I hate periods. I can personally guarantee that I hate periods more than any other human being on the planet. Since the age of thirteen I have been involuntarily subjected to roughly five days per month of dribbling blood like a wounded animal, painfully and messily. Sanitary towels are not designed for people with penises. Tampons hurt me. They would hit me at random in bed or at school or basically anywhere were I didn't have access to female hygiene products or painkillers; I have countless memories of hobbling, crippled, between classes, rocking back and forth on my chair in the hopes that the movement would make the pain less consuming. Worst of all, the cycle never "settled down" like it was supposed to. Sometimes the blood would be late by a week, or just never come at all. Once, when I was living in a care home again, I bled for two and a half weeks without stopping (and nobody noticed).
But now there's something I hate more than periods, and that's missing them. Yes, changing my bedsheets at five in the morning, hoping that Demyx doesn't notice the ugly smear of blood my body secreted in the night while I lie about Larxene puking again, is a horrible inconvenience, but counting the long weeks since I last had a period sends me into fits of terror and neurosis.
"I don't want to be pregnant again," I say to Larxene as I walk her through the peaceful husk of the bastion, pigeons warbling in their flight away from us, "I don't want to be pregnant again." I bite at my knuckles and pull on my hair, shivering in spite of the cheerful shafts of afternoon sunlight beaming in through the cracks in the woodwork. "I can't do it again. What would I tell Demyx?" I couldn't tell him anything. I'd have to run away again. I don't want to, I want to stay here and not be shackled by my past and for Demyx to keep on loving me forever even though I'm the worst boyfriend he could ask for, but things just don't work that way. "Or I could go to a doctor." But then I let out a pathetic little wail and just the thought of talking to a professional about my problems makes my insides feel like cold jelly. I clutch Larxene very close to my chest. "What do I do?"
Earlier today I went to the library and looked up all the early symptoms of pregnancy. I don't think I'm actually pregnant, because I remember all the tenderness and nausea from last time, and right now I feel fine. Relatively.
"But it's going to happen again eventually," I whisper, my throat feeling sore and sandpapery. "It's going to happen again and I'm going to have to go away and be on my own again and I'll have to wear girls' clothes and everybody will call me a slut and try to have sex with me and then I'll have another baby and I don't know what to do, Larxene," I am crying now, tears clouding up my vision, "I don't know what to do." The bastion doesn't seem so pretty any more now that it's swimming in front of me. I sit down less gracefully than I intend, in a little dark corner where the sun never shone and the bricks are cold. "I don't want to be pregnant again," I say, holding onto Larxene like a lifeline while she babbles at me, confused. "I'm scared." She touches my face. She does this when she wants me to smile, but I can't. I'm having a Bad Day. I hadn't really been thinking about it what with the soup kitchen being busier than ever and Aqua roping me in to help with clearing the debris from the blown-in shopfront next door, but I suddenly realised this morning that I should have had a period three weeks ago, and I'm scared. Strangely, the fact that this cool corner of the bastion reminds me of my warehouse comforts me. I was alone there, but I was protected from the prying eyes of other people and the pressure of their expectations when my home was a car on an abandoned industrial plot, my only visitors rats and foxes creeping in during the night.
"Marluxia?" I suddenly hear my name bouncing off the walls. It's Demyx, looking for me. "Marluxia, are you in there?"
Demyx quickly learned that whenever I disappeared, I came here. Sometimes it's nice that he comes and finds me. So I wipe my face with my sleeveand stand up, going "Yeah" in a voice that is surprisingly even. It takes us a moment to find each other.
"What are you doing here?" Demyx asks in his usual upset whine. "You were supposed to come out for coffee with me two hours ago, remember?"
"I changed my mind," I say, refusing to meet his eyes, fussing with Larxene's soft blonde hair instead. Demyx lets out a loud sigh.
"You always do this," he says, "You can get to work on time so why don't you meet me when you say you will? Don't you want to go out with me?"
"I just wanted to be on my own for a while." I start walking around the castle again, my footsteps echoing in distant corners and remainders of rooms. Demyx usually follows me, but this time he doesn't, just saying "Next time, can you please just tell me?" When I keep walking he adds; "Forget it. That's what I say every time." And he walks out again.
I am a terrible, terrible boyfriend. I am capricious and selfish and single minded and moreover I know I am, but sometimes I just don't want to make small lies up for Demyx's enjoyment, I just want to be alone. I wish he knew me better without me having to actually tell him anything. I hate to admit it, but I wish I was back in a home or with a foster family, because then they'd expect me to be dysfunctional and they wouldn't make stupid jokes when I was sick because they'd know it was my menstrual cycle (or at least, when they did I could blame me punching them in the face on PMS) and maybe one of them would drag me kicking and screaming to the doctor who would do something about my problems so I could feel normal again. But instead I have Aqua who is too nice to me for me to ever tell her anything terrifying, and Demyx, who I can barely live with but I can't live without. He's so gay he'd probably dump me on the spot if I told him I had lady bits, but I don't even want to tell him that I don't have parents. Maybe I'm afraid that he'll try to understand.
I wander home once the sun goes down, shuffling past the little collection of dedicated hobos settling down to sleep in their sleeping backs outside. Aqua is attending to them, giving them cups of Horlicks. "Demyx isn't very happy with you," she says just as I'm about to go in through the door. I freeze, scowling. "You should at least try to make it to your dates with him, you know." She passes out the last mug and ushers me indoors, where more people are sipping hot beverages.
"I'm having a bad day," I say petulantly. "He knew that."
"I know," Aqua says gently, sitting me down in the kitchen and stroking my hair. "I know, but it still hurts because it makes him think you don't care about him."
"He knows I do," I huff, "If I didn't I wouldn't be his boyfriend." But the logic doesn't hold up under scrutiny for two reasons: firstly, I wouldn't think he cared if he didn't bother to turn up for my dates, and secondly sometimes I wonder if it's more just having a boyfriend that I want than Demyx specifically.
"Things are more complicated than that," Aqua replies. She stands up and boils the kettle again, presumably to make herself a cup of herbal tea. "I know you don't find this easy, but he doesn't either. A lot of people have given up on him, you know."
"There's nothing even wrong with him," I say. He's just this cheerful guy who plays a guitar and a sitar and a ukulele and a whole load of other instruments I haven't heard of, and he slacks off and plays video games and doesn't try as hard at school as he is smart. He should try living my shitty life every once in a while.
"Nobody's perfect," Aqua says with her usual wiseness; "We've all got problems we're trying to learn to live with."
"Yeah, yeah," I say, pretending that she isn't right. I let Larxene out and stand her up on my lap, where she holds my fingers in her pudgy little fists and wobbles back and forth. She has these shoes that Demyx bought her one day, and she's worn them ever since. "This little piggy went to market," I sing-song, bouncing her up and down. I can't remember half of the rest of the words, so I make them up: "This little piggy stayed at home. This little piggy played a ukulele, and this little piggy got punched in the face because he was gay."
"Don't say that to Larxene," Aqua chides.
"What? It's not like she's old enough to understand."
"Still," says Aqua. The kettle boils, and moments later she sits down again, stirring a cup of tea. "Demyx really cares about you, but that doesn't mean you can take him for granted. Relationships are hard work. Are you listening?"
I look up from making Larxene swoop about above my legs like a hovercraft. "Of course I'm listening," I say. Aqua sighs, her kind eyes just a little bit sad. But how could she ever understand how I feel? If anyone could be perfect, it's Aqua: she gives up all of her time and energy to help other people and for her, their thanks is enough of a reward to keep going. Sometimes I have days when I don't want to do anything even for me.
"I think you should apologise to him," she says.
"He'll know I only did it because you said so," I reply petulantly. Larxene is an astronaut on the moon, taking great gravity-less leaps into the air. She chortles with delight, kicking her legs up so she bounces on her bottom. When she's like this and not crying or pooping, she's almost cute. "Hey, Aqua," I continue, eager to change the subject, "Do you ever want to have kids?"
"One day," Aqua murmurs, "When I'm ready. I guess Terra and I will just have to see how things pan out, though."
"Would you ever adopt?"
"Perhaps," says Aqua. I regard her shrewdly. I can imagine her coming to visit a care home, chatting to the children and playing with the really little ones in the creché, who are so desperate for attention they'd do anything to get it. What I don't know is who she'd walk home with.
"Would you adopt a kid with issues?"
Aqua looks around at the kitchen, then through the dirty glass of the swing doors into the front room up ahead. The light is still on: the old woman who gave me the dummy is playing a card game with a man who was smartly dressed, once upon a time. Her baby is sleeping softly in her lap, its thumb tucked into its mouth. "What do you mean by issues?" she asks.
"You know, like behaviour problems. Or a disability." Or being intersex.
"Well, they're the ones who need a loving home the most, aren't they?" Aqua says, standing up again and making her way out of the kitchen. I hear something like "Come on, you two, it's getting late and people want to sleep. Look, I'll take care of these for you and you can finish your game in the morning. Is there anything I can get you before I turn out the lights?" A few minutes later she comes back in, flicking switches until there's just one more light left on in the kitchen. Outside, I can hear howling foxes and the roar of cars on the bypass a few streets away. "The same goes for you, Marluxia," she says to me and for a moment I think she's still talking about the people who need love the most and a big bubble of emotion wells up beside me - but then I realise she just wants me to go to bed. I sigh it out, wondering why I'm so disappointed.
Demyx is already in bed when I come in, listening to music on his Walkman.
"Hey," I say. He gives me a look.
"I'm still mad at you," he says. I ignore him after that, bundling up my pyjamas in silence and leaving for the bathroom without another word. I wish that people understood me. I'm also afraid that they just might. Normal people don't have these kinds of problems, do they?
I'm just pulling off my underpants when I notice that they're red on the inside. Relief washes over me. I'm not pregnant. I'm okay, for another month or so. I'll have to spend tomorrow in the foetal position while Demyx makes idle remarks about my immune system (or lack thereof), but the alternative is much worse. I steal one of Aqua's pads out of the bathroom cupboard, hoping she doesn't notice, and slip back into Demyx's room. He's turned out the light, leaving me to fumble through piles of school work and dirty clothes to my mattress.
"Sorry," I say finally when I think he might be asleep. There's a long pause.
Then Demyx says; "It's okay. Just tell me next time."
"Yeah," I say at length. The darkness consumes us, amplifying every breath and every movement of Larxene by my chest, tossing restlessly, small noises escaping her mouth.
Demyx says; "Hey, Marluxia?" He doesn't call me Marluxia very often, probably because any word longer than two syllables is beyond his intellectual capability. I feel my heart thudding in my tight chest all of a sudden.
"Yeah?"
I hear Demyx taking a deep breath.
"Do you love me?"
Do I? Do I? I don't even know what "love" means. I mean, I love Larxene, but I love her because she's my daughter and I'm the only thing she's got and the protectiveness I feel for her is all irrational and uncontrollable and scary. I love her because I don't have a choice: but real, proper love isn't like that, isn't it? Of course, all I need to say is "yes" and Demyx will sleep soundly tonight, but suddenly my throat is all sandpapery, and nothing comes out for a second. If I say something now, it won't sound sincere. I really like Demyx. He means security and companionship; when I'm with him it means I'm not alone, but is that really all that love is? How am I supposed to know?
So I say: "I love you if you love me," hoping that it's the right sort of response. And maybe it is, because Demyx laughs.
"Yeah," he says, "Yeah, I do."
And we wobble on and on, managing to make it through Demyx finding out about my birth marks ("You look like a zebra!" he exclaims, looking at my chest with an amazed expression on his face, and then, four minutes later, in a tone even more disbelieving, "You look like a marble cake!") and me quitting my job at the supermarket to spend more time with Larxene (I take a full month off, and then Aqua gets me a job at a local garden centre. Being Aqua, she's all very humble and generous, telling me that Iwas the one who got the job, but considering that she helped me write out a CV and convinced Terra to run through a mock interview with me I can hardly take credit). The work, earthy and real and satisfying, gives me an optimistic outlook on life. Fuelled by my days spent doing things I'm good at, the relationship even survives Demyx making friends with a group of drug users and starting to come home sometimes with a distinct smell of cannabis hanging around him and a dreamy, far off look in his eyes. What it can't survive, though, is me being pregnant again.
Lulled into a false sense of security by a year or more of erratic menstruation, I hardly notice that I've missed a period until a few weeks after when I start feeling that familiar nausea again, making me distrust foods I usually love and sending me running to the bathroom at the smell of Demyx's aftershave. I can feel myself clamming up, snapping defensively at Aqua when she offers to take me to the doctor and shouting at Demyx when I get home from work one day, having vomited twice in the toilets, to find him actually doing weed in our bedroom, the smoke hanging in the air like a thick, choking blanket. I spend at least two days a week in bed, too tired and grouchy and sick to move. I keep losing track of when I last took painkillers and probably overdose several times. My already fairly minute libido disappears completely: I find myself not even wanting to touch Demyx any more.
Aqua keeps prying and Demyx keeps complaining, but I can't tell either of them. I go down to the bastion even more, dodging the builders and hiding in the underground cellars where nobody's been for years, contemplating ways of removing this parasite before it consumes me completely before I catch myself and feel the hot blade of self-loathing. There's a person inside me, the tiny beginnings of a human being. How could I kill it? One of my foster siblings had this habit of saying to me sometimes, when he was feeling really spiteful: "you could have been aborted". And it was true, I could have been. I could simply not exist at all. And yes, I thought about death a lot, especially in my teenage years, but I never really wanted to die. And if I had, it would have been my choice, not my mother's.
Eventually, with the morning sickness beginning to recede to more manageable levels, I make up my mind: I have to see a doctor. I don't have to tell Demyx or Aqua, but I can't do this without medical assistance. It was a miracle that I even survived Larxene. I have to put my fears aside, for her and for my unborn baby and for me. So one day when Aqua is out at a Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee meeting I call up the local surgery and make an appointment. I very nearly almost don't go in the end, but I force myself to remember the nine months of agony and humiliation I will have to go through, and how much worse it will be if I try to do it alone. So I turn up and sit in the waiting room for twenty minutes, shaking like a leaf, until a heavily made up nurse ushers me into the consulting room where a smart doctor awaits my ailments.
"So," he says, turning from his computer to me. "Marluxia Braefern? What seems to be the problem?"
Just like everybody, he pronounces my name wrong, kicking the x when it ought to be smooth, but I am so nervous that I don't even correct him. It takes every ounce of energy just to open my mouth and say "I'm pregnant."
My body physically feels him looking at me, my short hair and broad shoulders and boy's clothes. I squirm under the scrutiny. Before he replies, though, I manage to add: "I'm intersex."
The doctor nods. I can't see through his professional poker face. He says: "Why do you think you're pregnant?"
Why did I think I could do this? I am afraid, so afraid, memories of other hospitals in other towns from my past lives festering into nausea inside me. I want to run away and curl up somewhere cold where I can pretend that I am still a tiny baby and my mother's arms are still wrapped protectively around me. I am too frightened to even look anywhere other than at my knees.
I say, with a great leap of courage: "I missed my period. And I feel nauseous."
"Have you engaged in any recent sexual activity with men?" The doctor asks. I shake my head tremulously. If I wasn't so rooted to the chair I would have run out of the room crying by now. I hardly even hear the doctor saying: "You're probably merely suffering from food poisoning or infection." I know what I need to say is that this has happened before and I'm displaying all the symptoms again, but all I manage is a very choked "No, it's not that."
The doctor thinks I'm stupid. He acts very professionally, of course, but he thinks I'm an idiot who doesn't know the first thing about pregnancy and when he refers me to a specialist in a nearby hospital he's just humouring my biologically impossible fantasies. The next appointment is in a month's time, so that gives me plenty of time to cultivate the baby inside me and therefore have greater proof that I'm right. When I leave my legs are shaking but at least I've got a chance to not be alone the second time around.
I was camping for a few days, but because I am Dedicated I still managed to keep up with my words. Almost.
On a side note, I had to do way too much research into pregnancy for this. You don't even understand.