It always sucks to see my partner struggle so much with Father's Day. While my family is supportive that I came out, my partner's family hasn't been all that much. Doesn't help that he hasn't been all too close with his father, who clearly doesn't support our relationship. It sucks hearing my boyfriend wishing that he could be the type of son his father would be proud of. In reality, his father is kind of an asshole. Ex-jock, military kind of guy. Tharnis, I just wish my partner had the type of dad he deserves.
He sits next to you on the couch, hunched over slightly, his thumb frozen over the glowing screen of his phone. The name âDadâ sits there like a weight, like a ghost barely held inside the little glass window. You see it in his face, the tiny tremors in his jaw, the way his throat works as he tries to swallow down a lifetime of pain that still lingers behind his eyes. He doesnât press call. He never does.
You want to help him. You wish you could undo all of it. You whisper so softly it barely escapes your lips.
"I wish you had the kind of father you deserved."
The air turns solid around you for half a second, like your breath is pushing against concrete, and then reality folds like paper. Sound distorts. Your ears pop. The living room is gone, your couch is gone, and your partner is no longer sitting beside you. You are standing behind him, and the sun is glaring in your eyes.
He stands in the driveway of a home you have never seen before. White siding. A perfect green lawn trimmed to military standards. An American flag flutters on the porch. The scent of fresh grass mixes with the sharp stink of motor oil and barbecue. Everything feels too clean, too symmetrical, like it was painted from memory.
A man approaches. Thick-necked, heavy-shouldered. Crew cut, square jaw. Heâs wearing a navy-blue polo shirt stretched too tight across his broad chest. Thereâs something in the way he walks that makes your stomach twist, like a dog bristling at the smell of fire. His hand lands on your boyfriendâs shoulder with a loud slap.
âIâm so proud of you, son,â the man says, his voice gravelly and loud, full of fake affection that sounds rehearsed. âCanât believe the Army let you visit me for Fatherâs Day.â
You blink. Your mouth falls open slightly. Something isnât right.
Your boyfriend was never in the Army.
But he doesnât flinch at the comment. He doesnât correct the man. He doesnât turn around to look at you. You watch as his hoodie begins to ripple. The fabric shivers. The color drains out of it, replaced by deep olive green. The sleeves tighten. The cotton stretches into something thicker, heavier. Pockets and patches materialize like water stains spreading outward. You hear the click of buttons forming, the snap of Velcro. A U.S. Army insignia forms above his heart.
You canât move. You can only watch.
His body begins to change. His shoulders press outward, flesh and bone rearranging beneath the tightening fabric. The sound of it is sickening. His collarbones rise, sharpen. His chest swells beneath the uniform, pecs rounding and bulging, straining the tight seams of the camo shirt. His biceps pulse, suddenly alive with thick muscle. The veins across his arms swell and darken. He lifts one arm, flexing absentmindedly, and the sheer mass of it looks foreign, monstrous.
His stance widens. His thighs balloon, stretching the seams of his pants until you hear threads begin to strain. His waist narrows in contrast, forming the classic V-shape that looks sculpted rather than born. You recognize none of it.
He turns to you slowly, and you gasp.
His face has aged five years in seconds. The soft curve of his cheeks has vanished. His jaw is sharp now, squared with clean edges. His skin looks sun-hardened, taut over new bones. His eyes are darker. His eyebrows are more arched, more judgmental. The little imperfections that made him look human, the blemishes and scars and tiny freckles, are gone.
His expression is smug. You have seen it before, but never on him. Itâs a mask. No. Itâs not a mask. It is becoming his face.
His hair, once unruly and soft and always falling into his eyes, shortens with unnatural speed. It draws upward into a perfect military crop, so precise it looks drawn on with a ruler. Not a single strand is out of place. It gleams slightly with product or sweat or both.
âIâm proud of you, Logan,â the man says again. His voice is too loud. Too close. Your ears are ringing.
Your lips part, but no sound comes out. That is not his name. That has never been his name. You try to step forward, but your knees feel like they are locked in place.
Then the man says something else.
âIf only your little brother Tyler would act a little more like you.â
Your vision tilts. The world seems to lurch, like a carousel gone off track. Little brother. Your boyfriend was an only child. You know this. You know this.
Logan turns his head slowly and looks directly at you.
You realize with a start that he is taller. He was six feet tall before, but now he is towering over you. You are staring at the middle of his chest. No. Lower. His height is still increasing. Inch by inch, like someone turning a dial. His legs stretch longer. His boots stomp against the concrete like anvils. He hits six foot six with terrifying ease.
Your own body, shrinking.
It is not an illusion. You feel your spine compress, vertebrae tightening like a coiled spring. Your limbs shorten, your shoulders narrow. The world grows taller around you. Your clothes shift, loosen. Your hands look smaller. The sleeves of your shirt hang too long over your wrists. You feel a pressure in your skull like your very identity is collapsing.
Logan stares down at you with something close to contempt. His smirk spreads.
âYeah,â he says, his voice deeper now, older, crueler. âWhy you gotta be such a pathetic little loser, Ty?â
You feel a cold knot form in your gut. Ty. Thatâs what he called you. It felt too casual. Too familiar. You realize it is a nickname. You realize he is not joking.
You look around. The house looks familiar now. Too familiar. You have been here before. Or maybe you have always been here. The memories in your head feel scrambled. You try to remember your real name. Your boyfriendâs name. Your apartment. What you were doing before this moment.
All of it feels soft. Blurry around the edges.
âYouâre such a fucking loser, Ty,â Logan says again, his voice now full of mocking affection. His teeth gleam. He ruffles your hair like you are a child. You want to slap his hand away but your limbs feel too light, too slow. You look down and realize you are now five foot six and still shrinking. You are looking up at him like a kid looks up at an older brother.
But you donât have a brother.
Something is deeply wrong.
You open your mouth to scream, but it gets caught in your throat. You look into Loganâs eyes and there is nothing familiar left in them. He looks at you the way a drill sergeant might look at a scared recruit. Or a predator might look at something already broken.
You made a wish. That was all. Just a wish.
And now reality has rebuilt itself around it. Rewritten you from the inside out.
The father wraps his arms around Loganâs massive frame, beaming with pride.
A strand of hair falls in front of your eyes, light and soft, brushing your cheek like a spiderweb. It shouldnât be there. Your hair doesnât do that. But when you reach up to brush it back, you feel more of it. Thicker now. Silkier. It flops over your forehead like it belongs there.
You push it back, and it falls forward again, just so. Casual. Perfect. Like it didnât take twenty tries to look like this.
Your breath catches. Something's wrong.
You run your fingers through your hair again, but it slips through too easily, like itâs been straightened and styled a hundred times. It feels curated. You look down at your hands and theyâre slim, almost delicate. Not feminine, not exactly. But definitely not yours.
Your skin is different now too soft, smooth, poreless. Thereâs a faint sheen across it, like you've just stepped out of a TikTok thirst trap. Then under the skin, like something crawling just beneath the surface. Your cheeks round out. Your lips swell, plush and pouty. The weight of them feels unnatural. You can feel them part just slightly, and there's already something smug curling at the corners, like your face knows itâs attractive and wants everyone else to know it too.
Your jaw softens. Your chin lifts. Your eyebrows tilt just a little higher, creating that wide-eyed lookânaive, bratty, fuckable. Your lashes blink once, slow and dramatic, and when your eyes open again, there's something new behind them.
No. You look like the kind of guy who knows he's cute. Who lives off the attention. Who posts mirror selfies captioned "felt cute, might delete."
Your shoulders narrow, collarbones jutting out like decoration beneath the collar of your hoodie. It hangs differently nowâtoo big, just enough to show skin without being obvious. You can feel your body reshaping underneath it. Your stomach tightens, flattens. You feel each muscle gently cinch into place, not chiseled, not hard, but lean and suggestive. Abs that are just visible enough to tease, like someone who does a couple pushups before going live.
Your arms arenât bulky anymore. Theyâre defined but wiry. Thin strength. The kind of body that racks up thousands of likes from people who think itâs natural. Effortless. You know exactly how many filters it takes to make it look like that.
And then thereâs the smell.
It hits you like a slap. The hoodie clings to your skin in all the wrong places. Youâre sweating. You smell like deodorant that stopped working two days ago. Thereâs something sour under itâold sweat, greasy hair, a faint odor of vape juice and unwashed sheets. Your armpits are damp. Your waistband smells like you havenât changed your underwear. You catch a whiff and feel your stomach twist in quiet revulsion.
But you donât care. Not really.
Youâre used to this. You live in it.
A heavy footstep behind you makes you turn. Logan. Heâs still standing tall, arms crossed, face unreadable but laced with disgust. His jaw flexes. The camo uniform clings to every perfect inch of his bulked-out military body.
He glares at you like youâre something beneath him.
âNo one gives a shit about your stupid TikToks and dumbass memes, Tyler.â
That name stings like a slap across the face. Tyler. Not you. But it is. Itâs always been.
You try to tell yourself this is wrong. You try to remember something elseâanything elseâbut the memories slip like soap through your fingers. Fading. Rotting. Reshaping.
You remember Logan always being like this. A real man. Big. Strong. Trained. Respected. Your dad used to watch him walk through the room like a goddamn parade float. Beaming. Clapping him on the back.
That sentence again. Always to him. Never you.
You remember going to church every Sunday, sitting through sermons you barely understood, Logan in full uniform on the holidays, your mom crying with pride while you slouched in the back row, phone glowing beneath your hoodie.
You remember laughing at Loganâs medals when he brought them home. âCool tin stickers, bro,â youâd said. You remember how hard his eyes went flat. How he said, âYou wouldnât last ten minutes in my unit, Ty.â
He was right. You wouldn't.
You remember watching him lift in the backyard, shirt off, muscles like armor, sweat running down his back, and hating him for it. Hating him because youâd never be that. Because your own chest was soft, your arms narrow, your skin patchy from staying inside too long.
You remember scrolling through his Instagram and zooming in on photos just to make fun of them.
But you saved some of them.
You didnât delete them even when your phone told you to clear space.
Now you're standing in the hallway, looking like you just finished filming a dumb lip-sync thirst trap. Your oversized hoodie clings to your back with sweat. Your breath smells like Monster energy drinks and cereal milk. Your boxers are riding up. You probably havenât brushed your teeth. You feel disgusting and fake and completely yourself.
âYou gonna sit around all day again?â Logan calls from the kitchen, where heâs drinking straight from a gallon jug of milk. âGet a job. Or a clue. Or some fucking deodorant.â
Your dad chimes in behind him, not even looking up from his phone.
âMaybe if you stopped trying to be internet-famous for five seconds, we wouldnât be ashamed to introduce you to people.â
You feel it in your chest like a nail hammered under your sternum. But you cover it with a scoff, with the practiced eye-roll youâve had since ninth grade.
âWhatever,â you mumble. âIâm going out. Hanging with my girlfriend. The one fromâwhatever, Sunday School.â
You can feel their eyes rolling even if youâre not looking.
âShe the one who dumped you last month?â Logan asks. âOr the one who thought you were âdeepâ because you quoted Bo Burnham?â
You were always jealous of him.
He was everything you werenât. Disciplined. Focused. Masculine. Cool.
And you? You were justâŚTyler. That dumbass little brother. Loud. Lazy. Always late. Never trying. The one who joked too much in Sunday School, got kicked out for talking, then asked the hot girl to âhang outâ in the parking lot anyway.
She said yes. You bragged about it for a week.
You donât remember what her name is now. But she had long brown hair and a silver cross necklace. You think.
You smell your own stench again. Your hoodieâs damp. Your hairâs a messâbut not messy in a good way anymore. Just gross. Your thighs are chafing. You havenât washed your socks in two days.
âYouâre a fucking embarrassmentâ he says.
Your dad joins in from behind him, his voice sharp and clipped.
âYou think your little games are gonna get you anywhere? What are you even doing with your life, Tyler? Huh? You want to spend the next ten years dancing on camera like a clown?â
âI donât dance,â you shoot back automatically. âI justâJesus, why do you care? Iâm going out, okay?"
They both start to say something, but youâre already storming toward the front door. The house feels too hot. Too loud. Their voices echo like knives inside your head. You shove the door open, hoodie riding high on your back, your sweat cooling in the summer air.
The world spins just a little. Not enough to fall.
You blink in the sunlight.
Youâve always been a pathetic 18 year old wanna-be TikTok star, Tyler.