I think if Jessie hadn't been with me I'd have just completely shut down. Miss Jorgensen knows. She's an adult, somebody responsible. I can't just pretend I'm a girl now. Sooner or later, Miss Jorgensen will probably want a word; if I tell her I'm transgender, then it'll probably find its way to the school administration, and before I know it Mum will know. And I trust her enough to know that she probably won't kick me out of the house for being a girl, but it will be embarrassing, and everything will quickly be out of hand. I'm going to have to tell Jessie that I wasn't telling the truth just now. That I'm just a weird boy who, like all boys, wants to be a girl, and that I totally wasn't trying to mock Olivia or anything.

But I'm enjoying her company right now, so I shove my worries to the back of my mind. Next week's Harry can deal with this. For now I'm just going to make the most of having a friend.

The worry must be apparent on my face. Jessie, between mouthfuls of pork pie, offers me a smile. "You look pale."

"I'm fine. Didn't eat enough breakfast, that's all."

"Eat your lunch then," she says, channelling my mother in an uncanny way. She takes another bite of pork pie, chews, swallows, then continues. "I'm not surprised you weren't eating properly, carrying a secret like that. You poor thing. It must have been eating away at you."

I nod, but—using the excuse that I'm eating my lunch—don't actually say anything. Don't want to give away the fact that I'm not actually a girl. Oh shit, Hannah, why didn't you do some research before you decided to tell Jessie this? At least that way you'd be able to engage with her on a deeper-than-surface level about the topic. Come to think of it, why did you ever think telling Jessie you're a girl was in any way a good idea? How did you even come up with it?

And why do you feel so fucking happy that Jessie sees you as a girl?

"If you don't mind me asking," Jessie continues, "how did you realise? I mean, I love being a girl, girls are awesome—but it never even occurred to me that there were options until Olivia came out. And even then—I don't know what being a boy feels like. I just know that everyone's always called me a girl, and treated me as a girl, and I like how I am."

I figure I have to give her some sort of verbal response. You can't ignore a direct question from a friend! So I make a show of chewing my sandwich, buying myself a few seconds' thinking time, and plump for the 'nugget of truth' approach to lying. In a sense, that's just explaining how I genuinely feel, occasionally seeding that with what I think a transgender girl would feel, and trusting that Jessie's own security in her gender will mean she doesn't notice that I'm talking out of my arse. So I tell her about my body—how I hate how it looks, even though my sister tells me it's fine and I can't pinpoint what's wrong with it. I tell her about how I've never really fitted in with the boys. How I play football alone because the boys are all too rough. How, like all boys, I've always kind of thought being a girl would be neat—and how much I envy the girls' pretty uniform, because my own is so horrible.

When I'm done, Jessie has a tear in her eye. "I'm sorry," she says. "That must have been so hard."

"I just always had to live with it," I shrug.

"And now you don't." Jessie smiles. "Now you're free to start living your life."

"I guess I am." A thought flashes over my brain. "Do you mind... keeping this between us? Just for now? I'm not sure I'm ready for the rest of the world to know."

Jessie puts a finger to her lips. "I won't tell a soul, Hannah."

*

Once we've finished eating, Jessie and I join up with the rest of the girls. They're all curious to know what we talked about—Kiah asks if we're dating, and raises her eyebrows at the vehemence of my denials. To her credit, Jessie doesn't breathe a word. I tell them that it was a personal matter—partly because Kiah looks as though she's about to burst from curiosity—but that just makes them more interested. Shit, Hannah, you might be a girl, but you have no idea how girls think. Through it all, Emma is silent. She just gives me a knowing look.

Lunch is over before we know it—it always is; I think that's just one of the sad realities of school—and Jessie and I make our way to English class. As we walk, I start to get nervous about Miss Jorgensen again. What if she outs me in front of the whole class? Eddie and Joel would tell the rest of the rugby team, and the teasing would be so bad that I'd have no choice but to commit to femininity. At least if I present myself as a girl, I'll have Jessie and the others in my corner to insulate me from the rugby team's jeers; as the boy who pretended to be a girl for a day, I'd be an outcast and a target. I might even have to wear the girls' uniform. Actually, that wouldn't be so bad. Skirts look cute, and the idea of wearing one appeals to me.

Jessie notices my growing tension, so in whispers I apprise her of the situation as we make our way to English. "How can she possibly know?" she muses, but I don't have any answers.

Truth be told, I've been running through the possibilities in the back of my mind all through lunch. How can Miss Jorgensen know? It's not like there are many options. Jessie was the first person I ever asked to call me Hannah, and that was after Miss Jorgensen had used the name, so she couldn't have overheard the name from anywhere. I hadn't even thought of calling myself Hannah until yesterday's English class. I remember sitting in the swelter, running through girls' names as Miss Jorgensen handed out our class exercise books.

As we signed them...

Shit.

Bad Hannah. I mentally slap myself for being so careless. Of course Miss Jorgensen knows. I practically told her my name.

The question, then, is what she's going to do about it. Will she be tactful or bigoted? The ball is in her court.

As always, Miss Jorgensen is in the classroom before we arrive, her make-up on point as ever. She smiles at me and Jessie as we enter, just as she smiles at all the students in her class, but doesn't acknowledge either of us again as we make our way to our seats. That almost makes the anticipation worse. Eddie James from the rugby team grabs Jessie's leg as we pass; she recoils and shifts her leg away, glaring at him. Eddie doesn't get the message. He leers. "Still with your boyfriend, Jessie? You can do better than Harry Carden, surely."

Jessie's face is red, and I can hear sniffles as she rushes to her seat. I rush to keep pace. Charlotte Kennedy, a bookish girl who sits kind of near to Eddie, shakes her head. "You must have the biggest dick in the year, Eddie," she says—the kind of verbal faux pas I'd probably make, if I was confident enough to speak loud enough for the whole class to hear.

Eddie turns his attention to Charlotte. By now, everyone in top-set is watching; Miss Jorgensen has got to her feet, ready to shut things down.

"Damn right I do," Eddie leers.

"About five foot ten with hair on the head," Charlotte adds. "So big it wears its own school uniform."

"My dick doesn't wear a uniform," says Eddie, but Joel jabs him in the ribs.

"She's saying you're a dick, you moron."

I tune out the rest of that conversation, and focus instead on Jessie. She's got a calm veneer, but I did hear her sniffling. "We can report him, you know," I tell her. "Grabbing you like that—it's out of order."

Jessie shakes her head. "No. It's fine."

"Eddie's a wanker."

"He is," Jessie agrees. "And when he gets older, one day he's gonna piss off someone bigger than him and get knocked out. But right now? He's nothing. And if we keep talking about him, he stops being nothing. I don't want to give that cockroach any meaning in my life."

I nod. "If you want to talk, just say."

"Likewise," Jessie tells me. "Us girls stick together."

Eventually, things settle down—I think Eddie's mates convince him to shut up before he makes a bigger twat of himself—and Miss Jorgensen passes everyone's exercise books back. When she gets to mine, she leans in close to me. "Can we have a word after class, Hannah? It'll only take five minutes." I nod and see that my surmising was right. I wrote Hannah Carden on my book, not Harry Carden. My fault for not paying attention. I go to scratch it out—but then I realise that Jessie would want to know why I was disavowing my female name. It would be hard to square that with my assertion that I'm a trans girl called Hannah. And besides, I prefer the way the letters look in 'Hannah'.

It makes me sad to think that I'll have to give it up eventually. I'll finish school, and move on to other things, and I won't need to keep up the pretence of being a girl. I'll go back to being a useless boy—I'll be 'Harry' again. 'Harry' who in fifteen years and ten months of life has felt more like a bystander than 'Hannah' has in a single day.

Why, why, why could I not just be a transgender girl?

"Do you want me to wait for you after school?" Jessie asks, halfway through the lesson. Miss Jorgensen is giving us an overview of the main cast of 'To Kill A Mockingbird', telling us about Boo Radley, but I'm struggling to pay attention and I think it shows.

I thank Jessie for the offer but shake my head. "What's the worst that can happen?" I say. "Anyway, I've got Beth at home. My sister. If I need to, I can talk to her—she'll want to talk my ears off anyway."

"How did she take it, when you told her?"

"Told her what?"

Jessie drops her voice to a whisper. "That you're a girl."

Ah. "I, uh, haven't actually told her... not in as many words. But I'm pretty sure she knows anyway. She outright said she wouldn't have a problem if I was a girl—and she kind of bought me lipstick yesterday."

"What? Girl, I'm so jealous. My sister's never once bought me lipstick." Jessie just about keeps her voice low enough to not let the whole class hear.

"I didn't know you had a sister," I tell her, truthfully. "Does she go to this school, or has she already finished?"

"Hasn't started yet," Jessie says. "Flora's only three. Which might be part of why she's never bought me lipstick, but I still reserve the right to be scandalised."

I laugh. Jessie's not just a lovely girl, she has a great sense of humour. She's like the perfect woman. When I transition, I hope I end up like her. Except I'm not going to transition, because I'm not a girl. But if I was, I'd want to be a girl like Jessie. Shit, this double-life is getting hard to keep track of.

When class ends, Jessie deliberately lingers until she's one of the last left. She squeezes my hand and whispers "Good luck" in my ear as she leaves; soon enough, everyone's gone but me and Miss Jorgensen. She rises from her desk at the front of the class, crosses to the door, pushes it shut. Then starts to walk towards me. She's wearing a beautiful green-and-blue floral dress, the kind that I would totally wear if I was a girl. That I wish I could wear. Even non-school-uniform clothes for women seem a thousand times more appealing than for men—I'm dreading a middle age of button-down shirts and slacks.

"So." Miss Jorgensen sits across from me. "Hannah, is it?"

I nod mutely.

"That's a nice name," she smiles. "I've a cousin named Hannah. So tell me: how did this come about?"

I'm suddenly worried that she thinks it's a prank, and I'm going to get in trouble for wasting her time. But Miss Jorgensen doesn't seem cross.

"Uh... well, Miss... I realised I... I'm happier being.... being treated as a..." I trail off.

"As a girl?" Miss Jorgensen finishes. I nod eagerly. "Well, Hannah, that's a very big discovery to make. I'm presuming it's part of the explanation for how quiet you've been the last few years?"

"Part of it, yeah. I feel more confident now I have friends who treat me as a girl."

"Just so long as you don't go getting too confident," Miss Jorgensen laughs. "I much prefer students like you who keep out of trouble. But I have no doubt you will, Hannah. I see you're sitting with Jessie Porter now. She's a good egg, is Jessie. Stick with people like her and you'll not go wrong."

I swallow nervously. "I'm sorry, Miss," I say.

"Whatever for?"

"For not putting my... my proper name on my book."

Miss Jorgensen laughs at that. "I asked you to put your name on the book, Hannah. And that's what you did."

"But the register—"

"Oh, who cares about the register? It's just data. Who you are is more personal than data." She fidgets in her seat. "I have to be honest with you, Hannah, I have no idea what it's like to be transgender. But I do know what it's like to be a woman, and let me tell you, you've picked the right side. I've got that right, haven't I? You are transgender?"

I nod slowly. "Yes, Miss. I am."

"And you're planning on transitioning, I take it? Living your life as the woman you are?"

"Eventually." I would if I was really a girl.

"Then you have my support, Hannah." Miss Jorgensen taps the lid of her pen. "There's a process in place," she says. "You wouldn't be the first trans girl in the school, not by a long shot. I can put you in touch with the admissions officer; she's the one who handles student records, and your first port of call would be to meet with her. She'll apprise you of what your next steps are."

I shake my head. "I'm not sure I... I'm ready for that."

Miss Jorgensen nods. "I understand that," she tells me. "It's a scary thing. But would you like me to make a note of your new name on my register? It would only affect my system, but I'd be able to mark your assignments out to Hannah rather than Harry."

I nod. "That sounds lovely, Miss Jorgensen," I say.

"Very good. Oh, and Hannah? You're always welcome to talk, if you need to."

Alexandrina

Well... things seem to be working out alright for Hannah so far (shame about the vile Eddie she has to share a class with; let's hope he gets his comeuppance). This is the third chapter in three days, and getting me back on my one-every-two-days schedule after I accidentally published Chapter 5 a day early. There won't be a new chapter tomorrow, but every second day for the next few weeks at least. If that schedule changes, I'll let everybody know :)

Also, I have created a glossary for the story. Every character mentioned by name in the story is listed there, so you can refresh your memory as to who they are. Fair warning: I've tried to keep the descriptions spoiler-free, but a few entries do rely on information we don't find out until midway through the story (to avoid misgendering Hannah and Olivia, for example).