it up but then forget all about it when I turned the iPod off. Crazy, right? Some things just managed to slip through my mind like… like something slippery. Eels, maybe. I’d never seen an eel in real life. Did they even exist? Probably.
Such strange thoughts were common on dog walks, but they usually only happened once I passed through the treeline.
What was different about today?
Three years.
Oh. Maybe it was that. I stopped Sunshine at the end of the path, kneeling by his side to unclip the lead. Terraced houses looked onto the grass from a right angle. Little paths ran around the grass, random and mismatched, with bins placed just as randomly at some points. They sat where grass met road, or where path met path, or by that bench which was always just too wet to sit on (morning dew, I thought, was the culprit, added to a constant drizzle of rain on most days).
Sunshine ran. He always did. He knew the way better than I ever could, nosing around every weed and stone as if their minimal changes from day-to-day would drastically affect him. He trotted, loped and walked when it suited him, living without a care in the world. Just living, like the crops and the sun and the wind. I always seemed to get philosophical when there was no one around to listen.
Maybe that was for the best. Philosophy was a good way to lose friends.
Not that I had many of those.
Most disappeared after high school. Some disappeared even earlier, when I came out. Year Nine. That was a wild year. College drove off the rest of them, as new people found new opinions on me, my identity and whatever I chose to wear. Skirts, and I was trying too hard. Pants, and I was faking it. Makeup, and I looked like a ‘drag queen’. None, and I looked like a boy.
Nothing worked, so I stopped trying to appease everyone else and simply did what felt best.
That was usually whatever made me feel the most feminine, so skirts and makeup were my go-to. On lazy days, tracksuits with my hair streaming down my chest. It always helped. The hair, I mean. I was lucky that it grew so much–my mum said I got her genes for that, the long, straight black locks that she braided so intricately down her back. I never bothered, but I could do it. She taught me.
That was a good day. Some tears at the end, some close hugs that felt like they lasted for hours. But it was a good day.
I’m sorry, Jessica, but it’s three years.
Jessica. Jess-i-ca. My mum chose it. I keep going on about her, but it’s true. I guess she’s been the one person I could rely on, always. There’s never a day without a meal on the table, or a funny story about Grandma, or… well, whatever other domestic niceties you can think of. You do the work. I was busy.
I was meant to be walking Sunshine, but my mind seemed to be walking itself. It always happened. Music didn’t help. To be fair, I think silence was worse. There was me, going off on random thought trails again. Nothing made sense. Everything flip-flopped. Sunshine flopped onto the ground when he saw a dog bigger than him. It was a… uh… I was never very good with dog breeds. But we were almost at the trees, so nothing mattered.
Under those leaves, the rest of the world melted away. Even that big dog.
Maybe it was a Labrador. They were common, so that guess had to have good odds.
We passed under the trees once Sunshine stopped being an idiot and flopping all over the place. He started racing through leaves and bushes, chasing poor squirrels who never did anything to him. I stuck to the path, like always. I must have seemed boring to him. He pranced around while my mind spun and pondered until it hurt.
Why was being alive so difficult?
The trees had it right. They just stood and grew, sometimes spinning, sometimes not. Their leaves fell, sure, but they grew back. Like forever returning children, if children became babies every time they came home. That made no sense, but it did.
Waiting for three years.
In three years, I would have a new job. New home. New partner, maybe. Qualifications and whatever else university brought. New friends. Perhaps a new pet.
Apparently, I would also have my first gender clinic appointment in three years.
Patients who were referred in 2017 were only just being seen in 2020. Three years. Long, long, long years. I was a patient who was referred in 2020, so where did that leave me? Waiting, obviously. Eternally.
Sunshine barked. Another squirrel. Grey. Those were the invaders, weren’t they? From Europe. Or America. No, they’d never swim all the way from America. But did they swim the Channel? Maybe I should’ve taken Geography at GCSE.
Did I take Geography?
No, no. I took History.
My memory was worrying sometimes. Only sometimes, but it was enough to be noticeable. Semi-noticeable. What was I even thinking? The fence was approaching and I was stuck in a black hole of wondering about squirrels, GCSEs and memory, which all somehow fitted together. It was a maddening jigsaw. Luckily, I didn’t think about it for too long.
I never seemed to think about anything for too long. Until I did.
This must really be confusing you.
Three years is ridiculous, Jessica, I’m so sorry.
Mum. When the fence came into view, that meant we turned directly left. That led to the fields.
Mum always supported me the most. She never got mad, or sad, or anything else that rhymes with those two words. She complained about the things I complained about and loved the things I loved. She took me shopping for skirts and crop tops and whatever else she could think of. Turning down glittery hair bows and earrings which belonged on five-year-olds was difficult, but I managed it with a smile. She brushed my hair and told me exactly which shampoos and conditioners to use as it grew, and grew, and grew.
In three years, my hair would be down to my ankles. She said that. It would be trailing on the floor, she said, it’d be so long I’d be stepping on it. Tripping over it.
Sunshine shot off after a bird. Some sort of pigeon. Its wings flapped, panicked, as it escaped to the safety of a tree. Luckily for it, Sunshine couldn’t climb. He tried. Jumped up at the trunk, ripping it with his claws. Only a little, but he’d left his mark on the world. The evidence was staring me in the face for the few seconds I spent looking at it, still walking past. I didn’t pause.
I wanted to get to the fields.
Music accompanied me down the path. Sunshine sort of did too, but his constant rushing about made the effect a little underwhelming. It was funny, sometimes, when he’d race away but other slower dogs would walk by my heels and roll onto their stomachs for tickles in the middle of the path. It sounds odd, but it happened quite a lot.
There was a metal gate at the very end of the path, connected to the fence. The fence turned right and ran around the horse racing track, giving a wide berth for the various paths which led to the fields. I could see them as we approached it. Green ground. Newly-planted crops, but not so new that you couldn’t see them yet. Just young.
Was I young? That depended on who you asked. My mum would swear I was young until the day I died, but all my friends–the ones who stayed–said I was ‘mature’, whatever that meant. The makeup helped, I reckoned, on the days when I could be bothered. Or maybe my voice. I hated it, but deeper voices usually meant people were older.
I would have given anything to have the squeaky, ear-piercing voice of a Year Seven.
Well.
Maybe not a Year Seven. Year Eight, though, definitely.
Three. Years.
Tiny, budding crops roamed across the fields, acting like a horizon. They spread out so far that you could only see them and the sky, meeting in a grey-green embrace. Of course, I couldn’t have a sunny day–whatever was controlling the sky simply wouldn’t allow it. But a light breeze accompanied the shadiness of the clouds so neatly that I could barely wish for tropical weather. I always complained about the heat, anyway.
Why do I have to wait three years to be myself?
That was a mystery greater than any I could ever come up with. Sunshine barked. He found a pheasant in the field.
I smiled. Waiting lists shoved aside, I filled my head with the freshness of the air and thought of blissful nothing.
Author’s Note – This is a draft of a to-be-published work. The content may be altered or changed prior to publishing. This is not indicative of the exact content of the published work.
OSKAR LEONARD
Oskar Leonard 