I opened the door, looked inside, and let out a small sigh of relief when I saw Joe wasn’t in our shared dorm room; that would save me at least a few hours of awkward, uncomfortable silence. I walked in, set my suitcase down on the bed, and got to unpacking.

It was a few days after New Year’s, and I’d just come back to college, having spent Christmas break at home. The trip had been a bit tiring: my parents lived in the same state, barely four hours away by car, but that meant more than eight hours by bus, since I couldn’t well ask them to drive to Bradford McKinley to pick me up, and then drive the way back.

My break had been… awkward, to say the least. That didn’t mean I hadn’t enjoyed getting together with my family, having big dinners, and opening presents: it was just that after a month and a half of hearing everyone I cared about – all my friends – call me Lily, constantly being referred to by another name felt weird and uncomfortable, for whatever reason: every time they said that word, I found myself squirming a bit. My parents had noticed, and after a couple days my dad had taken me aside and asked me outright, “You’ve been acting weird, son, are you okay?”

I’d felt myself cringe at his words, but I forced myself to put a smile on my face and reply, “Yes, everything’s fine. I’m just a bit stressed and anxious because of college stuff. Don’t worry, I’m okay.”

Dad didn’t seem at all convinced, but he nodded, and neither he nor anyone else had broached the subject again. And just as well: I loved my parents, but sometimes they tended to worry a bit too much, and I didn’t want to bother them without good reason. That weird feeling I had whenever someone called me by my birth name instead of Lily was probably due to anxiety anyway, exactly like I’d told my dad – I’d been a really jumpy and nervous kid ever since junior high, before I discovered I could calm my nerves and numb my feelings with booze. But after I started college, after what happened with Joe, I’d stopped drinking regularly. So this was probably just a minor relapse.

As I put my underwear away in my drawers, I once again wondered what my mom and dad thought of LGBT issues, as I’d done a few times since deciding to begin my ruse. I’d talked to a few trans people at the GSA meetings I’d attended, and from what they’d told me parents’ reactions to their child coming out varied wildly on a spectrum, from immediately and enthusiastically supportive and accepting, to Vicky’s situation: “They would literally kill me if they found out I’m transgender.”

Suppose I told my parents I was trans. How would they react? Would they still love me, or would I have to cut ties with them?

I would probably never find out. After all, like I’d told my friends, I had absolutely no plans on coming out to Mom and Dad; and this whole “pretending to be trans” thing was going to disappear completely in a few months anyway, after the school year was over and I’d gathered enough material.

Overall, things were going perfectly fine. There was no need to worry about anything.

I finished putting away my clothes – while carefully avoiding looking at my reflection in the mirror that hung inside the wardrobe door, as I always did – and quickly changed into my sleepwear, before tucking myself into bed.

The stress from the trip quickly caught up with me: soon I was out like a light.

My last thought before falling asleep was a drowsy, I sure hope my parents aren’t like Vicky’s, though. It would be a shame if they were.

-----

“Alright, everyone, time’s up!” Patrick, one of the GSA moderators, called out loudly. “I know you’d all like to stay and chat some more, but we only have this room for a few hours every week, so we have to pack up and leave. Sorry!”

I stood up and stretched, looking around the room. It was my first GSA meeting since coming back from vacation, and I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed it. Just to be able to sit down and chat with friends, without having to watch myself, without being careful about what I said, was a wonderful feeling. It probably also helped that I was feeling quite relaxed those days, owing to Joe’s absence: weirdly, my room-mate had yet to return from Christmas break. But I didn’t mind; it meant I had the dorm room all to myself, without having to walk on eggshells owing to the cold war we were currently embroiled in.

“Well, that’s that for today,” Nora said, approaching me. “What do you say we head to dinner?”

I nodded, and glanced at the rest of our small group. “Are you coming?” I asked.

“Of course,” Anna said; Elanor nodded in agreement.

“I’m coming, too,” Vicky said, stepping up close to me. “Especially because I have something to give you.” She motioned to her backpack.

I looked at her. “You mean…?”

She nodded. “Yes. Come on, let’s go.”

It didn’t take us long to move to our favourite café and find ourselves a table; once we’d placed our orders for food and drinks, Vicky handed me a large brown paper bag.

“Here you go,” she said. “Sorry I didn’t come find you right away after coming back, but I didn’t know when it would’ve been safe, what with you not being out and all. And I didn’t do it at the meeting because there are some people there who don’t approve of DIY-ing HRT.”

I nodded, and opened the bag, pulling out two cardboard boxes – two of many in the bag, I realised: it was almost full.

“Estradiol valerate,” I read off one box; then I looked at the other. “Cypto… Crypto…”

“Cyproterone,” Elanor said with a smile.

“Thank you,” I said, smiling back. “Cyproterone acetate. So I guess this is the anti-androgen, while the other is the estrogen?”

Vicky nodded. “Precisely,” she said.

“Huh,” I said, looking at the box of anti-androgen. “I thought you used spironolactone. That’s what I read, at least.”

“You’ve done your research, I see,” Vicky replied, also smiling. “Cypro is much better than spiro, but unfortunately it’s not available in the US. But since we get ours from Canada…”

“Okay, yeah, that makes sense,” I said, as I continued staring at the boxes; then, when no one said anything, I looked up: everyone around the table was looking at me. “What?” I asked.

“Well?” Anna said.

“‘Well,’ what?” I replied.

“Well, aren’t you going to take them?” Elanor said.

I blinked. “Right here? Right now?”

“No, hold on, wait a second,” Vicky said, waving her hand to draw attention to herself. “There’s something I have to say first. Thanks,” she added, as the waitress set her food down in front of her.

“You’re welcome,” the waitress replied, placing several more plates down on the table – one for each of us. “Enjoy!”

The waitress walked away, and I looked at Vicky. “What did you want to say?”

“Okay,” she answered, and cleared her voice. “Two of those per day, morning and evening,” she said, pointing at the box of estrogen. “And half of one of those per day, evenings are best,” she continued, pointing at the cyproterone. Then she smiled. “Okay, now you can take them.”

I looked at her, and then down at the hormones – my hormones, I realised. “Uh… Um…” I mumbled.

“Come on, y’all, don’t pressure her,” Nora said. She reached out and put an arm around my shoulders: her touch gave me a feeling I couldn’t identify. “It should be her choice when to start hormones, ease up on the peer pressure a little bit.”

There was a moment of silence; the mood shifted around the table.

After a few seconds, Anna nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. Sorry, Lily,” she said.

Vicky and Elanor nodded, too. “Yeah, our bad,” Elanor said. “I guess we were a bit too on the enthusiastic side of things, weren’t we?”

“That you were,” Nora said. “Please don’t do that.”

There was a murmur of assent around the table, and Vicky, Anna, and Elanor started eating, looking a bit chastised. Nora tightened her grip around my shoulders a bit and smiled her charming smile at me: my stomach suddenly felt like it had a million butterflies dancing around inside of it, but I managed to smile back. “Thank you,” I whispered.

“You’re welcome,” she said. “Now, shall we eat?”

-----

Later that night, well past eleven PM, I crept up to my dorm room, stopped, and frowned. The bag in my hand was very conspicuous, there was no way I could hide it easily. True, Joe hadn’t been in our room before I’d left for the GSA meeting earlier that afternoon, but… What if he’d come back in the meantime? How would I explain the bag?

My frown deepened. Wait, did I even need to explain the bag? After all, my room-mate and I weren’t talking to each other, and he still hadn’t apologised. So if he asked what was in the bag, I could just say, “None of your business,” and leave it at that.

Still, I decided to test the waters a bit. I set the bag down in the hallway, and slowly opened the door; the room was dark, and when I flicked the light switch, I saw that Joe’s bed was still empty. I let out a small sigh of relief: that was a confrontation avoided, at least.

I picked up the bag again, walked into my room, and shut the door behind me. Then I pulled out two boxes from the bag – one of estrogen, and one of anti-androgen – and placed them onto my desk, before stuffing the bag into my closet.

Slowly, deliberately, I went about my night-time routine: I brushed my teeth, and changed into my pajamas. Then, instead of going to bed, I sat down at my desk, and stared at the boxes.

They were small. Innocuous. But the more I looked at them, the more menacing they seemed.

After all, the chemicals they contained were enough to change a person.

Well, not literally change a person. The person was the same. But their outward appearance changed radically. I knew it. I’d seen the timelines people had posted online – all part of my research, of course – and the results were incredible. Night and day.

In fact…

I got up from my desk, walked over to my wardrobe, and opened it; then, with a supreme exertion of will, I forced myself to look up, and stare at my reflection.

Ugh.

No matter how many times I saw my face, I still didn’t like it. I never had, not since I’d been thirteen or fourteen, at the very least. I ran a finger over my forehead and traced down to the tip of my nose; I brushed the back of my hand against my cheek, felt the stubble, and frowned. My electric razor didn’t give me nearly as close a shave as I would’ve liked, but it was the only one I could use without looking in the mirror.

Cute, Nora had called me. One of the cutest girls on campus.

I really didn’t see it.

I wonder what effect the hormones would have on me.

I blinked. That thought had passed, unbidden, through my mind: where the hell had it come from?

Man, this whole thing was really starting to get to me. I should probably get to bed: it was already past midnight.

I closed my wardrobe door and sat down at my desk, looking at the boxes again.

I stared hard. For a long time. I stared, refusing to blink, until my eyes started watering. Then I blinked, and stared again.

I wonder what effect the hormones would have on me.

There. That thought again, there it went. What was up with that?

But still, I couldn’t help but be curious. What effect would the hormones have on me?

I’d looked up the list of effects: softer skin. Redistribution of fat. Some hair regrowth, maybe? That one, I had to admit, would’ve been nice – I was already starting to thin out a bit on top. Thanks for the genes, Dad.

But I was sure the effect wouldn’t be that great. I’d seen the timelines, sure, but most of those people were already starting from a good place. They already looked feminine, even before HRT.

What effect would the hormones have on someone who looked like me? A person so terribly masculine, so incredibly male that you couldn’t mistake them for anything else?

“Two of those, morning and evening,” I muttered. “So one right now. And half of one of those per day, evenings are better.”

Without thinking, I opened the boxes; I popped two pills out of their blisters, then broke one in half and put one half carefully back where it had come from.

I looked down at the pill-and-a-half, cupped in the palm of my hand. Light blue and white. Small. Innocuous.

Menacing.

Why shouldn’t I try it? Just for a while, to see how it felt? After all, what was that if not more gathering material for the article I was planning to write? Real life experience. Can’t beat that.

I could stop any time I wanted anyway. I’d done the research: it would take several months before the effects mounted up to the point that they weren’t easily reversible. So taking estradiol and cyproterone for a couple weeks – or a couple months – was no big deal.

I chuckled to myself, remembering how startled I’d been to learn The Matrix had been written by two trans women. Later, my friends had explained to me that the red pill was a stand-in for Premarin, the estrogen of choice at the time the movie had been made. It was quite ironic: all those idiots on the Internet, who proudly declared themselves to be “redpilled,” none of them probably knew what that really meant.

I looked down at the pills again.

You take the blue pill, and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

It hadn’t been exactly like that. But close enough.

Really, thinking about it, was there a reason not to take them?

Let’s think about this carefully, Lily. You’ve always been a logical person, put the two things on the scale and see how they balance out.

Pros of taking the pills: I would get first-hand experience of what that feels like. Cons of taking the pills: some effects, which however weren’t going to be permanent until several months in. I might become a bit cuter, maybe. Probably not, given the starting material. (Ugh.) But possibly.

For whatever reason, my mind flashed to Nora for a moment.

No, don’t get distracted. Keep going.

Pros of not taking the pills… None that I could think of, really. Cons of not taking the pills: having to explain to my queer friends exactly why I wasn’t taking them. And it’s not like “I don’t feel it’s the right moment for me” was going to cut it – all trans people want to get on hormones as soon as possible, after all, so me not doing it would be weird.

So, yeah. Taking the pills: one big pro, and one small con. Not taking the pills: no pros, one big con.

Once again, I looked down at the hormones in my hand.

My other hand moved. Grabbed the water bottle that was on my desk.

I quickly popped the pills into my mouth, and chased them down with a big swig of water. Then another one. And another one, until the half-litre bottle had been completely drained.

Then, before I could think about what I’d just done, I tucked myself into bed and turned off the light.

Sleep didn’t come easy to me that night.