On the ride home, Mom tries to get me to talk to her, but I’m simply too lost in my own swirl of confusing thoughts. Most of them center on an option that I didn’t want to admit to her that I’m truly considering.

As we proceed down the highway, I begin to calm down my chaotic thoughts. Trying to think rationally about the options the doctor had given us. Somewhere in there, the thought of what it would be like to be a girl rather than a man, who had no hope of ever having a real relationship, surfaces.

You might think that the idea of being and living as a girl would be repugnant. You’d be wrong. Kelly Ann has been my only real friend since this happened to me and we hang out quite a bit. Now, Kelly Ann is a girly girl and always has been. She always wears skirts, dresses, or occasionally a pair of shorts. So, as you can guess, there have been many instances where she’s had me dressed as a girl, and oddly enough, I was comfortable being dressed as a girl and had no problem with it, even when she would add a wig and makeup to complete the image. I actually thought I looked rather good on many occasions.

As you can imagine, now isn’t the first time I’ve ever wondered what it would be like to be a girl. As we pull into the driveway of the house, I’ve come to my decision.

Turning to look at Mom once she turns off the car, I state, “Mom, I’d like to try living as a girl for a while to see how I feel about it.”

Mom doesn’t say anything, merely nods as she looks at me. A few moments later though, she asks, “Are you sure? It’s not going to be easy, and you know quite well what your grandparents say about ‘sissies’.”

My Dad comes from money, and he’s also a rather successful businessman in his own right, so money has never been or likely ever will be an issue. My grandparents, his parents, are rather old-fashioned in their views. So, that would likely mean they would want nothing more to do with me assuming I follow through. One thing is for sure, I can’t live here and suddenly start wearing girls' clothes and claim to be a girl. Not here where I’m known. If I thought my life was bad before, doing that would make it a literal hell.

Rather than continue, I say, “Okay, then why don’t we wait and have a family talk about this when Dad gets home.”

She merely nods again and we head inside. After dinner that evening, we’re all sitting at the table talking about the situation. I’ll be honest here, Dad has a bit of a hard time taking all of this in, especially the fact that I’m considering a trial run at living as a girl. I suppose he thought I would immediately reject any option other than living as a man.

Mom stops the discussion when it begins to devolve into a circular argument and states, “I think that’s enough for today. We should all table this for the moment and take a bit of time to think about it before making any decisions.”

Dad grumps a bit but finally agrees. Later, Mom comes to my room and sits down beside me on the bed. “Honey, I know you were serious in the car. Honestly, I’m rather proud of you for exploring your options before making a final decision rather than simply rejecting it out of hand. Don’t worry about your Dad or anyone else, I’ll deal with them if this is what you truly want.” She kisses my forehead. “Goodnight, Honey. I’ll see you in the morning.”

The next morning, I throw on a t-shirt and some shorts and head down for breakfast. Entering the kitchen, I tell Mom, “Good morning,” and take a seat. Then Mom hands me my plate. Dad soon comes in and sits down.

As we eat I steal glances at Dad trying to gauge where he stands. He must have noticed because he finally sets down his fork and looks at me. “So, tell me, why do you want to do this?”

I take a breath and then calmly and rationally lay out my reasons why I think I should try living as a girl. Mostly the idea that I should do it so I can make an informed decision on whether to live as a man or woman.

When I was done, Dad states all his reasons why he didn’t think it was a good idea, including: everyone knows me here, and the likelihood of me being further picked on, beat up and/or worse.

It amazes me that none of his reasons have anything to do with things like, “Because you’re a boy,” or any of that, “My son’s not going to be a sissy,” like my grandparents likely would.

Suddenly, Mom starts laughing. When she stops she states, “I have a great idea. No, a beautiful one. I figured it out. If you really want to do this, you can go stay with your Aunt Scarlett.” Dad begins to say something, but Mom simply talks right over him. “Hush and just listen before you say anything. Jake can stay with my sister, and her daughter Megan, so why doesn’t he spend the summer with them as a girl?”

It’s easy to see that Dad wants to say no, but when she gives him a pointed look, he closes his mouth and ends up nodding in agreement. I have no idea what happened there or if they talked last night, but whatever happened or whatever she said stops his arguments in their tracks.
Dad exhales and nods.

I’m not too sure about it since I haven’t seen either of them since I was hurt. Will they go for this? I mean they are family and I did like my aunt and cousin. Well, if Mom thinks it’s a good idea, I should at least give it a go. At the very worst, I’d simply have to come home.

“Alright. Let’s call her and see what she says,” I tell her.

She pulls out her phone and calls. Mom and Dad talk to her on speakerphone for quite some time. They explained what I was going through, the decision I was facing, and that I want to try living as a girl before I make any final decision.

Aunt Scarlett then says, “Before we go any further, I’d like to talk to Jake and actually hear him tell me how he feels about all this.”

Mom takes it off speakerphone, hands me the phone, and motions for Dad to follow her to give me some privacy.

When they were gone, I say, “Hi, Aunt Scarlett.”

Aunt Scarlett is a year younger than my Mom and Megan is a couple of months older than me.

Aunt Scarlett yells for Megan to get on the other extension to join the conversation.

Once she is, I explain my reasoning behind wanting to do this. Aunt Scarlett doesn’t interrupt, she merely allows me to lay everything out for them. Once I finish Megan states her enthusiasm for guiding me on how to be a girl and stated in no uncertain terms that she’s more than willing to help me in my transition. Aunt Scarlett agreed that she was willing to help as well, but “I have some rules you will have to follow to the letter before I will agree.”

“And those are?”

“Nothing too much. First, you will promise here and now to commit yourself to this twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. That means you will be all girl, all the time when you are here. Understood?”

“Of course,” I reply.

“Two, you will dress as we tell you. No arguments about it at all.”

“Okay, as long as it isn’t too revealing or slutty. I’ve never liked the look of girls that dress that way.”

“Agreed… Third, nothing masculine will be allowed; your mannerisms, ways of walking, talking, presentation, etc… will be completely feminine. We will teach you everything about being a girl, and you will learn it and conform to it all.”

“Okay, I can promise you that.”

“Good. Fourth, No cutting your hair or nails. Ask your Mom to help you with your nails. Maybe even take you for a mani-pedi to show you how they should look. I want you to begin paying attention to the girls around you. How they walk, carry themselves, mannerisms, gestures, dress. Oh, and reading fashion mags wouldn’t hurt either. It’ll give you a starting point for beginning to think like a girl and learn what most girls care about. That kind of thing, alright?”

None of it seems to be too onerous to me, especially my hair since I already wear it rather long for a guy, so I tell her, “Sure, I can do all that.”

“Great. Okay, let me talk to your Mom and Dad again. I’ll see you this summer, Sweetie.” Megan chirps, “This is going to be so much fun! I always wanted a sister!”

I laugh as I head into the living room and hand the phone back to Mom. The three of them talk a bit more as Aunt Scarlett tells them everything she’s requiring of me, then they move on to finalizing the arrangements, and Dad then tells her that he’ll pay for whatever I need as well as my support and spending money for me.

There it is. I’m going to spend the summer with my Aunt and cousin. We still have two semesters of school here before it lets out for summer vacation.

Once they hang up, Dad heads off to his office to do some paperwork, and Mom motions for me to move next to her.

“Honey, this is going to be a big adjustment for you. Are you sure?” I merely nod firmly. “Okay, as long as you are… Then, I think we should begin your transition here at the house. So, we will be going shopping tomorrow after school. In this house, you will dress, act, and become my daughter. Outside of it, you will dress and act like Jake, my son, alright?”

“I can do that.”

She smiles softly and touches my cheek. “This is going to be hard, frustrating at times, and you’ll probably get fed up with me before summer, but you have a lot of catching up to do young lady. Have you considered a name for yourself?”

I shake my head. “No, too much has been happening too quickly for me to even consider that aspect.”

She looks thoughtful for a moment and then says, “Well, Jake is the male form of what I was going to call you if you would have been a girl. I was going to name you Jacqueline.”

I smile at her. “Then, Jacqueline, it is. Or, Jackie. Yeah, I like that.”

That night, as I lay in bed, all I could do was toss and turn since I was unable to turn my mind off and go to sleep. All I could think about was my upcoming foray into femininity.

I’m curious, excited, worried, and a bit fearful simultaneously. You can’t blame me. This is going to be a huge change. Yes, I made the decision, but just like deciding to dive off a cliff for the first time can still be scary until you do it.

Knowing myself as I do, I knew that sleep wasn’t in the cards anytime soon, so I began to make a list of all the things I would need to do to prepare myself. In addition to the list of requirements that Mom and Aunt Scarlett had made, I came up with a few additional things of my own.

Since I’m doing this, I want to learn everything I can to make it as successful as possible so that I can make an educated decision about how I want to live.

When we go shopping tomorrow, I need to ask her to get me at least one pair of heels, preferably nothing too tall to begin with so I can learn how to walk in them as smoothly and naturally as she does, instead of looking like some clumsy, clueless boy. Next would be makeup. Maybe ask her to put together a kit for me and help me learn how to do it properly. Maybe even watch some of the hair and makeup tutorials that Kelly Ann was always talking about on Utube.

I figure the more I know about walking, acting, and presenting myself as a girl before I arrive at my aunt’s, the better off I would be. Not to mention it would show them how serious I am about this whole thing.

Once I had outlined a shortlist of things I need to do, I was eventually able to settle down some.

As I lay there, I ask myself, “Would I be able to convince anyone that I was truly a girl?”

After a while, I began to think about the feeling I’ve been having for years now. That may be all this was fate. That I was never meant to be a boy and me getting hurt as I did was fate’s way of correcting that mistake. Odd thoughts I know, but when you have the thing that defines you as a man ripped away from you, odd thoughts will happen.

That thought and feeling comes and goes with little to no warning and has been occurring for years now. To say the least, it’s awkward to have them. What’s even odder is the fact that I’ve been having these thoughts and feelings long before the doctor ever presented me with the possibility of living the rest of my life as a girl, so it isn’t that. Could it be my body trying to correct my mind’s assumption that I was a boy?

Well, that’s what this summer is going to be about, finding out what life is like on the other side and if I can actually do or even enjoy it. Maybe I’ll find out that being a girl is something I just have to accept; an inevitable, unavoidable outcome. Or maybe, I’ll find that life as a girl isn’t something I can do.

Eventually, I’m able to drift off to sleep, but not before wondering how I’ll spend the rest of my life. In jeans or skirts and dresses? I guess I’ll find out soon enough.