“I’m... sorry…”

My mind was racing as I sat up in bed. That voice. Had I imagined it?

Furtively, I looked around the room for its source – but came up empty.

“Hello?” I called out in a low rumble. I had that familiar twinge of loathing at hearing it, mixing in with loss. I stuffed both of those feelings aside for the moment, allowing a different fear to rise to the surface.

Oh no, was I hearing voices? Had I finally lost it? Did I know the location of all of my marbles?

I rolled over to the edge of the bed, pulling myself into a standing position. I pulled my damp t-shirt away from my skin as I did. I had fallen asleep fully clothed and now it was completely drenched in sweat. Great.

“What’s happening to me?” I whispered.

Silence.

I huffed at the lack of a response and reached for my phone, checking it for notifications.

Nothing.

I groaned and flopped back onto my bed, staring up at the ceiling while my thoughts went over the dream that I’d just had. It was so vivid and real, utterly unlike any I’d ever had before. I could still remember the way it had felt to move, the sheer joy that had manifested in me.

My eyes began to prickle with unshed tears, my nose tingling its warning of the impending waterworks. I reached up a hand to rub at my eyes, doing my best to keep them away.

Startling me slightly, having forgotten that anything outside of my bubble of self-pity existed, I heard Sarah call out from the bottom of the stairs.

“Dee? Dinner!”

It took me a moment to reply, clearing my throat and trying to settle myself. “Coming!” I eventually managed to croak back to her. I changed my sweat-soaked t-shirt and left my room to head downstairs.

The smell of cooking immediately hit me as soon as I opened my door, but I couldn’t identify what it was right away. It seemed familiar, but many months of having to look after myself at university meant that I had forgotten what most of my Mum’s recipes smelled like. I am not a fan of cooking, okay? Freshers also aren’t known to be all that good at eating healthily. Not my fault. It’s science. Look it up.

Sarah was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at me with her hazel eyes, studying me. I gave her a quick smile and hoped that I didn’t look like I’d been crying. Dad would give me hell.

“Hey, squirt. What’s for dinner?” I asked as I arrived at the bottom of the steps, turning towards the living room. I looked around to see whether anything had changed, but nothing immediately stuck out to me. There was still the large, three person sofa set in front of our massive TV, plus a smaller two person sofa pushed to one side. There was an armchair, too, though that was tucked away in the corner.

Then there was the dining table that actually made this more of a living room/diner combo. We’d always eaten our family meals at that table, set to the back of the room.

“Mum’s decided to make her own burgers again,” Sarah replied in amusement, entering the living room behind me.

“Uh oh,” I grinned back at her, walking to the dining table to find myself a seat.

She grinned back, but shrugged as she took a seat opposite me, “They’re not that bad, actually. She made some a while ago and they were pretty good.”

I smiled back at her, though it slowly faded as she looked at me again. Angling my head in silent a question, she shrugged.

“You should shave, you know. I don’t think it suits you,” she commented after another awkward moment.

I couldn’t help but note the hairless feminine softness of her cheeks, and I had to work hard to suppress the rising envy and self-loathing. It was back for round two. Or was it three? Maybe four? I cocked her a half-smile, “Yeah. I used to, it just kept coming back again.”

She snorted, gesturing at my face, “Well, duh. That’s how it works. Then you do it again.”

I dropped my gaze down to the tabletop in front of me and sighed inwardly. It took all of my self control to lift it back up, but I found myself unable to look her in the eyes.

“I know.”

“What’s going on, Dee? What’s wrong?” Sarah asked, her voice softening as she looked at me. She was examining me a bit more closely, squinting. I was beginning to feel utterly vulnerable in front of her, like she could see straight through me. No wonder she was going to study psychology. Please take a seat on my couch, Dee.

I avoided having to squirm in front of her for too long because Mum and Dad both walked in, a plate carried in each hand.

“I’ll tell you later, okay?” I answered, which seemed to placate her, at least for now. Now I just need to work out what I’m going to tell her. Fuck. Would it be safe to tell her the truth?

Our plates were set down in front of us, and we tucked into a surprisingly delicious looking meal of burgers and chips. That’s burgers and fries to the yanks. I fetched a couple of glasses from the kitchen once we’d begun, pouring a drink of water for Sarah as well. She gave me a grateful smile when I came back with it.

There was some smattering of conversation during dinner. To begin with, it was Mum and Sarah asking me about my time at university. Most of my responses were curt, but I managed to move attention away by asking Sarah about how she was doing at school. That was a little trick I’d learned when I was very young. Diversionary tactics. Boom.

Dad was mostly quiet through dinner, though he laughed at some of the jokes that were made. He also made Mum smile by complimenting her cooking, “That was the best burger I’ve ever had.” I looked at Sarah and we rolled our eyes.

Once the meal was over, my parents cleared the table and carried the dirty dishes back to the kitchen. This was definitely them being nice because I was home. By next week, that will be my job. Just. You. Wait.

I sat there for a moment once they were gone, giving the thousand yard stare to the tabletop in front of me. I thought that everyone else had left.

“So?” Sarah asked, still eyeing me from the other side of the table. Ugh.

I looked up at her and shook my head, “Later, okay? I promise.” Shit. She wasn’t letting go.

“You’d better,” she warned, staring at me again.

I was getting a bit weirded out by her constantly studying me. “What do you keep looking at?” I asked wearily. I guess she noticed my tone because she immediately blinked and started to blush.

“Um, sorry, I didn’t mean to stare,” she laughed, with a hint of nervousness. “Have you started wearing coloured contacts or something?”

What? I thought she had been going to berate me for how rough I looked.

I lifted an eyebrow and shrugged, “Uh, no? Why?”

“I dunno, Dee. Weren’t your eyes brown? They look more amber?”

Eyebrows still raised in confusion, I replied, “I mean, my eyes can go through the whole range of brown, it just depends on the lighting. Isn’t amber just light brown, anyway?”

Rah clearly just hadn’t seen me in a while and had forgotten what I looked like.

Somewhat amused and perplexed, I left the table to take a look. She had looked stubbornly unconvinced, so I decided to humour her.

Lifting myself from my seat, I made the short trip up to the bathroom and – after plucking up the courage – took a look at myself in the mirror.

The immediate thing that stuck out to me was my eyes. Oh, wow. Yes.

I had never seen my eyes look like this before. Not that I tended to really look at myself a whole lot. Mirrors were my arch-nemeses.

I leaned in closer to the silvered surface, getting lost in the reflection of my own eyes. They were a light gold, where before they had tended to lean towards umber. Of all the weirdness that I’d been experiencing lately, this was something that I actually liked. When I stared long enough, I thought I could see the hue subtly shift.

My gaze eventually turned to the rest of my face. I immediately regretted it. I looked like such a mess of a human, with dark bags under my eyes, unkempt hair and… the facial hair. My mind refused to accept that I was looking at myself – I was a stranger.

Those eyes definitely gave me more of an ethereal look, which was neat as all shit, but I also couldn’t help feeling like they didn’t belong to me. Maybe if I just got rid of this forsaken fluff on my face then I could see myself better.

With a resigned sigh, I went in search of a razor and some fucking backbone.

---

It took effort, but with a razor, some soap and a lot of time I eventually got my face back to being its normal, hair free texture. I ran my fingers over the smooth skin of my jawline, wondering what it might be like to have that feeling all the time without having to shave. My mind flicked back to the dream from earlier, and the memory of how it had felt – how it had felt to be me.

I tried to look for any sign of the girl from my dreams in the face that now stared back at me in the mirror, but my reflection looked too male. I made a second attempt, though, and yeah… I think I could see it. Vaguely. If I squinted really hard. I smiled involuntarily before snapping myself out of my reverie.

Clearing the sink afterwards took way too long, what with all the hairs playing hide and seek, but I eventually got it cleaned. Before leaving to head back downstairs, I gave myself one last quick look in the mirror. Admittedly, I just wanted to see my eyes again. Oh yes.

This was the moment that I realised maybe I should do some kind of Google search to see if sudden eye-colour changes might be a bad sign, but I knew I’d only end up convincing myself I was dying, or something.

Once I’d bounded my way back downstairs, I saw Mum was curled up against Dad on the big sofa. Sarah was reading a book on the smaller one, her legs tucked underneath her. She looked far too comfortable. It took her a while to notice that I was there as I approached, only looking up once I stepped into her light.

She uncurled her legs, giving me space to sit.

“You were right,” I said quietly, turning to her. “My eyes do look different.”

Her eyes wandered over my face for a moment, as if she was searching for something. “Yeah, I thought so. Do you know what’s happened?”

I shook my head in reply, lifting a shoulder to shrug, “No clue. Maybe it’s all the exercise I’ve been getting?”

“Maybe. They look cool as heck, though. Also, I’ve gotta say, you look much better without all that,” she gestured to her own face and jawline. More stings of envy blossomed inside, but I gave her a small smile. She had intended it as a compliment so I would try to take it as one.

My attention was drawn to the TV when the news came on.

The newsreader made a spectacle of shuffling their papers in front of them before launching into the headlines for this evening. First up was a discussion of something that was happening over in the USA. I was interested, but honestly, when wasn’t something happening in the USA these days?

The next story immediately changed our view to aerial shots of a tree on a hilltop, though everything else around it was obscured by camouflage netting and tarpaulins. The headline flashed up, declaring an unexploded bomb had been discovered. Apparently the army have closed off that section of the motorway and have been diverting traffic around it. Odd.

Yeah, that looked like the scene we’d seen earlier, although it looked like there were even more vehicles there now.

“Just blow up the bloody thing and be done with it,” Dad was declaring to the screen, mild irritation in his voice.

Sarah quietly giggled next to me and I turned to give her a grin. Dad was always doing things like that – declaring every problem as having a simple solution, which usually involved massive over-reactions. That being said, in this instance he was actually kinda right. The army usually did just explode any dangerous munitions they found. Why weren’t they doing it now?

The only other remotely interesting story in the news was some meteor shower that hadn’t happened as the astronomers had expected. They weren’t able to explain what had happened, just that the chunks of rock hadn’t hit the Earth as expected. Okay. I guess some astronomers didn’t get to have the fireworks they’d wanted.

Once the news had ended, Sarah and I began to stand up at the same time, her hand accidentally resting on top of the fingers of my right hand as we both pushed ourselves to our feet.

A flash of electricity zapped between us the moment the contact was made. I cried out in surprise while Sarah squealed and tried to pull her hand back. She only just managed to avoid toppling back onto the sofa. The crack of the discharge was audible, too, though our parents were already looking over at us in surprised confusion.

“Oh fuck!” Sarah exclaimed, grabbing to hold her left hand. “What the hell?”

In fairness, it hadn’t hurt nearly as much as the squirrel had, but it was still never pleasant to get zapped.

“Are you alright?” I asked her, looking down at my hand in concern. It hadn’t gone numb this time, which was a good sign.

She shook her hand out a little and nodded, breaking into a laugh, “Yeah. It was just a shock. What the hell?” She didn’t seem to notice her own pun. Criminal.

“What happened?” Mum asked, still looking bewildered.

“It was just some static,” I replied before Sarah could, though I looked at her with concern. “Are you alright? Is your hand okay?”

The last time that happened to me my hand had gone numb.

“Yes, I’m fine. Don’t worry, Dee.”

“Your hand’s not numb?”

“No… why?” She asked me, her head tilting just a little.

“I just know that can happen sometimes,” I replied deceptively. Even to my own ears that sounded dumb, but I gave her a relieved smile. “I need to stop dragging my feet on the carpet or something.”

“You need to stop doing something. Jesus.”

We both left the room after that, though she reminded to me quietly, “You still need to tell me what’s up.”

“Tomorrow,” I said, smiling nervously.

“Tomorrow,” she confirmed. “I have something to tell you, too,” she said, her eyebrows waggling. She smiled mischievously as she turned to bounce her way up the stairs ahead of me.

Damnit. She knew I’d be too curious now.

Once up in my room, I checked my phone, noting that I’d finally received a text message from Claire. She was letting me know that she was going to miss me, too. She also mentioned that she had a lot going on at home right now so she might be a bit busy. I messaged back to say that it was fine and that I hoped everything went well, if she needed to talk then I was here.

The rest of the evening was spent setting up my PC and playing games. I didn’t particularly feel like playing with friends so I decided to play single player Stellaris instead.

Every time I played this game I end up being some kind of facsimile of the Federation from Star Trek – egalitarian and altogether far too nice to everyone else. I always felt terrible playing the bad guys in any game. I once tried to go Renegade in Mass Effect and just ended up having to start again as Paragon. Also – FemShep is only Shep. Her voice actress just does things to me.

I was getting tired though, despite that nap earlier, so I decided to call it a night early and get ready for bed.

---

The sun shining in my face was what woke me up in the morning. I groggily reached over to the bedside table to check my phone and saw that it was barely 5am. I dropped my phone back and buried my head into my pillows. Today was Sunday, so no need to get up early.

After a few minutes of dozing, I could feel my body waking up fully. One luxurious stretch later, and I exhaled fully to allow my whole body to relax. I tended to wear a t-shirt to bed, and last night I’d pulled on something from before I’d really got into my badminton kick. I’d been a bit larger then, rather than the more toned and athletic that I was now. Several hours a week of hard exercise tended to do that to you.

Picking up my phone again, I decided to use the camera to see if my eyes still looked strange. I flipped it around to use the front camera, then spent a second or two trying to get it to focus properly. Only a small amount of light was actually filtering into my room, so it was a little hard to tell, but I thought that they looked even lighter than they had the day before.

Sarah’s question about me wearing coloured contacts would have been even more pertinent now. My eyes looked almost other-worldly. Ethereal? I definitely preferred that term. It made me feel softer.

With a gentle heave, I pulled myself out of bed. Since I wasn’t going to be playing badminton for a while, I’d need to maintain my fitness somehow. An early morning run sounded awful, but you know the saying – no one ever regretted a good workout! Goddess, I hated people that said things like that.

I dressed in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, then donned my trainers before heading downstairs.

No one else was up at the moment so – after checking to make sure I had my keys – I slipped outside, into the early morning sunshine. That felt really nice.

Ordinarily, I would never have gone running, and to begin with I was starting to regret the decision. A few minutes into the run, I noticed that my fitness was dramatically better than it had been the last time I’d tried and so was actually enjoying it. I wish I’d brought my music with me though.

I didn’t have a usual route, so I was kind of making it up as I went along. My path took me around and behind our house to where the new constructions were happening. This had been woodlands in the recent past, though I don’t want to sound like one of those old people that’s all like, ‘back in my day’.

A moment of unease washed over me as I saw my childhood being repurposed for three bedroom homes. That familiar sense of loss and the resulting melancholy threatened to wash over me, but again, I could push it down easily enough if I wanted to. I moved on from there quickly, not wanting to linger in a place that held so many memories.

The next thirty minutes was spent on my jog around my neighbourhood. I saw barely anyone despite the glorious sunshine. Even though it was quite literally the same every year, I still found it weird how early the sun rose in England in late spring. I’d read somewhere that we didn’t actually get true night during summer, which would explain why it was still light outside at 10pm, too.

After arriving back home, I let myself in and showered. I studiously avoided checking out any part of my body as I did, though I had noticed that the stubble I had been expecting hadn’t come back yet. I’d clearly shaved late enough yesterday for it to still be gone this morning.

---

Sarah is an early riser, compared to my night owl nature. I found her up and getting breakfast once I had dressed after my shower. I hadn’t planned it this way, but maybe now would be the best time to talk to her? I decided to try.

“Morning, Rah,” I said, watching her filling a bowl with some supermarket branded cereal.

“Morning, Dee,” she replied, giving me her usual warm smile. “How’d you sleep?”

I bobbed my head, “Pretty well, actually. I’ve just got back from a run.” I started to get myself some breakfast, working around her.

Her eyebrows arched upwards at that. She was clearly impressed, “Oh yeah? Nice! I see uni’s got you into some good habits.”

“Nah, just being at home I won’t be doing so much exercise. I need to do something, y’know?”

Oh yeah, I was skirting around the topic now.

“Do you want to have that talk now?” I asked, pouring some milk onto my wheaties.

“Oh. Uh, yeah, sure. Shall we go sit down?”

We took our bowls back to the dining table in the living room and sat next to each other. She seemed to be nervous about something, too, though now that the time had come I felt completely paralysed by fear. We sat there, toying with our food though neither of us ate or said anything for a solid minute.

Noticing the trepidation and the awkward silence, she said, “Alright. I’ll go first, then.”

I just nodded a little. Maybe I could work up my courage while she was telling me.

She swallowed, turning to fully face me. I put down my spoon and did the same to her. This was going to be big for her and she deserved my fully attention. I could tell that my eyes were distracting her.

“Go ahead, Rah. What is it?”

“Dee… I’m…” she tried to begin, but stopped.

I reached out for her hand, and she allowed me to take it. I held it gently, trying to be as reassuring as I could. There were tears glistening around her eyes.

“I’m a lesbian,” she finally said, unable to look into my eyes.

I blinked. I’d been so caught up in my own confession that I was knocked sideways by hers. I’m not sure what I’d been expecting her to say, but I couldn’t help but smile at the appropriateness of it all.

Leaning forwards, I reached out to pull her into a loving hug. She wrapped her own arms around my neck, holding on to me. I could tell that it had actually been much harder for her to say than she’d been letting on. Sniffling told me that she’d lost her war against the tears and I was just about to do the same. I gave her a comforting squeeze.

“Me too,” I replied in a whisper.

She seemed to still at that, then pulled back enough to look into my face.

“What?”

I tried to give her a reassuring smile, though she could see the tears rolling down my cheeks, “Rah, I’m trans.”

It was then her turn to look like she’d been blind-sided, her eyes widening. Then she grinned and pulled me back into a hug.