SHAWN

Okay, so that could have gone better. Sure, knowing Elijah, this was something he’d been planning for a while, and I couldn’t blame him anyways, uni was boring as hell. Still, though, I couldn’t help but think I was part of why he wanted to go. I’d even raised my voice barely a few minutes before he told me that. Fuck, why was I so stupid.

What am I gonna do without him? I guess I should see the bright side of all this; I will get over my crush easily now, though I might struggle to find someone quite as cute, kind, helpful, and with a voice as hot as his. Okay, maybe not so easily after all.

I grabbed my phone to text him.

---

←     Eli                        📹     📞     ☰

Heya
I just wanted to say, sorry about earlier
I know you just wanna help me
_{19:24 · SMS}

No worries
In fact, I wanted to talk about it, when
you said you would find being a girl
“nice”, what did you mean exactly?
_{19:26 · SMS}

Idk, it would just be like, freeing, you know?
Like, you could do so much more stuff
Plus, dating as a girl has gotta be so much better
_{19:28 · SMS}

As in, easier?
_{19:28 · SMS}

Maybe
Not easier because you could get guys more easily, but because it would just feel more… normal, I guess
_{19:29 · SMS}

Huh
What would be your ideal relationship?
Like would you be a man or a woman, and would you be dating a man or a woman? If anything was possible
_{19:32 · SMS}

---

I had never asked myself this question, of course. And at the moment, I was pretty sure my ideal relationship would be “being his girlfriend”, but that might have been a little too out there. First because he was about to leave for… somewhere, presumably the U.S or something? He probably didn’t know himself yet. And second, because I wasn’t a girl.

If anything was possible, though?

---

I guess I’d be a girl dating a girl
_{19:35 · SMS}

Interesting
_{19:35 · SMS}

You feel the same right?
That’s just what every guy wants
_{19:36 · SMS}

I do, actually
But I’m pretty sure everyone doesn’t
feel that way
_{19:37 · SMS}

Then we’re just weird lol
_{19:37 · SMS}

That we are
Two weirdos 🤪
_{19:38 · SMS}

---

For fuck’s sake, Eli, don’t write stuff like that, I have a crush to get rid of.

---

Anyways, you might wanna do research
on transgender people sometime, you
might be interested
_{19:40 · SMS}

?
Sure
I don’t know much about it
_{19:41 · SMS}

---

I had nothing better to do, so I grabbed my old laptop and opened google.

‘What does transgender mean?’

Denoting or relating to a person whose gender identity does not correspond with the sex registered for them at birth. Gender identity? As in, being a guy or a girl? So there are people born as the opposite gender to what they really are? Okay, I guess that is kinda related to what we were talking about. That’s pretty cool, I kinda wish I was trans honestly. Cause that would mean I’d get to be a girl, right? Something like that.

---

I looked it up, seems interesting
I might watch a few youtube vids abt it
_{19:47 · SMS}

Nice :)
_{19:47 · SMS}

Also gl in finding an exchange program!
_{19:48 · SMS}

Haha, yeah ty
_{19:49 · SMS}

---

 

JULIA

Alright, this whole deal was starting to be ridiculous. Because now, there was no doubt about it, they definitely were an egg.

Why the hell had I said I was going on an exchange program? I had to get out of this awkward situation, one way or another. Maybe if I talked to them as Julia at uni, they somehow wouldn’t recognise me? I’d then wait for them to crack to come out—which was on track to happen pretty soon if they truly watched youtube videos about trans people—and admit I’d been Elijah since the start. Actually, that didn’t even seem that far-fetched considering the situation.

I put the phone down and started to eat my plate of pasta, vegetables, and vegan meatballs. “I think it’s worse than we thought, Ann. But at least, now they know what trans means. Hopefully.”

“Hey, that’s the first step! Have you thought about how you’ll come out to them?”

I blushed. “Well, that’s the thing, I… I might…” I swallowed my mouthful. “I miiight have said I was going on a student exchange program.”

Hannah coughed on her bite. “You said WHAT?” She reached for her glass and took a sip to avoid dying, then started chuckling furiously. “I cannot believe it, Ju, this is the funniest thing ever. Like yeah, you’re switching up the student alright.”

“But I don’t like the corner I’ve trapped myself in! Why is coming out to Shawn in particular so much harder than to everyone else? It feels even more difficult now that I know they’re probably trans too, for some reason!”

Hannah gave me a knowing look, but the tumble dryer shouted a sequence of beeps, interrupting the conversation. This was just the distraction I needed. “Wanna try on some now?” Hannah proposed.

I definitely did. Putting on clothes straight out of the dryer was the most comfy sensation ever, it felt like slipping into bed with a hot-water bottle in the middle of winter. And I was pretty sure it would be even better with feminine clothes. After choosing a pair of high-waisted light blue jeans and a green crop top, I went to the bathroom to change. I slid on a bra, which was one of the rare fem pieces of clothing I’d bought before today—online, obviously. Despite being only a couple months old, it already felt a bit too tight for comfort. Which was a good thing.

“Not bad at all, Ju! You’re a natural at this,” Hannah commented when I got out. She wasn’t wrong; the outfit fit my body shape perfectly, and despite the clothes being arguably tighter, moving felt so much more natural and clutter-free than before. “Wanna do a mirror check?”

I smiled. “I think that’s a good idea.”

Hannah followed me to my room, and my reflection stepped inside the frame of the dressing mirror. And she was beautiful. Her long, messy hair was definitely in need of a professional’s touch, but despite that, she—I looked effortlessly pretty. The top revealed a perfect amount of tummy skin, which was now silky smooth thanks to the magic of HRT, and the denim jeans were definitely going to match the white leather boots that my sister had gifted me a few months ago, but that I had been too scared to wear in public until now.

I had never felt a lot of dysphoria in the past, but now that I looked in the mirror and truly saw a girl for the first time, I wondered how this had been possible. There was no way I would ever be able to boymode again after this. Even something as simple as feminine clothes gave me so much more resolve and confidence, and confirmed that what I was doing was the right thing. This was me, finally. I’d found her. 

Without realising it, I’d moved closer to the mirror and my fingers were brushing its surface. “You really needed this, huh?” Hannah whispered. “Come here. I’m so proud of you.” She said as she hugged me.

“Thank you so much. I don’t know how I’d have done this without you.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it, I always wanted a sister anyways. You don’t have to call me your saviour for more than just one week. You can, though.”

The rest of the weekend went out as planned by Hannah. On Saturday morning, I went to get a haircut. I had been growing my hair out for more than a year, so it desperately needed a good trim. This time, though, I wasn’t scared; I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted, and after some time, I was released from the hairdresser’s with cute bangs that framed my face in just the right way.

Then, we went to the optician, and I chose a pair of large, black, round glasses. Their size unfortunately meant that the lenses did have to be remade, but I could simply skip uni on Monday morning to go pick them up, so it was fine. In the early afternoon, we headed to the mall once again to get groceries, and Hannah took the opportunity to buy a ton of make-up. To wrap up the day, she went to acquire a few items to improve the interior design of my flat, which had been basically undecorated up until now except for some of my drawings hanging on the walls.

Most of our Sunday was spent with Hannah teaching me how to do my make-up, and by the end of the weekend, my appearance was nothing short of that of a gorgeous woman.

“Well, I think all this won’t help poor bisexual Shawn’s crush disappear. Between that and the egg stuff, they’re about to feel things,” Hannah commented.

I blushed. “You think so? But for that, I’d need to come out to them, and I still have no idea how to go about it,” I said desperately.

“Julia?”

“What?”

“Do you like them?”

“Uhhh…” Did I? I guess that would explain why I was so scared to come out. “Maybe?” Time to be honest with yourself, Ju. You weren’t that emotionless shell of a guy anymore. And they had said they would definitely still like you if you were a girl. “I… I think so.”

“Okay. Good!” Hannah stood up from the couch and headed for the small whiteboard hung on the wall that she’d bought the day before to help me organise stuff. She had that almost-evil-but-not-quite smile on her face I was used to seeing when she was about to launch into a long explanation. “This is you,” she said, writing my name with a marker. “This, is Shawn. You’re a girl, and you’re gay. Shawn wants to be a girl, and they’re bi.” She proceeded to trace a line between our names, with a little heart on it. “Now here’s what happens,” she continued. “You go talk to them as Julia, they don’t recognise you but they think you’re hot, because why wouldn’t they, and you ask them out on a date. Only, during the conversation, you make it clear that you’re gay, and that you’ve been thinking Shawn was a girl the whole time,” she explained, listing each step of the plot on the board.

“Isn’t that… all kinds of wrong?”

“Only some kinds of wrong,” she argued. “First of all, sure, they’ll definitely figure out that you and Eli are the same person at some point. But here’s the thing: Shawn liked you as a guy, and said that wouldn’t change if you were a girl. And, you’re not force-femming them or anything. If they feel uncomfortable being called a girl, they’ll say so. If they do play along though, well… they’re a girl in my books.”

Huh.

 

SHAWN

Uni is the most boring stuff ever. I guess I should’ve expected that when choosing this dumb history degree, basing myself purely on what my best—or should I say, least bad—results in high school had been. My grades had always kept me safely away from being an A student; I’d always found it more interesting to come up with jokes and be kind of the class comedian, to be honest. And now that I had realised I liked Elijah, it made a ton of sense why hearing his adorable laugh had always been the best of rewards. But all of that was in the past. These days, my studies mostly consisted of sitting in an auditorium taking notes for hours upon hours, and now, there was nobody left, not even Eli, to laugh at my silly jokes and teacher impressions. Now, I was truly alone.

All of that to say, the first day without him by my side was the most depressed I’d felt in a while. I had never truly grasped it before, but it was now obvious that beside him, I didn’t really have any real friends. Most of my morning classes this day were spent idly staring at my laptop screen, barely perceiving the lecture on Roman antiquity that was happening in the background, while helplessly thinking about how everything could have turned out if Elijah had liked me back. Because if he had, he would not have purely and simply left, right? He would have dropped only his studies and looked for a job in town in order to stay close to me. Of course, this scenario in my head didn’t involve him liking me back; I couldn’t force him to, after all. No, instead, I pictured myself as someone else, a girl, for whom there was at least a chance he might have feelings. I wasn’t sure how to approach the whole thing; getting lost in my thoughts in such a way and fantasising about being someone else had always been ideas I’d forbidden myself from even beginning to approach. But now that Eli wasn’t here to distract me from them, I had no chance of stopping them anymore.

He’d said he felt the same way. About wanting to be a girl, I mean. He’d freely admitted it, and despite it apparently not being a common guy thought to have, he seemingly didn’t think this made us bad people or anything. What he had said was that we were weird for feeling this way, but well, being weird isn’t bad. If anything, it’s actively good. So why was all of this suddenly making me feel so… wrong? I was who I was, and that was it. I couldn’t go further than this. Hell, while I was dreaming up impossible scenarios, his ideal relationship was probably also to be a girl dating a girl, so why couldn’t we both be girls?

“Hey, uhh… Are you okay?” I heard someone ask.

My first thought was that, unlike what I’d believed, there was someone in this world with a softer voice than Eli. I couldn’t see the person who’d just come to my rescue; my elbows were on the desk and my face in my hands. And apparently, I seemed to be silently crying. I felt disgusting, I felt like imploding on the spot, I felt like I shouldn’t bother people with my voice, disturb them with the sight of my face, trouble them with the mess of my feelings. “Yeah,” I somehow uttered in a whisper.

“Sorry,” the voice continued. “I wanted to be there sooner, but uh… I was on the other side of the room.”

I finally mustered the courage to look at the girl who was now sitting next to me. “Thanks… Why exactly would you want to talk to me?” My voice was only half-functioning, for some reason. It was broken, quieter and higher than usual, probably because of all of the crying.

She blushed. “I don’t know, you seemed… lonely, I guess? So when I saw you start to… um, you know… I thought it better to check on you.”

I dried my tears and managed a weak smile. “Don’t worry about it. I guess I’m kinda lonely. That’s a first in a while for me.”

“Wanna hang out for a bit? I’m Julia.”

Hang on, that’s not supposed to happen. This is meant to be the part where nobody cares about you because you’re just a random, awkward, maybe-introverted-after-all dude despite appearances. Why is there a stunning girl willing to spend time with you all of a sudden? Fuck it. Stop being so hard on yourself. Nice people are a thing, you know?

“Yeah… I think that would help actually. I’m…” I tried to say my name, but my dumbass brain had other plans. “...pleased to meet you, Julia.”

She smiled. “Let’s go buy something to drink. You look like you need it.” I did, actually. The lecture had just finished, so we got up from our seats and made our way to the vending machine outside of the room, where Julia proceeded to buy us two bricks of orange juice. “There you go!”

We sipped our drinks quietly, carefully avoiding each other's eyes. Julia had fallen back to being sort of shy, and although I was doing better, it still required a lot of effort to dodge the thoughts that had been harassing me for the past few hours. “So, uhhh… Are you new here? I don’t think I’ve seen you before,” I awkwardly asked, in order to break the silence that had set in.

“I’m not new, but… it makes sense you don’t recognise me,” she said, twiddling her fingers. “That’s because… I’m trans. I used to look like a guy until recently.”

Fuck, I hadn’t done my homework. Besides the short google search I’d done on Friday, I didn’t really know what it meant, but I somehow managed to not be awkward about it. “Ohhh, okay. That explains it, then.” We talked about everything and nothing for a few minutes, and ended up adding each other on Discord.

At some point, Julia looked at her phone. “Whoops, now I’ve got like four minutes to get to the Arts building, so I’m gonna hurry. Wanna go for a walk tonight? Evening walks are cool.”

I was taken aback, but I tried my best not to let it show. “Sure! How about… in front of the town hall, at like… 9pm?”

A grin shined on her face. “That’s a date!” And she ran.

What the fuck had just happened?

I started to walk back home, my head full of thoughts once again. Had she said that as a joke? I’d never been asked out on a date before, I had no idea what people even did during those. But, you know what, sure, going for a walk sounded fun. I had no reason not to go, honestly. If this was a prank or something, which seemed unlikely as Julia had really seemed to want to help me and keep me company, that wasn’t a big deal; the town hall was just a few minutes away from my flat, so in the case she didn't show up, I could just go back home and cry or something. But in any case, she had added me on Discord, so she likely did want us to keep talking afterwards. Also, it was about time I had someone I knew IRL to talk to on this app. Elijah had always refused to add me on there for some reason, claiming that he didn’t use Discord much, so we’d always used text messages together. I got my phone out of my pocket and had a look at Julia’s profile. She had what I could only assume was a Picrew avatar—fuck, I’d always wanted one of those but the male ones were just so boring—she/they pronouns which I took a mental note of, and the only thing written in her bio was that she was… wait, what?

Okay, at this point I could safely say I had no idea what was going on anymore.