My cell phone started buzzing, shaking me from my unsatisfying slumber; I reached over with my hand and, after a few tries, managed to shut it up. I lay in bed for a few seconds, then grumbled to myself, and pulled myself up to a seating position on the bed, my mind protesting all the way – I was really drowsy, that night had been the worst I could remember sleeping. I was almost feeling hungover, except of course that my head didn’t hurt, I was just really tired.

I almost considered skipping the morning’s lessons, but in the end decided against that: I might not be a straight-A student, but I still cared about my studies. Plus, that day the professor would probably give us back the essays we’d turned in before Christmas break, and I was anxious to see how I’d done.

I yawned, blearily rubbed my eyes, and looked around the room: I was still alone, Joe hadn’t come back during the night – not that I expected he would, of course.

And then my eyes fell on the two boxes sitting on top of my desk.

Oh, right.

I’d done that, hadn’t I. I’d begun taking hormones.

Weirdly, the thought didn’t alarm me at all. It hadn’t been a spur-of-the-moment thing, after all; I’d carefully thought about it, and I really didn’t feel any different from before.

Of course, said a voice in the back of my mind. You’ve only taken one dose. Hormones are magic, but it takes time for them to have an effect.

What effect would they have, anyway?

Well, only one way to find out.

I got up from bed and walked over to my desk; then, with barely a moment’s hesitation, I popped an estradiol pill out of its blister and put it in my mouth. My water bottle was empty, so I walked over to the bathroom and took a drink from the tap, to help me swallow the hormones.

I straightened up, and felt the pill slip past my throat and down to my stomach. Two down, an unknown number to go. Not that many anyway, I was going to stop before anything permanent happened.

But I’d better take notes.

I walked back into the room, sat down at my desk, and opened up my laptop, bringing up a text document.

Day one, I wrote. One estradiol and half a cypro last night, and one estradiol this morning. I don’t feel anything yet. Will continue to monitor for changes.

I stared at the words on the screen for a moment, and then giggled: I felt almost like an archaeologist, exploring ancient ruins and dodging deadly traps, keeping a log of her travels, wondering what–

I frowned.

Her travels? Where had that come from? I tried to push away the drowsiness and concentrate: when you think about famous archaeologists with a knack for adventure, who comes to mind first?

Lara Croft. Yeah. That’s right. That’s who I’d pictured myself as. That’s why her was the pronoun which had popped into my head. That made sense. After all, Tomb Raider was one of my favourite game series: I'd played the most recent ones to completion and found all the secrets, and I’d even gone back and played the ones that were released in the nineties, before I’d even been born. Lara was a really cool protagonist.

I smiled as I got up from my chair and grabbed my clothes for the day from my wardrobe: that was one mystery solved, at least.

-----

“O’Connor,” the professor called out. I stood up and, a bit nervously, walked the short distance which separated my seat from his desk. The professor was looking down at my essay as I approached, a tiny smirk on his lips, and when I reached him he looked up.

“This was actually surprising,” he said, handing me the paper. “From how you behaved at the start of the year, I wouldn’t have bet a dollar on you passing my class, but instead… Well, see for yourself.”

I took the essay from his hands, looked down at it, and blinked in surprise. “An A minus?” I asked. “Are you sure?”

The professor nodded. “Yes, I’m quite sure. This was one of the best things ever written for this class. You did an excellent job. Congratulations, Mister O’Connor.”

I felt a weird sensation in my stomach, and I gulped, but nodded at the same time. “Thank you, sir,” I replied.

I turned around and walked back to my seat, still stunned: an A minus? I’d worked really hard and read a lot of theory, true, but I never thought I would get this kind of grade in a social studies class. Not even in my wildest dreams.

Maybe I’d internalised the conversations I’d had with my friends from the GSA so well that I had managed to put them down on the paper? Huh. I looked around the class, searching for Anna, and noticed that she was grinning widely and giving me a thumbs up, even as the professor called her surname and she got up from her seat to go to him. I realised I should probably thank her: if she hadn’t been so stubbornly set in her social justice warrior ways, I would never have thought to pretend to be trans, and thus probably never passed the class.

But no matter; despite being very surprised, I was feeling very happy with myself.

-----

“Aw, come on, Anna,” I told her, for perhaps the sixth time. “A B plus isn’t the end of the world.”

“Yeah, I know,” she said. “I know. But… I was really expecting a better grade.”

“What did the professor say?” I asked. “You went to him after class to ask for an explanation, didn’t you?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I did. He said that while most of my points were sound, I put too much emphasis on how men are holding back feminism. Also, apparently I was forgetting that in many cases men are victims of the patriarchy, too, and can often be really good allies.” She frowned. “I really don’t see it. Trans and gay men, sure, but cishet men? Trash, the lot of them.”

I frowned in turn; I’d heard her talk like this once before, but I still didn’t like it: even though I had come to realise that toxic masculinity could be a real problem – just look at Joe, Eddie, and Tommy – I wasn’t so convinced that men couldn’t be made to reject it. I, for one had done so, and I was a completely normal cishet man; the thought of being lumped together with the likes of my room-mate made me feel a bit queasy.

But I couldn’t well say all that to Anna, could I? After all, I was trying to cheer her up.

“I’m sure you’ll do better next time,” I said. “What do you say I buy you lunch? To cheer you up.”

Anna looked up at me with a small smile. “Yeah, sure. It’s almost time for lunch break anyway, let’s text the others and see if they can join us.”

In short order we’d managed to assemble our small gang – me, Anna, Elanor, Vicky, and Nora – and made our way to a café on campus for lunch; as we sat down to eat, Anna was still quite unhappy about the grade she’d gotten.

“It’s unfair, that’s what it is,” she said.

“I know, sweetie, but you just have to accept it,” Elanor soothed her, massaging her back as she grumbled into her drink. “Unless you wanna challenge the professor and ask for a review?”

Anna looked at them for a moment, then shook her head.

“Didn’t think you would,” Elanor continued. “Come on, after all it’s just a momentary bump in the road. It’s not that serious.”

“Yeah, but…” Anna began, but then just shook her head again, and motioned to me. “I mean, look at her! She’s just barely gotten started into feminist theory, and apparently she’s already gotten to the point where the professor considers her his star pupil!”

I smirked as I speared a shrimp with my fork. “Jealous much?” I said.

“Little bit, yeah. At least you’re happy.”

“Yep,” I replied. Then, after a moment, I remembered something, and I added, “And not just because of that.”

Nora tilted her head slightly to the side. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“Well, I…” I took a deep breath. “I began taking my hormones. Last night, in fact.”

“Oh, hey, that’s great news!” Vicky said. “Congrats!”

“Yeah, that’s great!” Elanor added. “We need to celebrate. Dessert’s on me!”

“Good, so I won’t be paying anything today,” Anna quipped, “since Lily is already buying me lunch.”

I felt a hand grab mine and squeeze it; I looked to the side, and saw Nora was smiling warmly at me.

“Congratulations, Lily,” she said. “This was a big step. I’m so proud of you.”

I felt my cheeks warm up a bit, but I smiled back. “Thank you, Nora.”

She kept looking at me for a few moments, then said, “So what now?”

I looked at her curiously. “’What now?’” I repeated

“Yeah,” she nodded. “What are your next steps? Regarding transition I mean.”

“I…” I hesitated. “I don’t know, really. After all, I’ve done so much in so little time. Coming out, choosing a new name, starting hormones…” I paused. “I mean, what’s left?”

“Changing your presentation. Different clothes, make-up, new hairstyle. Maybe getting your ears pierced,” Vicky replied. “But of course, only if you want to. There’s no rush, and nothing is mandatory.”

I turned my head to look at her. “Really?”

“Really,” Elanor replied. “If you say you’re a girl, then you’re a girl. Simple as that. You don’t even need to be on hormones. It’s certainly more common among enbies, but there are some binary trans people who don’t take HRT, and that doesn’t make them any less valid.”

I blinked in surprise. “Seriously? But I thought every trans person wanted to take hormones.”

Vicky shook her head. “That’s a common misconception,” she answered. “Didn’t Nora say as much yesterday, after the GSA meeting?”

I thought back. Yeah, Nora had said something about that. Something about a choice to start hormones.

Huh.

“But still,” Vicky continued. “What’s next?”

“Ooh, I know,” Nora said. “Clothes shopping!”

I blinked. “Clothes shopping?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “After all, such a cute girl can’t go around wearing jeans and sweatshirts all the time.” She grabbed hold of my hoodie, pinching the cloth between her thumb and forefinger, and held it up, an expression of distaste on her face. “Seriously, Lily, what are you even doing? This doesn’t fit you at all.”

“Well…” I said, and held up my arm to take a good look: the hoodie I was wearing at the moment was one of my favourites – I’d bought it in my second year of high school, and it still fit me fine, but it was quite old and well-loved, almost threadbare in places.

Nora was right: I was in sore need of some new clothes. A wardrobe change.

But…

I sighed. “I don’t know,” I replied. “I can’t just start wearing girl’s clothing. How will I even explain it to Joe?”

Nora frowned. “Joe?”

“Lily’s room-mate,” Anna explained. “He’s a chud.”

“Oh,” Nora said, her frown deepening. “Well, that’s not really a problem, you don’t need to start wearing skirts and dresses, not right away. You can go for jeans, maybe a nice shirt, and no one will be the wiser. Except us, of course.” Her frown cleared, and she smiled her charming smile at me again, the one that made me feel a bit weak in the knees. “And you’ll still be cuter.”

I looked at her, just grinning at me, and I found that I just couldn’t resist her. “Okay. Let’s go shopping. But I won’t promise I’ll buy anything.”

If anything, Nora’s smile became even wider, and she reached over and squeezed my shoulder. “Good girl.”

-----

“Alright, now try this on,” Vicky said, stuffing a pair of shorts into my hands.

“And these, too,” Anna added, holding up two shirts. “I think they’ll go nicely with the pants you tried earlier.”

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you,” I said, shooting them both a look. It wasn’t a question.

“Yep, they are, and so am I,” Elanor supplied. “Try these.” They handed me two pairs of pants – one model in two different sizes.

I sighed deeply. “My vengeance will be terrible and prolonged,” I muttered before retreating into the changing room and sliding the curtain closed behind me.

I quickly took off the pants I was wearing, and slipped off the shirt, before passing them through the side of the curtain to the girls (and enby) standing outside. “These don’t work, so you can put them back,” I said.

“Ah, just leave them lying around, someone will get to it,” I heard Anna say.

I sighed again – we were making entirely too much work for the shop assistants – and pulled on the shorts and one of the shirts, before posing in front of the mirror.

Huh, they actually fit fine.

A bit on the snug side, but this was how women’s clothing was, wasn’t it? They fit the body much more closely than men’s clothes: I knew that from my high school days, I’d spent most of my first year staring at girls and checking out what they were wearing. (I stopped doing that once I realised I was creeping them out.)

And, I had to admit, the clothes I was wearing felt very nice.

Okay, these go in the ‘maybe’ pile, I thought. The ever-growing ‘maybe’ pile. I would need to decide exactly what to get; I couldn’t well spend hundreds of dollars on clothes I would never wear again after a few months, could I?

Alright, now for the pants; I slipped the shorts and shirt off, and spun around to grab the clothes Elanor had given me.

As I turned, I caught sight of myself in the changing room’s mirror. And what I saw made me pause.

I was almost naked, of course: I was wearing only a pair of panties and a simple camisole, which my torturers had insisted I put on – after all, girl’s clothes don’t fit right if you’re wearing men’s underwear. But somehow, I didn’t feel the usual… repulsion, the disgust I usually felt when I looked at men’s bodies, including my own.

In fact, I quite liked what I saw in the mirror.

It was bizarre. For years I’d avoided staring at myself, to avoid making myself feel bad, and somehow… That whole thing had just gone away?

Slowly, my hand drifted downwards, to the hem of my camisole, and I started pulling it up…

“How are you doing in there, Lily?” Nora called from outside. “Everything good?”

I jumped a bit, and shook myself. “Yeah!” I replied. “I just need to try on a couple more things!”

“Alright,” she said. “Take your time. I have something else for you when you’re done with those.”

I quickly pulled on the last two pieces of clothing I had to try – they fit fine, and went on the ‘maybe’ pile, too – and then pulled the curtain open.

“What do you have for me?” I asked.

Everyone was looking at me without speaking: to be honest, it made me a bit nervous.

Nora took a deep breath. “Alright, I know this isn’t exactly what you’ve asked for,” she said. “It’s not something you can wear without outing yourself. But I thought you might want to try this?”

She held up a dress: a long-sleeved teal dress, which had an asymmetric, blue-and-yellow flower pattern splayed all over it. It was beautiful.

But… A dress? I couldn’t wear a dress! How would I explain it to Joe? How would I explain it to everyone who didn’t know I was trans – I was pretending to be trans?

Still, I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.

I nervously bit my lip. “Nora, I…” I began, and then stopped. ‘I’ what? What was I going to say? What did I want to say? I couldn’t just try on a dress. I couldn’t just wear a dress.

And yet, I really wanted to. Just to see how it fit.

Nora made the decision for me. “Just try it,” she said, pushing the dress into my hands. “You don’t have to buy it. Just try it on.”

I looked at the dress in my hands, and then back up at her; our eyes locked together, and I found myself nodding.

I retreated back into the changing room and slowly, taking care, I took off the clothes I was wearing and slipped the dress on. Shaking a bit, I turned around and looked at myself in the mirror.

And I gasped.

It was a completely alien sight, seeing myself like that. It was entirely different from the clothes I was used to wearing – from the clothes I’d tried on that day, even: the dress fell down to just below my knees, and hugged my body snugly. Even the shoulders, which were a sore point in quite a few of the shirts that were lying in the ‘maybe’ pile, looked… perfect.

It was beautiful.

The dress was beautiful.

I was beautiful.

How can you be beautiful? You’re just a guy pretending to be a girl. Men can’t be beautiful. What the hell do you think you’re doing?

I grimaced; I felt the bottom of my stomach drop, down to somewhere way below my feet. Gone was the happy feeling that had filled me only a few moments before, now I felt awful.

What the hell was I even doing?

I had to take off this dress. I had to get out of there. I had to–

“How’s the dress?” Nora said.

Hearing her voice, somehow, grounded me. No, I firmly told myself. This isn’t the time to make a scene.

All I had to do was smile and pretend I was fine. I could do that. I was an expert at it.

I plastered a smile which I sincerely hoped looked genuine enough on my face, and pulled the curtain open. “Look for yourself,” I said.

“Whoa,” Vicky said. “Lily, you look…”

“Yep, I knew it,” Nora said, nodding in seeming satisfaction. “Cute. No, not even cute: beautiful.”

“Yeah, holy shit,” Anna added. “You have a very good eye, Nora.”

Somehow, for whatever reason, I felt a bit better. “You… you really think so?” I asked hesitantly.

Nora nodded again. “Yes, we do. I do, at least, but I think the others all agree with me. Right, folks?”

There were nods of agreement all around, and my spirits lifted a bit more; I found myself smiling – genuinely smiling, unlike the fake smile I’d sported a few moments before. “Thank you,” I mumbled. I took a deep breath. “You know what? I think I’ll take this.”

Anna looked at me in concern. “Are you sure, Lily? If Joe sees it…”

“I’ll keep it in my room, at my place,” Nora said. “So there’s no risk. And then Lily can come over to wear it whenever she wants.”

She winked at me, and I felt my face go deep red.

“I… I’ll go get changed so we can pay for everything and then go,” I said; I retreated back into my changing room and quickly – but carefully – took the dress off, and put my jeans and hoodie back on. I frowned; after the clothes I’d spent a couple hours trying on, my boy’s clothing felt… Odd. Somewhat uncomfortable. I briefly wondered why that was, but I didn’t have time to think about it.

“Ready,” I announced, sliding the curtain back open.

“Good,” Elanor said. “Now, let’s sort these clothes out, decide what to buy. You’re getting the dress, right?”

I bit my lip for a moment, but nodded. “Yes, the dress and–”

“Excuse me, are you done with this changing room?” a girl’s voice asked.

“Oh, yeah, go ahead, please,” I said, looking up.

The girl who’d spoken gave a start of surprise, but immediately afterwards pierced me with an icy stare. I shrunk a bit under her gaze: why was she looking at me like that? She looked a bit familiar, but where had I seen her before?

Nora solved the mystery for me. “Jillian,” she said, her voice flat.

Jillian. Of course. That’s who she was: Nora’s ex-girlfriend.

“Nora,” Jillian said, turning to look at her. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, we’re just helping Lily pick out some clothes,” Nora replied.

Jillian turned to stare at me again, her eyes full of contempt: she was looking at me like I was a horrible, disgusting insect, just waiting to be squashed by a rolled-up newspaper.

“I see,” she said. “So you’re still humouring him.”

The pit in my stomach opened up once more, swallowing me up.

That's right. Thank you for the reminder, Jillian. What the hell was I even doing here, trying on girls' clothing? Tears welled up in my eyes, and my breathing started speeding up.

“Her,” Vicky said, a dangerous edge to her voice. “Do not make that mistake again.”

Jillian scoffed. “Why should I–”

“Because otherwise it could be a problem. For you,” Vicky cut her off, straightening herself up to her (admittedly modest) full height.

Jillian looked at Vicky for a moment, and then turned her gaze around, looking at each of my friends in turn.

“I would help her, you know,” Nora said. “We might have been intimate a few times, but if you insult Lily again, I will not hesitate to lay your ass flat.”

My gaze drifted to Nora; our eyes met, and she smiled at me.

The pit in my stomach deepened: by that point, it seemed almost bottomless.

Jillian looked around once more, and then focused her stare on me again. “Alright. But I still need to use the changing room, and she–” seldom had I heard a word spoken with such venom “–said you were done. May I?”

I gulped, trying and failing to swallow the heavy, dense lump that had formed in my throat, and nodded weakly.

“Good,” Jillian said; she marched inside the changing room and slid the curtain closed.

I exhaled the breath I was holding – and I heard each of my friends do the same.

“Lily? Hey,” Elanor said. “Don’t mind her, okay?”

“Yeah,” Nora added, placing a hand on my shoulder and squeezing in reassurance. “Don’t let her get to you. You’re a girl, no matter what that bitch thinks or says.”

But I’m not a girl.

I looked around at my friends, and then shook my head. “Let’s just pay for these clothes and go home.”