“I said I’m not who you think I am!”

I turned away. I couldn’t look at her, not after what she just said. She said I was beautiful, and if I let myself think about it for more than a second, I could feel my resolve slipping away. I wanted to believe her, to hold her, to kiss her, but it wasn’t true, and I didn’t deserve it. Brie was beautiful, Brie was the one she wanted, and no matter how much it hurt, that couldn’t be me…

Alex sat up a little straighter, reaching over to touch my hand. I yanked it away as she got close. That’s not how this was supposed to go, she shouldn’t have to comfort me.

“Brie… Brie, what do you mean? Please look at me Brie…”

I wanted to, god I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I’d break. Alex sounded hurt, like she was worried she’d done something wrong. She hadn’t. She was perfect. That’s why I had to do this. I had to prove to her that the person she was looking at wasn’t Brie, then she could hate me, and then I could leave.

“Alex… remember three days ago, you needed the mocha mix at work, but you couldn’t reach it. It was too high up, and you couldn’t find the step ladder.”

From how everyone was acting, Brie’s life was pretty much the same as mine up until now. Maybe… maybe if I could find a flaw in her memories, some inconsistency to poke away at, she’d believe me when I told her.

“What? Yeah, of course I remember. The cupboard we keep that stuff in is way too high, it’s such a pain in the ass. What does this have to do with anything?”

“Just please, trust me. It’s important. How did you get the mocha?”

“What?”

“The mocha. How did you get it down?”

“I mean… I called you over, and you grabbed it for me. I don’t see-”

I cut her off.

“How did I get it? How did I get the mocha when you couldn't? The step ladder was missing and I’m shorter than you are. How did I get the mocha?”

I could feel her twitching slightly. The vibrations carrying through the bed. I hoped I wasn’t hurting her.

“It was… I… You climbed up. You climbed up onto the edge of the sink and grabbed it for me. Right..?”

I shook my head.

“Except I didn’t. Dana was there, and you know how much the managers freak out over stuff like that. I didn’t climb it, you didn’t pick me up, and we didn’t have the step ladder. Why did you call me to get it for you? Why was I able to do it?”

“I… you…”

She was shaking really bad now. I felt horrible. If this didn’t do it, I’d quit right now. I couldn’t take much more of this. I finally, finally turned to look at her.

“It’s because I was taller than you! Three days ago I was taller than you because Brie isn’t real! I don’t know what happened, but yesterday everything changed… and suddenly I was Brie…”

It was like a switch flipped inside her. She shuddered up and down, from her head to her toes, and then it stopped. She looked at me with a new understanding.

“Isaac..?”

That name felt like a bullet to the chest. She knew now. She knew everything, and it hurt so bad. That name hurt so bad, but I nodded. My voice was shaking.

“Yeah…”

“Shit…”

I opened my mouth to try and explain everything. To tell her the whole truth, but now of all times, my voice failed me again. I tried for a few seconds to force my way around it, but as usual, I couldn’t make it happen. I grabbed my phone off of the nightstand behind me.

>>I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything

>>I’m sorry I lied to you

>>I’m sorry I made you save me without knowing

>>I’m sorry I slept with you…

>>I know you like Brie, it’s obvious

>>But I’m not her, no matter how much I wish I was

>>No matter how much I want to be her, I know I never will be

>>You can hate me now if you want

>>I get it

>>Just please let me pack my stuff, and you’ll never have to see me again

I passed her my phone and waited for her to read it. I was staring at my hands, just waiting for the dam to break. For the tears and the yelling and the hate I deserved.

What I didn’t expect was for a warm body to press up against mine, or for two gentle arms to wrap around me, pulling me tightly towards her.

“Oh Brie…”

Her hand tangled in my hair and pulled me in closer. I didn’t understand. I’d told her I was Isaac, that it was all a lie, that I could never be the Brie she wanted, the Brie that I wanted to be. Didn’t she get that? Why didn’t she hate me? Why wasn’t she yelling?

“It’s ok Cutie. It’s alright. You don’t have to be… him if you don’t want to. You’re right, you know? I do like Brie, I like the Brie I have now, and I liked the Brie I had before too. You were hurting, bad. It was so obvious, but I didn’t know why. Now I do. Now it’s clear as day.”

She pulled back, grabbing my face on both sides and locking eyes with me.

“Do you know what the biggest difference between Brie and Isaac is? It’s your eyes. Before all this, before you changed, however that happened, you looked like you were hardly alive. You looked like you’d been robbed of something precious to you, but Brie, Brie’s eyes are always brilliant and shining, even when she’s sad. Even when the world is crumbling around her, Brie is alive! There were times, when you’d ramble on about something you were excited for, or when a customer ‘confused’ you for a girl, or you were getting just a little too tipsy after work when I’d see that life poking through, but now, here, in this very moment you look alive! You look sad and afraid and I hate that, but more than anything you look alive!”

It didn’t make sense… She was supposed to hate me. She was supposed to throw me aside like my parents did, but here she was. Holding me. Comforting me again. I wanted to speak, to tell her how wrong this was. How I deserved to be hurt, but I couldn’t grab my phone. I was crying again, tears streaming down my face. I’d been doing that a lot lately.

“You said you wanted to be Brie, didn’t you?”

Sniffling, I nodded.

“Then congratulations, you are. You’re Brie, my favorite adorable little barista, and an absolute cutie. That’s all it takes. I promise.”

But that couldn’t be all it took. There’s no way that could be all it took, because if it was I would’ve been Brie from the start, I would’ve known from the start. I pulled myself away and grabbed my phone again, typing away furiously.

>>Alex, that’s really sweet. You’re being kinder than I deserve

>>But I can’t be a woman

>>That’d mean I was trans or something, and trans people know what they are

>>They don’t just want to be a woman or want to be a man, they just are and they know that

>>I can’t be

Alex was watching as I typed and cut me off before I could finish.

“That’s not true Brie. That’s just not true. I know it’s scary, and I know it’s a lot, but I promise you, men don’t want to be women, and women don’t want to be men. The only reason you’d feel that way, the only reason, is if you were a woman from the start. I promise you. I promise with every fiber of my being. If you want to be Brie, you can be. It really is that simple.”

I took a deep, gasping, shaking breath.

“Allie…”

I choked.

Again.

But Alex had promised, hadn’t she? It was ok if I couldn’t say it, it didn’t make it any less real, and she wouldn’t judge me for it.

>>I want to be Brie

>>I want that more than anything

>>Can I just do that?

>>Is that really ok?

Her smile was everything. It was bright and beautiful even as her eyes overflowed with tears. All my doubts, everything, her smile and her touch just chased them all away.

“Yes Brie. Of course you can, nobody can ever take that away from you.”

We sat there, holding tightly onto each other, tangled up in bed for the better part of an hour. Everything was chaotic and messy. I’d lost my home, my family, my car, and I had no clue how I’d be able to keep paying for college now, but none of that mattered. I had a new home, with someone who cared about me, and I was finally being honest about who I was. For the first time in a long time, I was really, truly happy. Then I heard Alex’s stomach rumble and I realized I’d forgotten something. We were supposed to have breakfast an hour ago, weren’t we?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2 Weeks Later

It was finally here! The day I’d been waiting for all week had arrived and I was practically bouncing off the walls with excitement as Alex pulled her car into a parking spot. My first trip to the mall since I became Brie! Now technically Brie had been here before, and Alex had the memories to back that up, but it was the first time in my memory, and that made it special. Things had finally returned to some semblance of normal after Allie and I talked things out, although she did ask me to take a few days off work for some R&R after everything I’d been through. We weren’t dating, yet at least. Alex and I were both definitely into each other, but she didn’t feel comfortable making us a thing while everything was still fresh. She didn’t want to feel like she was preying on me while I was vulnerable, which I understood.

That didn’t stop us from sharing a bed though, or spending basically every spare minute with each other. When I finally started going back to work, I found I was doing a lot better with my people skills than before. A lot of - but not all of - my anxiety seemed to come from something Allie called ‘dysphoria’, a sense of severe discomfort based on one’s body (and particularly one’s gender) not matching up with their mind. Now that my dysphoria was fading away, it was becoming increasingly clear to me just how much it had affected my mental state before and just how much better I felt now.

Jay was pretty awesome too. It turns out he was a trans guy, and once I managed to convince him about what happened to me (it wasn’t that hard, he was apparently pretty open to that stuff, especially with Alex vouching for me), he started helping me work through a lot of those tough feelings. He was also exactly my kind of nerd, and the three of us had made a tradition of playing a round of smash bros before bed every night. My Lucina was getting pretty good!

Today though, today was mall day! I had set aside a whole half of my most recent paycheck just for this, I was gonna buy so much cute shit, I felt like I was going to explode, but before that came lunch. I practically sprinted to the food court, holding Alex’s hand and dragging her towards my favorite chinese place. Today was gonna be so perfect, I just wanted to get started!

“Slow down there Brie! You’re such a fuckin’ gremlin, you’re lucky you're cute.”

I stuck my tongue out at her, before giving her a wink. I was learning to embrace who I really was, weirdness and all, and right now who I was was a tiny feral femme who wanted to get herself some crab rangoon!

We had just finally gotten our food and found a quiet table to eat at, when someone sat down in front of us. The goth from before was right there, resting her chin on her hands, just looking at me. Alex tensed up beside me, entering protective (not) girlfriend mode and leaning forward.

“You shouldn’t stare like that, it’s creepy. Who are you?”

The goth barely even reacted. A smile stretching across her face as she looked at me.

“You tried some, didn’t you Brie?”

Was she talking about the coffee? How did she know my name? Oh shit, she read my nametag, and with the memory changing stuff, of course she’d know. I nodded to her, wondering where this was going.

“It shouldn’t have done anything. It was a true form potion, with a minor reality altering kick. If your body and mind were already in line, it shouldn’t have done anything. Heh, I never suspected the barista could be trans too, I would’ve warned you. Sorry about that.”

Alex looked at her, then back at me, then back at the goth.

“You did this? You’re the one who transformed her?”

Now it was the goth’s turn to be surprised, and she looked at Alex properly.

“You know? How? It should’ve changed your memories…”

Alex put her hand on the back of my chair.

“That’s thanks to Brie, she figured out how to get the old memories back. It’s kinda trippy sometimes, for every memory of Brie more than a few weeks old, there’s a conflicting memory that flickers over it. So, you did this?”

The goth seemed impressed, a smirk on her face as she looked at me.

“I did, yes.”

I spoke up this time.

“Thank you. I know you didn’t mean to do it, and things probably would’ve gone a lot smoother if I’d known, but thank you for making that mistake. Did uh… did Kenzie like her drink?”

“Oh yes. Yes she definitely did.” She licked her lips, oh fuck what did that mean? “You brewed it well, her compliments to the chef.”

Alex spoke up once again, having more fully understood the situation.

“I just have one question. Why did you have Brie make it? Why not just brew the coffee or potion or whatever you want to call it yourself?”

Now the goth just looked embarrassed.

“Oh um… I tried to work as a barista for a while, so I could just make it myself, but I kinda just sucked at it. Like in pretty much every way, so when I wanted one for myself, I just brought the recipe and had some guy at a dunkins do it. Then I moved, and I met my girlfriend, and she wanted one, so I brought the recipe to you and had you do it. Plus, espresso machines are expensive, so I couldn’t really do it at home super easily anyway.”

As she spoke, a few ideas began to pop up in my mind. New plans for the future now that I wasn’t in school, and a couple questions I wanted to ask.

“What’s your name? I probably should’ve asked you a while ago, and now I’m just feeling kind of awkward. Also, do you think you could teach me how to do that myself? The weird coffee magic stuff? I think, if I can maybe someday afford it, I want to open my own coffee shop…”

Her mouth hung open in surprise. I guess this conversation hadn’t gone quite how she’d planned it. She opened and closed it a few times like a fish before responding.

“Right. I also should have totally just introduced myself. Um, hi. I’m Abigail, and if you’re serious about the whole coffee shop idea, then I’m totally here for it.Yes I’ll teach you, and I’ll pitch in whatever cash I can. I always wanted to do something like this, a trans witch cafe serving coffee of trans your gender and pastries of erase your deadname. Fuck! I’m excited now, can I give you my number? Kenzie’s gonna freak when she hears about this!”

Wow.

The cool, edgy, goth persona she’d been putting on had completely evaporated. She looked like a kid at christmas. Alright, I guess we were doing this. Magical trans cafe here we come! My life actually seemed like it had a path again, no longer was I Isaac, depressed law student walking on eggshells around his parents without even realizing it. I was Brie, I was gay as hell, I lived with people who actually gave a shit, and it seemed like pretty soon, I was going to be a magical barista in a cafe run by trans witches. Oh right! And I was about to share some crab rangoon with a beautiful woman, that was pretty great too.

ashlynflagg

Well goddamn! It's over! This story came a long way from a joke concept I thought up while on a walk. I wrote the whole first chapter without planning on taking it seriously at all, but the more I wrote, the more invested I became in what was going on! I hope this story was as fun of a ride for you as it was for me to write. I'm probably going to be turning my focus back to A Scale of Sapphire for now, but I have a few other projects in the works, and I'll probably return to this setting in the future. I'd love to write the story from Kenzie's perspective some day, and the more I think about the trans witch cafe the more I want to make it real. Baking is witchcraft and coffee is alchemy, and I hope I get to work some more magic for you in the future! C'ya!