As soon as mom had stopped talking, all of my anxiety flowed back into my body and I panicked. Dread permeated my body once more as I turned to Ela, shakily signing to her “What do?”

Ela grabs my shoulders, visibly guiding me to take deep breaths with her. I do as I’m told, taking the time to take the breaths. After a few moments of silence, there’s another knock at the door.

“Please answer, I’m starting to get really worried out here.”

Ela lets me go, stepping to the door. She opens it a crack and takes a glance at me. I pull my knees up to myself once more, nodding to let her know it’s okay. Not that I knew if it was okay, I definitely didn’t feel okay. She takes the lead once more.

“We’re okay, sorry for worrying you. We actually have something we need to tell you.” I can feel my breathing pick up again and notice Ela’s eyes flicking to me in concern. I close my eyes shut, clenching and unclenching my fists to relieve some mounting stress. I steady my breathing as best I can, but it still comes out shaky and uneven. 

“Look, something happened to Daniel last night, and… you know how she is, it’s really, really important that you’re gentle with her right now.” I hear the door being pushed open as she says the end of the sentence. I open my eyes and look to the doorway. My eyes meet with my mothers, a mixture of shock and confusion playing across her face. My eyes fall to the side, unable to meet her eyes.

I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing freely at that point, my eyes completely blurred over and streaked down my face. I choked back sobs, too afraid of the situation to even cry properly. I could feel my body shaking under the intense stare of my mother, eyes hazy with tears. I closed my eyes, unable to deal with the waking world as I was.

Eventually, I felt the calm touch of a hand on my shoulder, the far side from the door. I attempted to look in the direction and I could see the hazy form of my sister. My body still shook heavily as she leaned forward to embrace me. I leaned into the embrace, hoping that any amount of physical contact would help stop my shaking.

“Dan… Daniel?” The mention of my name stabbed through my heart, a hiccuped sob the only reply I could give as I squeezed my sister, unable to turn around to face mom. Ela’s voice is quiet as she responds to mom before me, still holding me in her arms.

“She prefers Dawn.” Ela’s voice is soft, it doesn’t raise above a loud whisper. I can feel a shift in the bed behind me; I clutch Ela even tighter.

“Dawn.” The tentative voice of my mother says the name from behind me, trying it out. “Of course, Dawn.” She continues, I can feel another shift of the bed and a hand laying itself on my back. I tense, clutching Ela in pure unadulterated fear. When the stinging pain didn’t come, I allow myself to open my hazy, tear-filled eyes.

Mom was running her hand up and down my back while I held Ela. It was familiar to how she’d comfort me when I was scared, but I was always holding her all those times. I could feel tension leave Ela as she realized I wasn’t holding onto her for fear of my life. Ela let out a slightly strangles sigh, and I forgot my own worries as I peeled myself away from her. I looked her up and down, making sure I hadn’t hurt her.

Ela looked at me and laughed, rolling one of her shoulders as she was sure I wouldn’t grab on again. “Sis, you’re small, but definitely not weak. Any longer and you might have cracked a rib.” Ela just chuckles gently and I sign my apologies to her.

As the comforting hand from my back pulls away, I’m brought back to my senses. Ela grabs my right hand, applying gentle pressure to the back of my hand with her thumb. It was small encouragement like this that led me to turn and face mom. Her eyes were soft and weary as I met them. I felt so many emotions when I saw her eyes; I had to look away almost immediately. I turned my gaze downwards, settling instead on her hands.

Ela lets go of my hand, leaning against my back with her own instead. I appreciated the contact. The bodily contact helped me handle my fear just enough that I could function. I didn’t dare speak up, in part because I didn’t know what to say, but also because I couldn’t speak. I could feel my voice caught somewhere, unable to even travel far enough to reach my throat, much less my lips. I kept my mouth pressed closed, just looking at mom’s hands.

“So, Dawn…” Mom started, signing along as she talked. I watched her hands attentively. “You’re really…” She hesitated for a second on how to say and sign whatever it is she was trying to say. She eventually settled on “my child?”

Shakily, I responded to the affirmative with my hands, continuing with a small “Hi Mom,” before falling still yet again.

“What… What happened?” She asked, gently.

I signed the ever familiar “don’t know” sign that I seemed to get acquainted intimately with today. I continued with, “woke up like this.” Taking a second to look at my body once more.

“Does it hurt?” Mom asked, and the moment it left her mouth, I shook my head. I couldn’t deny myself the happiness this form entailed. Not at this point. Mom’s expression looked unsettled, sighing gently. Under her breath she mutters to herself, “Of course it doesn’t. I’m so stupid.” I look up and into her eyes as she says that. I can see conflict warring across her expression of whatever she’s thinking about. I feel my expression harden, a wave of comfort flowing off of me as I reach forward and grab her hand. She looks shocked as I grab her hand and give it a gentle squeeze. Her eyes lock with mine and I can see tension ebb and flow away from her. I break the eye contact after a second, becoming uncomfortable from the prolonged eye contact. Mom’s hand falls out of mine as I lean back over onto Ela’s back. I feel Mom’s hand touching my cheek as I do so, and I look up at her. Her eyes gently trace the edges of my face, they seemed to gaze past my skin and somewhere deeper. It felt like for the first time in my life she was really seeing me.

“So it was you. You must have it after all.” I look over at her hands, eyes flicking towards her face gently, hoping it properly conveyed my confusion. “There’s something I need to tell you two, but I’m afraid it’s going to have to wait until my sister gets here tomorrow morning.” She says, exhaustion creeping into her tone. I don’t press the issue, already having grappled with the fact I wouldn’t be getting answers until tomorrow once today.

“What do we do in the meantime?” Ela asks, mom leans back away from me and drops her hand from my cheek. I glance up and see her looking at me still. My hands fidget gently as she looks me over. “I’m standing by that decision to spend the day with Dawn and… well,” I can feel Ela shifting behind me as she turns around. I feel her elbows rest on my head and I try to peek up at her. “I’m sure you can tell that these aren’t her clothes, and none of her old clothes fit her.”

Mom seems to pick up on what she’s saying, nodding thoughtfully. “You want to take her shopping?” Ela nods, and I just look back down at my hands. I didn’t want to impose, but… having my own clothes would be nice. I couldn’t rely on Ela this much forever.

Speaking of the future, my mind turns to school and I lean forward to tug on Mom’s sleeve. When she turned to look at my hands, I clapped them together lightly twice. “School.” She tilted her head in confusion at first before her eyes widened rapidly. I’m sure that if I looked up, I could see the gears turning in her head.

Silently she signed to me, eyes still filled with worry. “We’ll figure it out.” I didn’t respond, just looking away. It was very much something I didn’t want to think about at that moment. “In any case, you can take hi- er, her, shopping. I can give you some money, but… Well, I don’t have the kind of money to replace an entire wardrobe right now.”

“I have some to help out. We’ll start small.” Ela responded, nodding affirmatively. I tugged on her shoulder to get her attention before signing to her.

“You don’t need to do that.” I was a little guilty at how accommodating they were being. I was the one who had gone and changed; the one who was causing them problems. Ela just waved me off dismissively as I finished signing.

“You need clothes, you’re getting clothes.” Her tone was one of mirth. It was weird. It almost seemed like she enjoyed helping me out with all this. I filed the thought away to ask her about it later. The room went quiet as none of us said anything. I wasn’t sure what to say. I had expected talking to mom to go badly. I expected her to… I don’t know, what did I expect her to do. I didn’t expect her to just accept me as I am, though. In the silence following it all, I found my voice, far too focused on the confusion of it all to even remember I was too anxious to speak.

“Why?” The question was quiet, but in the silence of the room they had both turned to me.

“What do you mean, Da-” the ‘a’ sound she made was more reminiscent of my old name, but she stopped herself quickly, “Dawn?” I was glad she was trying, at the very least.

“Why are you taking this… so well?”

Mom looked sympathetic as I stared numbly at my feet, “I told you I’d explain when my sister got here.” She said it quietly, her tone soft. I just shook my head though.

“Not the magic stuff. I’m curious about that, but…” I paused and took several breaths as I hyperventilated. Finally able to breathe properly, I tried again. “Me being a girl. Why do you care? Why don’t you want me to go back to being-” My voice caught in my throat, tears welling in the corners of my eyes. “To being- to be- Th-th-that…” I shook violently as I pulled my legs back up onto the bed and held my knees close. I couldn’t even bring myself to say it, it hurt too much to think about.

I could see mom reach to comfort me through the tears in my eyes, but in my brain fog I could only flinch at the sight of a hand coming for me. I was vulnerable, scared, and I wasn’t in control of my surroundings. I didn’t see what mom did after I flinched because I’d squeezed my eyes shut. I opened them after a few seconds once I realized neither stinging pain nor a comforting hand had touched me. My eyes met my mothers, fear rolling off me in waves. Fear of judgement, fear of retaliation, fear of rejection. I couldn’t think straight as one hundred thoughts roared for my attention. I was spiralling hard.

I turned my gaze downward, tears falling freely. Some distant sense that my brain barely recognized alerted me to the gentle push and pull of Ela shaking my shoulder. I was even vaguely aware that she was saying something, but my brain couldn’t focus. Blood was pounding as I could hear my own heartbeat. The gentle thumping was static background noise that persisted over the sounds of Ela calling out to me for something. I couldn’t stop my body from shaking as if it was chilled to the core.

I slowly came to my senses, tears rolling down my cheeks, when I realized I was being held. I could feel the gentle shaking of whoever was holding me. It took me a couple seconds to realize that they were crying. My brain focused enough to recognize the sounds of gentle sobbing. Two other sobbing voices reached my ears, neither of them my own. I couldn’t tell if I had been sobbing before now. It almost seemed impossible with how hard it was to make any sound come out of my throat. I let out a gentle whimper as I found my breath settling down enough that I could focus.

The person holding me was Mom; she had her arms wrapped tightly around me. She was shaking as much as I had been. Her hands were scratching at my back gently, rhythmically trying to soothe me. I could feel the sadness falling off of me in waves, like I was shedding it. It took me several seconds of ragged breaths before I could hear the sobbing of mom and Ela falling away.

I pushed mom back a little and she willingly let me pull away a little. As she pulled back, she held my shoulders, searching my face as I looked down dejectedly. I opened my mouth to speak, but it was a little foolish of me to pretend I had my voice back at all. I raise my hands to speak, but she pushes them back down; her touch is gentle and caring. I look up to her eyes in confusion at the gesture, but it seems she has something she wants to say first.

“I’m sorry, Dawn. I should have been better for you.” She seemed to bite down whatever other words she wanted to say, thinking them over. She seemed to settle on whatever she wanted to say, choking back tears as she continues, “I will be better for you, if you’ll let me.” I gaped at her expression, still shaking a bit. I wasn’t sure what to say, even if I could theoretically say anything. Deep down I almost wanted to just spend the rest of the day non-verbal, but I knew that the euphoria of wanting to hear my own voice would help bolster me to a point I could talk again later. For now, though, my voice wouldn’t come to me. I just had to be patient with myself.

I leaned back into her, hoping it was response enough. She seemed to understand the intent, gripping me tightly once more. It was nice. I missed being held like this.

I stayed like that for minutes; I didn’t count how long. Eventually though, mom pulled herself away from me with a gentle smile. I could hear Ela sniffling behind me a little still.

“Why don’t we get some breakfast and then go clothes shopping, okay Dawn?” I nodded gently in response. I think getting up and doing something would definitely help clear some emotional fog clouding my mind.