funnysilly

Hey! Wanted to hold off this chapter until Thanksgiving. Lots of angst in this one, but it's a necessary turning point for Eliza. This is also where my backlog ends, so I might switch to posting new chapters once a week. Enjoy!

Eliza Hammond

♫ Rich Girl - Nina Simone ♫

I wish I could say my life immediately improved after my talk with Will. But October proved to be one of those months that passed far too quickly and without much incident. I woke up on November first a-la Rip Van Winkle: wondering where the time went, long white beard and all. There was a strange dichotomy to it. On one hand, it felt like the days flew by, but on the other, I hadn’t actually done anything with them. Will and I were slightly closer, sure. We talked during class, studied together, and sometimes even hung out at his apartment. But resolving my worries about Will had only caused my brain to worry incessantly about other things. Like my friendship with Alicia, which felt like it was slowly falling from my grasp. Or my body, which felt stagnantly painful.

But that was how my life had gone for the last two years. Once I’d been on estrogen for around a year, it was like my body decided “that’s all folx!'' and stopped changing. I still had the same saggy tits and rough skin. Ugh. Maybe it was because I hadn’t made any conscious effort to change things. I tried to train my voice for a few months, then stopped practicing. I looked for surgeons, then gave up. It was as though an existential weight kept me from putting effort into things, even if those things would improve my life a great deal. The banality of it all was an improvement over the familial drama that came before, and the harsh self-realization that came before that, but it still wasn't enjoyable.

I can’t say things were all bad, though. Hanging out with Will was… nice. He was kind, gentle, and easy to be around. I felt like I could be myself around him. And my life was better than the depression I felt at the end of September. I’d cleaned my dorm, got an A- in a science midterm, and even ate more than once a day! I still had plenty to fuss about, but no longer having the Will-related Sword of Damocles dangling above my head helped a lot.

That’s where I was at the start of November. To be exact, I was playing video games with Alicia, Will, and Zoe. Zoe’s apartment was roughly equivalent in size to Will’s, but there was this fundamental bougieness to it that Will’s lacked. There was a fancy couch in the living room, three(!) gaming consoles, and a two-monitor PC setup with a light-up keyboard*. She had one of those galaxy light thingies that were advertised on TikTok, along with an amount of plushies that I personally found felonious. But she owned Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, so I hung out there as much as I possibly could.

(*If you think it wasn’t lit up in the trans colors, then you don’t know Zoe.)

I’d just won a landslide victory in the Mushroom Cup when my phone started ringing. I was a little surprised. The three people who called me most often were sitting next to me on the couch. I picked it up to see– “Fuuuuuuuuck,” I moaned.

“What? Who’s calling?” Alicia asked.

“Ugh. My dad,” I answered, face embedded into a pillow.

“You should pick it up,” Will interjected.

“But I don’t wanna,” I whined. Will gave me a stern look, which, when coupled with his trademark disappointed eyes, caused me to cave instantly. Not happily, though. I spoke to my father reluctantly, and I’m sure my beleaguered tone did nothing to hide that fact. “Hello, dad. What’s up?”

“Ah, uh, hey Emmett–er, Eliza. How’ve you been?” He spoke in that stilted way dads do when they’re desperately trying to win your approval but know you don’t care enough to give it. I looked at my friends and dramatically rolled my eyes.

“Fine,” I snapped. “I’ve been fine.”

“Great, that’s... great.” He cleared his throat. I could feel the Parental Guilt™ through the phone. “Been doing anything interesting lately?”

“Not really, dad.” Beat. “Listen, is there a point to this call?”

“Oh! Yes, actually. I was just wondering… you know, Thanksgiving is coming up, and I was hoping you’d come up to be with the family.”

I choked back a scoff. “What family, dad? It’s just us.”

“Well, your sister might want to–”

This time I did scoff. “I’m good, trust me.”

Silence hung in the air for a moment. I hoped the fact that I wasn’t coming home for Thanksgiving had started to sink in. “You know your mom’s not doing great,” he added.

“I said I’m good.”

He sighed, deeply and sadly. “Could you at least come back for winter break?”

I knew there was no getting out of that. I had five weeks of winter break, so it was expected that I’d at least go home for one or two of them. “Yeah, dad, I’ll come back,” I grumbled.

“Good, thank you. You know I miss you, all the way out there in New York.”

“I know, dad, but I’m fine by myself. Love you.” That’s talking-to-parents speak for ‘I’m hanging up now.’

He sighed again. “Love you too, Eliza.”

I hung up, then leaned back on the couch. I could feel the eyes of my friends burning holes in my hoodie. My dad really wasn’t a bad person; my attitude mostly came from the fact that I hated small talk. I still do, actually. Parents will talk to you for ten minutes about random bullshit just because they want to, what? Interact with you? Disgusting.

My dad was probably the best dad I could ask for, at least considering how bad I was at being his kid. He was just… I don’t know, a manlet? He was a little cuck boy. A chubby little fifty-three-year-old waif of a man. He kneeled at my mom’s size fourteen feet for twenty-five years before her abuse became too much to bear, and now he just sat in his studio apartment reading books. Like some old, depressed hermit!

Needless to say, I wasn’t going home for Thanksgiving.

I turned towards my friends and tried to pretend the phone call that definitely just happened hadn’t just happened. “So, wanna play some Jackbox?” I asked lightly.

But Alicia didn’t let things go that easily. “Jeez, Eliza, what was that? You were totally frigid towards him!”

“Look,” I answered, clearly not in the mood to relitigate my family bonds. “I just wanted him to know that I’m not flying back to Michigan for some stupid holiday. Not when it’ll just be us, anyway,” I added.

“Hmm,” Zoe hemmed. “What if you came to my house for Thanksgiving instead?” She was making eyes at Alicia as she asked, clearly trying to communicate something beyond my understanding. Alicia shook her head, while Zoe nodded vigorously. I looked between the two of them in confusion.

“Umm, I, uh, appreciate the offer, but wouldn’t it be just as inconvenient as flying back to Michigan?” I said, trying to find any excuse to stay home.

“Oh, no! My parents live on Long Island. It’s, like, a fifty-minute train ride.” Technically, we were already on Long Island, but I wasn’t going to be a little bitch about it.

On one hand, I really, really didn’t want to go. I’d not only have to meet a bunch of new people, but I’d also have to wedge myself into their already-established family dynamic. But on the other hand, what kind of self-respecting American passes up free food? “If it won’t be too much trouble, then yeah, I’ll come.”

Alicia and Zoe nodded to each other. “In that case, I’ll show you how to get there,” Alicia said, correctly presuming my lack of directional skills. She was a Williamsburg native–’born and raised in Los Sures, baby!’ she’d once said–so navigating to Nassau County wouldn’t be much of a hassle for her.

“Cool,” I said. “Um, can Will come too?”

“Sure,” Zoe answered, at the same time Will said, “I can’t. I’m working.”

We all turned towards Will with varying levels of shock. “On Thanksgiving?!” Zoe asked Will, absolutely stunned.

“Um, yeah? I need the money, and it pays extra to work on holidays.”

“Wow,” Zoe muttered to herself, as if discovering the horrors of capitalism for the first time. Though considering her apartment, that wasn’t super unlikely. “Um, anyway. We’ll see you there, Eliza!”

As it turned out, “there” turned out to be Port Washington, a wealthy suburb on the Long Island Sound. If you want to understand just how unfathomably bougie Port Washington is, just know that it’s home to three yacht clubs. Jeez. At least it wasn’t the Hamptons. So, I arrived in Port Washington–the inspiration for The Great Gatsby, by the way–on the Long Island Railroad early in the afternoon. The train station was only a mile away from the address Zoe had given me. It was a sunny day, so I decided to walk through the halcyon streets of Long Island, head stuffed into my fluffy jacket. The streets were lined with old growth oak and those yard signs that said shit like “Hate isn’t welcome here, and neither are the homeless.” Siri led me to a quiet cul-de-sac called Orchard Heights, which is still the wealthiest street name I’ve ever seen. The Sepulveda manor–and it was a manor–was located at 69 Orchard Heights, which is funny when you consider the sex number. The house was a two-story brick colonial nestled amongst a copse of cedar trees, on a lawn that easily exceeded three acres. It was so idyllic, it made me want to throw up.

Her driveway, which of course was a cobblestone semicircle, was already full of cars. I’m no car gal, but even I knew there were some nice-ass cars in the bunch. I swear I saw a Tesla Cybertruck parked in the three-car garage. I knocked, only to be met by sounds of chaos from behind the cherry wood door. I heard Zoe yell out “I swear to god Devon, if you don’t open that door, I’m going to wreck your shit Genghis-style!”

Then, after a few more seconds of what sounded like cymbals clanging together, the door was opened by a lanky, black-haired, acne-ridden teenage boy. He looked me over, grimaced slightly, then exclaimed, “Zoe, she’s one of yours!” Zoe quickly rushed into the foyer wearing a cute pink-and-white apron with ‘MY OTHER APRON IS A PORSCHE’ printed in big block text. She gave me the unusual and uncommon feeling that I was overdressed for a gathering. Great. Her family was intact and business casual.

The house was bustling with activity. Grandparents doted over grandkids in the dining room, a couple uncles were watching football in the living room, and I heard loud cooking noises from the kitchen. “Hey, Eliza!” Zoe exclaimed over the din.

“Hey. Who was that guy who opened the door?”

“Oh, that’s my brother Devon. He sucks.”

“I can imagine.” I looked around the house, and I noticed again just how many tiny people there were running around. “Um. How many cousins do you have?”

“Twenty, but only sixteen of them are here.”

“Jesus,” I mumbled. Personally, I felt like twenty cousins was a little overkill. I had one cousin, a twenty-five-year-old architect named Tim, and that was all I needed. He was a bit of a wet blanket, but hey, boring is better than hateful. Speaking of hateful, I asked Zoe, “Are they… good?”

She got the barely-hidden implication of my question. “About my transition, you mean? Yeah, they’re all really great. I had one uncle who was a bit of a prick, but my parents stopped talking to him.” Her grin was bright enough to give me a sunburn. Though given my skin color, that wasn’t a very high bar.

“That’s awesome,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’m really happy for you.”

She kept going. “Yeah, I’m really glad, because I honestly don’t know what I’d do if they didn’t accept me.”

I gave a hollow smile at that, as any totally non-jealous person would. “So, uh, is Alicia here yet?”

“Yeah! She’s in the kitchen helping my parents with some last-minute meal prep.”

Glad to have an out to the conversation, I started moseying towards the kitchen. “Cool. I’ll be… over there, then.”

The kitchen was already full of food, finished and unfinished. An older Hispanic woman, who I presumed was Zoe’s mother, tended to the stuffing, while Zoe’s equally-old, equally-Hispanic father lanced the turkey with a meat thermometer. Alicia was sitting on the couch near two of Zoe’s younger cousins, far away from the bustle of the ovens. “Is this what counts as ‘helping with the cooking?'” I asked Alicia, alerting her to my presence.

“Hi, Eliza!” She smiled at me. “I guess it does. Wanna join me?”

I bit my lip. “I’m not the best chef, so I don’t know…”

“Come on,” she grinned, patting the empty seat next to her.

I made a show of rolling my eyes, then moved to sit down on the couch. “Fine.” I was feeling a little sore after my mile-long hike from the train station, so I stretched my legs and put my arms behind my head. In front of the couch, but still distant from the kitchen counter, two kids were jumping around. They looked around seven, but given my lack of knowledge about kids, they could have been anywhere from two to twelve. “Who are these dudes?” I gestured at the kids in our personal space like a Pharoah gesturing for a grape.

“Oh, those are Zoe’s cousins.” Alicia lowered her voice to a whisper, saying “I don’t remember their names.”

I grunted. “I don’t know why I came in here. I’m really not good with kids.” I slowly inched away from the boy whose toy car was repeatedly ramming into my toes.

“I dunno,” Alicia responded. “I think they’re kinda sweet.”

Part of me really wanted to test that claim. “Hey kids,” I asked, “what do you think of your cousin Zoe?”

“She’s pretty!” the girl cousin said.

“And tall!” the boy cousin added. I nodded solemnly in agreement. Jesus. Even the kids gendered her correctly! Part of me wondered what I was doing wrong to be seen as male so often. Zoe didn’t pass, at least not to me. She was tall, broad-shouldered, and had an atrocious fashion sense (not that I was much better). But she must have been something I wasn’t. How else could she have been accepted so casually by the people around her?

Even before my family went to shit, Thanksgivings at the Hammond household were never really enjoyable. It was always a micromanaged, over-important event. I’d spend days helping my mom with the cooking, and then during the meal itself, we were only allowed to take a certain amount of food. Everything had an order to it, too, as my mom didn’t tolerate “chit chat” about “idle subjects.” Thanksgiving at the Sepulvedas was anything but subdued. Even during dinner, kids were running around the table, and seven moderately engaging conversations were happening at the same time. It was nice. So nice, I couldn’t help but feel like an outsider.

Zoe’s parents spent most of dinner congratulating her. “She’s doing so well in her classes!” her father gushed. “And she has such a beautiful girlfriend!” her mother added. It was a sort of unconditional proudness that I’d not received from my own family. Hell, they even congratulated her for living alone... in an apartment they paid for! I tried to tell myself that I didn’t want this kind of relationship. My mother, as terrible as she was, at least told me the truth. She’d tell me I looked like an ugly piece of shit without thinking twice. That was good. That brought me down to earth. I didn’t want to be hugboxed, right? But Zoe’s parents were so kind, so effortlessly accepting. I always thought I didn’t want a relationship based on false validation until I saw it for myself. Now, all I felt was a hole of yearning that could never really be filled.

Well, that’s not entirely true. There was another feeling too, deep under the surface. I felt a roiling sense of anger, softly yelling ‘She doesn’t deserve this! Why does she get all this while I’m still so pathetic?’ Midway through dinner, I had to excuse myself. I saw Alicia spare me a pitious look, but no one else really cared. I mean, there were twenty people at the table. What did I expect? I quickly walked away from the table and out of the dining room.

I spent the next few minutes dazedly walking around Zoe’s house. The house felt lived-in despite its ludicrous size, in a way my childhood home did not. This was a house whose painted walls held years of happy memories. Marks on the doorframes tracked the height of the Sepulveda children through the years. A copious amount of pictures hung on the walls, though I noticed all the portraits featuring Zoe were taken after her transition. For fuck’s sake, even the towels in the linen closet had names embroidered on them! It was like the house itself was mocking me, showing me a life I’d never have. I needed a break. I couldn’t keep thinking about this. So I settled down on a really fluffy couch in her living room, where I laid on my side, with eyes that eventually tired of staring into nothingness.

Around an hour later, I awoke to feel Zoe gently pushing me off the couch and onto the floor. “Mmmrrrh?”

“Hey you, you’re finally awake,” she said gently. The sun had set a while ago, and the house felt just a little bit quieter. I yawned and stood up, but didn’t say anything. “So, umm? Alicia and I kinda wanted to do something for you, since you’re our friend and it’s Thanksgiving?”

Was I still dreaming, or something? “Huh? What do you mean?” I asked, still absolutely zooted.

She bit her lip and looked down at the floor. “It’s kind of a surprise. Just trust me for a little bit, okay?”

Did I trust her? Not really. But I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, and a part of me wanted to see where this went. “Okay,” I said. With that, Zoe took my arm and dragged me up the stairs, Alicia quickly falling into lockstep. I noticed that much of the Sepulveda clan had gone home, which made me feel a little better. By the time Zoe sat me down on her bed, I was approaching regular levels of awakeness, though there was still that weird, lingering haze that comes after a nap. Zoe’s childhood bedroom wasn’t anywhere near as ornate as her apartment in Brooklyn. There were books of all genres lining the walls, from young adult fiction to… actually, it was mostly young adult fiction. And once again, there were photographs of her everywhere, though none were taken before her transition. As I looked around her room, deep in thought, I neglected to see Zoe grab her makeup kit out of a vanity drawer. I turned back to find her slowly closing in, foundation in hand, as Alicia went through her clothes in the background. “U-uhm, what’s happening?” I stammered, quickly snapping back to reality.

“We’re going to give you a makeover!” Zoe said, doing tentative jazz hands.

“M-makeover?!” I jerked up from the bed in shock. “What the hell are you thinking?”

Still holding the foundation, Zoe put her hands up in a placating gesture. “Come on, it’ll be fun!”

“That’s not an answer. What’re you thinking, randomly trying to give me a makeover? Like, what’s your goal here? I’m genuinely curious.”

She huffed. “Look, Eliza. You never wear makeup, and I get the feeling it’s not because you don’t like it. From what I’ve seen, you can be your own worst enemy.”

“From what you’ve seen? We’ve talked, like, five times!”

“I know, but–”

“This was Alicia’s idea, wasn’t it?”

Alicia interjected from across the room. “Wait. Yes, Zoe and I came up with this idea together, but that doesn’t mean you should discount it so quickly.”

“Think about it,” Zoe continued, “is this something you really don’t want to do, or are you just scared of what will happen if it does?”

That was something I couldn’t really argue with, because she was right, at least to an extent. I was scared to wear makeup, and I knew exactly why. If I got dressed to the nines and still looked like a boy, then that’d mean there was nothing I could do to fix my situation. I’d be faced with the disturbing realization that the dysphoria would never go away, no matter how hard I tried, or how much effort I put in. ‘But this can’t keep going on forever,’ I thought. I really did want to improve my situation, even if it seemed like a long, uphill battle. ‘Eventually, I’ll have to know, one way or the other. Might as well be now.’ I sat back down on the bed. “I know I’m going to regret this, but… do your worst.” Now that she had consent, Zoe freely descended upon me with makeup, as Alicia gave tips from the side. I realized this was probably a learning experience for her just as much as it was for me, and I tried not to let that scare me.

There’s something therapeutic about being made over. The big reason was probably that I didn’t have to do any of the work. I could just sit back and let my eyes glaze over. But there’s also a sort of enforced trust that comes from giving another person domain over your body. Even if it’s your face, they’re the one making the decisions. But that almost made it easier to stomach: because if Zoe fucked it up, then I had an easy scapegoat. “Ooh, you’re going to look so cute!” Zoe gushed, as she broke out the eyeliner. No matter how much I wanted to deny it, there was a large part of me that desperately wanted an experience like this. So much of my anxiety came from the fact that I had to take the first step, so being forced into femininity? It was almost like a dream come true. Emphasis on almost. The rest of me hated that I enjoyed this so much. If I was really a girl, shouldn’t I want to learn as much as I could, so I could do all of this myself? Once again, the little voice in my head called me pathetic. ‘This is just a fetish for you, isn’t it?’ he implored. ‘You only want to look good to get validation from strangers. That’s not real womanhood, that’s play-acting.’

I felt a lot of competing feelings. The joy of being primped and pampered, and the guilt from enjoying it so much. There was even still the familial resentment that had been pulsating in the background. But I hoped that seeing myself, my true self, in the mirror would be enough to blast those feelings away. Like everything would just fall into place, and I could be the girl I’d always dreamed of being. It felt like it went on forever. Zoe insisted on going over my face a hundred times with every possible makeup material known to wo-man. I still have no idea what BB cream is, or the purpose of eyebrow gel, but I was absolutely lathered in them both. “You look amazing,” Zoe said earnestly.

“Wow,” Alicia seconded. She stared at me for a second in (what I hoped was) admiration before shaking herself out of her daze. “Okay, now it’s my turn!”

Now it was Zoe’s turn to retreat to the back corner. The clothes Alicia picked out were, to say the least, not my style at all. Even if I could’ve worn whatever I wanted, I don’t think I would have picked that gingham dress, the one that looked straight out of the fifties. Or the frilly bow that reminded me of a certain day in middle school. ‘But that only makes it better for the fantasy,’ my brain said. Wait. Why was it better for the fantasy? I realized with a start that I was hoping to see someone else in the mirror. Not just a girl, but a stranger. ‘Fuck, am I transitioning just to escape the pain of being myself?’ Nope! Stop! There was no more time for these complicated feelings, not when I had clothes to wear.

Eventually, it came time for the big reveal. Zoe had a full body mirror hung on her closet, so Alicia covered my eyes as they slowly guided me towards it. I was scared. This was the moment where I had to face my fears, to know what I really looked like. To see myself how others supposedly saw me. All too soon, my eyes were uncovered and–

Standing in the mirror was a girl. A cute one, too. She was wearing a dress that really didn’t suit her, but still flowed around her like waves on a beach. She had immaculate skin, and wide, expressive eyes, and her soft red hair brought out the red in her cheeks. Wow, I looked incredible! I looked like a princess! I… I still… looked like me. The moment faded, and the girl in the mirror disappeared.

There was a sort of implication by Zoe that my change would be so complete, so total that I’d lose sight of the boy underneath it all. But of course that didn’t happen: there was still too much me in the mirror. I could still see all the things I hated about myself–the wide jaw, the knife-cut browline–almost further highlighted by the makeup she’d slathered on. Whatever I saw in that split second of euphoria was gone. There was no escape from this body. I was trapped here forever. But that’s when I remembered: I had a scapegoat. I turned towards my friends with tears in my eyes. “Why did you think this was a good idea?” I asked them. The beaming smiles on their faces immediately evaporated, replaced with an expression somewhere between regret and pity. “Was this supposed to cure my dysphoria?”

“No, not at all,” Alicia said. “We just wanted to show you how we see you.“

“What, a man wearing shitty makeup?” I shot metaphorical daggers at Zoe. She flinched back a little bit and looked down at the carpet.

“You know that’s not true,” Alicia sighed. She was clearly a little mad that her gambit failed, but tried not to show it. “Whatever hangups you have about your looks, you should know they’re not real.”

“Not real?! Wow, I never considered that!” I said caustically, shaking my head. “God, you’re a fucking psychology major! Aren’t you, of all people, supposed to know that the healing process isn’t this goddamn simple?”

“Oh, like you’re one to talk,” she jibed. “Have you even tried to start the ‘healing process?’ No, because you’re still hung up on bullshit that happened years ago.”

“Don’t call my past bullshit, Alicia.”

“You’ve never even told me what happened back then! How can I know what to avoid if you never talk about it?”

“Well, maybe there’s a good goddamn reason for that! Maybe I just want a friend, not a psychologist!”

“With the way you’re acting, soon you’ll have neither.” With that, Alicia angrily marched out of the room. “Zoe, handle her for me! I can’t do this shit right now!” she yelled from the hall.

During most of the argument, Zoe leaned against the wall and watched the interplay with a scared expression on her face. She made nervous eye contact with me and tried to smile. “Um, hey, Eliza. You okay?”

“Not really,” I barked, biting back an angry laugh. I must have looked crazy, all dolled up and ready to blow.

“Right. I get it. I’ve always had a hard time seeing myself in the mirror, too. We were just trying to push you in a direction that might help, but now I see that was maybe not the best idea. I completely understand.” For whatever reason, her attempts at reconciliation pissed me off more than Alicia’s transparent lividity.

“I’m sorry, but are you kidding me? I had to slug through years of shit to get to where I am right now. Meanwhile, you got to speedrun your transition, so don’t tell me you understand what I’m going through!”

I took a step towards her. Her stance got a little defensive. Even her brown tresses shrunk back in fear. Weak! “Hey, there’s no need to compare our traumas.”

“That’s just something people say to feel better about having easier lives than the victimized. When you discovered your identity, you got a badass girlfriend. I lost my closest friend. You lost your uncle, I lost my fucking mom.” I was tearing up a little, but I willed myself to stop. “I’m not my ‘own worst enemy,’” I said, echoing her words from earlier. “I have so many worse enemies, and they’re the ones whose ghosts are keeping me from being myself.”

Her voice remained firm, but her stance softened just a little. “I’m sorry, but there’s a point when you have to accept your past and try to move on from it. I admit that you may have had a harder go of it than me. But that doesn’t mean you should let their ghosts,” she too echoed my words, “haunt you all these years later.”

I sighed. “Trust me, I’m trying! But I can’t just fake it ‘till I make it, with this stuff. I want to live my life so badly, but it’s like I’m at the mercy of my insecurities. I don’t have any control.”

She rolled her eyes. I was pouring my heart out, and this bitch rolled her fucking eyes! “Jeez, Eliza. You may not see it this way, but you have a pretty charmed life! You have a place to live, clothes on your back, and friends that care about you enough to give you makeovers. I think you have more control over your life than you give yourself credit for.” She was lowkey right, but I didn’t want her to know that.

“Is that really true, or is that just something we tell ourselves to feel better? We don’t have control over our families or our bodies.”

“Yes, we do,” Zoe interjected.

“No, we don’t,” I continued. “God, what the hell is your vision of femininity? Saying you’re a chick as everyone stares in disbelief? Taking hormones for a year?” Fucking cis lesbians so you can feel validated as a woman? “I may be withdrawn, but that’s better than… flaunting it like you do! Maybe I don’t need to put myself on display!” Fuck. I was starting to sound like my mother.

“God, Eliza! I’m trying to help you, but you’re being such a bitch! Just because I can exist in public without covering myself in layers doesn’t mean I’m flaunting my body! I’m proud of myself. What’s wrong with that?”

“What’s wrong with that?! There’s nothing to be proud of, Zoe! God, our entire existence is predicated on mockery. Cis women don’t need years of surgeries and medications just to look like women.”

“So? That doesn’t make us any less female.”

“Does it? Even after those years of surgeries, there are still masculine features that will always stick out in public, always keep us looking like men.” She tried to say something, but I kept going. “And, even if you’re lucky enough to pass perfectly, to look completely feminine from hairline to foot size, you’ll still have to carry those years of not feeling quite right with you. There’s no way to live an unblemished life as a trans person. We have burdens that show themselves openly, on our broad shoulders and wide jaws.

“And so, in order to live with the fact that we’re always going to be a little lesser, we make compromises. We accept that we won’t be able to carry children or have one-night stands without disclosing our identities. So when you’re someone like me, whose only goal is to be normal, to fit into society as a woman, you’re always going to end up disappointed. We tell ourselves we can be who we want to be, but we can’t. I’m never going to move on from my past, I’m never going to be a real woman, and I’m always going to have to compromise to be happy.”

Zoe took a few seconds to absorb everything I’d just said. She was clearly in the process of formulating a response, but I didn’t really want to hear it. I couldn’t keep vacillating between mild acceptance and scathing self-hatred. I just needed to be alone for a little while. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry if I insulted you. But I just can’t continue this conversation right now. I-It’s too much. I can’t.” Before she could respond, I quickly stood up and ran downstairs, frantically wiping at the makeup on my face. I ignored the strange looks I got from Alicia and the remaining Sepulveda clan, and the calls from Zoe to give her back her dress. Then, I left 69 Orchard Heights without another word.