“So those two definitely have a thing for each other.” Jace continued to talk Michael’s ear off as they walked to their homes, entirely ignorant of the fact that Michael hadn’t said a word. Michael knew that probably wasn’t true, Jace was surprisingly perceptive, even if he played the part of the dumb and lovable jock, but that was what it felt like to him.

“I can’t believe it, though. How long did she know she was a girl, do you think? That’s so cool. Sometimes I kinda wish… Nevermind, that’s stupid.” Michael barely noticed Jace trail off and stop talking, still too stuck in his own thoughts to question those of others.

What he wanted was impossible, it couldn’t happen. He knew that, came to terms with it years ago when his brother came out. The odds of a family having two trans kids were just too low, nobody would believe him, even if he believed it himself. He knew he’d never be able to handle the pain of being told no by the people he loved, so he just hid his emotions away. Once he left his bedroom he was Michael, a boy. Nothing else.

But then Amy came out right in front of everyone. Her friends, the chat, probably her family, too. Apparently Jeff, Michael’s brother, also knew ahead of time since his reaction in the chat was nonexistent. She was so brave, she didn’t care about the risk of rejection. She took the risk without hesitation, and Michael was so envious of her.

He couldn’t even call himself by the right pronouns outside of the safety of his bedroom door. He refused to ever think of himself as the name he most related to, out of fear of what would happen if he called himself by that name aloud just once. Would he be able to go back?

“Hey, Mike.” He hated that nickname, why did Jace have to use it so often? It got under his skin every time, even more than his full name. It took a Herculean effort to keep himself from flinching.

“Yeah, Jay?” Michael asked, carefully ignoring the pain he felt from the sound of his own voice.

Jace seemed to look off into the distance for a moment, before shaking himself back into reality. “Have you ever… Y’know, felt like Amy?” 

Shit. Shit squared. Shit cubed. Shit… whatever the fourth exponent was called. 

Michael froze. Did Jace figure him out? Jace was incredibly perceptive, it wasn’t impossible for him to see the signs, if he knew what to look for. 

Thankfully Jace has established himself as a wonderful and supportive friend. He had incredibly positive feelings towards trans people. He was also a genuinely good person, and Mai- Michael knew he could trust him. 

But if he did, the secret was out. No more hiding in his room, crossdressing with clothes that only kind of fit. No more pretending like her- no, his, name wasn’t his name. Her years hidden secrets would be revealed to the world, even if it was just one person in it.

Was he ready to take that chance?

Was she ready to hide herself behind a locked door for another five years?

“You got me.” Maisie spoke up, trying to frame it as the start of a joke. She knew she could trust him with the truth, but framing it as a joke let her fall back if things didn’t go well. 

She expected a similar response to the one Amy received, but to her shock Jace looked incredibly upset. “Yeah. Ha ha. Whatever. I’ll see you at school.” He had already turned around to walk away before he’d even finished speaking, leaving Maisie alone to regret her words.

Maisie was stunned into silence as she watched her best friend head into the distance. She wanted to follow them, to apologize for the miscommunication, but she had no idea what she could even say. They were obviously vulnerable, and she didn’t know what would help. 

Eventually Maisie gave up on trying to talk to Jace without leaving some time for things to simmer, and walked home alone. She wondered what route they were taking, as their houses were on the same street. If she ran into them again, would they even listen if she tried to apologize? 

Her, no, his questions were pointless. Michael didn’t run into them again on the walk home, so either they took a long route intentionally or they went somewhere else. He opened the door to his house as quietly as he could, trying not to awaken any of his sleeping family members. 

It didn’t take long for him to realize that his efforts were pointless. The TV was on in the living room, blasting some romantic comedy he ignored. Right, it was movie night for the girls. He tried to look disinterested as the pain he was oh so familiar with welled up inside of him. 

Michael tried sneaking up the stairs to his room, in the hopes that his mom and sisters were too interested in the movie to notice him arrive. Sadly Nora, his oldest sister, quickly dashed those hopes. “Hey, Mike. How was Dungeons and Dragons?” 

He froze from his spot on his stairs and cursed under his breath. He was so close to the safety of his room. It was right next to the top of the staircase, and as soon as he was inside Maisie could be herself again. “Was a lot of fun. How’s movie night?” She didn’t want to ask about it, but that was respectful. Anything else would be rude and probably cause Mom to lecture her. 

Leah, the youngest of the family, made a point of sighing as she paused the movie. She hated it when she was interrupted while watching something, but that worked for Maisie. If she was moody Maisie could cut the conversation short on her behalf, in case their mom or Nora wanted to talk too much.

And speaking of talking too much, their mom spoke up before Nora could answer. “It’s good. We’re watching Marley and Me if you want to join us.” 

Maisie’s eyes widened, and she couldn’t have been more glad for the lack of light showing her expression. She wanted to say yes, so badly, but she knew she couldn’t. They didn’t know who she really was, so from their perspective she would just be intruding on their girl time. That was wrong, and any joy she’d get from being part of that would be overshadowed by the knowledge that they were just humoring her. “No thanks, Mom. I’m not about to deal with Leah complaining at me for intruding.” She tried to make her response sound like a joke, but to her own ears her words sounded hollow.

“Well, alright. I’ll save you a spot for next time. Oh, and if you could, tell Amy I’m proud of her. Coming out like that was incredibly brave.” 

Maisie didn’t say anything after her mom dropped that bombshell, and quickly moved to the safety of her room. It wasn’t until she was lying on her bed with the door closed that she let herself breathe at all.

It didn’t take long from there for every emotion she suppressed throughout the day to hit her like a tidal wave. She was such a coward, and with Amy out that fact only became more clear. Amy had no idea how everyone would react, and she came out anyway. Odds were good that she hadn’t even known for that long, but she jumped in without hesitating. 

Maisie wanted to be that brave, she wanted to be able to walk downstairs and tell everyone who she was, but she couldn’t. She’d known for years who she was, and she knew for just as long that her family was incredibly supportive, but she couldn’t bring herself to come out. The off chance that any of them might hate her was just too painfully high. What would happen if they rejected her? What if they didn’t believe her?

 That fear kept her awake for hours, and it was well past midnight before she finally managed to slip off to sleep.

 

*****

 

Maisie wanted nothing more than for the rest of her weekend to pass without much fanfare. She intended to spend the entire day in her room, alone, with only periodic breaks for food. Isolation like that was her only real source of comfort, outside of roleplaying. 

Alas, what she wanted was not what she got. Michael made his way downstairs for breakfast, and was met with the tired face of his twin. Jeff was holding tightly to a mug of coffee, and from the look on his face he must have stayed up at least as late as Michael himself had. 

“Morning.” Michael numbly said as he threw some bread in the toaster. He didn’t plan for his breakfast to be much more than toast and an apple, which wasn’t much, but it limited how long he needed to stay downstairs and outside of his room.

“G’morning. You alright?” Jeff was too in tune with Maisie’s feelings for her tastes. Most of the family would have written her off as groggy, but not him. It was both incredibly endearing and frustrating.

Maisie shrugged, trying to downplay her feelings. “Night was fine. You enjoy D&D?” 

“It was cute. I’m glad Amy’s coming out went well.” Jeff seemed to take the hint, and didn’t call out her blatant attempt to change the subject. Maisie made a note to thank him later. 

The twins continued to make small talk as Maisie ate her breakfast, but there was a hollowness to it all that felt much more prominent to her after the previous night. Normally she was able to give off the impression of a lighthearted, excitable boy to everyone. It was as easy as hiding who she was from everyone, including herself, outside of her room. 

If Amy hadn’t come out, Maisie knew she could probably have kept it up for at least another year. Playing pretend was easy. She loved being a beacon of light for everyone around her, even if that light couldn’t reach her. She loved spending time with her family, even if being included as part of the guys felt so wrong. 

But with Amy out, those plans had gone haywire. Maisie couldn’t pretend she wasn’t jealous of her, even for a moment. That jealousy was only going to get worse as time went on, and it was inevitably going to become obvious. If she wanted to keep acting like she was alright, the only option she had was to end her friendships with the others, which wasn’t going to happen.

Maisie took longer than she intended to finish her food, thanks to the time she spent lost in thought, but luckily for her the only person in her room was the best person in the house to eat with her. Jeff was, like always, content to sit in silence. She didn’t need him to say a word to comfort her, his presence was more than enough. They learned, through years of trial and error, how to be exactly what the other needed at a given moment. 

“Dad wanted to talk to you, by the way.” Jeff ruined the comforting silence with the worst sentence in the world. Of course she wouldn’t be able to just go back to her room and keep hiding in it. That would’ve made the day too easy.

“Of course. Is he in his office? Might as well get this over with.” Maisie couldn’t stop herself from sounding annoyed. She loved her parents, and loved spending time with them, but not when her emotions were weighing on her so heavily. 

When Jeff nodded, Michael made sure that he was mentally prepared. Dysphoria to misgendering had a tendency to hit less hard when he was misgendering himself.  

 

*****

 

Michael took a deep breath, raised his hand to knock on the study door, and didn’t knock, his hand hovering in front of the wood for what felt like a decade or so, before lowering it. He was jittery. Why was he jittery. It was just his dad, he was just uncomfortable. Okay, that was normal. Another deep breath. His dad just wanted to talk. This was going to be okay. He was going to be okay. He exhaled. Fine. Third time’s the charm. Finally, slowly and awkwardly, he knocked twice. Should he knock a third time? That was normal, right? Or was it too late now? He hoped desperately none of his siblings were around to see him struggling to knock on a door. 

“Come in,” his dad called. He stared at the door handle in frustration. An irrational part of him had kind of hoped that the knocking would fix everything, from the conversation to his anxiety. Finally, he kicked his body into gear long enough to open the door and walk in. His dad sat behind a desk that was easily described as ‘functional’. Michael’s father, Jason, didn’t like the fact that he had a desk, or that he needed one. Once upon a time, Jason had been a football player, and a pretty damn good one, but it wasn’t exactly a profession for life. When health issues had gotten too bad, he’d signed on as a coach for his old team, and while he enjoyed what he did, the paperwork was a figurative pain in the back, overshadowing the actual, literal pain in his back. When he saw Michael, he swiveled in his chair, got up, and popped his back loud enough for his son to hear.

“Mike!” Michael gritted his teeth at his father’s exuberance. Once upon a time, his dad used to call him ‘Mikey’, which was worse, if not by a significant amount. And to his credit, Jason had noticed Michael’s discomfort, and stopped, switching to Mike, assuming the childishness of it had been the problem. Assuming incorrectly, of course. 

“Hey dad,” Michael said with an uneven smile. “What’s up?” He felt he had to add something more, that he had to show interest in his dad’s work, little as he cared about ‘throwing pigskin’. “Working on the… mid-season stuff?” he hazarded a guess.

“Yeah, actually!” his dad said, and Michael breathed a sigh of relief, right up until his dad turned the screen towards him. There were a lot of names on there. And numbers. So many numbers. “Do you want to see what I’m working on?” Panic. He did not come up here to talk shop with his dad, much as he loved him. He chewed his lip.

“Was there something you wanted to talk about, dad? Jeff said you wanted to talk?” Michael’s dad was a great athlete, but he had a tendency to be a little scatterbrained. Best of intentions, but a little off the mark. Great aim, if he knew what he was aiming for. Jason nodded and sat down in his chair again, one of those ergonomic ones with Extra Lumbar SupportTM. He needed it. He also pointed Michael at the recliner on the other side of his desk. 

“Right, yeah. Have a seat, Mike.” Great. What a fantastic way to start a conversation. Was he going to get interviewed by his dad? Chewed out? Sitting opposite his father, he always felt like he was due a performance review, no matter how nice his dad always ended up being. It might have been the screen in between them, or the height difference, or the fact that, despite his age and somewhat battered physique, his father was still an imposing presence. Michael plopped down in the chair and looked expectantly at his dad.

“Is everything okay?” Michael hazarded, hoping that this was going to be a nothingburger with extra pickles. Ideally, this was going to be over in just a few minutes. He tried not to guiltily look around the room. Why would he do that? Why would he look guilty? He didn’t do anything! But staring at his dad was equally suspicious. He opted for a very normal, human interaction with the normal amount of eye contact, which he counted the seconds of. Like a normal human person.

“Is everything okay.” It wasn’t a question. There wasn’t even a question mark. It was like Jason had taken Michael’s query and had held it up to the light, examining it like an expert. ‘Yes sir, good job sir, excellent catch, I do believe this is a diversion of some kind.’ Michael gulped. Jason took a deep breath and looked up, as if pondering the meaning of life itself. “Is everything okay? Is everything okay? Is everything… okay?” Michael was approaching the point of throwing himself at the windows and hoping they weren’t double glazed. “I don’t know, Mike. Is everything okay?”

Michael squirmed in his seat. It had just been a question, and now he felt like it had been reduced to nonsense verse. How was he supposed to respond to a question like that? He didn’t know, he wasn’t the one who had invited himself up here, that was dad! He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Uh, yeah,” he said, in the most unconvincing possible way. His father just looked at him and leaned back in his chair. 

“I’m worried, Mike,” he said. Uh oh. There it was. He was going to be ritually executed in the town square. He knew that look. “I’m worried. I’m just… scared you’re not happy.” Oh, well, okay then. Michael blinked once or twice. So maybe he’d catastrophized a little bit. His father smiled fatherly. “I’m sorry I’ve been busy with work so much, Mike. I feel like I’m not around enough.” Jason sighed. “Look, we’ll go fishing again soon. I promise. I know you love fishing.” Michael did not love fishing. His dad continued. “I know you’re probably going through a lot right now, but I can tell that you’re retreating into yourself.”

Well damn. If even his dad could tell, then he wasn’t hiding it as well as he thought he was. “I guess… I’ve just got some stuff going on…” he relented. He didn’t know how to say more. What to say more. What was there even to say? 

“I can tell, Mikey. Sorry, Mike. And I just want you to know that I’m here for you, all right? I’m your dad, and you’re my son, and I’m going to make time for us, okay? If you’re feeling alone then, yeah, I’m gonna make sure you’re not alone.” Goodness. This was a lot. Dad was dadding extra hard today. “Just know that, no matter what, I’m gonna be proud of you, okay? You’re my boy, and I’m proud of you. You’re growing up to be an amazing young man, and I’d hate to see you lose yourself.” Jason smiled that weird smile again that parents used when they were being supportive. Michael was a little too concerned with how he was genuinely disturbed by what his father was saying. Why was it so upsetting? Her f- His father was proud of him, why wasn’t that enough?

“Thanks dad,” Michael said meekly, pushing away any thoughts that might make things more complicated. For a few seconds, Jason said nothing. Those seconds stretched into a few awkward eons, before he sighed again.

“You’re a good kid, you know that? A good guy. And you’re going to be a great man.” Dad, please. “And if you don’t want to play like I did, that’s okay, Mike! I know you’re going to be a great man no matter what you do. You already make your mom and I proud, and no matter where you take your life, that’s gonna stay true. You remind me a bit of myself when I was your age. You even look like my dad a bit, Michael.” Dad stop. Michael felt his brain trying to implode on itself as a possible way to escape this conversation-turned-monologue. “So I’m gonna take you fishing again. You know I don’t drink, but we’ll do more guy stuff again, okay?” Please no. “I know you don’t like watching movies with your mom and the girls, and I know, I haven’t been there enough. So, what do you say, Mike? We’re gonna go fishing, and toss the pigskin back and forth. Real father-son time, you know? And then, one day, when you’re a dad, y-”

“Dad.”

There was a moment of silence, and Jason froze when he saw the tears run down his child’s face. Maisie couldn’t stop it anymore. It hurt and it kept hurting, every time that name hit her eardrums like a thunderclap, every time she was called son or man or Michael… it hurt. And she couldn’t pretend anymore, not for a picosecond, that this was who she was. To his credit, her father waited patiently. Didn’t push her or interrupt her.

“I’m not…” she said, or tried to say, because her voice was breaking. Her whole sense of self was shattering, her voice seemed almost like an afterthought. “I don’t… I don’t want to be Mike.” Before her father could interrupt with a well-intentioned name correction, she continued. “I’m not Mike. Or Michael. Or Mikey. I don’t want to be and I can’t be and it hurts, it hurts so much.” She’d started to slowly curl up in the recliner, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around it. Maybe if she squeezed herself small enough, she would disappear. Maisie cried, softly.

“If… if you don’t… if you’re not Michael… who are you? Who do you want to be?”

“I… I think my name is Maisie. I think I’m your daughter.”

Her father sighed softly, one more time. She saw him rubbing his face, but when he lowered them, he was remarkably serene. “Hello Maisie,” he said. “It’s nice to meet you.”