Synopsis

In many ways Tiffany is the newest girl in her small community near Albuquerque, New Mexico. In the whirlwind of the last few weeks she has emerged from the shell of a scared and confused little boy named Brandon. Ever since Tiffany's parents confirmed with her their suspicions of her deepest wants and needs, they've supported her completely. With solid support from her family, her best friend and family and surprisingly, her growing circle of other friends it seems she might have a chance for a successful future.

'Can all this last?' is one of the biggest questions on her mind now. 'Will everyone stick with me when things get tough?' She's had an amazingly easy last couple weeks and she knows it won't last. What will happen when she returns to school? And most importantly, what will her psychiatrist decide? Will her doctor force her to return to living the lie as Brandon? These fears and more whirl in her mind as she looks to an uncertain future.

Daring to Hope is the continuing story of a bright, talented, and beautiful girl, who dares to hope for a future that is one based on happy dreams.

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Viewing Note: This story should be viewed with the Edwardian Script ITC font installed on your Windows platform in the c:/Windows/Fonts directory. Microsoft Word installs this font automatically.

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The Legal Stuff: Daring to Hope  © 2008 By Tiffany Shar
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright  © 2008 By Tiffany Shar. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
 
 
Preface
 
 
Last month I finally got around to publishing the first book of this trilogy, Standing Up to Life here at BigCloset. I had been delayed in publishing it there while trying to get it also published by Lulu.com. Well it’s taken me a bit longer on this book to get it up here as well, but here it is!

Like the first book I posted here, I am posting a standard copy of this here at BigCloset, and announcing that I have two versions available for purchasing through My Store at Lulu.com. Back by popular demand is the ebook download of the book. My assumption is that the majority of my readers would be most interested in this edition of the book. If you enjoy this work perhaps you will consider supporting me by purchasing it from my store($3.00 for the ebook). I also have a hardback edition that is available, and will work on making a paperback edition available as well here in the coming weeks. With both the paperback and hardback editions I hope to have them available through Amazon.com in a couple months as well, and will offer to have Erin sell it through her Amazon page at that time.

Thank you to all of you, my amazing readers! Your comments have kept me going through some times when I thought I would never be able to write or edit another minute! Speaking of editing, thanks to my amazing editor, Carla Ann, for helping me out with this large work. Now that this project is coming to a close I hope to be able to focus solely on Book 3, and have that ready for you all this summer. Since it is the concluding book of the series I wish to be sure that it’s done right. Thanks again, and I hope you enjoy this book!

     -Tiffany Shar

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Prelude
 
 
I TRIED WIPING the sleep out of my eyes as we walked through the airport terminal to the baggage claim. We had just gotten in from Orlando via Houston, and I was exhausted. Amy, my best friend, was walking beside me as we stepped on an escalator to go downstairs.

“That was so much fun Tiffany,” she said to me.

“Yeah, it really was Amy. I can’t believe it’s already over — I mean we looked forward to it for so long.”

“-and now it’s done.” She added finishing my thought. “Well we’ll have to find something else to look forward to this year.”

“Yeah, I just don’t know what.” I replied. The next few months for me were going to present nothing but fear and anxiety. This trip had gone really well for me — even with the news to the other kids that I was no longer going by Brandon anymore… but I knew that anytime you start to soar into the air you usually realize that you forgot a parachute. Without that parachute you usually hit the ground really hard!

“Well we can start with having a blast this summer together!” She said with a smile trying to cheer me up. That did bring a grin to my face finally, I’m kind of grouchy when I’ve been asleep or need to sleep.

“Yes, there’s definitely that!” I said with a giggle.

“We’re going to have a great time the rest of this summer Tiff, just wait and see.” With that we were at the baggage claim.

After sitting there for what seemed forever the buzzer rang and bags began coming up the conveyor belt. That was my second experience at trying to catch a bag — it was a lot harder this time than when we left as my bag had become considerably heavier from souvenirs. I heaved it off the belt and carried it over to a luggage cart we rented from the airport.

Amy grabbed me before we started heading off though, “Let’s say goodbye to everyone — we may not see some of them again until after the summer!”

As a guy I never would have thought of that before — but she was right and I did want to at least say bye to the girls. Before I knew it all of the girls were exchanging hugs with each other and saying things like ‘call me.’ We also gave hugs to all of the adult chaperones, especially Ms. Fitz and Mrs. Manning.

Then the awkward moment came. All of the girls began hugging Kyle and David, who had stuck around. I wasn’t sure how they were going to react to being hugged by me.

I was standing right next to Kyle though and he asked me, “Aren’t you going to give us a hug too?” he reached over and put his arm around my shoulder. Just a quick friendly hug, but it left me feeling kind of strange… not in a bad way… but strange. I ended up hugging David too and we all broke up and went our separate ways.

I had a feeling that I would be thinking about that for a while… I wasn’t really sure how I felt about it — but at least it seemed that Kyle was considering me enough of a girl to feel okay with the hug. I gave Amy and her parents hugs goodbye at our cars, before sitting in the back of our car and buckling my seat belt. I put my backpack on the seat next to me and closed my eyes.

The next thing I knew I was being prodded, “Tiffany, wake up sweetie, it’s time to go inside and go to bed.” I woke up enough to make it into my room, change into a comfy set of pink pajamas from the photo shoot that Mrs. Hancock had paid for, and laid down on my bed.

As I went to sleep I couldn’t believe that the trip was over already.
 
 
Chapter 1
 
 
I WOKE UP to the sun shining too brightly in my room — didn’t it know I was trying to sleep!?! Stupid sun! I just kind of lay on the bed for a few minutes doing nothing but relaxing, before I suddenly became excited enough to wake up.

I could actually wear a skirt today!!!

I had just been given a preliminary diagnosis of a gender identity disorder three days before we had left for Orlando on the school trip. My parents, the psychiatrist, our teachers, and Amy’s parents (my other parents as I tended to think of them) had all decided it would be a bad idea for Tiffany to go on the trip though. Long story short, we tried having Brandon on the trip, but things became really awkward as people stared at the ‘girl’ going in the men’s rooms. After everything that had happened with my parents finding out about me, the walls had crashed down, and I could no longer portray myself as Brandon. By the last two days of the trip the ‘cat came out of the bag’ and I was finally able to spend two wonderful days as Tiffany.

However, I didn’t have a single skirt or dress to wear then. Today I would make up for as much of that last time as I could!

As I jumped up and looked in my closet I started searching through what I had. Before I knew it I had a long pink skirt with flowers on it in one hand, and a top to match in my other hand. I grabbed some panties that had lace around the openings, some other things, and flung my door open to go use the shower.

“Mom, are you guys done with the water so I can take a shower?” I asked loudly down the hall towards the kitchen.

“Yes sweetie. Go ahead.” My mom answered back. We didn’t live in a bad house, but it was old enough that the plumbing was not well planned. If anyone was taking a shower, and someone else used water elsewhere, the person in the shower would get a rude surprise. So my family was pretty good about communicating who was using the water at what times.

With that news I bounded into the bathroom. I got out of my pajamas and turned on the hot shower water. I used some shampoo and conditioner on my hair — really washing it out good. After I felt my body and hair were nice and clean, with the water growing cold, I dried my body off and wrapped a towel around myself.

As I looked in the mirror at the wet tangles of hair falling from my head I thought for a second about calling mom and asking her to do my hair… but I decided I wanted to do it all by myself. Pretty soon the blow dryer was screaming away, hot curling irons moved through my hair, and when I was done I looked in the mirror and liked what I could see.

I had it curled under at the bottom as I had been shown by the salon the previous week. I turned my head this way and that in front of the mirror satisfied with what I saw. Mom had brought my toiletry case into the bathroom for me this morning and I began digging around in it for a few things. I was really just looking for my toothbrush at first, but then saw the stuff for my ears and remembered, ‘oh yeah,’ and disinfected my freshly pierced ears.

I slid on the pair of panties, which were far fancier than anything I had taken on the trip, enjoying the feel of them. Then I put everything else together, adjusting the skirt and top to be just right. I really liked the way it made me look, and after twirling about a few times in the full length mirror on the door I stepped out into the hall.

Mom was running a load of laundry in the laundry room and looked at me and asked, “So did you take long enough to get ready in there? I thought you were never going to finish!” She had a smile on her face which I knew meant she was kidding.

“Would you like me to take more time?” I asked.

“No, you definitely don’t need to waste any more time in the bathroom!” She said assertively.

“But don’t I look pretty?” I asked her. I batted my eyelashes as I said that.

“Yes you do sweetie, but there’s a fine line between pretty and hogging the bathroom. And don’t bat those eyelashes at me.” She sighed. “At least you’re finally getting a chance to put them to good use. People have commented on those long lashes since you were little — at least as my daughter you’ll get to enjoy them more.”

She paused and the finger came back out, “But not at me!” she smiled and gave me a hug at that point.

I was smiling too as we walked down the hallway to the kitchen. It was at that point that I finally looked at a clock and saw that it was already 12:30 in the afternoon! Whoa. Mom made some cheese crisps for lunch (tortillas crisped in butter on a skillet with cheese melted on the top). I ate quietly while looking through some ads we had missed. I was so happy to be in a skirt today! It felt so much nicer than having to pretend to be Brandon like I’d had to through the majority of the trip.

Mom interrupted my thoughts, “So Tiffany once you finish that do you want to go run to Wal-Mart with me and get these pictures developed?”

“Sure!” I replied to her just before I put in the last bit of food into my mouth. I washed it down with water, threw the paper plate away, and ran down the hall to my room to grab some flip-flops to wear. I also grabbed some rolls of film that were sitting in my fanny pack from my camera. By the time I walked back out the living room Mom was standing there with a big Ziploc of film to get developed.

She handed me the bag as we walked out to the car. As I sat down and buckled my seatbelt, I added my film to the bag and started counting the rolls that were in the bag. I couldn’t believe it, there were twenty-four separate rolls of film in there! That was going to be expensive to process.

As we drove down the roads to our local Wal-Mart I messed with the radio until I had the local oldies station on. I don’t know why, but I really loved music from the 50’s and 60’s. Mom approved of the station and we pulled into the parking lot with a great Beach Boys song playing.

We walked into Wal-Mart and went to their film developing section where we surprised to see they weren’t busier. Mom pulled out twenty-four separate film envelopes, and we each started writing away on the information. On all of the rolls we ordered duplicates. That kind of surprised me as that was only going to make it more expensive. Fourteen minutes later we finally handed the stack of envelopes to the technician behind the counter.

“How long do you think it’ll take to get these done?” My mom asked her.

“Well, we’re really dead right now for some reason, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we have them done in an hour-and-a-half. Be safe and call it two hours and we should be done.” The girl answered.

“Okay, thanks.” My mom told her and we walked off.

“Well what now Mommy?” I asked her. She smiled, as I knew she would, I hadn’t called her ‘mommy’ since I was like four or five as Brandon. I had done it a few times in the past couple weeks and every time it was like flipping a switch to turn on the smile.

“Well why don’t we go home and you can help me with some laundry. Then we’ll go rent a video or two for tonight before we come back here?” She suggested.

“Okay,” I replied with a smile on my face. I was a bit hyper today and I think she knew it. It was probably a good thing that Amy wasn’t with me right then — the two of us would probably be feeding off of each other and making her go nuts.

We headed for the car with me skipping ahead a bit from her. I of course made it to the car long before her and turned around to see her just shaking her head at me. We made it home and I found myself being licked to death by our dog — Dad must have gone to pick her up from my grandparents. She was more than a little excited to see us — and I found myself doing the best I could to deal with her and my skirt.

Finally she calmed down, and Mom put me to work helping her with the loads and loads and loads of laundry we accumulated on the trip. Really at this point all we did was begin folding the underwear and socks from the trip that were done already. After that though, I helped her get the other stuff in the washer for the next load. Mom guessed that it was going to take a good eight loads to get through everything.

As Brandon I had never ever helped out with any of this stuff. I guess I was going to find out that girls were supposed to do some of this at least? Hrmm… Thankfully we headed back out after we got that load sorted out and went to Blockbuster to rent some movies.

Mom didn’t look like she was going to be real thrilled with it, but we got Jurassic Park — a lot of my friends had talked about it, but I hadn’t seen it yet. I also grabbed Lion King since she hadn’t seen that one yet and I knew she would enjoy it. She grabbed something else that sounded good to her and we left the store to pick up our pictures.

After picking up and paying for all twenty-four rolls of film we went out to the car and climbed in. “Tiffany, you look pretty, you’re behaving just like a girl should, but I’m afraid there is something we’re going to have to really work on this summer before you go back to school.” Mom told me as we drove away.

My stomach fluttered a lot right then, had I done something in Wal-Mart that would have given me away? “What?” I asked.

“Your handwriting — as I was looking at the envelopes that you filled out it occurred to me. It’s not that girls all have pretty handwriting, I certainly don’t, but your handwriting is definitely not like a girl’s should be.” She told me.

“Umm… is there anything I can do about it at this point?” I asked. Realistically I was probably stuck in my poor style at this point right?

“Well maybe I can get some handwriting books like when you were a kid and see if we can’t unlearn some of those bad habits.” She said to me.

“It couldn’t hurt I guess.” I replied.

“I’ll try and find some at a bookstore this week.”

“Okay, though I don’t know how much I’ll be able to fix it — I’ll definitely try.” I replied to her. Through the rest of the ride home I just kind of rode silently thinking about stuff. How many other things would come back to hurt me with this change?

TWENTY MINUTES LATER we pulled into our driveway and headed inside. Mom and I cleaned off our kitchen table and started going through the pictures we had taken. It took us the better part of an hour to go through all of the rolls. I put all of the pictures I liked in the front of each packet — that way it would be a lot easier to do something with them later.

We spent a lot of time saying, ‘hey look at this one’ and such. As I looked at the pictures I noticed that it seemed like my smile looked more genuine on the last two days of the trip, when I had been able to be Tiffany. I have to admit it may have just been my perception of the photographs though — I liked myself more as Tiffany.

Dad came in to the kitchen, as we were finishing up, and started going through the pictures himself. As I stood up to get a glass of water the phone rang.

I ran to beat Mom to it, answering, “Hello?”

“Tiffany? This is Amy.”

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Mom and I were wondering if you wanted to come over and work on our scrapbooks tomorrow?”

“Sure Amy, we just got all of our pictures developed too so that would be really cool. Have you gotten yours yet?” I asked.

“A couple hours ago, Mom got some really cute ones of you the other day!” She told me.

“We’ve got quite a few of you too — as well as a bunch of us together. My mom had duplicates made so I’ll be able to give you a copy of ones you want.”

“My mom did too. I think she has a few she’s going to go and get blown up tonight.”

“Cool…” I replied as we continued talking. We talked for 30 minutes before I had another caller beep in and I had to let her go.

It was my grandparents. “How was your trip?” My grandmother asked me.

“It was great! I had an absolute blast on the trip. You’ll have to see the pictures that we just got developed.” I replied.

“Well good sweetie, I’m glad you enjoyed your trip. So when are you going to come out to our place this summer?” My grandfather asked me.

“I don’t know, we’ll have to see what things are going to come up this summer. We’ll try and let you know by the end of the week maybe?” I suggested.

“That sounds fine sweetheart,” my grandmother told me.

We chatted for a couple more minutes before I handed them off to my Dad. I wondered why they had bothered calling since Dad had seen them this morning when he picked up our dog. I didn’t dwell on it long and instead got roped into helping with laundry again with Mom.

Once we finished I got to thinking about my scrapbook that I had started with Amy the week before we left. I had gotten through about half of the stuff I already had, and now I had like ten times what we had before this trip. I was certainly going to be very busy working on the book tomorrow.

It was at that point I remembered to tell Mom that she was invited too. She said she’d love to come and told me that I’d have to let her do some pages too.

I had to go to the bathroom at the end of the conversation, and as I washed my hands and looked into the mirror I realized there was something I really needed to take care of — new glasses. I hadn’t been wearing them as Tiffany much. I really hated them. In fact I only wore them when I had to see something clearly like the pictures earlier. I walked out to the kitchen where Mom and Dad were talking.

“Mommy, Daddy?” I decided this form of their names might get me farther.

“Yes?” Mom asked.

“I was wondering… Could I get contacts instead of glasses? I look so much better without glasses on — especially Brandon’s glasses — it would be really nice to not have to wear them next year to school.” I asked and prodded as sweetly and delicately as I could.

“I don’t know. Would you take care of them?” My mom asked me.

“Absolutely, I’ll do almost anything to not have to wear glasses anymore!” I replied, even if I wasn’t going to take care of them I wasn’t about to tell them otherwise. Of course I would do my best though.

“Well Tiffany is going to need to do something different, those glasses definitely don’t go with her face now,” Dad said to my mom.

“And it can’t be good for her all of the times she’s not been wearing them either…” Mom replied softly. “I’m okay with it, can we afford it?” She asked Dad.

“If we take it out of the earnings from the project they did we can,” he replied. “I don’t want to spend too much more out of that though Tiff, I’d really like to see us put most of that away for you for college… And I figure it might be able to help out down the road with some of the medical expenses that you could have,” he told me.

“Thanks Daddy!” I replied with a big smile and gave him a hug. “You too Mommy,” I said as I went over to her and did the same.

“You know I hate to add fuel to the fire here,” my mom started off, “but unfortunately her use of Mommy and Daddy is working just like she thinks it is.” She said to Dad in front of me.

Of course at that point I blushed and said indignantly, “I would never do anything like that.” Go ahead and paint that halo in my portrait above my head…. Just cause it’s held up with two horns doesn’t mean anything right? Right!

“Right.” Dad said sarcastically.

Just then the buzzer on the dryer went off and I ended up helping with another in the seemingly endless sea of laundry that we were dealing with. The day passed much like that up through a dinner of grilled cheese and soup.

After dinner I asked my parents, “So movies now?”

“Sure, but let me go to the bathroom first.” My dad said. I of course knew that I had merely started the long fifteen minute process of him getting ready to watch a movie — but hey, the process was started right?

In the meantime I decided to go to my room and put some pajamas on so I could be more comfortable while watching the movies. I picked out a long cotton sleep shirt and changed into it quickly. I hadn’t worn it yet and I was curious what it would feel like to sleep in.

When I returned I put in Jurassic Park first and told Mom we’d watch Lion King second. I had to get up almost immediately and return to my room for a blanket though. I know you’re saying, ‘it’s the middle of June in New Mexico, what’s wrong with you?’ You have no idea how much my mom loves her air conditioning. It might have been warmer in the Arctic!

I wrapped myself in my blanket and curled up on the couch. Dad and Mom came in just as the previews finished and the actual movie began. Although I grimaced at the stupidity of the actions of the characters, I enjoyed the movie. I especially grew attached to the character of the young girl. I definitely screeched and screamed a lot as the movie startled me several times!

When we finished the movie we all took a quick (or not so quick in my dad’s case) restroom break and started Lion King. He sat down on the couch beside me and I found myself cuddling up next to him. I honestly don’t remember ever doing that before. I guess I probably had when I was really little, but not in recent memory. Looking back on it the next day I would think about how warm and safe it had felt like that.

I must have fallen asleep sometime before the final battle, because the next thing I knew I was being carried by Dad into my bedroom. Mom pulled down the covers on my bed and he placed me on it. She pulled the covers up to my neck and both of them kissed me goodnight. I must have been tired because I only vaguely recollected it the next day. It was another item on this list of ‘first in a long time for.’ That night I slept feeling really secure and safe. I was afraid though that it couldn’t last forever.
 
 
Chapter 2
 
 
MOM WOKE ME up the next morning to get ready to go over to Amy’s. She pretty much had to prod me all the way through getting dressed and I lazily let her do my hair for me. Of course her payment for that was putting my hair in pigtails with some ribbon she had left over from the trip — she liked seeing me like that. I half-heartedly whined about looking like I was five, but I didn’t really mind.

By the time she had put some cereal in front of me to eat I was half-way conscious. I’m fairly certain all of the stress and exhaustion from the trip had just reared its ugly head that previous night and today. As soon as I realized that today was going to be a fun day with Amy though I snapped out of it.

Before long I was the one pulling Mom out of the house while holding a box containing the pictures from the trip.

As soon as Mom had parked the car at Amy’s house I bounced up the steps and rang the doorbell. “Tiffany!” Amy exclaimed as she flew open the door. “You have got to see these pictures!!!” She dragged me into the dining room where they had their pictures on the table.

“You have to see ours too!” I told her as we sat down. At that point we both had a free-for-all going with each others pictures. From pointing out each other doing stupid stuff, each other looking cute, making fun of various poses of other people, and just having fun. We killed the better part of an hour without even realizing it.

“Are you two done talking at a million-miles-an-hour?” Melanie (Amy’s mom) asked us.

“Umm… Maybe?” I answered sweetly.

“Possibly?” Amy added.

“Don’t count on it,” my mom said with a chuckle. “Can we see the photos now girls?” she then asked.

“Sure,” Amy said pushing hers over to Mom. I pushed ours over to Melanie, and Amy said, “Come on Tiff, let’s grab the scrapbook stuff — mom put it upstairs in the playroom.”

“Okay,” I replied as I tried following her as she ran up the stairs. The two of us grabbed our scrapbooks that we had started before we left, and each grabbed a container of scrapbooking supplies, and a box of pictures that we hadn’t managed to get into our scrapbooks yet.

We spread it all out on the parts of the table that our mom’s weren’t using while looking at the pictures. I opened up my scrapbook and looked through what I had already managed to get finished inside of it.

The pictures mostly started with the ski trip I had taken with her family earlier in the year. As I looked at those pictures I thought about how much fun I had on the slopes, and how neat it had been to have my first experience with having my hair put in pigtails. There were then pictures from band contest where I had to have my hair put up just like the girls in a ponytail with a piece of ribbon.

In both of these settings I looked like the girl I had become — though I definitely wouldn’t have believed that I would come this far so soon. There were also several pages devoted to our English project, which had been a short film made with Barbies. The project, with the help of Ashley’s dad (a local TV station manager) had become such a success that Mattel had bought the film from us.

I had a lot of fun memories of the weekend we had produced the project. It made me suddenly wonder if there might be some way I could do more with that kind of stuff in the future. Just as I was thinking about that though I flipped to the next page where I had begun a section on the sleepover we had to celebrate the beginning of summer.

Amy’s mom and my parents had suspected that Amy and I were dressing me up in her clothes. In trying to sort out what was going on with me they set up a situation where I could become one of the girls for the slumber party — I had to match everyone else right? Amy and I had fallen right into their trap, confirming our parents’ suspicions, and the last two weeks had seen a new course begin in my life. Really I couldn’t believe it had been just two weeks.

Suddenly I jumped as I felt a poke in my side, I screeched a bit, “Hey what was that for?” I asked, looking at Amy.

“I’ve been talking to you for like three minutes and you weren’t answering!” She said with a grin on her face. “Are you alright?” She asked — her face changed to show a bit of concern.

“Yeah, I was just thinking — it’s been kind of a crazy time recently.” I told her.

“You’ve certainly had an eventful few months.” She replied knowingly.

“Well anyway, shall we get started on this stuff?” I asked her.

“Sure. Are you going to finish up with the slumber party stuff first or are you going to skip to the trip?” She asked me.

“Let’s finish up with the party first?” I suggested.

“That’s probably a good idea.” She answered and we began working on finishing up three more pages each of the slumber party pictures. That ended up taking the better part of an hour. We were both so focused on what we were doing that when our moms handed us several pages that they had done of the pictures we were astonished.

“Wow! Mom you did a really nice job on this,” I exclaimed to her. “It’s so cute how you did this,” I said pointing to some stenciled lettering she had added to one part of it. She had gotten four pages made up from the first two days of the trip. I was really impressed!

“Thank you sweetie,” She told me. She was beaming a bit — I think she was pretty proud of herself too.

With that we kicked off a marathon session of scrapbooking! Mom had brought ticket stubs and postcards that I hadn’t even thought of putting into the books. Melanie had also bought a lot of stickers from various places to add onto pages too.

We stopped only briefly for a frozen pizza that was thrown in the oven at lunchtime, and went right back to the project. Throughout the time we worked together on the books all four of us laughed and giggled a lot. I thoroughly enjoyed spending the time with the three of them.

At about four o’clock we all finished up. By combining our efforts into mother/daughter teams (and we had switched moms a couple times actually), we had managed to complete the scrapbooks through the present time. The trip had surprisingly ended up being forty-three pages in each of our books. Mom said we’d have to get another book to do future stuff in — this one was already full!

After we cleaned up Amy and I traded scrapbooks to see what the other had done. Both of us had big things in the books talking about how the other was her best friend. Pretty standard really, but it really meant something to me to have this now. Our moms went into the living room to talk and left us alone in the dining room.

“Hey Tiff, do you want to go swimming for a bit?” Amy asked me.

“Sure, but I don’t know how much longer my mom is going to want to stay over here.”

“Let’s go ask her then.” She said while dragging me to where they were sitting.

“Tiffany and I were wondering if we could go swimming for a little while,” Amy said to them.

Mom looked at her watch and said, “We really need to get going here soon Tiffany, Dad is going to be home in about an hour…”

“Please?” I asked her. “We won’t swim long…” I added pleadingly.

She looked at her watch real quick and at Amy’s mom for a second. “You can swim for thirty minutes — that includes time to change into and out of your swimsuit.”

“Thanks Mom!” I exclaimed while hugging her. Amy grabbed my arm and we ran upstairs to her room. For the sleepover Amy’s mom had bought all of us matching pink swimsuits with Arielle on them. I had left mine at her house after the sleepover, and I quickly put it on in the guest bathroom down the hall. I ran into Amy (literally) as I headed back down the staircase to the pool.

I’m fairly certain I heard a chorus of ‘don’t run through the house,’ from both of our mothers — but we were already in the pool by the time it registered. The two of us splashed around and swam in the pool for what seemed like all of about five minutes when Mom came out to the pool.

“Tiffany, it’s time to go.”

“Do I have to?” I asked.

She gave me a stern look and didn’t even dignify my question with an answer. Knowing that look, I ran upstairs real quick and changed back into my clothes. I carried my swimsuit back down with me — I didn’t know if I could leave it for another time or not.

Amy’s mom was at the bottom of the stairs talking with my mom when I got there, “Tiffany why don’t you go ahead and hand that to me — I’ll wash it and just keep it here. You and Amy will probably swim here a lot more this summer.”

“Okay, thanks!” I said as I handed it to her. “Thanks so much for having us over this afternoon.” I added.

As we walked through the door she told me “You’re welcome Tiffany. We’ll see you later.”

I gave her a quick hug and got in the car with Mom to go home.

WE GOT HOME about 5:10 and mom started making some baked potatoes in the microwave.

“Mom why can’t we just do the potatoes in the oven?” I asked.

“They won’t cook in time sweetie.”

“I guess… They just don’t taste the same in the microwave though,” I pouted.

“Do you want to eat tonight young lady?” She asked.

“Umm… sorry… I do want to eat.”

“Then quit complaining! Here, cut up this zucchini like this,” she said showing me how she wanted it cut, “when you get done with that do the squash the same way.”

She continued to make me do all sorts of stuff around the kitchen to help her cook for the next twenty minutes until Dad got home. “Hi Daddy,” I said to him.

“Hi sweetie, did you have a good day?”

“I had a great day! Amy and I worked on our scrapbooks with Mom and her mom — and they really came out well.”

“I’ll have to look at it later. Honey what are we doing for dinner?” My dad asked my mom.

“Steaks? Go wash your hands then you can work on them outside on the grill.” She told him.

Mom was definitely the boss in her kitchen! By seven we had all of the food and dishes finished off. I showed Dad my scrapbook — he seemed to enjoy looking through it. He showed a fair amount of surprise at some of the earlier pictures of me with my hair tied up while skiing and on the band trip.

More than anything I watched his jaw drop on the pictures from the slumber party. At one point he commented, “Sweetie, don’t take this the wrong way, but I really didn’t expect for you to look as pretty, if not prettier than a lot of the girls… I mean you were my son… You do make a lovely daughter though.” He added at the end.

It was at this moment that I think I saw the first signs of some of the stress this was taking on him. He had been so good at being there for me, no matter what, the past couple weeks. But I could definitely see this was not easy for him to deal with.

I gave him a big hug, “Daddy I know this has been hard for you and Mom, thank you so much for doing all that you have. I know that maybe it seems like you’ve lost your son — but you still have her… I know that doesn’t make sense, but I love you so much for everything you’ve done for me,” I said with some tears in my eyes.

He embraced me and did something he hadn’t done in a very long time, sat me on his lap. “It has been a bit hard, but I don’t think I’ve lost anything. I love you so very much no matter who you are. I’ll always love you.” He said.

By this point both of us had tears in our eyes — but we recovered after another hug. I went to the bathroom to go rinse my eyes and then ended up in my room. I sat on my bed for a second looking around my room before fixating on the large dollhouse sitting in the corner.

It had been a gift from Mattel in relation to the Barbie film we had made. I had a number of Barbies with it — but hadn’t had much of an opportunity to play with them at home. I think I’d maybe had one real day to play with them? And that day was still covered in a fog with my memories; it was the day after my parents had found out about me. I had felt scared, angry, humiliated, and every other emotion you could imagine — so I didn’t have much in the way of memories of that day.

I got up off the bed and began playing with them at that point. After a while Mom came in and asked, “Can I play too?”

I gave her kind of a funny look and then said, “Alright,” with a big smile on my face.

I had to introduce her to all of my Barbies — she didn’t know all of the names. After that we changed some of the clothes and began to play together. I came up with some wacky situations, just like when Amy and I played, and she frequently chimed in with some wacky stuff of her own.

The next hour was probably one of the best I’d had with her since I don’t know when. I mean when had she ever asked to play with me as a boy? Maybe when I was a toddler? Maybe.

At eight she got up to go since she was sore from sitting, and I decided to occupy myself some other way for a bit. Mom had purchased the newest Seventeen Magazine for me yesterday at Wal-Mart. I got it off my dresser where it was sitting and began reading through it.

It was a neat magazine, but I have to admit some of the stuff on boys kind of made me squirm. What was I going to do about dating as I got older? I really hadn’t had feelings for either girls or guys at this point. I tried to think if there were any guys in our class that I’d consider going out with… I really couldn’t come up with any. I guess Kyle might be alright… but eew… that was still too weird.

I closed the magazine and decided to go ahead and get my pajamas on. Last night I’d worn a sleep shirt, it had been really nice… But I had several other pajama sets, and you just can’t wear the same thing every night, right?

I went back and forth in my choices before deciding a purple short/tank top set that was made out of a soft satin material. Once I was dressed I grabbed a stuffed teddy bear and went out to the living room where my parents were watching TV.

My parents were both in their recliners on either side of the couch — I just curled up on a side of the couch. I really wasn’t interested in the program they were watching, so I just kind of stared blankly at the screen.

During a commercial break my mom said, “So Tiffany, Amy’s mom was telling me about a camp that they’re sending Amy to next month for cheerleading.”

“Amy said something about it to me on the trip, it sounds like she’s going to have a lot of fun.” I replied. Amy was incredibly excited to be going to this camp; she’d mentioned it many times again today. She’d always been interested in cheerleading and dance stuff. Just this past May she had made the school’s cheerleading team for the next year as a seventh grader (upcoming).

Obviously they were going to be having a cheerleading camp for the team — but she was also going to this camp for individual girls before going to the team camp. She’d never been to the camp, but everything that she’d heard about it in magazines and such made it seem like it was really cool. Each girl was put together with fourteen other girls to make a squad for the week.

Together all of the girls would then work as a team to learn different stunts, cheers, individual technique, and leadership skills. The camp was set up to be a place for girls of all skill levels to get experience cheering, and in Amy’s case, get conditioned for the team camp they would have later.

The question I had though was why were they telling me about it? “Why do you mention it?”

“Amy told her mom that you seemed to be interested in the idea of going with her when she mentioned it on the trip.”

“Well yeah… Kind of… I just don’t know that I’m really someone that could do that kind of stuff… It might be kind of fun though.”

“Well Melanie called the camp today and found out they have one more spot open in the camp. Would you like to take that spot?” She asked.

My jaw dropped. “Seriously?” I asked.

“If you want it we’ll get it set up.” Mom replied.

“But what about… you know… How would I shower and stuff like that?” I asked.

“Well the camp is at a university that has a bathroom that’s shared between two girls. They said that we could still set it up to where you were Amy’s roommate.” She must have seen a small look of horror on my face, “And no, we didn’t tell them about you.”

Whew. “What do you think about it?” I asked my dad.

“Well I can’t say that it’s my idea of fun, but I think you would have a good time. Most of your friends are on the cheerleading squad this year. If you go to it this would probably make it easier for you to try out next year if you want to.” He said.

There was something in his voice that definitely betrayed his feelings at suggesting that I be going to a cheer camp. I was honestly proud of him, but you could tell it was straining him. Maybe me getting away for a week would help him? I didn’t honestly know that I wanted to be a cheerleader, but he was right; almost all of my friends were going to be on the squad next year.

Cheerleading was also probably the most girly thing you could ever do in school… But I’d never be let on the team — everyone on it was absolutely gorgeous. Even then, this camp could be a lot of fun even if I never did anything with it. I’d at least have fun with Amy.

“Then Yes!” I told them both. “Are you sure the spot will still be open by tomorrow?” I asked mom.

“Actually it’s not open anymore.”

I was about to cry. Why would she do that to me? I was also really getting angry. “Then why’d you tell me about it!?!”

“Relax. There’s a girl named Tiffany that took the spot.” She told me with a big smile.

I went over to her and hit her first before giving her a big hug. “Not nice!!” I told her.

“I know… but your dad has to take some of the blame, he was the one that came up with that joke.”

I proceeded to go over and lightly pound on him before hugging him as well. “Thank you Daddy,” I told him.

“You’re welcome. I hope you enjoy it. But, make sure you thank Amy’s parents too — they’re paying for it.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Yes, they’ve insisted on paying for it — so make sure you say thank you next time you see them,” Dad told me. With that he got up and headed for bed.

“Mom may I call Amy?” I asked.

“As long as you don’t talk too long, ten minutes max, okay?”

“Thirty? It’s not like I have school tomorrow!”

“Twenty. Tiffany you do have an eye doctor appointment tomorrow morning that you have to wake up for.”

“I’m getting contacts tomorrow?” I asked — I was already smiling but it got bigger at the thought of not having to wear glasses anymore.

“Well we’ll get you fitted for them tomorrow. I doubt we’ll be able to get the actual contacts tomorrow though.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I said giving her another hug.

“Okay enough already, go call Amy, you need to go to bed soon.”

I skipped my way to the kitchen phone and dialed Amy’s number. Amy answered, “Hello?”

“Amy!!! Guess what?”

“You’re going to camp with me?” She asked.

“Not fair! You take all of the fun out of things.”

She laughed on the other side, “Mom told me about it a little bit ago. Blame her.”

“Nah… I can’t blame your mom — especially since my Dad told me she’s paying for it! So are you alright with me tagging along to this camp?” I asked.

“Alright with you tagging along?” She asked incredulously. “Let’s see you’re my best friend in the world, and I’ll be able to be with you instead of a bunch of strangers… Of course I’m okay with it.”

“Good, I just don’t want you to get sick of me I guess.” I told her.

“I won’t. So are you excited about going?” She asked me.

“I think so, I don’t honestly know what to expect.”

“It’ll be so much fun. We’ll be working really hard though — you should come over tomorrow and we’ll work on some basic tumbling and stuff with you.”

“Do you honestly think that I can do that stuff?” I asked.

“Of course! You won’t be perfect at it without a lot of practice, but we can probably make it possible for you to do some stuff before we go to camp.”

“I’ll ask my mom if I can come over after my eye doctor’s appointment tomorrow.”

“Ooh, are you finally getting contacts?”

“Yeah, I’m so excited. I’ve hated being without my glasses as Tiffany — but I definitely can’t wear my old glasses now.” My old glasses were the big metal framed glasses. Yeah all of you that had glasses in the early 80’s and 90’s know what I’m talking about. It was a large part of why I had picked up the ‘Ralphy’ nickname last year.

“They were pretty lame, even for a guy,” Amy joked.

I joined her laughing about them and we talked about other things for a little while longer before Mom said, “Tiffany you need to get off the phone now.”

“Mom, may I go to Amy’s house after we get done at the doctor tomorrow?” I asked.

“You were just there today.”

“Please? Amy wants to help me not look like an idiot at the camp!” I said. I heard a chuckle from her end of the phone.

“Has Amy asked her mom?”

I lifted the phone back to my ear, “Amy have you asked your mom?” I heard her yell and ask permission.

Amy said, “She says sure!”

I pulled the phone away from my ear, “Her mom’s okay with it. May I go?”

Mom looked thoughtful but said, “Okay I guess.”

I put the phone back to my ear and told Amy that I’d be there around one. She told me to come in some cotton shorts and a t-shirt. Before we hung up I asked to speak to her mom really quickly to say thank you and to tell her how awesome she was. Once I was finished I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and then forced myself to go to sleep.
 
 
Chapter 3
 
 
THE NEXT MORNING Mom got me up early to go to the eye doctor’s office. We were going to a different doctor than I had in the past since my old one had gone out of business for some reason. Because of that, we had all of those wonderful forms that we had to fill out. We sat down in the lobby chairs to fill all of them out. Mom hesitated as she filled out the paperwork — all of my insurance stuff was still set up for Brandon… There were also the gender boxes to fill in — what were we supposed to do?

Mom decided just to go ahead and fill it out as Tiffany, and spoke with the receptionist quietly. I watched the girls eyes grow and she did a double take at me. Mom said something else to her and I saw her begin to look a bit nervous, smile, nod, and then Mom came back over. I was dying to know what had been said up there — it made me really nervous and really curious at the same time — but I figured I’d have to wait until later. For now she just sat down quietly next to me.

I saw a magazine on the table that I thought looked interesting and started reading through it. Ten minutes later I saw a door open next to the front desk and heard, “Tiffany?”

I stood up and walked over to her followed by my mom. She led us down the hallway to a room where she put me through a barrage of tests. When I thought my eyes could take no more she left and the real doctor came in. More tests…

Finally after I was so sick of looking this way, that way, looking at lights and letters, he left to go calculate some stuff.

When he came back in he said. “Okay Tiffany, I think that we should be able to do contacts without a problem. I would like to go ahead and do…” he discussed the kind of contacts he wanted me to use. He seemed to think that it would keep my eyes from getting worse as I grew. My mom agreed with his plan and then he replied, “I’ll order them today and they should be in by Wednesday of next week.”

“That quick?” My mom asked.

“We have a place that makes them here in town, so as long as I get the order in today, they should be here by then. Why don’t you plan on coming in on Thursday and we’ll show you how to put them in and take care of them?”

“Okay.” I said. We finished up and went back out to the lobby. Mom stopped and talked to the receptionist for a moment as we went by. I couldn’t hear her, but the girl smiled and waved at me as Mom walked away.

When we were safely in the car, “Okay Mom, what was going on with that lady? Out with it.” I told her. I wasn’t really agitated, but I was far too curious.

“Why, are you really that curious?”

“Yes. What happened?”

“Well when I first went up there I told her that I needed her to process the insurance claim under the name of Brandon, but everything else was to be in Tiffany for the appointment. She looked at me really strange and asked why?”

“I told her that you used to be Brandon, but under the guidance of a medical professional you had become Tiffany.”

“What did she say?” I asked.

“Well she looked at you and couldn’t believe that you were a boy. She thought I was just trying to get her goat at first. I had to assure her that it was no joke, and that if she didn’t handle it discreetly, professionally, and confidentially the office could face problems. She kind of got nervous at that point, but she said ‘that’s fine, I’ll take care of it.’”

“Really?”

“Well she didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter. I’ll be honest though — it did make me a little uncomfortable to deal with this visit. We’re going to have to see if we can get the insurance stuff and other legal stuff taken care of soon.”

“Not to mention school stuff.” I kind of shuddered.

I’d had it really easy so far with people accepting me. At the slumber party it was girls who had mostly known me and all liked me. On the trip, it had been a very closed-in environment, that the teachers had every right to send home a student if they became a problem: it was part of the agreement before we could go on the trip.

For whatever reason I had lucked out in that two of the cooler guys had gotten behind me with this when I came out with it. If Kyle and David stayed behind me I might have a chance this next year… but I knew there were going to be people that were going to have a fit about this. One of my mom’s closest friends had already voiced her opinion that I should be checked into a mental ward — not allowed on this path. Mom currently wasn’t really speaking to her.

I was raised as a Christian, I believed in Jesus and that He had given his life for mine — it did create a huge amount of turmoil for me… I had come to the conclusion that He had made me this way — with this issue — and that regardless of the right/wrong factors of this that I was forgiven. I knew though that the majority of people I had gone to church with as a kid would ostracize me at the least. To me though, it was like I had born with a birth defect, such as a facial disfiguration, that would hopefully be corrected by surgery sometime in the future.

But in my opinion that didn’t even seem to matter when I considered the school fun I was bound to have this year…

I felt a hand tickling me in my side “Tiffany,” Mom said.

“Huh?”

“Are you all right?” She asked me.

“Yeah, it’s just not going to be easy is it?” I asked.

“No sweetie. I don’t think you could have ended up with a harder way to grow up. Are you happier though?” She asked me.

I nodded, “Uh-huh.”

“Then I think we’ll eventually look back at this and see that though it was hard that it was worth it.”

“I hope so. What’s next?” I asked my mom.

“Well he gave me a prescription for glasses as well as your contact prescription. I want to go stop by a place and get you some glasses made that will work for you if you need to wear glasses instead of contacts sometime.”

“Umm… okay. But I’m not going to wear them often.”

“That’s fine, they’ll be there if you need them though.” She told me.

“Okay I guess.”

We drove over to a Lenscrafters location and we spent the better part of an hour deciding which frames to get. I finally asked a girl that was working there what she thought. She was just out of high school so she was able to better judge what was cute and what was scary!

When all was said and done I liked what we had picked out. It was about eleven-thirty when we finished up ordering the glasses. She said to be back in an hour to pick them up. So we ended up piddling around at McDonalds and a couple of stores for a bit before going back to get them. It was sure nice to be able to see again! Not that I think glasses ever look good on anyone — but these didn’t look too terrible on me (relatively speaking.)

I wondered what Amy would think when she saw them.

MOM DROPPED ME off at Amy’s house after giving me a chance to change into some shorts and a light t-shirt. “Hey!” Amy said to me with a smile as I came through the door.

“Tiffany I like your new glasses!” Amy paused for a second before continuing to ask, “Didn’t you say you were getting contacts though?”

“Yeah, they should be in next week. Mom wanted me to get a pair of glasses though so I could see if for whatever reason I had to take my contacts out sometime.”

“Well it definitely makes your face look a lot prettier than the old pair! I know you were just not wearing them most of the time — but you couldn’t have been able to see that well?”

“My eyes are strange — one can see close and one can see far away. Between the two I can get away without them.”

“You’re strange Tiff,” She joked.

“Just like you Amy, just like you.” There was our usual sticking our tongues out at each other session for a couple minutes. Eventually I asked, “So what did you want to do?”

“Here, let’s go outside to the back.” She replied as we walked to the grassy area of her backyard. “Okay, so they don’t expect you to know a lot when you go to this camp — but it’ll help you fit in better if you know at least a little bit of stuff.” She told me.

“Okay, I definitely don’t want to stand out anymore than I already will…” I told her.

“What do you mean by that Tiff?” She asked me as we started doing some stretches.

“Just that I’m not really pretty enough to be a cheerleader, am I?” I asked her.

“Tiffany, honestly, if I didn’t know you were a guy I would assume that you were a girl. I mean everyone has been for months since you started growing your hair out. Your face is easily as pretty as the average girl on the cheerleading squad at our school. You’re also as skinny as I am — if not skinnier. You’ll easily fit in look wise at this camp. In fact I’m sure there will be a lot of girls there that will not be nearly as pretty as you.” She told me.

“Really?”

“Yeah, this is an open camp, so that means there will be some girls that go to this that will never make a squad at their school.” She paused, “Look, let’s plan on you going and having a really great time. We’ll worry about figuring out some way to get you onto the squad at our school next year.”

I definitely didn’t know what to say or think at this point. “Amy thanks for being such a great friend.” I said and gave her a hug.

“You too Tiffany. And remember, even if only one of us is on the cheerleading squad I will always be your best friend!”

“I sure hope so,” I told her.

“Okay, now let’s make you suffer!” She said with a maniacal laugh… uh-oh.

For the next two hours that afternoon she taught me all sorts of stuff. She was really amazed when she found out I could do front-splits and side-splits already. “Tiffany, have you worked on those or something?”

I blushed, “I was always somewhat flexible when I was younger, but when I started thinking I should be a girl I decided to try and do some things like that.”

“You’re able to go down farther than some of the girls that are on the squad. Now let’s take it a couple steps further…” she began teaching me how to do them while jumping. Her mom came out several times and watched us — usually laughing at my expense.

She also began teaching me how to do some somersaults. I could already do some cartwheels, but I’d never tried to do a front-flip. At the end of our workout I still couldn’t do a front-flip: but I’d at least made a start at trying.

We went inside to take a break and get something to drink at about three-thirty. Her mom talked with us quite a bit — including giving us both some heckling about what she had watched.

Amy’s mom also took that time to comment on my new glasses, “Tiffany those glasses really frame your face well. They look really good on you,” she told me.

“Thanks!” I told her before Amy and I sat down on a couch in the living room for a bit.

After a while Amy decided we’d cooled off enough and dragged me back outside to teach me some other cheerleading basics. Needless to say, by four-thirty I was exhausted.

We went inside and just kind of vegged out in front of their TV. “So Amy what are you doing Saturday?”

“Nothing as far as I know, why?”

“You want to come stay the night?” I had asked my mom before she dropped me off if it was okay.

“Yeah! Do you have anything in particular you want to do?”

“Not really, I thought we could just hang out. Maybe we can go rent a movie or something and watch it?”

“Let me ask Mom real quick.” She said.

We both walked down the hallway to her mom’s office. “Mommy may I go to Tiffany’s on Saturday and stay the night?”

“I was wondering who was going to be staying over where… Yeah, that’s fine sweetie. What are you going to do?”

“Dunno. Maybe watch a movie or torture my parents somehow.” I replied to her with a grin on my face.

“Well don’t torture them too much — they might try and give you to us or something,” she joked.

“Oh alright… I can tell when I’m not wanted…” I heckled her right back and we left to go sit in the living room. We kept talking and watching TV until my mom rang the doorbell at five.

“You have to come to your ‘real home’ every now and then, Tiff.” My mom told me as we got into the car.

That night after dinner my body dealt me all of the soreness it felt I deserved after working out with Amy earlier. I ended up soaking in a bubble bath for a long time before bed that night.
 
 
Chapter 4
 
 
FRIDAY WAS AN early morning for me — mom made me wake up at 7:30 AM!! “Why do we have to go so early?” I griped to mom.

“Your grandparents are coming, and you know they’ll be here in like an hour at the most. Come on let’s get you ready so you can look your best.” She told me.

My grandparents had only seen me as Tiffany once so far… so I guess it made sense. “Alright, alright, I’ll get up.” I told her.

I looked in my closet and picked out a striped t-shirt and some shorts to wear for the day. After that I grabbed panties and a training bra before stepping into the bathroom to take a shower. I stood there for a long while letting the water roll off of me — I was really sore from yesterday. At some point I ran out of hot water and decided that meant it was time to get out of the shower.

I put on my clothes and worked on my hair for a while before deciding that I was presentable. When I was done I stared at myself to see what I thought others would think. As far as I could tell they shouldn’t be able to see that I was a boy underneath… Thankfully everything below my waist was small enough that you couldn’t see it when I tucked it into my panties. I was kind of worried about what was going to happen when things started growing — I was definitely going to have fun keeping that hidden as time went on.

The pounding on the door broke my reverie. I opened the door, “What?” I asked.

“Are you ever going to get out of there?” My mom asked.

“No. I’m your daughter now, I have to spend at least four times as much time in the bathroom now… It’s like some kind of rule.” I kind of grinned — I was still too asleep to smile — while saying that with the door open now.

She wanted to be annoyed and angry — she tried hard — but ended up smiling and giving me a hug. “You look nice today. I like that top on you.”

“Thanks.”

I went out to the kitchen and poured a bowl of Lucky Charms for breakfast. Dad was coming in from mowing the lawn outside when I sat down. He had taken another vacation day that day so he could spend some time with his parents. I was about midway through my cereal when I heard the doorbell ring and my grandfather’s booming voice. I jumped out of my seat and out to the living room to give him and my grandmother a hug. “Hi,” I said to them.

“Well don’t you look darling today,” my grandmother told me. Grandpa voiced his own agreement as well.

“Thanks,” I said as I blushed a bit. I brushed my hair back behind my ear to get it out of my mouth as I said that.

“Did you get your ears pierced sweetie?” My grandmother asked.

“Uh-huh, do you like them?”

“Absolutely. You look very lovely sweetie.” She told me. They followed my parents and I back into the kitchen where I worked on finishing up my breakfast.

I noticed then that it was nine am. I must have spent well over an hour in the bathroom… no wonder Mom was giving me a hard time about monopolizing it. Oh well, I looked pretty right?

When I finished breakfast Mom said, “Tiffany go get your scrapbook and show it to your grandparents.”

“Okay,” I said. I jumped up and ran down the hall to my room where it was sitting on top of my dresser. I skipped my way back to the kitchen and put it down in front of my grandparents. My grandmother grabbed her glasses from her purse and they began to look through it.

“This is cute. Where’d you take this?” My grandparents asked about a photo with the Hancocks that we’d taken on our ski trip.

“That was when Amy’s parents took me up to go skiing.” I told them. I remembered that day as being the first that I’d had my hair in a ponytail. You could actually kind of see it sticking up above my head.

They kept looking through it asking questions here and there about different pictures and places. The pictures from Florida were especially interesting to them. When we were done Grandpa said, “Well you’ve had quite a year Bran… Tiffany.”

“Yeah, it has been Grandpa,” I replied to him.

“Your mom was saying that you’re going to a cheerleading camp here in a few weeks?” Grandma asked. I think she was trying to keep me from dwelling on the fact that Grandpa almost called me Brandon.

“Yeah, I’m really excited about it! It should be a lot of fun. If nothing else I’ll get to hang out with Amy for all of that time,” I told her.

“That sounds good. What all are you going to do at this camp?” She asked me.

I proceeded to tell her all of the things that I had learned about the camp from Amy. “I think I’ll have a really good time actually. Amy was teaching me some stuff yesterday and it was a lot of fun.”

The conversation moved on to what we were doing that day. “Well why don’t we go to Price Club first? Then we can go eat somewhere.” My dad suggested.

“Okay,” my grandfather said.

With that the circus of leaving our house began. My mom tried to convince my grandparents to just go in our car, but Dad needed to have one of our cars there in case he got called out… Yeah, it was just a blast trying to get everyone organized in my family to do anything!

We then drove the twenty-five minutes into town, and another ten minutes across town to get to the store. When we finally got to Price Club we began walking up and down the aisles. My dad became occupied in the computer aisle while I walked around with my grandparents. I leaned over to pick up a giant thing of paper towels, when my necklace came out from underneath my shirt — hanging away from my neck.

When I had straightened up to put it on the cart Grandma said, “That looks pretty Tiffany,” she said coming over to me to get a closer look. “Where did you get that?” She asked me.

“Amy’s mom bought this necklace set for Amy and I on the ski trip.”

“I really like it. It looks good on you,” she added.

“Thanks.” I said as we walked down more of the aisles. Eventually we finished up with their shopping — at least I hoped so with as full as the cart was. We were in line when I saw Dad come up pushing a cart of his own…

“You’re going to buy a new computer?” I asked with no small amount of glee in my inquiry.

“Yes, I think it’s time, don’t you?”

“Uh-huh!!” I started looking at the specs on the box. Girl or not, I was still a computer nerd at heart!

“This looks great Daddy,” I told him.

“I’m glad you think so.” He told me as we all checked out at the cashier. In no time we were eating lunch at Olive Garden and everyone was talking about various things. My grandmother told us the latest gossip around the small town that was nearest their place.

There was also plenty of news shared about my dad’s brother and two sisters. My next to oldest cousin in particular kept getting into a fair amount of trouble in Arizona where they lived. My parents both commented about how poor the discipline was from his mother (his sister) and his dad.

Of course by now my dad’s siblings had learned about me as well. My uncle in particular couldn’t believe my parents were letting me do this. After the last conversation my dad had with him he had sworn off speaking to him for a long time. If we had any family gatherings this summer I had a feeling the two of them would probably get into it over me.

Thankfully my aunts both seemed to be cool with the idea — or at the very least not hostile. One aunt in particular, Aunt Linda, was a ‘free thinker’ and so she was definitely more predisposed to being supportive of my change.

Our conversations at the restaurant never really strayed onto my transition. As far as I knew it was just a silent agreement to not talk about it in public. Following lunch Mom, Grandma, and I all went to the ladies room together. I finished first and put on some lip gloss that I had in my purse after I washed my hands. I waited till Grandma and Mom were done before we all walked out to the cars.

“Where to next?” my grandfather asked as my dad’s pager began to go off. He looked at it for a second before pulling his cell phone off of his belt and called someone. Of course he would get a phone call on a day off! It really made me so mad.

When he finished up with the call he said, “Mom, Dad, I’m really sorry but I need to get back home so I can get my work vehicle and go to work. Mandy, what do you and Tiffany want to do?” He asked.

“Why don’t you guys finish shopping with us and then we’ll drop you off at home later?” My grandmother suggested.

My mom didn’t look really thrilled with the idea of shopping with my grandmother all afternoon, but I asked, “can we do that Mom?”

She looked pained at the idea of having to deal with my grandmothers’ style of shopping (look at every thing in the store)… but said, “I suppose. I do need to get home by four; can you guys get us back by then?”

“Sure hon, that shouldn’t be a problem.” My grandmother said.

With that my dad gave my grandparents a hug goodbye and took off with our car to go back home. My grandmother dragged us through the mall at one of the slowest paces I’ve ever seen. We must have spent an hour in Penney’s alone!

Before all of this happened I would have been overwrought with despair and boredom, but I actually managed to occupy myself in the girls section for forty-five minutes of that. I also spent some time in the juniors section — but Mom seemed to think that, since I didn’t have breasts or hips yet, I didn’t need to shop there. I decided I’d have to bring Amy back to help me out with that. Maybe we could go shopping tomorrow — then Mom could really be shopped out…

After two more chain stores we were basically out of time. Just before we left though we made a quick stop inside Claire’s because I wanted to look around. Grandma saw me staring at a pair of earrings for an extended time — and ended up purchasing them for me! I said thank you and gave her a hug for it before they took us back to our house to drop us off.

“Tiffany, thanks for going shopping with us. I had a really good time being with you today.” My grandmother told me.

“I had a good time too,” I told her. “And thanks for the earrings!”

Hugs were exchanged all around and they drove off. We went inside our house and I was annoyed that Dad had left a note to wait for him to assemble the computer — not fair! Eventually he came home, and that evening I spent a lot of time fighting over the computer with him — it was entertaining to me at least.

THE REST OF that weekend was a lot of fun for Amy and I. She came over like we had planned, and ended up going shopping at the mall with Mom for a while. Amy of course had helped me pick out a couple more outfits that were trendy and made me look cute. Most of them were still from the girls section though because the more I looked in the juniors, the more I realized I was still really tiny for a lot of it. On our way back from the mall we stopped to rent movies at our nearest Hollywood Video store.

I had a bit of a heart-attack while we were picking out movies. Three kids from our school, also looking for videos, saw Amy and came over to say hi. Amazingly they didn’t recognize me — so Amy introduced me as Tiffany, a girl who would be starting school this year at our school. Thankfully we didn’t talk long before we managed to move away from them.

I had told Amy and my mom of my disbelief that they hadn’t recognized me. They had just replied that I really didn’t look like the Brandon they would have seen the last day of school, especially with the new haircut and glasses. The rest of the night I kind of felt a buzz of adrenaline from that incident as it gave me some more confidence. Of course my confidence shattered when I realized that it was honestly only a matter of time before everyone found out about me.

It was with this thought and so many others that I went to see my psychiatrist for the second time on Monday. I wanted to make sure that she knew that I was a girl as much as possible — so I dressed up for the occasion. I put on a sundress that Amy’s mom had bought for some pictures a few weeks back, did my hair really pretty (adding some ringlets to it), and finished everything up with some lip gloss I had.

I wanted to use some of the makeup that Amy’s mom had purchased for me, but Mom put her foot down. She said I could use it for some special occasions, but I was not to wear it on a normal basis. I tried to convince her today was a special occasion but she wouldn’t bite. I played nervously with the bottom edge of my dress all the way to the hospital where Dr. Reynolds’ office was located.

Dr. Reynolds spoke to my mom first while I waited in the waiting area. They probably spoke for a good thirty minutes before she came back for me while my mom waited this time.

“How are you doing Tiffany?” Dr. Reynolds asked as she led me into her office.

“I’m doing really well today. How are you?”

“I’m doing well, thanks for asking. So what’s happened since I saw you last?” She asked.

Boy I’m sure she knew that was a loaded question… but if she didn’t she sure learned quick. I started off by telling her how Amy’s mom had treated us by taking us to her salon and getting our pictures taken in a bunch of outfits. I then told her about how I had done the best I could to last as Brandon on the trip, but finally we gave up the act for safety reasons.

I had been getting too many strange looks of ‘why is that girl in the boy’s bathroom?’ She seemed concerned that we had gone ahead and introduced me as Tiffany to the rest of the kids. “How did they react?” She asked with a level tone.

“Well, by that point all of the girls knew. One of them had figured out that I was wearing a girls top the first day. The couple others that didn’t know about me just kind of figured it out eventually on their own without me doing anything before the meeting. Even one of the guys, Kyle, figured it out the night before I told everyone.”

“How did he react when you told him?”

“Well… I was honestly shocked. It’s not like he’s ever picked on me — but he’s never been a friend either. He seemed to think it was kind of weird… but was okay with it. When we talked more the next day he seemed intrigued by the ability to completely blow everyone’s minds when I come to school in the fall.”

“He also led up an effort with another boy to make all of the kids promise not to spill the beans until the year begins. I don’t have a lot of faith in that happening, but I appreciate his trying.” I told her a bit more about that particular event as well while she seemed to write down notes every now and then.

“So what do you think of Kyle?” She asked me.

“Umm… what do you mean?”

“What do you think I mean?”

“Do you mean do I like him — like him?”

“Well do you?”

“Umm… I’m really not interested in dating anyone — boy or girl — at this point…”

“But?”

How did she know there was a ‘but’ there? “Well… I guess he’s cool, kind of cute… I just don’t know — I really don’t want to start dating for a long time anyway. Plus all of this…”

“It’s okay Tiffany, you have plenty of time to sort out your feelings with this. You don’t have to feel pressured to like one or the other anytime soon.” She reassured me.

We went through the session talking about so many other things before she began giving me some role-playing situations. She asked me what I would do if such and such happened for the better part of a half-hour. Mom was sent for after a bit and she began to address both of us together.

“Okay, I think we got a lot of good information out today. I’d like to share some of my thoughts at this point Tiffany, okay?”

“Okay,” I said nodding. I was suddenly feeling very tense. Would she now tell me that I had to go back to being Brandon — that I couldn’t ever be Tiffany. I think she could read the sudden stress build up in my face.

“First of all relax Tiffany, I’m not going to tell you to stop being yourself.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Look, I really hate to diagnose you with this at this young of an age. You haven’t entered puberty yet — so you really don’t know what it fully feels like to be a man — but at the same time if we deal with this now you would have an easier time transitioning. As it stands right now I really can’t tell from outside appearances that you weren’t born as Tiffany. But, as time goes on and you start advancing through puberty that would change really quick.”

“I know, I really don’t want to have any of those things like having a beard or my voice lowering…”

“I don’t think you necessarily should have to go through that. To be honest, the amount of research in treating children of your age with this is almost non-existent. Many doctors in my field believe we should wait longer before doing anything, but to prevent puberty from happening for the time being. I’ve personally been back and forth on deciding what to do with you many times since our last session.”

“What I have come up with is that I would like to see you go to this camp in a couple weeks and then have an appointment with me again at that point. Through that point I want you to continue to be Tiffany in every way.”

“Mandy, you and your husband should probably go ahead and start working on getting Tiffany’s paperwork to match her new gender. Have Mr. Hancock help you out with the school district. I’ve got a note prepared here that you can have him use as the basis of those attempts to get things switched over. It also should be enough to get her excused from PE for the year.” She said handing the note to Mom.

“So what’s next for me?” I asked. “You seemed to be thinking about doing something more than waiting for me to start puberty as a guy?”

“I really want to wait until one more session before deciding anything and getting your hopes up… but I am leaning toward starting a therapy after the next session that will keep you from starting into puberty for a while. It will have the side effect of keeping you smaller for longer, but it’ll buy us a bit more time to decide if this is actually the best thing for you. Realistically we can easily wait until then before having to decide anything.”

“Then what?” Mom asked.

“Well after school starts up if things seem to be still moving in this direction, I think in the late fall we’ll begin looking at a hormone therapy. That’s as far as I’m willing to discuss at this point.”

“Okay.” I said with a smile on my face — but definitely some heavy thoughts in my mind. Was this going to be worth it? I sure hoped so… but I knew I was getting myself into something that was going to be really hard to deal with. Just the idea of having my own real breasts in a couple years sent tingles up and down my body!

Dr. Reynolds spoke more to my mom about things that she had learned over the session. There really wasn’t anything shared with her at that point that I hadn’t already told Mom. She did mention to Mom that I had expressed some mixed emotions about having feelings about liking boys or not. Mom’s eyebrow raised a bit at that and I knew I was going to be interrogated hard about that later.

As we left Dr. Reynolds held onto my shoulder with a soft hand, “Tiffany, this is not going to be an easy road — but I think it’s going to be very worth it for you.”

I gave her a hug and said, “Thanks Dr. Reynolds.”

“No problem. Remember Tiffany, if you ever feel like you need to talk to someone in a hurry here’s my card. If it’s an emergency just tell my secretary or the answering service that comes on the line and they’ll get me on the line as quickly as they can.”

When we got to the car mom gave me a quick hug before we got in — it was just what I needed at that moment.

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To Be Continued...