Acceptance of the Self

Book 1: Attunement of the Hearts

Chapter 7.d - Extremely Good Friends Who Are Girls

___________________ ღ♥ღ ___________________

 Dawn

¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ •.¸ ¸.• ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

 

[ - Friday Sept. 06 2019, 6:30pm, Dawn's house - ]

 

I stare at my best friend, awed. She’s staring out the windshield beside me, her expression blank and her thoughts clearly somewhere far from our parked car. 

 

Though she looks exactly the same as she had before she came out, now I’m looking at her with a fresh lens over my perception: paying particular attention to things that are easy to see as ‘feminine’. Like, there’s a light smattering of freckles across her nose and upper cheeks which I’d once thought were handsome, but now I’m realizing they’re also extremely cute. And she’s got a few scattered acne scars on her forehead and chin, which add a kind of soft vulnerability to her appearance that I’ve always loved. Her eyes remind me of a forest floor, a soft moss green towards the center of her irises that fades to a darker pine around the edges. Honestly, how many times have I lost myself in this gaze throughout the years? It’s not enough, that’s for damn sure. 

 

I smile, refocusing my attention on the task at hand. 

 

I’m attempting to do a sort of mindfulness exercise: taking in E’s appearance and consciously gendering her correctly while doing so. Those are her freckles, her eyes, her slight frown and thousand-yard stare. I’d found that during Sky’s transition, practicing intentionally associating their name and pronouns with their face in my mind’s eye had been incredibly helpful. It sped up the process of forming new habits without the risk of verbally misgendering them, aiding me in learning to think of them the way they identified. Which, for the record, they describe as “a rich blend of masculinity and femininity that cannot be properly expressed in the narrow confines of the current English language.”

 

Consistent practice of this mindfulness exercise had resulted in me learning to see my sibling as a nonbinary person much faster than I’d thought I would. So I’d started doing the same thing with E back in the parking garage, and now I’m doing it again on my parents' driveway. I know 'E' is probably not going to be her name forever, but for right now it's what feels comfortable to her and therefore it's what I'm practicing with. I tell myself that E is my best friend, E is who I've known and loved since childhood, and E is an incredibly cute girl.

 

It’s a bizarre shift in perception, especially since, in all our years together, I’d never seen E as genuinely happy as she had been on the ride over here. She’d been whooping and laughing along to songs sung by women with me, when before she’d never seemed fully comfortable doing so. It was like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders, one that I hadn’t even realized she was carrying until I saw her without it. Like, I’d suspected she was trans for years, but that had been just a vague, abstract idea until today. She felt more alive than I’d ever seen her before now. Though, to be fair, part of that liveliness may have been due to my own feelings of relief and excitement. After finally admitting to myself that I deserve nice things, that I would genuinely be happier as a girl, it’s hard not to project that same excitement onto E’s actions. 

 

As I finish the thought, E blinks a couple times, and sits forward slightly in her seat. She turns to me with a slight blush rising to her cheeks, and my mind literally goes blank.

 

“...Dawn?” E asks tentatively, raising a hesitant eyebrow at me.

 

She. Is. So. Cute.

 

“Hmm?” I ask, trailing off into silence for a moment before I snap back to consciousness.

 

“Oh! Sorry, I um, just got distracted. It’s nothing, let’s go!” I say with forced cheerfulness, trying to act like I hadn’t just been wordlessly staring at her for the past few minutes. That’s probably creepy, right?

 

I can sense her quizzical eyes on me as I start to unbuckle myself, but all she says in reply is a slightly amused, “Okay.” 

 

I open my door and step out of the car, and hear her following suit on the other side. I try with all my might to focus on anything but the confusing cyclone of feelings about E whirling through my head, but it’s no use. What is with me? I can't believe how confused and awkward I suddenly feel around my best friend! 

 

As I ponder this, I come up with a few possible reasons for where these wild emotions are coming from. E'd always kept her emotions at arm's length in the past, even more so than I had. Seeing her cracking that facade today, even if just a teeny bit, is just, it feels like this beautiful, precious thing I’m witnessing, and I want to protect it at all costs. I’ve been her ride-or-die best friend since she first stood up to the bullies that had been harassing me in seventh grade. So yeah, I guess it makes sense that I’ve been exploding with joy at random moments, thinking about the future depths of friendship we might experience together as we transition side by side.

 

But on the flip side, I know I’m at risk of making the wrong assumptions about how she feels, and I’m absolutely terrified of hurting her as a result. Like, there’s so many questions I don’t have answers to. I don’t know how to be friends with a girl for starters, let alone how to be a girl! And that’s not even mentioning the trans aspect of all this! What if I accidentally out E to someone before she’s ready? What if she’s never ready? And what if the butterflies in my stomach, the ones that make themselves known whenever she gives me one of her conspiratorial smiles, go away as we each transition? Worst of all, what if she leaves me behind as she blossoms into herself? I can’t assume I’ll be worthy of being her friend forever.

 

The fall breeze kicks up some of the orange and brown leaves strewn around my dads' front lawn, which swirl around our feet as E follows me across the driveway. I try to calm myself down, staring at the white siding on the wall of the house beside me as I walk. My dads’ house is a two story affair situated on a slight incline, with a variety of wild, native grasses and flowers growing in the front and back yards. It’s a short walk from the driveway beside the house to the front door, and unfortunately my thoughts continue to boil as we traverse the gravel path across the front of the building. 

 

It’s irrational, my fear of abandonment. I know this. I’ve been in therapy for years trying to wrestle with it, but so far it’s still there, lurking in the back of my head. Being dumped at an orphanage as a child can do that, I guess. The indifferent adults at that place hadn’t exactly helped, either. Now, changes of any kind to my relationships make me anxious, and I’m constantly getting hit with worries about my loved ones abandoning me. Usually I can gently usher them back into my subconscious with the reassurance that the person in question is trustworthy and does, in fact, love me. But it feels like those certainties are slowly sinking into quicksand, as I contemplate the future ahead. Actually, for-real transitioning to be seen as a woman in my daily life is going to be hard. It feels like I’m setting foot on a terrifyingly rickety wooden bridge swaying over an endless abyss of potential rejections, where at any moment a former friend or loved one may send me plummeting into the isolating depths below. 

 

The only thing that’s gotten me this far today has been faith. I have faith in myself, and in my family especially. I know my dads and Sky will be there for me no matter what. I think the same is true for E, but I also know just how drastically things might change for us as we come out and attempt to transition. How will her aloof parents react? What if they try to separate us once they find out I’m a trans girl? The only thing I know for certain is that I genuinely want to start being seen as a girl by the world around me, and I want to stick by E's side as steadfastly as I can. So far the plan to accomplish that is to just keep putting one foot in front of the other, hoping against hope that I’ll be able to remain above the abyss of despair despite the odds. 

 

I reach the front door about four minutes after I'd stepped out of the car, though I’ve been so lost in my thoughts that it’s felt like much longer than that. Since I came out to myself at lunch, I’ve noticed my relationship with time has gotten a little murky. There've been so many thoughts running through my head ever since I realized 'holy shit I'm a girl', and every minute that ticks by seems to be filled with internal discussions and debates that could last hours if I was left to my own devices. It makes sense I guess. I’ve essentially realized, quite suddenly, that I do not want to be the person I’ve been for the past twenty-two years a second longer. The name ‘Matt’ already feels like a pair of ill-fitting jeans that I’d been forced to squeeze into my entire life, despite the itchy fabric and too-tight waistline. Now that I've gotten this brief, euphoric taste of what comfortable pants might feel like - being she, being her, being Dawn - I never, ever, want to go back.

 

Ugh. I shake my head a little as I pull out the trans pride flag lanyard that’s been hanging out of my jeans pocket - which I'd bought years ago because I loved Sky and wanted to show my support for them at every opportunity. Though, in retrospect, there'd been an ulterior motive there as well. A 'what-if'. What if I could be as free to be myself as Sky was? I pick out the house key by touch and jam it into the lock, anxiety boiling through my mind. I really want to be present with E tonight, to be here for her. But I have yet to find the 'stop' button on the raging river of emotions and thoughts rushing through my head. I had confessed one of my deepest, darkest secrets to her, and I was planning on announcing it to the world as soon as I could. To say I'm mortally terrified would be an understatement.

 

"So, your dads are out of town with Sky?" E asks conversationally, causing at least a dozen thought-trains to derail explosively in my head and slamming my awareness abruptly back into my body.

 

"Yep," I reply with shaky casualness, forcing myself to switch gears to this new topic of conversation as I push the heavy wooden door inward. At least I know the answer to this question. "Sky needed a break from school, and my dads both needed some time away from work. They'll be in Wisconsin until tomorrow afternoon at least."

 

The scents of pine and lavender greet us as we file into the front hall. I breathe them in deeply, letting the familiar aroma calm my beleaguered mind and ground me more firmly in the world around me.

 

E takes off her backpack and shoes as I close and lock the door, and I find myself slipping into our well-worn routine. E’s come home with me to hang out or study at least once a week for nearly a decade: her shoes have a place next to mine on the rack beside the door, her backpack has a reserved spot on the row of hooks set at chest-height on the right wall, and she knows the Andersons - my adoptive dads - actively want her to help herself to whatever snacks and drinks she can find in the pantry and fridge. She knows more about my life, about me, than basically anyone else in the world. 

 

"Their vacation destination of choice was Wisconsin?" she asks quizzically.

 

I flip on the hall lights, and give her a wry smile. "Sky really loved the Dells," I reply, "I guess they've been itching to get back there since our family water park trip last year. And they even got their friend Eve to come along too." 

 

I’d stayed behind to watch the house this week, mostly because I wanted the time to study and catch up on school work. Not that I super need all that time, I just like to be prepared for exams. And good thing too, because this way I get to spend time with E as we both try and figure out what the hell our next steps are in life.

 

We get to the kitchen, and I get myself a glass of water on autopilot. E grabs a soda from the fridge as I do, and continues the conversation.

 

“That makes sense, it sounds like a good time,” she says with a smile. She takes a drink from her pop and seems to think for a bit as I slide into the chair across from her with my water. When I glance up at her again, she has a more serious look on her face.

 

“So, uh, what do you want to do tonight?” she asks, standing behind her usual chair. She seems nervous, her eyes not quite meeting mine.

 

I take a drink as I ponder my answer. The truth is, of course, that I have no idea. None of my projections for how this day would go had made it this far. I’d cracked my cis eggshell at lunch, fretted about how I was going to tell E while also being there for her as an empathetic ear, and focused my planning entirely around getting time alone with her to have those talks.  

 

“Well,” I start honestly, “I’ve kinda been flying by the seat of my pants since I came out to myself. Connecting with you and hoping you came here with me was about as far as I’d gotten, planning wise. Is there anything you want to do? We’ve got the house and car to ourselves.”

 

E frowns, and leans forward on the back of the chair in front of her. It’s something I’ve seen her do countless times before, and yet now I fight to keep a big, dumb smile off my face. Because now it’s her doing it, she’s in my kitchen. There's a girl right here in my house and she's my best friend. Holy shit!

 

For a moment, I can only stare at her in wonder.

 

“I, uh, I’ve had kind of a crazy day,” she says after a few moments, her voice a little hesitant. Her eyes don’t quite meet mine, which is generally a clear indication that there’s stuff she doesn’t know how to talk about on her mind.

 

It seems like she's about to go on, but she stops with her mouth halfway open. Her eyes flick further to my left, and one of her eyebrows rises slightly as she peers rather intensely into the empty air. It’s the kind of look she shoots me whenever I text her memes in the middle of our family dinner. Like she’s just been interrupted and is annoyed by whatever broke her train of thought. It's just the two of us here though, she’s glancing at empty space. Her eyes return to mine a second later, and she continues talking as if the strange moment hadn’t just happened.

 

“Could we maybe chill out and play games for a while?” she asks, before wincing slightly. She grimaces and holds a hand to the side of her head.

 

“You okay?” I ask her with concern.

 

She puts on a brave face. “Yeah no I’m fine, it’s just a little headache. Anyway, I think games sound better than talking tonight. I’ve got some other stuff on my mind besides gender, amazingly, and I could kinda use a break from thinking in general.” Her voice is filled with equal parts sincerity and exhaustion.

 

I grin at her reflexively, the strangeness forgotten in the rush of excitement I feel about the prospect of a normal, chill hang out tonight. I start to think of the handful of games we can lose ourselves in together, already looking forward to forgetting about the stress of the day for a while. Another facet of my joy is due to the fact getting sucked into an engaging game world with E is honestly one of my favorite things to do in the world.

 

"Hell yes!" I exclaim, barely restraining myself from pumping a fist in the air. "Let's make the pizza now and then head upstairs for games?"

 

"Sounds good to me," E says with relief, clearly delighted by my enthusiasm.

 

We take a few more minutes to chill, before I finally stand up to begin the pizza making process.

 

---

 

I lug an entire twelve pack of colas with me as I start up the kitchen stairs. E and I had made and eaten our homemade gluten free pizza in record time, and now I'm buzzing with excitement at the prospect of playing games.

 

There's only one way up to the second floor, and it starts right beside where the entry hallway enters the kitchen. Sky and I’s bedrooms are upstairs, along with a cozy common room where we generally watch TV and play games. E had disappeared up to said room a few minutes ago, her arms loaded up with various chip bags and cookie containers. 

 

He- dammit, she, I correct myself forcefully, shaking my head a little as I reach the top of the stairs. I’ve been getting better and better at thinking with E’s new pronouns since she first asked for them. Sky’s told me multiple times that I don’t need to waste energy beating myself up for making mistakes, that I can make it up to them by just focusing on correcting myself and moving on. And that’s helpful, because of course habits take time to break, but also I can’t stand the thought of hurting either my sibling’s or E’s feelings by speaking without thinking. Hence the mindfulness exercises: I need to be actively working on getting E’s pronouns right, or else I’ll spend countless hours feeling like shit whenever I accidentally misgender her in my head.

 

The stairs turn left at the top, opening into the start of the hallway that runs the length of the upper floor of the house. To my right is Sky's cyan-colored door, and to the left is the fifteen meter or so carpeted corridor with the open common space at the end. My own burnt-orange door is halfway down the hall on the right, with Jay's forest green office door across from it on the left. 

 

I carry the soda to the open room at the end of the hall, and find E dragging the brown leather couch a little closer to the TV, the pile of snacks set beside it.

 

“I've brought the supplies you requisitioned, ma'am,” I announce as I enter the room. 

 

No one else in the family likes the cheap cola that E cherishes, but we keep it well stocked for whenever she comes over, and I’d eventually developed a taste for the stuff myself over the years.

 

The girl in question grins and rolls her eyes at me as I set the drinks down on the other side of the couch. 

 

"Excellent work kitchen wench," she replies, "Now help me choose the entertainment for tonight."

 

She turns away with a military-esque stiffness, then kneels down before the small chest-height bookcase full of console games that we’ve collected over the years. Excitement for the hours of gaming to come flows through me once more, and I move to kneel beside her and join in the search. Most of the co-op games here we've already played through at least once. In this day and age, there’s really not that many big games with co-op anymore. Fortunately, both of us love playing through good games more than once. I see E's already analysing the top shelf, where all our favorites are sorted by how much we want to replay them. I feel my heart do a little somersault of happiness as she reaches out and takes hold of the bright pastel-colored case for To Be A Princess.

 

“How about we kick some kingly ass like old times tonight?” she asks me with a knowing smile.

 

It’s the first game we’d ever played through together when we were first starting to hang out in middle school. Which meant it was also the first time we’d surprised each other by both choosing to play as girls. 

 

“Yes please!” I exclaim. “Now feels like the best possible time to revisit Maddie and Eliza.”

 

Maddie and Eliza had been the names for our characters each time we’d played through TBAP in the past, and E seems to understand what I mean.

 

“Holy shit yes! I... ha, I always loved getting to be Eliza for a little while,” she says wistfully.

 

“Oh gods same,” I say emphatically. "I guess that makes a lot more sense now, huh?"

 

E blinks at me. "Huh, y'know I hadn't thought about that but you're totally right," she replies.

 

---

 

We busy ourselves with getting the right console plugged in, finding its controllers in the big box of Old Game Stuff next to the TV, and settling in for a long night of play. It’s a comforting routine, and it helps me start to relax after all the excitement and anxiety of the day. I find memories of our first time playing our chosen title, To Be A Princess, coming back to me as I go through the familiar motions of setting everything up.

 

Like I remember that first day, sitting on an old couch in this very room swathed in blankets and pillows to keep out the winter cold. Little me had seen my new friend E hovering her cursor conflictedly over the Princess character as we were choosing who to play, and I’d immediately decided to pick that character too, so she wouldn’t feel like there was any pressure to play as a boy. 

 

Of course, in hindsight, I can tell just how eager little-Dawn had been to latch onto any excuse she could think of for playing the girl. Like, there were so many other options there other than ‘play as a girl too’, but none of them had even entered my mind. Technically, the marketing for the game had called it ‘To Be a Prince’, and that was on the box too, due to, you know, sexism. But the box had reversible cover art with the ‘To Be A Princess’ title as well as a badass lady swordswoman on the back, instead of the default dude. If I remember right, after we’d been playing the game for a week straight E and I had wordlessly decided to switch the art to the Princess side. Ever since then we’d always referred to it as Princess whenever we talked about it, too. At the time it hadn’t been a big deal to me, I’d thought I was just a boy who thought that girls should be warrior-leaders too. 

 

Whenever I’d thought about those memories in the past, I’d always wondered why I’d felt such joy playing this game. The gameplay was okay, and the story and cute romance side arcs were good. I’d figured out in later playthroughs that the many cute outfits for my character were a big part of my love for it, too. I’d loved the various blouses and skirts and pants, though I’d never looked too hard at the reasons behind that love. Now of course, mini-me’s enjoyment and exploration of feminine presentation make so much more sense. 

 

As we start up a new game file and get to the character select screen, I feel my spirits rise even further. It is with a deeply visceral and satisfying feeling of rightness that I select the woman avatar. As I choose, once more, to be a princess.

 

---

 

[ - Two hours later - ]

 

“Keep them off me!” E cries, as her character dashes forwards on-screen.

 

My mage holds both hands aloft, drawing upon the immense power in her Hero’s blood and shaping it to her will as I mash the sequence of buttons needed to complete the spell. Just as E reaches the crowd of demons and henchmen in between us and the evil Wizard boss, a blast of concussive force sends the first few ranks flying backward. I shout in wordless triumph and focus on casting my next spell: a much harder button combo that summons an ice storm to slow and freeze any enemies unlucky enough to be caught within it. E’s freeze-resistant armor and enchantments let her sprint through the storm long before any of her foes can react, and another quick sequence of magic commands from me draws the murderous attention of every enemy in the arena away from her. 

 

E’s character puts on a burst of speed, dashing forwards and impacting the purple-robed wizard boss with a sword blow that knocks him clean across the back half of the stage. She closes the distance again in a heartbeat and starts wailing on the dude with a variety of impact-heavy spells and sword attacks: breaking his focus each time he tries to cast his uniquely deadly magic, and steadily knocking his health bar down with each hit to the crystal at the tip of his oaken staff.

 

I can’t focus on her any longer though. My screen remains focused on the front half of the arena, where the soldiers still loyal to the Twin Princesses - our characters Eliza and Madeline - stand beside my character firing arrow after arrow into the enemy horde before us. I begin casting spells to help keep both our allies alive and the nastiest of the demons distracted with vines, ice, or paralysis for as long as possible. Eliza is far outside my healing range, but since I’m able to draw the attention of every other enemy, she should theoretically be able to handle the boss solo.

 

It goes on like this for maybe ten minutes, the both of us dead silent as we focus on getting perfect timing on our combo attacks. TBAP’s complicated system of weaving spells and attacks together to do special moves is more intuitive than anything I’ve ever seen before, but it does require a hell of a lot of focus and finger strength to use effectively. 

 

The only sound in the room is the dull clicking and slapping sounds of the button presses and joystick maneuverings. E’d muted the TV for this part, just like she did every other time we’d faced this boss. The audio was slightly triggering for me, because the game devs had done a really good job of portraying our characters’ despair and outrage as the wizard taunts them with details of their parents’ death. As a kid I may or may not have spent an hour crying about it when we first got to this level, and I’ve been eternally grateful that E’s never tried to pry about it. She’d just stayed by my side, and every time we’d gotten to this part since then she’s given me a wordless look as we start the fight. Tonight, as with all the other times, I’d understood the look and nodded at her gratefully. She’d muted the game, and on we went.

 

I’m startled out of my tunnel vision on the game by E whooping with joy from beside me on the futon. I flick my eyes to her side of the screen to watch Lady Eliza land the final blow on the wizard’s staff, shattering the crystal at its tip (which had contained his mortal soul) and ending the entire boss battle before the soldiers and I had killed even half of the other, smaller enemies. 

 

“Fuck yes!” I exclaim, caught up in her excitement. 

 

We’d quickly realized that the past few years of playing more intense combat-focused games is helping us understand the damage systems in TBAP at least an order of magnitude better than we had when we were younger. Now we know exactly how much fun it can be to make our characters ridiculously overpowered in specific scenarios. My mage could do insane amounts of crowd control without breaking a sweat, and E’s spellsword could one-shot most mobs if they were at full health. 

 

It’s an incredible relief to be done with this part of the game so soon. All our min-maxing seems to be paying off, and I can’t help but laugh as E settles down next to me.

 

“What are you giggling about?” she asks quizzically.

 

“That fight took us like nine tries senior year,” I say happily, “You killed that bastard faster than the cutscene before the fight!”

 

“Damn right I did,” she replies with a little smile, “and you had the entire horde focused exactly where you wanted them. Ladies Eliza and Madeline seem to make a great team.”

 

I grin broadly at her. 

 

“They sure do,” I say, and then I can’t stop myself from adding, “just like us.”

 

E’s eyes go wide, and I feel a blush heat up my cheeks as her own turn pink. Dammit! Had that been awkward? I hadn’t meant to make things awkward again! I scramble to come up with a way to defuse the sudden tension between us, but E speaks up before I get very far.

 

“Y-yeah,” she says softly, “we really do make a good team, Dawn. I mean it. Thanks for having my back.”

 

I stare at her with wide eyes. The combination of the warmth in her voice and her use of my name sends my emotions spinning out of control. I’m sure my flusteredness is clear as day to her, but she just smiles kindly at me. 

 

“I- uh, y-you’re welcome,” I manage to squeak out.

 

E’s smile just grows wider, and I’m struck by the strangeness of the situation. Neither of us seems willing to tease or joke like we usually would, to cover up this moment of vulnerability between us. Instead we just sit here, smiling at each other and enjoying the moment.  I don’t know what she’s thinking about; I’m too busy drinking in her soft little smile and losing myself in her gently twinkling eyes. 

 

And I realize, very suddenly, that I’m not just starting to see my best friend as a girl.

 

I’m starting to majorly crush on my best friend as a girl. 

End of

Chapter 7.d - Extremely Good Friends Who Are Girls