4 ~ It Would Be Years Before I’d Face It
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I sat cross-legged on my bed, staring down at the can in my hands. Somehow I felt… guilty. Like this was wrong. Like I was letting someone down?

I guess I had to be awfully disappointing to, like, the abstract collective masculine consciousness. Which seems silly, but I had spent my life being pretty fucking wrapped up in whether or not I was doing right by an unwritten set of guy rules, and it was hard to let go of that entirely. Even if Sam and Elise were right… I didn’t exactly like the person I felt like I was becoming because of this.

Maybe I should be doing this with Elise and Sam. But… I felt like I had to be selfish here. This felt too personal, in a way. Like it affected them, for sure. It couldn’t not. But this wasn’t something I was deciding for them. This was about me, and I had to make that choice for myself.

So here I sat, thinking through everything. I know I’d always been a bit slower to catch onto things than my friends, but I also know that I figure it out in the end if I try. And that’s why I had spent an hour turning it over and over in my head. There were some things about masculinity that I still liked and valued. I liked the idea of being the one strong enough to protect my friends. I liked feeling like I had a code of some kind, though maybe more of one connected to honor and fair play than any kind of performative machismo. I had to admit that all the stuff about competition and good sportsmanship and ‘leaving it all on the field’… it all just really clicked with me. But how much of that was really totally inherent to masculinity? You could be a girl and still be someone who works hard and gives it her all and stands up for her friends. 

So what did gender even mean when you stripped away the expectations and assumptions and just got to the heart of things? On one hand, why should anyone sweat the details? Why not look at people in whatever way they want? People are way more complex and interesting than some arbitrary reductive binary could show. But in that case, why should I even care about changing? Shouldn’t I be able to be happy with how things are?

I wasn’t, like… unhappy. I think. Probably.

I rolled the can back and forth in my hands.

But then, what would it hurt? Just because life was bearable wasn’t an excuse for not trying to make it even better. You didn’t start coasting just as soon as you set a new personal best. That had never been my style. I wanted to push myself. I wanted to fight, and sweat, and bleed, and pry my victories out of the hands of my enemies. 

I wasn’t scared of a stupid can of orange soda, and I wasn’t scared of the change it represented either. I could handle it. With a hiss, I popped the tab open. Then I drank it, in one big gulp.

I almost gagged. The orange flavor was just so syrupy and synthetic. This couldn’t be healthy. But I forced it down, making a face. And then I waited.

Nothing happened.

“Seriously?” I said out loud. I moved to try and stand up, and then a sudden wave of vertigo hit me. It was like I was falling, from a great height but also down right into my own body. I screwed my eyes shut as my head spun.

And then everything was still again. 

One of my eyes cracked open a sliver. Was that it? I guess I should have done this somewhere closer to a mirror.

I didn’t feel that different. Which… did that mean I was like Sam, and wasn’t taking to the changes particularly well? Oof, my stomach sank at what that might mean. Was this a sign that this was a terrible decision?

I very carefully raised one arm. Was it thinner? Maybe a little bit? But honestly I felt a little relieved, because if all of my muscle mass evaporated, I don’t know how exactly I would have felt about that. The hairs on my arms were finer, too, thin and blonde and barely indistinguishable from my skin. That was kind of nice. My fingers definitely look a little smaller, more slender perhaps. Yeah, okay. Things have changed. And so far, I could work with this.

I took a deep breath, and then tilted my head down, confronting my torso.

Oh. Yup. One hand went on an exploratory mission, revealing two new additions. I had to bite back a soft sound as I grazed a particularly sensitive part of anatomy. Things have changed indeed. This… this would take some getting used to. And, um, maybe some support? I couldn’t exactly go running in the morning like this. But… but if I had a sports bra… ooh and some cute running shorts? And a headband, and I could pull my hair back and—

I swallowed. I was getting ahead of myself. My hands drifted up to my hair, and it… felt softer? It would take some time, but I bet it wouldn’t be too long before I was able to pull my hair back into a short ponytail after all. A smile tugged at my lips. Was this the euphoria that Elise was talking about? So far all these changes didn’t seem bad at all. It felt like warm, sticky sunlight all pooling in my stomach, keeping me so happy and content that it had to be shining out through my whole body.

I giggled. And then I gasped at the sound of that giggle. That came from me?

“Hi,” I said. “Hey. How’s it going? Haha.”

My voice was husky, on the lower side for a girl but definitively feminine. That was me. I had a hard time even processing it. Fuck, yes, the songs I could sing along to now!

There was just one last thing. Filled with momentary trepidation, I lifted the front of my pants, squinting down with one eye closed. And then I breathed out a sigh of relief. Okay. Cool. Perfect.

I took another look at the can of soda, now completely empty. This was some surprisingly good shit. Maybe those bad guys should quit the giant robot fights that kept wrecking the same two or three empty blocks of half-finished construction and start over with a new gig as gender therapists. I only hoped that even though I was a day late, I could still get in on some of the disaster-relief benefits. The least the government could do would be to hook me up with a new ID and stuff, right? That’d make explaining this a lot easier.

Because, fuck, I’m going to have to explain this now, aren’t I? Especially to the people who knew I didn’t just have it accidentally happen in the first wave. I was going to have to explain it to Sam, and Elise, and…

“Knock knock,” Dad said, knocking lightly on the door too. “You in there?”

I froze, complete deer in headlights. I couldn’t even say anything, not sounding the way I did now. So I just watched as he cracked the door open, poking his head in.

He looked me up and down, then he opened the door entirely, taking a hesitant step inside. I swallowed. “Hey Dad,” I said. “Yeah. What’s up?”

He looked guarded, but then a smile broke through, and the tension in my chest unspooled into relief. “You good with leftover spaghetti for dinner? We need to make a grocery run but I’m trying to hang on until the weekend so we can do it all at once.”

“Oh,” I said. “I was actually going to go over to Sam’s. I think we might sleep over in the old treehouse. You know, for old times’ sake.”

“Sure,” he said. “All the more spaghetti for me!” He chuckled and started to leave, but then hesitated. “Hey sport—uh, is it okay if I call you sport?”

“Yeah, Dad,” I said, a wavering smile on my face. “Of course.”

“I was just thinking, if we’re out shopping this weekend, why don’t we stop by a few places and get you some new clothes, too?”

For some reason my eyes were getting a little misty. “Y-yeah. I’d really like that.”

“Attagirl,” he said.

I stood up, still feeling a bit shy and embarrassed. “Could I— could I get a hug, Dad?”

“Bring it in, sport,” he said, throwing his arms wide. I crashed into him, almost bowling him over, but he just chuckled. He always did give the best hugs. Why had it been so long since I had last given him a hug? Oh, right, because I was trying to be a stoic emotionless dude. Ugh.

“One more thing,” he said, ruffling my hair with one hand. “If you’re staying the night over with Sam and Elise, uh… Sam turned back into a guy, right?”

“Yeah?”

He paused, considering his words. “So I know we’ve had one talk already that was kind of from the… bee perspective. But maybe we need to have one that’s a little more… birdy? Which I admit isn’t my specialty, but your old man has been around the block a few times, and—” 

Dad!” I said, in abject horror.

“I’m just saying that I want you to be safe and careful, okay? Do you need me to get you some protection?”

DAD.

He nodded serenely. “Better safe than sorry. But you’re right, that Sam is a good kid. I’m certain he’d make sure to use a condom.”

I made some kind of strangled noise, and he patted me on the back. “Have a good time, honey!” he called out, and then breezily left the room, leaving me dealing with the fallout of nuclear-grade embarrassment, in the way that only a parent could inflict.

I guess some things would never change.

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