Chapter 9: Sophia...

Day #1

This is the day. The big day. 

She's definitely going to do it this time. She wants to. She can work up the courage. She can feel the excitement building inside of her. If she comes out, maybe she can even get to be called a girl's name, in real life! Maybe she'll get to wear a new wardrobe for herself. Maybe.

There's so many wonderful things that can happen with 'coming out'. She mocked the idea before, but it started to sound sweeter and sweeter to her as she dwelled on it. As she dwelled on it. As she dwelled on it. There were a few potential-possible-likely negative consequences, but she tried her best to keep them out of her mind.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

 "Hey, Nick! Those boxes aren't gonna move themselves."

Sophia was afraid of many things, and heights might be at the top of the list. Having to both climb a ladder while carrying boxes so heavy she felt she'd tip over at any second, made her feel death creeping on her shoulder. But it's not like any of the real girls would do this. She silently cursed and muttered to herself while obediently obeying her manager.

Last night's events was still swimming through her head. It almost felt like a fantasy, something that couldn't have possibly happened, like some prodigal character in a story urging her to change her life. 

Did she really just openly talk about being trans with a total stranger? Did she really just make a new friend? Did Ramona seriously try to fucking kiss her?

But telling real normal people about being trans is a lot different than coming out to another tranny. How could she tell her co-workers that she's weaker now? How could she tell them that she's been on muscle-atrophying medicine for almost a year now? It's not like she was ever very strong to begin with, but she had to admit to herself that she needed help now.

How could she possibly tell them? How could she reveal her deepest, darkest secrets? Her deepest, darkest fantasies? How could she possibly announce to the world that she's a freak? How could she possibly tell them? What would she even say? She'd be revealing her soft underbelly the instant she opened her mouth, "Hey, guys, I've been modifying my body with sex hormones and transforming my body just like some fetish erotica you could find online. I've even been growing breasts that I masturbate myself with, right underneath this hoodie. That's who I am now. It probably explains a lot of things about myself, doesn't it?"

They'd most definitely retaliate and hurt her. They'd scream at her. They'd call her sick. They'd both reject her. They'd kick her out of her apartment. She'd never be able to talk to them again. She'd be all alone all over again. Just saying the words "transition" will make the whole world see what really goes on inside her head, under the covers. Her perversions. Her convoluted fairytales of change, full of layered contexts and arousing stereotypes. 

She was sure that she was sure that she was sure, that she was definitely weirder than anything Ramona could even conceive of. Sophia didn’t have a real authentic sexuality, she had a freak’s one. An illegitimate one. A disgusting one. Ramona probably has had tons of real relationships in her life - and has had tons of real sex. Just like Mark and John and Jennifer and probably Brooke and probably everyone else she fucking knew. They were real human beings with real human experiences, while she was still just some stupid confused virgin with an impossible dream and impossible fantasies. None of her friends could ever understand how alone she is.

Could Ramona be a real friend? Could Ramona be a...best friend? She's never had one of those before. What sorts of things could she do together with her, as... girl friends? It'd probably be easier to hang out with her than a real girl, after all. She got nervous around her, but not like she was nervous around the girls at work. They could both be weird odd weirdo oddballs together forever, without worrying about anything else in the whole wide world. Maybe she could be her escape. 

There has to be another way...

I can't do this...

I'm too scared...

Day #2

This is the day. The big day. 

She's definitely going to do it this time. She's definitely going to do it this time. When she comes home from work, she's going to tell them. She needs to. If she doesn't do it today, she'd be a failure. There's so much riding on this. She's too afraid to message Ramona again, worried she'd let her down. Ramona'd never want to talk to her again knowing what a loser she's being right now.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

She wanted to be an extrovert. She was tired of being an introvert. She was tired of being quiet. Tired of being tired. She wanted to be with people. She wanted to be people. She wanted to be a person, with people. She wanted to be able to be friends with them, to be close to them, to hug them when she greeted them, to not recoil at their touch as she does now. She wanted to be friendly, to be bubbly, to be happy, like the girl she dreamed of being. She wanted to exist in other people's memories and minds. She wanted to exist in the world, for once in her life. She wanted to be normal. She was so, so tired.

She was running out of time. She wouldn't be in her 20s forever. She would lose her chance of being a young woman in her 20s, living the life a young woman in her 20s should be living, as a young woman in her 20s. The clock was ticking, ever ticking, never stopping. There was always something new to do. Always a need to do something. Always something that needed doing, all the time. Sophia could never rest, never relax. There was always something.

Sophia had to do this, right? It was part of the steps people talked about. She had to Come Out. Did she? Did she really? Did she have to? Did she want to? 

Talking with Ramona that night felt so liberating. She felt unburdened for the first time in what felt like years. From her own thoughts. Screaming them into the flowing void, being lied to by a strange new friend that she couldn't hear anything herself. So why couldn't she do it again? Why couldn't she tell Mark and John? If she girlmodes, would she be able to feel like that every day? 

She had to be honest to herself about something, even if it humiliated her - she loved being called a girl. She loved it so, so much. Being thought of as one, being seen as one, being thought of as one. She thought she would be fine just being on hormones forever, that she never needed to change anything about how she dressed, or talked, or acted, or her name. That's just sexist shit anyways, right? It's all a social construct. But being called 'Miss' felt like what people who take crack say what crack feels like. Once she got a taste, she just wanted more, and more, and more. Boymoding just wasn't good enough anymore. She wanted to drown in it, be suffocated by it. Live in it. Even if it was all a sick fetishistic delusion, she couldn't stop herself.

But she couldn't do it. She couldn't risk losing everything, being hated by all of her countless friends (two, maybe three). She couldn't even decide on a real female name yet without cringing to herself or feeling embarrassed. She couldn't do it. She couldn't do it. She couldn't do it. Getting HRT was the limit of her willpower. That was it for the rest of her life, she's spent it, she has nothing left in the barrel. That's all, folks. See ya later. This was the measure of her worth.

At least she didn't need to worry about bathroom shit. Bathrooms and sports, that's all she ever heard about. She was always horrible at sports - always chosen last, and eliminated first, in Dodgeball - so she really didn't give a shit if she was banned from them for the rest of her life. She couldn't even imagine herself stepping into a public gym. Hell, there's no way any trans woman actually enjoys athletics growing up, right? But since she wasn't a trans woman, she didn't need to worry about it. Bathrooms were just bathrooms to her. She was just a boy, after all. A guy with some gyno. Blissful gender peace. 

No need to deliberately make life harder for herself, all for the miniscule chance of some small sliver of fleeting happiness. No need to intentionally out herself as a Sexual Minority. As a target. As someone like Ramona. 

But maybe she can become someone like Ramona. A free spirit. Confident. If she was as brave as Ramona, she'd be able to do everything she'd ever wanted, everything she'd ever dreamed of, but was always too scared to do. She'd be able to finally be the main character of a story, for the first time in her life, instead of a forgotten footnote in another person's tale, buried under six feet of their wondrous adventures. 

To be electrifying. To be charismatic. To be courageous. To be inspiring. To be cared about by others. To be admired, like she admired them. Maybe she can be like those women she looked up to, instead of always staring on the sidelines like some kind of sicko stalker.

She was going to try. She was going to take that step into the common room and tell them both. She's going to do it. She's going to finally come out. This is it. This is it! Just one step. Just one little step.

Day #6

This is the day. The big day. 

Sophia kept thinking about Ramona. Her eyes. Her hair. Her style. Her beauty.

Sophia kept thinking about Ramona. Her voice. Her hands. Her gait. The bit of hair left on her upper lip. The deep voice she'd let out. Her height. Her...clockiness. 

If someone like Ramona could try girlmoding, why couldn't Sophia? She had a lot of things going for her, way better than Ramona did. Better than many other transwomen out there, from what she sees online. Doesn't she owe it to herself to give it a go? As Ramona said, she could gift something to the world by being a beautiful new woman for others to admire. Maybe she could be that kind of girl she'd watch from afar. 

And Ramona would be disappointed in her if she failed at coming out again and again like this.

That's it! She'll do it. She'll do it for Ramona!

Don't I deserve this one nice thing? Haven't I been working hard? Haven't I been trying so hard? Don't I deserve it? Is it so much to ask? Is it so bad? Is it so horrible, just to be asked to be called a girl? Why is that so wrong? 

But what if she is wrong? What if she's not a girl? What if she makes a big show about Being Transgender and then changes her mind? What if she detransitions? In a few months? In a few years? In 10 years? She'd be so embarrassed. She'd be so humiliated, that she ruined her life and forced everyone to shine a giant spotlight on her, a pathetic loser screaming out for attention, wearing women's clothes and ruining her body for sick pleasure, all just to throw it away at the end anyways. Never able to return back to normalcy, to hiding in her corner. How pathetic. How disgusting. 

No. No. She'd only ever come out once she's 100% sure she's transgender. Once she's 110% sure. Once she's 3000% sure. Then her anxiety will finally dissipate, evaporate, forever. Surely. 

"Yo, welcome home Nick. There's still hot dogs in the pot if you want. I think. John's out away with his chick. I'll be heading out to Sandy's later."

"Ah, uh, sure, thanks."

Ah. John's not here. She couldn't possibly come out if John wasn't here. Guess it's best to leave it for another day. She was so prepared, too. She was definitely about to finally do it this time. What a misery. How terrible.

Day #10

This is the day. The big day. 

She's definitely going to do it this time. She's definitely going to do it this time. When she comes home from work, she's going to tell them. She needs to. If she doesn't do it today, she'd be a failure. If she doesn't do it today, she'll be a worthless fucking failure that doesn't deserve to live. 

Sophia had no past. And she might not have a future, either. For Sophia, her childhood was like trying to put together a 5000 piece jigsaw puzzle when you only had a dozen of the jigs left, all of which had frayed and broken off connecting pegs, leaving them divorced from any others - and with the printed picture on top faded and burned away, leaving behind only shadow. A real pile of temporal shit. 

How long was she going to have to mine for memories in some abandoned cave of the past, before it collapses, trapping her inside forever? Never seeing the surface again, never breathing from the clear blue sky above, only hearing outside life through the cracks and shallows? Maybe it was time to disregard the past. It's not like anything important was there, anyways. Nothing more important than her potential future life. Nothing she could even verify anymore, with her horrible memory that loved to trick her , sometimes whispering comforting vague lies about just how 'true trans' she was even as a child. She knew she couldn't trust them.

Maybe she doesn't have to do anything, though. Maybe her current life isn't so bad, after all. She's never felt so happy before in her life, so maybe if she just holds on to the momentary blissful joys of her hormone therapy, she can live on. Maybe this is enough. She can recount those fleeting moments of being seen as a woman, of feeling her changing body, to get her through the days. That will be enough. Surely. 

Sophia remembered how she spent a few years on Omegle, just desperately skipping through hundreds of different people a night. She’d wear one of her oversized men’s sweaters - which sort of looked like a women’s if she slid one shoulder through the wide neckhole - to flirt with men online. How sexy, how flirtatious. Most would skip past, but some would stay for a conversation. Sophia didn’t really care who or what they were doing, even if they were just horny dudes wanting to show off their mediocre dicks. As long as she got a single “Hey, girl!”, her entire month could be made. Out of a sense of guilted obligation, she’d always say immediately after, ‘No no, I’m actually a guy!’. Sometimes they’d be so impressed they’d give her even more compliments. Oftentimes they’d just block her. 

It's not like she was attracted to the men. It's not like it made her feel excited. She just wanted to be called a girl. She just wanted to be called a hot girl instead of a boring boy, by men who usually only find real women attractive. That was all. She wanted to be called beautiful as she thought about a man losing his inhibitions and wanting to make out with her and fuck her just like any other girl. But it was just to feel better about herself - to seduce a Chad meant you had power over him, meant that you passed well enough. It's not like she's gay. It's not like she's a straight girl. It's not like she's LGBT. She's just a weird freak. When she closed the tab, she'd feel nothing all over again, drifting through school like an asexual eunuch, finding everyone around her boring or disgusting. And so she'd need to return over and over again to feel something, anything, again. Only in that little private space could she ever feel alive, could she ever feel like normal people. To assume that she could expand that space outside, to the real world, where she could be a woman, and feel sexuality as well, was insanity. 

So, as long as she had that one rare secret misgender every few weeks, she’d be okay. She wouldn’t need to transition. Knowing that she looked enough like a girl even without HRT was enough, even if it barely ever happened. Trying to reach out for any more than that was selfish. It was undeserved. It was impossible. 

In Sophia's mind, not only was happiness morally wrong, but karmically wrong, too. If something good happened to her, it was more than she deserved. The grand cosmic karmic balance of the universe that revolved around her, meant that having good things would outweigh wanting good things to happen, wanting more things, meant that she was getting greedy and selfish. Expecting more than her pay grade. Acting above her caste. She didn't know anything about Hinduism or Buddhism or whatever else was in those Matrix movies, but she was able to retro-fit these definitions to self-deprecate herself even more than she used to. That's one of her lifelong talents - resourcefulness towards this specific honorable goal of being humble. 

Thinking some nonsense like "Maybe, I...am, a woman? Maybe I pass? Maybe I'm even, kind of nice looking? Maybe, I can girlmode fulltime?" was a special treat for her, a bonus dopamine hit as rewards for good behavior, a self-indulgent fantasy daydream. Something she can't allow an inbred dog like her to have too often, or else she'll get spoiled and full of hubris. It's a simple rule of life: Confident people deserve confidence, because they're successful and prove their worth. Cowards and failures should never be confident about anything they ever try to do, because their track records prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they have nothing worth being confident about. Failures don't deserve to ever succeed, or to be arrogant enough to believe they should. That's why they're failures - because they deserve to be failures, and so they deserve to always fail.

This rule only exists for Sophia, though. Not for Ramona. Or her friends. Or anybody she looked up too. Or total strangers. Or anyone else in the world.

Only her. 

Maybe if she buries her feelings deeply enough, Ramona could even be a girlfriend. Ramona could finally be the cool hot girlfriend Sophia's always wanted. The girlfriend who could fix her. The girlfriend who could cure her of her sinful sickness. Of her infatuated infection. Of the mind virus slithering inside the folds of her brain, an alpha and omega ouroboros, the sexual obsession that has both no observable cause and no end in sight. She knows it will eventually consume her if she follows the path she's currently on. If she could just get a girlfriend, she could excise it from within to without, ejaculating it into some hapless hole, like so many trannies have done before in their desperate sick repressive lives. They get a wife, make a few kids, and end up losing their minds to trannyism anyways, transitioning into freak shows on daytime television for bored housewives to gawk at. A hopeless futile fight, rendering them so old they don't even have any life left to live anymore.

Is there truly no escape from this hell? From this curse? Why am I like this? Why is my brain like this? Who did this to me? Why did I do this to myself? Why didn't I just stop thinking about being a girl before it got this bad? How could I have ever let it get this bad? Because it just felt too good to rub my body that way in bed? Because I succumbed to sinful hedonism? I ruined my one chance at life because I wasn't strong enough to resist the pleasure...

I'm broken I'm broken I'm broken...

Maybe if I come out, I could finally experience...

"Wanna watch a movie tonight, bro?" Mark asked to a daydreaming Sophia.

Romance and sex...As a woman...

"It's a good one. I watched it with Jenn the other day," John added.

Like I dream about...with the men around me right now...

"Oh, 'Jenn' now? You must be close! Is she your girlfriend or something! Anyways, Nick - movie?"

"Uh, no thanks, I'll uh, I have, um - bye."

Sophia had to cover her chest as she escaped into her room, in case they saw something truly disgusting.

Day#14

Click. Clock. Click. Clock.

Hello, Mirror, my old friend.

Square hips. Wider shoulders. Jutting nose. Flat chest, nearly. Slightly softer skin. Was her face a little more pudgy? Did her cheeks fill out a bit? And her chest...She'd felt it grow more and more sensitive by the day. Not only to touch, but her thoughts and emotions. She couldn't believe some pills could just transform her body this much.

But it still wasn't enough. She still looked like some ageing twink with some weird growths in random spots of her body. No real progression since yesterday or last week. It wasn't happening fast enough. Hopeless. Hopeless. She had hoped if she looked enough like a woman, she would never have to come out, that she could just - pop!, go stealth one day, and have everyone just naturally assume she's a woman without her having to say anything. But clearly, transitioning is never that easy.

It was time for her to give up. She's exhausted every avenue of thought in her mind, every remote option laid before her, every potential end result of her "coming out", of even her transitioning - and found nothing. No hope at all. She'd wasted a year of her life and threw away everything she'd had all to chase an impossible dream. Of mutilation of her body. Of sinning. Of lying to her friends. She couldn't take it anymore, the unbearable burden of her over-active mind constantly thinking. Maybe she'll just throw away her pills and move out back to her parents. After saying goodbye to Ramona, maybe. And then that'll be the end of everything. The end of this silly little game. Her one attempt to take control of her life. She couldn't have expected much better results than what she got, after all. It was time to throw in the towel and admit defeat. 

She turned away from the mirr-

-!

What was that?

She glimpsed it for a split-second, from the corner of her eye. A peripheral specter dancing at the edge of her consciousness, escaping out and into the abyss. But she’s seen it. 

There was a girl in the mirror. Some reptilian part of her brain received a rendered stimuli, processed it, and spat out ‘Woman!’ back towards the primal part of it. A stranger in the apartment. A veritable human being.

And just like that, the holy ghost was gone. All she could now see was her Maleness staring, screaming back at her yet again. But she knew she saw a woman, in one moment’s fleeting space. She saw her, for the first time in her life, manifested into some kind of reflected reality, from some alternate dimension. Parallel? Perpendicular? Who was she? What kind of woman was she? What was her name? What was she like? What was her hobbies? What was her personality like? What kind of friend was she? What path did she go on? What is her past? What is her future? Who was she? Could Sophia ever meet her again? 

She wanted to. She wanted to see that girl in the mirror again. 

In a way, it's the only thing Sophia ever wanted, and ever wants. She has no other earthly desires, no grand cause or yearning. It's like everything she thought she was was carved out and replaced with an all-consuming desire. Maybe if she'd just done all this shit years ago, she'd be able to have moved on by this point. Maybe if she got to live her early 20s as a woman. Maybe if she got to experience her teenage years as a young woman. Maybe if she got to grow up a girl. Maybe if she got to grow up a girl. 

She's been living a double life for close to a year now. The constant secrets, the constant hiding, has been tearing her apart.

She's been living a double life for close to twenty years now. The constant secrets, the constant hiding, has been tearing her apart.

She couldn't take it anymore. She couldn't take it anymore. Something had to give. Something had to give. 

So, this had to be the day. The big day. 

She's definitely going to do it th- Oh, who the fuck was she kidding? It's already been two fucking weeks. Maybe if she waits long enough, she won't have to do anything. Maybe if she waits long enough, the problem will just disappear, evaporate into the mists. How easy! How convenient! No difficult decisions to make, no anxiety to wrestle through, no horrible consequences...

No horrible consequences...No positive consequences, either.

No girlmoding, ever, for as long as she lived in that apartment.

No dressing as a girl. No getting called a women's name. No public dating outside of skeezy bars with chasers. No being able to be a normal girlfriend. No love life, no sex life. No being able to be a wife someday. No being able to be...a mother. She'll always solely be a deep dark secret with deep dark fantasies.

If I don't come out...

She'll be safe. She'll be secure. She'll be alone. She'll be a man, the man she knows she is. The man her family wants her to be. Maybe she could even move back in with them, to ensure she would never have the space or air to ever do anything or be anything ever again. 

If I don't come out...I feel like I'm...

Just rotting away in that empty lifeless room forever. Until she's 30. 40. 50. 60. 70. 80. 90. Adding to the cold dead lifelessness with every passing year, sucking away at her with no escape. Death. Death. Death. 

If I don't come out...I feel like I'm going to die...

—

"So, what's happening? You had something to tell us?"

"This feels all serious bro, haha."

Huh?

Sophia looked up from her phone. It was John and Mark standing before her, seemingly waiting for her to speak. 

This is the day. 

"Uh, I...I'm..."

I can't say it. What the fuck am I doing. How did it come to this? I don't even remember asking them to come here...

The big day. 

Well, they're here now. Just do it. Just do it. Just say it. Once I say it, it'll all be over.

"I..."

One more.

"I, uh..."

One more.

"Bro!? Are you okay? Do you need some Xan or some shit?"

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Mark ruined her perfect flow of motivation. She was definitely just about to do it before he interrupted!

She pulled out her phone and started tapping on glass to their group chat. How fucking pathetic that she couldn't even say it out loud, but she was desperate. She wanted to run away so badly she could scream, but also wanted to communicate so badly she could scream. Just three words. Three words to change her life forever. She just had to stop thinking and send it. She just has to turn herself into an animal. She has to run on pure instinct. Every decision she's ever made on instinct has been the correct one, so she just needs to trust her senses again. She has to shut her evil evil evil brain down and let her body do the talking.

Hit send. Hit send. Hit send. Hit send. Hit send. Hit send. 

Like when she started taking hormones, despite feeling so terrified she wanted to wretch. 

Hit send. Hit send. Hit send. Hit send. Hit send. Hit send. 

Or how she escaped from her parents.

Hit send. Hit send. Hit send. Hit send. Hit send. Hit send. 

Or walking with Ramona.

The mirror.

"I've been transitioning."

Silence. 

She pulled her head up, opened her eyes, and muttered with purpose, "Sorry for hiding it. Sorry. I know it's weird, so I'm sorry if it grosses. You guys. Out. But I'm...that."

Silence.

Sophia felt her voice shake, surprised the words were even leaking out of her barely-opened mouth crack. 

John finally broke the silence, asking "Transitioning? What? So, you're moving?" 

"What? No! I'm not moving! I'm...I'm trans! I'm transgender!" Sophia said clearly, fucking finally.

Oh my god holy shit I said it I said it I said it I said it I said it I said it I said it I said it I said it I said it I said it I said it I said it I said it I said it I said it I sai-

"Wait, so that's why you got tits!?", Mark said, breaking her train of thought.

...

Ugh...

She felt sick. Exposed. Vulnerable. She thought she had hidden everything perfectly. She thought she was so fucking smart. The spotlight shone brighter. This is what it means to expose your naked secrets to the world.

"You noticed?" Sophia squeaked as a mouse.

"We figured something was going on. It was pretty obvious. I just thought you were getting fat or something though. I was gonna start bringing you to the gym with me, to be honest," John said.

Mark was aloof and a bit of a goof, but John was so serious that Sophia was far more worried about his reaction over anybody else's.

She tried to cut herself down more to make it easier for them to accept, saying "I'm really sorry...if this is, uh, gross. I'm sorry. I can leave. I can find another place."

Proving her assessment of him correct, Mark replied, "Listen, whoah, listen, I don't really know what this gender shit means, but don't go sayin' that. We're not gonna kick you out. You're our bro. You'll always be our bro."

Bro...

Sophia didn't know when she'd get another chance to have A Talk about this, so she decided to get as much pertinent information out as possible, explaining: "So, like, - I've been, taking some, uh, medicine, for about a year, now. From a doctor. I've been seeing a doctor every so often. Endocrinologist. So my body looks a little different, and it might change more. I couldn't stand hiding it any more. I'm sorry for lying to you guys. I'm not getting fat. I mean, I am a little. But, uh, never mind. It's fine if you think it's weird or strange or gross. I might start... wearing different clothes. Sometimes. To work. And stuff. Around the place. If that's okay."

"I mean," John said "I'm not gonna judge you, I guess. I don't really get it. Just don't be weird about it or anything."

"Yeah, uh, I don't really know any gays or anything, so like, you just do your thing I guess."

Gay...It's best not to talk about sexuality with them.

It's not exactly acceptance, but apathy is better than nothing. Cluelessness is always better than mis/informed hatred.

"I mean, you're just, like, changing your look, right? I mean, it's not that big a deal. You could've just texted us. I guess you did though, haha," Mark said.

John closed his eyes in thought for a moment, and then opened them to scan Sophia up and down. She felt exposed and naked again.

Can he see my fantasies? Did he notice my changes like Mark? Did he notice my breasts? Could he see I'm different? Can he understand why I'm doing this? 

So, are you going to be a girl, then?" he asked. The money question. 

Well, I'll never be a girl, dumbass.

"Uh...well, I'm, uh...I'm going to try, maybe, at work...Sometimes people, think I'm a girl already..."

That was a bit of a humble brag, but this is impossible to answer. They're going to attack me for whatever I say. I don't know what I "am". I just know I really love estrogen. I want to run back into my room. I want to hide under my covers. I want to hide under my hoodie. I want to di-

John cut her thoughts off, saying "Well, I'm honestly just glad you're fine. I thought you had got into drugs, constantly hiding everything, and wearing that stupid hoodie all the time. I would've beat you up if you got into any of that shit, by the way."

Drugs. I guess estradiol does count. Sophia laughed a bit at his reaction. The first time she's laughed in a couple of weeks. John is pretty caring in his own way. He reminded her of a father sometimes. 

"I mean," Sophia said, looking down at her chest, then back up to John, "Drugs usually makes people thinner, right?"

Sophia said this in her girl voice, with a kind of sly feminine flair she usually only reserved for horny randos online. It made her smile inside, to show them a secret part of herself that she's only ever seen peripherally, out of the corner of her eye, or expressed only in fantasy worlds divorced from reality. A dream never realized, but might be within her grasp now. She was so scared, but maybe this will be the release valve that finally stops her going slightly more mad each day. Maybe if she can talk like a girl, move like a girl, dress like a girl, maybe everyday life might finally start to get a little easier for her, and she could start finally living, as the river flows. The black cat's out of the bag, so why not go as far as she could with it? It's what her instincts were telling her to do. 

After all, if she can't do this, there's nothing left for her. There's nothing left for her to do. There's nothing left for her to try. She's already done everything else, and nothing worked. Nothing else. This was it. This was all she had left. The last bullet in the barrel. The last ditch in no-man's land. She was going to finally stop boymoding, and put her all into girlmoding. And by god, she was going to make it fucking work. Or else.

"So, are you like, gonna change your name? They do that sort of thing right?" Mark finally asked.

Fuck. The name. She spent so much time worrying about telling them, she hadn't actually decided on one yet. Sophia rattled through her mind for any possible name choices. 

"I guess, I mean, if it's not too much of a bother..."

Ones that weren't already taken by some female acquaintance she once knew. Ones that were just feminine enough.  

"...Maybe just when I start looking a bit more different and stuff..."

She's gone through so many girl names online, that it didn't really matter which she chose anymore. Any name would do. 

"...If it's not too gross to you..."

Once she uses it enough, it'll feel normal. And if she didn't say one now, she was afraid she might be stuck with Nick forever. 

"You can call me..."

"Do you think I look more like mommy or daddy?" she'd asked, with a big expecting grin.

"Well, you definitely take after more of your mother's side, that's for sure." 

Sophia beamed.

This was the 4th time they've answered this question to Sophia just that Christmas night alone, she did did every family gathering, in-between talking about her favorite dinosaurs to anyone who'd listen. 

"I know! Do you have photos of her when she was like me? Do we look the same?"

"...No no, we don’t have anything like that, your parents might have though, have you asked them?" 

The aunt and uncle looked at each other. What a fucking weird kid. 

It just made sense to her, though. Brother was more like daddy and Sophia was more like mommy. Why would she think any differently? She was even more like mommy than her sister was. Some things still didn't make sense, but she didn't like thinking about it too much. There was nothing to think about. 

Sophia opened the book and flipped through the pictures with her mom She stared and examined the faces closely. She hadn't told her why she wanted to see the book yet, silently sensing she wouldn't have shown her if she did. But now was the time. 

"Mommy, do you think I look like you? Everyone says we look the same." 

Maybe I’ll look like you when I grow up, and

Mother stared deep into her child's eyes.

"Listen, Nick. You are a handsome strong boy. You are my little strong man. You are my handsome little man. You will be a strong, handsome man. That's what God wants for you. He told me so. In my dreams. It's your future. Do you love God? God loves you very much."

Sophia didn't really understand. She wasn't very handsome, so why did Mommy keep saying that? The other kids just said she was weird, not handsome. They didn't like her. They made fun of her. She wasn't very strong, either. She cried all the time. She said the wrong things sometimes, a lot of the time. She didn't know how to make friends or why she got made fun of so much. She never knew the right thing to say. She didn't know what she was doing so wrong to make life so hard, every day. Why was everything so hard? Sometimes she wished the days would just end early and she could skip on to the next one, and the next, and the next. It was better not having to think about how bad things were all the time, all the time, all the time. Something maybe was wrong with her. Something about her life didn't make sense. Sophia simply couldn't understand.

But she knew she was a boy. Obviously. Otherwise she wouldn't be called Nick and share clothes with her brother. That's why she can't play with her sister as much anymore. She thinks she understands now. She was a boy and loved her mommy.

Well, maybe even a boy can look like mommy someday. Why couldn't they? 

Click.

End of Act 1: Boymoding

Dimmu

Thank you so much for following this story through it's first arc. It may take a while for the next chapters as life gets in the way, but there are many developments yet to unfold. Don't give up, Sophia! Become the best girlmoder the world's ever seen!

 

Special thanks to Holly Dittus for contributing her amazing hand-drawn artwork. As the creator behind such works as the original "Tirkom" and the relatable "You Woke up as a Girl This Morning!?", she will be continuing to provide art for select scenes in future chapters. Please check out her work here.