Week two did not arrive with fireworks.

It arrived with soreness.

Brett woke up on day eight in the big bed at the Cocoon and his entire body ached in a way the gym never made him ache. Not from lifting. From holding. From the corset he'd slept in for seven nights straight, from walking in heels until his arches screamed, from holding his voice up in his throat until his jaw throbbed.

He rolled onto his side and the steel bones creaked. He was twenty-one, five foot eight, and when he stepped on the scale in the marble bathroom the red numbers blinked 164. Eleven pounds gone in ten days. His face in the mirror was different already. Less puffy. His big blue eyes looked bigger because his cheeks were hollowing out. His full lips looked wider against a narrowing jaw.

He touched his face with fingertips that were softer from Julian's lotions. He still had his short blonde hair under the wig cap, but the girl looking back had his mother's bone structure finally showing through.

He swallowed his pink pill with green juice. Day eight.

Elena met him in the kitchen and frowned at his plate. "We're dropping to eleven hundred today, Brielle. Your metabolism is adapting."

Brett, who used to eat entire pizzas alone after warehouse shifts, just nodded. Hunger had become background noise, like the hum of the heated floors.

Nico took him to the gym and didn't let him run. "No. Pilates reformer. We are carving, not building."

Brett lay on the machine and pulled straps while Nico watched his form. Sweat beaded on his forehead and rolled down his temples. His arms, once thick from lifting boxes, were getting leaner. The muscle wasn't gone, but it was smoothing out. When he caught his reflection in the wall of mirrors, his shoulders still looked broad, but his waist, cinched in the workout corset, dipped in.

"Good," Nico said, and it was the first time he'd said it. "Again."

Mara made him carry books on his head across the pool deck in four-inch nude pumps. He didn't fall once on day nine. On day ten she added a dress.

It was simple. Black, wrap style, size four. Julian zipped him into it over the corset.

Brett stared at himself. The dress clung to the new dip of his waist and flared over hips that didn't exist yet. The neckline showed his collarbones, sharp now, and the little gold B necklace Lance gave him.

"Walk," Mara commanded.

He walked. The heels clicked on the stone. The dress swished around his knees. He kept his shoulders down, his chin level, his hands soft. Halfway across, he realized he wasn't thinking about the steps anymore. His body remembered.

"Stop," Mara said. She walked around him slowly. "Look at me."

Brett turned his big blue eyes to her.

"There she is," Mara whispered. "Hello, Brielle."

Brett's breath caught in the corset and his eyes filled instantly. He pressed his glossed lips together so he wouldn't sob and ruin his makeup.

That afternoon David recorded his voice. "Read the passage. Keep the smile."

Brett read about a princess in a tower, and his voice, that soft alto he'd been building, didn't wobble once. It floated. It sounded like a girl on the phone.

David played it back. Brett listened to himself and felt his stomach flip with something that wasn't fear. It was pride.

The hormones were doing quiet work too. On day eleven Brett got out of the shower and his chest was tender to the touch. Not much, just a small ache behind his nipples. He stood in the steam and cupped his hands over himself and felt tears come hot and fast. He wasn't growing anything yet, but his body was listening to the pink pill. It was changing for him, not for Lance.

He texted Lance that night at 9 pm because Lance always texted first.

Lance: Week 2. Numbers?

Brett: Weight 164. Waist 29. Corset 22 hours. Walked in heels in a dress today. Voice held.

Lance: Good. Keep going.

No you looked pretty. No send a picture. Just good. Just business. Just the friend who wasn't attracted to him yet, who had meant it when he said no more pictures till I'm back.

Brett set the phone down and didn't cry. He went to the vanity, put on the honey blonde wig, and practiced his eyeliner until both wings were perfect and sharp enough to cut.

On day twelve Julian taught him how to do a full face for evening. Contour to soften his jaw, highlight to lift his smaller than average nose, blush to bring life to cheeks that were getting hollow. When Julian turned the chair, Brett didn't see Brett in makeup anymore.

He saw Brielle. Really saw her.

She had his mother's big blue eyes and his own full lips painted a soft rose. She had long blonde hair and a neck that looked elegant with the gold B. She looked tired and determined and beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with being pretty for a man.

"Oh," Brett whispered in his girl voice, and his hand flew to his mouth.

Julian smiled in the mirror behind him. "There you are."

On day fourteen, the end of week two, Brett stood on the scale again. 162. Thirteen pounds down from the boy who walked into O'Malley's. He measured his waist over the corset. Twenty-eight and a half inches.

He stood in front of the full-length mirror in the black wrap dress, the wig, the heels, full makeup, and he posed the way Mara taught him. Hip out, shoulder down, hands soft at his sides.

The doorbell camera pinged his phone. A delivery. He opened it in his dress and heels, and the driver didn't blink. "Miss Brielle? Sign here."

Miss.

Brett signed with a shaking hand and closed the door and leaned against it and laughed, a bright, real, girlish laugh that surprised him.

That night at 9 pm Lance texted: Two weeks. Halfway to me coming home. How are you feeling?

Brett looked at his reflection in the dark window, at the girl in the glass with the long hair and the cinched waist and the soft eyes.

He typed back slowly, feeling each word.

Slow. It hurts. I'm lonely. But I'm starting to see her. Not for you. For me.

The three dots pulsed a long time.

Then: That's exactly what I wanted to hear. Keep going, Brielle.

Brett read his new name on Lance's screen and pressed the phone to his corseted chest, right over his tender, changing heart.

Week two was done. The improvements were slow, and painful, and real.…