Over the next few weeks Michelle came out to all her friends whom she didn’t know through work; according to her, everyone was really accepting. Surprisingly, aside from a really select inner circle which included her doctor, her therapist, her parole officer, and a couple friends she’d met while transitioning, she’d somehow managed to go deep stealth – that, as she told me, meant “basically undercover, with no one knowing you’re transgender” – just a few months after leaving jail and starting hormone therapy: almost everyone she came out to was really surprised. She had been really lucky, she explained, since many people don’t pass even after years of treatment.

Regarding her coming outs, since I didn’t really know most of her friends, I was present only when she told Ralph, but his reaction was especially amusing: he stared at her long and hard and said, “What, ya think I didn’t know?”

When Michelle, startled, asked him for an explanation, Ralph kept going: “Honestly, Chell. A young lad lives for a few months across the street from me, then one day he suddenly moves out and a gal who looks very much like him and has a similar name moves in right away. And ya really think I hadn’t figured it out? Ya wound me, luv.”

Michelle just started laughing and hugged the old man. And that was that.

Danny didn’t show his face again for several weeks; we figured he was too busy trying to get the money together to pay his debt, while at the same time hiding from the collector. Our next confrontation, and what would turn out to be the final one, came early in November.

It was a Saturday night. Me and Michelle had been out on a date (which went very well, but I’ll spare you the details), and when we came back home, Danny was sitting on the doorstep. He didn’t even rise to his feet as we approached.

“Evenin’, Mikey!” he said cheerily. Apparently he’d decided to drop the pretence and stop acting nice.

“Danny,” Michelle nodded in return. “What’re ya doing here?”

“Ya see, bro,” Danny said, and it was the first time I’d ever heard him acknowledge he was Michelle’s relative, even if he was misgendering her, “With all this talk of debts and repayment, I realised somethin’. I never paid ya back.”

Danny nodded, and suddenly I felt someone seize my arms from behind. Craning my head as far as I could, I caught a glimpse of one of Danny’s cronies – Will, maybe? I’d only met the two of them once, months before – holding me fast. And a glance to my left told me that Michelle had been grabbed by the other chav (Pete, I remembered). Where the hell had they come from? There was no one in the street except me, Michelle and Danny just a few moments before. Clearly they were hiding, waiting to ambush us. And they’d moved quite stealthily, to be able to catch us by surprise.

Which didn’t bode well.

“Thank ye, lads,” Danny said, getting up from our doorstep and grinning. “’s nice to have someone in yer corner.”

He turned to Michelle, and the grin turned into a sneer. When he spoke next, I could almost taste the venom in his words.

“I’ve been doin’ a lot of thinkin’ these past weeks, Mike,” he said. “And I managed to find out where it all went wrong.”

He leaned in close, his face inches away from Michelle’s.

“It was you. Everything went bad when ya came back. If you’d just stayed away… And even before that, if ya just didn’t dream up this whole being-a-gal thing… Well, it’s too late fer that now, right?”

He paused, looked deep into Michelle’s eyes. She was glaring at him. A look of challenge.

“What the hell are ya looking at?” Danny shouted, and he slapped Michelle. Hard. I shouted at him to stop, and he turned to me. “Don’t worry, ya’ll get your turn too. Just gotta decide if it’s before or after the tranny.” He turned back to Michelle, and saw her looking at him again, the same defiant look as before in her eyes.

“Fuck ya,” she said, and spat at his feet.

From Danny’s face, he was taken aback: he hadn’t expected that reaction. But he recovered quickly, pulled a knife out of his pocket, and flicked it open.

“Ya recognise this, bro?” Danny said, showing the weapon to Michelle. “It’s the knife that sent ya to jail.” He paused, and pretended to think. “Well, not the same one. Pigs still have that. Same model, though. And it’s sharp enough.”

With a quick movement, he stabbed the knife into Michelle’s arm, twisted it, and pulled it away. She screamed in pain, and I could see a bloody stain beginning to form around the wound on the sleeve of Michelle’s jacket.

“Sharp enough,” he repeated. “Now ya know what? I’m going to cut yer boy-toy open,” he said, motioning at me with the blade. “And ya get to watch.”

Danny started moving towards me.

“Oi, you there!”

That was Ralph’s voice. What was he doing out here? We all turned our heads towards the source of the sound.

And froze.

Ralph was standing some ten metres away from us, but instead of his usual cane, he had a mean-looking double-barrel shotgun in his hands. Aimed right at Danny.

“Ye bastards better stop bothering my neighbours and start runnin’ if ya know what’s best for ya!” he shouted, and nodded to his gun for emphasis.

Then everything happened quickly. Taking advantage of the distraction, Michelle stamped down on Pete’s foot; she was wearing pumps, so her heel probably broke a toe or two. As he winced, she wrested her right arm free and, taking advantage of her relatively short stature, elbowed him in the crotch. Pete doubled over in pain, and let go of Michelle completely; then, just as Danny was turning back to face her, his attention drawn by the movement, Em straightened up, lashed out with her fist, and caught Danny right in the middle of his face. I could clearly hear the impact, and it sounded painful.

Danny fell over backwards on his ass, probably more from the shock than the impact itself, hands going up to cover his face, knife clattering to the ground. “My nose!” he shouted. “Ya bitch, you broke my nose!”

Behind me, I could feel Will wildly swinging his head around, from Ralph to Danny to Michelle to Pete, trying to follow the action and decide what to do. I realised that this was probably my best chance, and swung my head backwards, catching him in the teeth; from the shock his grip loosened, and I was able to pull myself free, staggering forward out of his grasp. When I turned around he, like Danny, had his hands to his face: he probably had little experience in fighting, because he was paying more attention to the pain than he was to me; I, on the other hand, had just spent the best part of four years in jail, so I knew a trick or two. I punched Will in the stomach, and as he doubled over I pulled him towards me, using his own momentum to send him to the ground. Then I turned back towards Michelle and Danny.

By that time Danny had gotten up to his knees, a small rivulet of blood running down from his nostril, and was about to launch himself at Michelle, when Ralph shouted “No ya don’t!”

Danny turned to look at Ralph, who was still pointing the gun, unwavering, towards him. They stared at each other for a few moments, then Ralph snarled, “I really don’ wanna shoot ya, lad, but I will if ya don’t fuck off right now.”

Danny considered his chances briefly, and for a fleeting moment I thought he might try it, but then he cursed, spat a bit of saliva mixed with blood, got to his feet and fled down the street, followed closely by his cronies.

Ralph kept the gun raised, aimed at the fleeing men, until he was certain they weren’t going to turn back, then let the muzzle drop towards the ground.

“Bloody hell,” he exhaled. “Are y’all okay?” he asked, turning to us.

“Em’s been stabbed,” I said, hurrying towards her; the sleeve of her jacket was soaked with blood, and she was putting pressure on the wound.

“Ah fuck,” said Ralph, rushing over too. “Here, lad, hol’ this,” he said, handing me the shotgun, which I took gingerly. “Don’t worry, safety’s on,” he said when he noticed how nervous I was. “Didn’t wanna kill anyone.”

Ralph made Michelle sit on the kerb and produced a small knife out of his pocket; in short order he’d cut off the jacket sleeve, separated it into a few long strips, and used those and a glove I provided to stem the flow of blood.

“There, luv, it’s done,” he said. “That should hold ‘til ya get it properly looked after.”

He saw me looking at him. “Oh, don’t ya look so surprised, son,” he continued, as a reply to my unasked question. “I was a surgeon in the army, years back. Falklands.”

We sat in silence for a while until the police arrived. They were surprisingly fast, they were there just a few minutes after Ralph was done patching up Michelle, and by sheer chance the two cops who came to the scene were Charlie and Tony; when we explained the situation (and after they’d secured Ralph’s shotgun and Danny’s knife as evidence) they loaded both me and Michelle in their car, to take us to the hospital to get us checked out, especially Em’s arm wound. On the ride over Michelle turned and looked at me. “Hey, did you notice?” she asked, smiling.

“No, what?” I replied, puzzled.

Her smile turned to a grin. “He called me a bitch,” she said.

I realised what she meant. Even though Danny kept misgendering and using her former name on purpose, when he was reacting to her blow he unwittingly and unconsciously called her a woman, even though he did so through an insult. I smiled in return. “Yeah, I guess he did.”

When we reached the hospital Michelle, over her objections that she could walk on her own, was almost forcibly sat down in a wheelchair and rolled into the emergency room. And I’m not one to throw around undeserved praise, but the doctors there did an excellent job: they checked her in right away, put an IV in her good arm to replace the fluids she’d lost, did an X-ray of her arm to see if the knife had hit anything important (it hadn’t, thankfully), removed Ralph’s makeshift bandage, and then stitched her up. A few hours later Em was sitting up in a hospital bed, waiting to be discharged; we’d also called Jennifer (to tell her what had happened, and to warn her should Danny come for her too), and she’d rushed over right away. The two of us were sitting in a pair of chairs in the corner of the room, chatting with Michelle, when Tony and Charlie came in.

“Doc says you’re good enough to talk,” said Charlie. “Do you want to give a statement regarding what happened tonight?” He looked from me to Michelle, who hesitated and looked at me. I understood, she wanted me to take the lead on this one.

“We came home from an evening out,” I said, “And found those guys in front of our house. I don’t know why but one of them started waving the knife and shouting, we got in a scuffle, she punched him, and he stabbed her. Then they ran away when Ralph came out of his house with his gun.”

“Hm,” said Tony, who was jotting down notes on a pad. “Alright. Do you have any idea who they were? Or why they attacked you?”

I glanced at Michelle, who was sitting very still in bed, her head down, looking at her hands and not speaking. “None whatsoever,” I replied.

Tony was quiet for a few seconds, then looked directly at me with a piercing stare. “I don’t believe you,” he said, stabbing his pen through the air towards me.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean that I think you know who they were, why they attacked you, and you just don’t want to tell us.”

I crossed my arms and returned his stare. “And why’s that?”

“The timeline doesn’t add up,” interjected Charlie. “Why do you think we arrived as soon as we did? Ralph Stevens called us before the fight had even begun, said he looked out the window and there was someone sitting on your doorstep, so we went out to check.”

Bless you, Ralph. Old worry-wart he may be, his nosiness had likely saved our lives. But it was causing another problem now.

“So you’re saying,” I replied, “That you think those guys weren’t just some random thugs, but were waiting for us to come home.”

Charlie nodded. “Precisely. Which means they deliberately targeted you. Which of course means they must have some kind of vendetta against you, so you must know who they are.”

“No, we don’t,” I said, stubbornly. “That’s my version, and I’m sticking to it.”

“Listen here, you--” began Charlie.

“It was a hate crime.”

Every head in the room turned to look at Michelle. She was still keeping her head down, but her shoulders were no longer slumped; as we looked at her she lifted her gaze to meet ours.

“A hate crime?” asked Tony, puzzled.

“A hate crime,” repeated Michelle. Then she took a deep breath. “Transphobic,” she said.

“...Transphobic?” said Charlie. The disbelief was evident in his voice.

Michelle nodded firmly, and fixed her gaze on the two policemen. “Yes. One of those men is my brother, lads. He doesn’t like that I’m a girl.”

The room was quiet for a few seconds as the two cops digested what she’d said.

“Oh, this is just ridiculous,” said Tony. “We thought it was something serious, but it’s… This.” He turned to Charlie. “Let’s just put it down as a family dispute and call it a night.”

I had to replay what he’d said in my mind to confirm I’d really heard the words. “Hold on, a sec,” I protested. “What do you mean it’s nothing serious? We could have been killed! She could have been killed!”

“Well he shouldn’t have gone prancing around dressed like that!” replied Tony.

I got to my feet and took a step towards him. “What did you just say?” I hissed, glaring at him. Jennifer got up too, and put a hand on my chest, trying to calm me down and holding me back.

“Ya wanna have a go at me, lad?” Tony said, squaring up. “I’m a police officer, mind you. Touch me and you go right back to jail. Ya really want to risk it? Over that?” he continued, gesturing at Michelle, who winced.

“Shut up, Tony,” said Charlie, almost inaudibly.

Tony whipped around and looked at him. “What was that?”

“I said shut up,” repeated Charlie, more firmly this time.

“What, you’re defending them? You’re defending him?” replied Tony, looking at him. He gestured to Michelle again. “That thing’s a fucking tranny!”

“Well so am I!” Charlie shouted.

The room fell silent again. Everyone was looking at Charlie now.

“...What?” asked Tony, looking bewildered.

“I’m transgender too, Tony. Bloody hell,” said Charlie, “I can’t believe you’re so fucking dense. Why do you think I never use the station’s changing rooms but change at home? Why I always use a stall when I go to the loo? Why I always wear an under-shirt, even in summer? Why I gave you the free tickets to the pool I won at the end-of-year raffle? It’s because I’m a fucking tranny, Tony!” He was shouting again now. “You got a problem with that?”

Tony looked at Charlie with wide eyes for a few seconds, then threw his notepad to the floor. “Bloody unbelievable,” he cursed as he stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

We were quiet for a couple moments, then Charlie closed his eyes, took a few deep breaths to steady himself, and looked at us.

“I’m truly sorry about him,” he said. “After all you’ve been through tonight, a transphobic idiot was the last thing you needed.”

He stooped over and retrieved the notepad from the floor. “I will file a formal complaint against him first thing tomorrow, and you should probably do the same. But for now,” he said smiling, as he pulled up a chair next to Michelle’s bed and took a pen out of his shirt pocket, “Why don’t you tell me about what happened before we got there? Please start at the beginning.”