Boy Robot by Simon Curtis

Author:Simon Curtis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon Pulse

THE TWINS

Leave her alone.

Here they were again, his brothers—the boys he was forced to call his brothers—trying to tear her down. Trying, as they always did, to make her feel ashamed. She was strong, though. Stronger than he could be himself. Sometimes he felt like their words hurt him more than they hurt her.

He just didn’t understand where their hatred came from. No, that wasn’t true. He knew it stemmed from fear. They were afraid. Afraid that if she was herself, her true self, it would somehow reflect something within their true selves that they desperately didn’t want anyone to see.

Thomas threw the first punch.

“Fuck you, little faggot,” he said, sneering as he popped her in the face. As his sister fell, he lunged to hit Thomas in retaliation.

No, fuck you.

The resounding crack of his knuckles against Thomas’s jaw sent shock waves of pain through his hand and into his arm.

It felt fucking fantastic.

Girls were cheering in the hallway and taking videos with their phones. His other two brothers charged at him as Thomas reeled back in pain, his nose gushing blood, but they were stopped by two thick, tree-trunk arms.

“What in the blue fuck is going on here boys?” Mr. Anderson’s deep voice boomed over the cacophony of the students gathered in the hallway.

With his brothers safely occupied by Mr. Anderson’s giant arms, he turned and bent down to help his sister up. Her books had fallen out of her bag and her eye was quickly swelling shut. Her wig had fallen off and was strewn out on the tile by her backpack. “Are you okay?” he said, lifting her up.

“Yeah, I’m good.” She grabbed the wig from the tile and stared at it in her hands.

“Put it back on,” he said. “Don’t let these assholes get to you.”

She stared at her feet. “I don’t have a mirror.”

He put his hands on her shoulders and made her look him in the eye.

“I’m your mirror.”

She cracked a smile and winced from the swelling as Mr. Anderson shuffled their three brothers down the hall. He looked back toward them.

“You two. Office. Now.”

Just leave her alone. Please.

• • •

He remembered the first time he thought of her that way, as her.

She was born he—his twin, Aaron. His partner both in the womb and the world outside. But as long as he’d known Aaron—as long as they’d both been alive, really—he knew she was she.

Even in his earliest memories—riding in Aunt Janet’s car, singing along to the radio—he always sang the boy’s parts and Aaron always sang the girl’s. When they arrived at the store and begged Aunt Janet to roam the toy aisle, he knew Aaron would wind up in the pink aisle. Aaron would beg and plead for toys that he had no interest in, and the toys he wanted Aaron never seemed to care about. Aunt Janet never made it seem like an issue, so it wasn’t one.

Aaron’s sheets were pink and his were blue, and when Aunt Janet tucked

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