The light shined in my eyes, so I instinctively closed them and used my arm to cover my face. I didn't want to wake up. Every time I walked out of the house was just an adventure in trying not to explode at people. If it wasn't for that fucking sun, I'd be just fine.

I rolled over onto my other side. That wasn't exactly a great sight. Just another reminder of something that I desperately wished were a nightmare. The pink panties on the floor, the magazine half hanging on the dresser, the lipstick tubes on the desk and that thing I knew was hidden in my night stand. I finally rolled over onto my stomach, and pink pillowcase covered with flower and heart designs just reminded me that I couldn't escape my life no matter where I looked.

"Get down here!" I heard my mom shout. I sighed. Not for the first time, I wondered why Dad didn't stay instead. He wasn't exactly happy with what I'd become, but he wasn't the total bitch my mom was. How she knew I was awake, I'd never know.

I threw the sheet off of me and got out of bed. I caught sight of myself in the mirror on my desk and felt another surge of anger for what had happened to me. The black baby doll nightie I was wearing almost made it look like I'd become a girl physically, though the lack of tits was pretty obvious. I'd slimmed down considerably since the day of the panty raid that caused all of this, and it annoyed me.

I pulled off my nightie and slipped on a pair of shorts. My dumbass circumstances meant that I only had shorts that hugged me like a second skin. I then reached into my dresser and pulled out a bra that I didn't need to wear, but felt like I did. Finally, I grabbed a tank top that didn't really hide the bra straps at all. Even out of the nightie, it'd be easy to confuse me for a girl.

I walked downstairs to find Mom sitting on the couch, a freshly lit cigarette in her hand and a bottle of Jack Daniels on the coffee table. She glared at me when I came into the room. "What the fuck took you so long, bitch?" she asked.

"Nothing," I said, softly.

"Get your ass outta my house and make something of yourself today, I'm tired of lookin' at ya."

I looked away from her. Make something of myself, yeah right. She just wanted me gone for the day. If I wasn't at home, she wouldn't have to look at her sissy son. I walked back up to my room and slipped on a pair of sandals, then grabbed the purse that I couldn't leave the house without (and even had panic attacks the few times I'd tried). I looked at myself in the mirror and let out a depressed sigh. I looked like that. Like a flat-chested girl. I hated it.

***

I didn't have a whole lot places I liked to go. I liked to stay away from public places, even though for the most part, nobody really humiliated me anymore, though I still felt like everybody was watching me, and wanted me out of whichever building I was in. About the only place that didn't make me feel like I was an outcast was the mall, so I went there.

I sat at a table at the food court and watched everyone around me. I mostly saw groups of girls and their friends, though every now and again I'd see groups of guys or couples. One couple in particular caught my eye and brought my anger to the surface: Amanda and Steve.

Amanda used to be Adam. He'd been a fag, and had broken into my house to get all the panties back from the raid my friends and I had done before the last week of school. Steve was his friend, now boyfriend, and had been involved. Then the bitch who lived in the house beside me turned out to be a witch, and set the three of us down a one-way trip that made Adam Amanda, me a sissy and I don't know what the hell happened to Steve, but he had a girlfriend now.

They looked happy, as usual. Holding hands, kissing occasionally. Steve even grabbed her ass a couple times, though she promptly moved his hand away from that. I hated how they just went on like they hadn't ruined my life. Of course, they'd gotten everything they wanted out of this situation, why wouldn't they be happy?

I crushed my soda cup and tossed it in the trash beside me. I had to take my mind off of them enjoying themselves. I knew I wasn't going to have a good day, but it'd be a helluva lot worse if I let them bother me.

I got up from my table and just walked around. I stopped in some stores, obviously for girl stuff instead of guy stuff, but nobody really paid me any attention. Maybe soon nobody would care that I was such a sissy. That would certainly make things easier. Mom would still hate me and Dad would still be gone, but maybe over time, Mom would just stop caring.

I poked around some clothing racks, looking at all sorts of things I really wasn't going to buy. It was all just a distraction. I needed that, but it wasn't helping as much as I wanted it to. I sighed and left the store. I needed something else to distract me. I wasn't gonna find it in a Gap.

***

The first place I used as a distraction was the arcade. Why the mall still had an arcade was beyond me, but it was still a semi popular place for people to go, no matter how old they were. I saw little kids that should have been with their parents, people from school, and even a few from the local college. There was no shortage of people there, either playing a 20 year old Mortal Kombat 3 cabinet or some other game or just shooting skeeball in the corner.

What I loved about it was that nobody noticed me. I blended in with the sea of people, and nobody paid attention to the “girl” who was alone just wandering around the arcade. I couldn't help but check everybody else out. The girls for their fashion, the guys for their bodies. It was involuntary at this point, but something I'd grown accustomed to. Maybe, with enough time in this life, I'd get used to it.

I found a Star Wars Trilogy Arcade cabinet that nobody was paying any attention to and sat down in it, more to get out of everybody's way than to actually play the game. I'd never hated Star Wars, but I'd always been more of a Battlestar Galactica fan. The fact that it was out of the way only made it a better choice.

I pulled out my phone and decided to search the interweb for a bit. I didn't upload pictures to my Facebook page anymore, for obvious reasons, but of course people did send pictures they'd take of me from a distance (or up close, some of them). There were a couple that had been uploaded just that day, though not as negative as usual. "He can pass for a girl now" and "Dean's in a hot outfit today".

Part of me wanted to take pride in that.

I clicked away from Facebook to something less disheartening. News sites, Twitter, Tapastic. I spent probably an hour reading a comic called Ibuki about some badass fighter girl. Eventually, I forgot I was still at the mall, still sitting at that Star Wars Trilogy Arcade cabinet. Nobody had even bumped into it the entire time. I considered myself lucky for that.

"You busy here?" somebody asked. I turned to look at the owner of the voice and nearly had a heart attack. I didn't recognize the guy, but he was something to look at. I know that was just that bitch's magic making me think that way, but I did kinda find him hot. He was wearing a pair of cargo shorts, a tank top and a blue Hawaiian shirt that he left unbuttoned.

I felt myself blush. Damn feelings. "Sorry," I said, "I was back here to get out of the way."

He smiled. "Hey, no need to explain yourself to me. I need that every now and again, too." He leaned against the cabinet. "That's why I came over here."

I wondered if he could tell anything about me, or knew me in some way. He wasn't being a dick and he didn't seem to be hitting on me as a joke, so maybe the two of us were just talking like normal people.

He rubbed at the back of his neck. "Tracy, by the way. I know it's a girl's name, but my parents are second generation hippies, so I got stuck with it."

That made me giggle. "Um, I'm Dean."

"Huh, boy's name?"

He didn't seem to notice that I was actually a guy. Great, I was gonna scare off the first person who didn't have a problem talking to me. "I... Um... I am a boy."

His eyes widened. "Holy shit, no way!"

"Yeah. I'm... Different."

"You're a really cute boy."

I felt myself blush again. "Yeah, right, you don't havta..." I heard myself trail off. I wanted him to be telling the truth.

He looked confused, not unlike I'd expected him to look when I told him I was a guy. "Don't havta what? Oh! I get it, you're nervous, right? Are you... Are you trans and just starting to come back out into public? Because the arcade is a weird place to choose as your public place, but I guess it's an easy way to get used to all the looks."

Holy shit, this guy really didn't know I was the town pariah. "Um, no," I said, trying to hide the surprise I felt. "I'm not trans, I'm just different." I almost wished I was trans, it would make being who I was easier. "And this isn't my first time in public."

"You seem really nervous," he said with what sounded like concern in his voice.

I hugged my knees to my chest. "People are used to me now, but I was kinda... People used to hate me."

"Oh... Oh!" He blushed now, and he looked cute doing it. He hadn't meant to embarrass me, but doing it embarrassed him. "Sorry, I didn't mean anything."

"No!" I slipped out of the seat. "You're not..." I sighed. "I'm not good around people, sometimes." I found myself taking his hand in mine. His hand was so big compared to mine. "You're not doing anything wrong."

He looked relieved. "Sorry, still. I shouldn't have assumed or anything." His hand felt gentle, felt caring. Same as his voice. "Um... So, Dean. I'm new in town, you wanna show me around?"

I looked up at his eyes. I was so used to people judging me, mocking me, glaring at me with their eyes, but his were different. His were... Kind. That caring tone in his voice and feel to his hands was shared in his eyes, something I'd never seen before, even when I was a guy.

Tracy liked me and he didn't care that I was still male where it counted, I was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen before.

I pulled my hand away from his and backed away. I couldn't look at him. He was seeing something I didn't want to be. I had to get away from him, or else... Or else I might accept what I was. I needed to find somewhere else to be, somewhere he wasn't.

I burst into a run and didn't stop until I was outside. After a second or two of difficult breathing, I saw the city bus parked, awaiting passengers. I paid the fare and walked to the back of the bus for the furthest seat from the front. I threw myself into the seat and curled up, hugging my knees to my chest like some depressed girl.

"You okay, sweetie?" some old lady who sat down in the seat across from me asked.

"No," I answered, simply.

"What happened?"

"A boy likes me..."

***

I took the bus back to town and found myself walking past the elementary school that I went to. I hadn't been by the place in years, pretty much ever since I got into middle school. I saw some kids playing on the playground, a couple little girls just having fun. They looked happy, excited, joyful, a complete opposite to me.

Was I starting to envy them?

I sighed. Why wouldn't I envy them? They were enjoying themselves, while I was moping around with no real life to speak of. I felt like shit, and seeing them having fun was making that even worse. Of course I envied them.

I looked away from the girls and forced myself to walk away from the school. Everywhere I went, I was running into reasons to be depressed and sad, and I needed to find somewhere else to go. The only good thing about today was that only my mom had treated me like crap.

I walked, and walked, and eventually only stopped walking when I came to a bridge just down the road from my house. There was a small river running through the middle of town, and the bridge separated the residential from the business part of town. Even before the panty raid and the bullshit that I'd suffered, I liked to watch the river.

It was pretty much the only thing that calmed me.

“You look like you're having a bad day,” a voice beside me said. I wanted to reach out and throw her into the river, but I restrained myself. Amanda. There. “I noticed that when I saw you at the mall, too.”

I looked over at her and saw that Steve wasn't attached to her. “A depressing day, not a bad day.”

“Depressing, bad... I don't see a difference.”

“Trust me, there's a difference.” I turned away from the river and leaned against the bridge railing. “Why are you here?”

“Walking home from Steve's place. Saw you. Decided to ask what's up.” She leaned against the railing beside me. “So, what's up? Thinking of taking a nosedive into the river?”

I shook my head. “I'm depressed, but I'm not that depressed.” I almost felt like laughing. “You're not hoping I'll jump, are you?”

“Uh, no. You're still not my favorite person, but you're not as much of an asshole as you used to be.”

I sighed. “Whatever. How's that bitch who changed us?”

“Ms. Malski? She's a sorceress.”

“And I said 'bitch', not 'witch'.”

“I know.”

“So?”

“She wants to talk to you, actually.”

“Huh?”

“She wants... To talk... To you,” she said, talking slower as a joke. “You live next door to her, how do I know about this first?”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “I dunno. How's about we go there right now and find out?”

***

“I've been trying to get you over here for days, y'know,” the bitch said, sipping coffee from a small cup. She looked so normal, sitting there in a pair of sweatpants and a black tank top with a big orange heart on it. It was so hard to believe that she was in any way magical. If I didn't know what she could do first hand, I'd just have confused her for any late-twenties woman. Especially considering I had a tanktop that looked exactly like that, but with reversed colors. “You're a difficult young lady to get a hold of.”

I rolled my eyes. “Don't call me that.”

“It's actually why you're here.”

“Why?”

“Amanda suggested I ask you what you want.”

“What I want? What if I want to go back to being the guy I used to be?” I started to feel tears welling up in my eyes. It wouldn't be the first time I cried since this happened to me. “You fucked up my life and I want it back!”

The bitch shook her head. “You and I both know that's not true, Dean.”

I caught sight of Amanda, who looked surprised. Certainly, I wore the same surprise on my face. “What are you talking about? Yes, I want my old life back!”

“Is that why you wrote this?” I don't know when it got there, but suddenly the bitch was holding a black notebook, one that I instantly recognized. How had she gotten that? Where'd it come from? Why was it there?!

“How'd... How'd you get that?” I asked, my voice barely louder than a whisper. If she hadn't heard me, I wouldn't be surprised.

“I'm magical, young lady, I should think you'd accept anything at this point.” I wanted to tell her to stop calling me young lady, but considering she had my notebook, I knew exactly what point she was going to make. Why? Why had I written that? I didn't care if it was true, why had I written it? “However, I'll have you know that your mother gave it to me about an hour ago. She recognized my name and thought it important to ask what it was you were talking about.” Oh. Great. So Mom had given her the notebook. “You know what it says in here.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I know. And yeah, I wrote it, but that doesn't... Doesn't mean anything.”

“We both know that's not true, Dean.” She opened the notebook and turned to the latest page. “'I'd never tell Richards this, but I wish I was in the same boat as her. She got to go all the way and ended up a girl completely, while I'm stuck halfway. Guys don't want me, and girls make fun of me. It's taken me most of the summer to accept what I am now, but I think I've finally come to terms with it.'” She set the notebook down. “That's quite a bit of progress.”

“You envy me?” Amanda asked.

There were those tears again. I didn't want to answer the question, but I knew I needed to and goddammit, I knew the real answer. The answer I didn't want to be true. “Yes,” I said, again, barely more audible than a whisper. “Yes, I wish I could be a real girl, okay?” That one was louder. “I didn't know that's what I wanted before, but it's what I want now.” I reached up and wiped tears away. “There, are you happy?”

Amanda surprised me by hugging me. “Why didn't you say anything?”

I couldn't answer that question, but I could return the hug, so I did.

***

The bi – the sorceress – ended the hug by talking. “Now, Dean, I have some options for you.” She handed me the notebook, after I dried the actual happy tears from my eyes. “I can't return you to your old self, because that's not who you are. Well, I'll rephrase that. I won't return you to your old self. That would be a disservice to the young woman you've allowed to blossom over the last month.” I nodded. For the first time since this happened, I was happy with that decision. “You can either remain the way you are, or I can finish out your changes.”

There they were, the two choices that part of me had hoped to hear from day one.

And I...

Couldn't...

Choose...

I fell into the seat behind me and hugged my knees to my chest. “I don't know.”

“You don't have to choose right now,” Amanda said, a reassuring smile on her face.

The sorceress sighed. “I hate to rush you, but you actually do need to choose soon, though not right this second.”

“Why soon?” I asked.

“It'll be easier to alter your transcripts for next year.”

I rolled my eyes. Of course. She was the principal, after all. “What exactly changes about my life for each one?”

She took another sip of coffee. “Regardless of your choice, you're moving in with me.”

“Whuh? Why?”

“I've met your mother, she's not the nicest woman to talk to, so I can only imagine how horrible it is to live with her. Those arrangements have already been made, your mother was only too happy to have you leaving her house.” I sighed. Of course she was happy I was gone. Didn't matter to her that I'd actually made a big life decision. “As for what else will change, obviously, if you choose to become female completely, you'll need to deal with everything a girl your age deals with. If you choose to remain this way, very little will change aside from your home address.” She set the coffee cup down on the table. “Have you made your decision yet?”

I took a deep breath, then exhaled. “I have. I think I'll go with what I am, for now."

"You what?" Amy asked.

I turned to her. "Only for now, I mean. I want to be completely female eventually, but I'm used to this right now." I turned to Ms. Malski. "If it's okay with you, I wanna gradually become female, not overnight."

She looked almost impressed. "Interesting decision. If that's what you want, that's what you'll get." She sat back down in her chair. "Well, your room is prepared already if you want to see it."

I uncurled my body and sat up straight. "I have something I need to do, actually."

"Oh?"

"I'll be..." I was about to say something I didn't think I was ever going to say, "...Back later. There's somebody I need to go apologize to."

***

It was a long shot, but one that surprisingly paid off. Tracy was sitting at the same table in the food court that I'd been sitting at when I saw Amy and Steve earlier that day. He looked lonely, which wasn't surprising, since I'd left him at the arcade and he said he was new in town. He was just slowly sipping soda through a rainbow-colored straw whenever he wasn't picking up french fries one by one.

I reached into my purse and grabbed the small makeup mirror that I always carried around. This was the first time I actually wanted to find it. I popped it open and looked my face over. The only thing I felt I needed to do was freshen up my lipstick a little. I had no reason to believe he'd want to see me, but if I was lucky, I wanted to be ready for anything.

Before I walked over to him, I pulled out my phone, took a picture of him and texted it to Amy. I sent a message along: I'm going for him. I didn't wait for a reply before dropping the phone back in my purse and taking a deep breath. It was now or never.

"Hi, Tracy," I said as I reached the table, trying to make my voice sound less like I was nervous and my heart was doing jumping jacks.

He looked up at me and his eyes lit up. "Dean! I... Whah... You..."

I giggled at his stammering mess of words. "It's a long story, but I had to go work some things out."

He stood up and I watched him brace himself against the table. He was clearly just as nervous as I was, but at least I had better balance than he did. Granted, walking in heels as much as I did kinda necessitated that.

"So," I said, holding out my hand, "you said you wanted somebody to show you around town, right?"

He took my hand, slid his fingers between mine. I'd felt this on his end so many times with girls I'd dated, but other than being the girl, this one felt different. This one felt better. He smiled as we both stared into each others' eyes. That same feeling from before, that feeling of kindness and caring, was still there.

"Yeah, that sounds great," he said.

Before we even walked away from that table, I leaned up and kissed him on the lips. When we broke away, I said, "Sorry, I just wanted to do that when we were talking earlier. That's my apology for running away like I did."

He smiled. "That's a mistake I'm glad you made, then."