22
she/her
trigger warnings: hard drugs, transmisogyny
Matilda's mother is a seemingly functional addict to most people, so Matilda's early years were saturated with a spectrum of neglect. Drugs she was exposed to included prescription painkillers, weed, meth, crack, and shrooms, and she began smoking cigarettes at age 11. At first, she only swiped one or two at a time from her mother to smoke with her best friend, Adelia, but eventually realized that she was able to take entire packs without her mom noticing. When she and Adelia are thirteen, Adelia takes alcohol from her parent's liquor cabinet and Matilda gets drunk for the first time. Soon after, Matilda begins taking her mom's weed as well as cigarettes.
Around this time, Matilda comes out to her mom as transgender. The reaction is emotionally charged and hateful, and a fight breaks out that ends with Sadie kicking Matilda out and claiming to disown her. Matilda goes to stay with Adelia for a few days, but eventually her mother calls her to coax her home and Matilda realizes that her mom can't actually enforce kicking her out without some sort of legal process involved. From that point on, Matilda is pointedly distanced from her mother, taking full advantage of her neglectful tendencies to stay out well past city curfew. Mainly, she's with Adelia and whatever secondary group of friends they have at the time, and they drink semi-frequently.
Around the time they are 14-15, Matilda and Adelia start to seek a harder high than alcohol and weed. Having determined that they are mature enough to be drinking regularly, the rational next step to up to them is an attempt at stealing pills from Matilda's mom. Shortly after getting addicted to opioids together, they begin dating. Matilda begins getting in regular fights at school while high on opiates, and is eventually sent to alternative school. At this time, she starts to take large chunks of her child support money from her mother to give to Adelia, who buys bulk quantities of weed from her Adderall dealer to redistribute.
Finally, towards the end of her junior year, Matilda is arrested for assault and possession and is sent to juvenile detention. She's charged during her junior year, and spends her last year of childhood in juvenile detention. Before getting booked, Matilda tells Adelia that their relationship can go on pause during her sentence, so that Adelia isn't 'chained to someone she can't see.' She's released at 18 with an expunged record, and immediately contacts Adelia again.
They hook up, start dating, and kill Matilda's sobriety all in that same day. They continue dating for nearly three years, hardly building any friend group outside of each other for that duration. Matilda begins to make friends with a group of other transwomen, who encourage her to embrace a more feminine presentation and validate her desires for HRT. In line with this, Adelia begins to seek a secondary friend group as well, which Matilda takes as a sign of their relationship getting stronger. This misperception makes it sting twice as hard when Adelia breaks up with Matilda a few months later.
More details TBD...