The next morning after a quick shower there was a surprise waiting for me on the bed: it was a bra and panty set in the same vine patterned material as the top.

I slipped them on, and tucked myself away for what I hoped would be the last time, and then put on the rest of my clothing. The labels on the bra told me it was my mother’s line, her personal line, and I was happy to be wearing so much of her clothing on this of all days.

There was a nip in the pre-dawn air as we all climbed into my dad’s sedan. The top covered me, but I was clad for the jacket I’d decided to grab. We drove over to the hospital where they began prepping me for my surgery.

For once in my life I was actually glad for the lack of hair growth in that area, as they had to clip what little there was. It was quickly accomplished, and I was happy that it had been a female nurse who had done it and not a male one.

I already considered myself to be female, and this last little thing marring my physical presentation would be gone. I would be as female as anyone else, physically, in just a couple of hours, and that made me smile.

“We’ll get you in to the operating room here in the next hour or so. In about half an hour we’ll get you down to the prep room,” Dr. Licht, my surgeon, told me after the nurse was done and they covered me up again.

“Thanks, I say with a grin.”

“Seems someone is more than ready for this,” Dr. Sparks said from the doorway.

“Oh, yes, I am. I’ve had some good friends and a good counselor to help me realize that I was never much of a boy to begin with.”

“That’s good to hear. Well, I’ll be back to check on you after the surgery. I leave you in Dr. Licht’s competent hands.”

It was a lot of waiting at that point. I waited for about half an hour and chatted with my family. After that they wheeled me, in my bed, into a hallway outside a room that said Prep on it. I sat there looking around at the people while a nurse started an IV. Then, I was there by myself, smelling the saline, or that is what I assume it was, as it began flowing into my veins. It is the weirdest thing, and something I noticed when I was in the hospital the first time, but when they start flooding my system with contents of an IV bag, I can actually smell it.

So, I sat there with the clean smell in my nostrils, trying not to freak out as I was left there alone with my demons, and then I was wheeled in to the prep room.

.-.. .. -. . -... .-. . .- -.-
The ceiling was the next thing that I really noticed. It’s different than the one in the prep room. Where in the prep room it was acoustic tile like you get everywhere, this was covered in lateral slats and lights. I looked around a bit to see a view that looked like it was pulled straight out of a sci-fi movie. It was a white room with a bunch of white beds lined up throughout it. I could barely hold up my head to even look around. Some nurses in scrubs, the only non-white things in here it seemed, moved around the room a little bit, one came over to me and said something about moving me to a private room…
.-.. .. -. . -... .-. . .- -.-
The white room was gone, and I was in one with some light wood paneling. The room was quiet, without even the monitor beeps I would expect from a hospital room. Too many bad dramas while I was in Juvie I guess.

There was no one else in the room. The window blinds were open though and I could look out on the most glorious day in my life. Before the events of these last few weeks, I never imagined that I might be something other than the tough as nails gay street-fighter.

Now? I was loved by a handsome boy, even if he wasn’t ready to admit it to me. I was a girl, and had friends who were girls. I was a girl. The slight pain in my crotch, more a throbbing ache than anything else right now, let me know that. I didn’t need to look down there to really know that the surgery had been a success. I could feel it in my soul.

Sure, there could always still be complications, but whatever else happened from here on out I would be female.

Valkyrie.

The thought came unbidden into my head, and I blinked back tears for a moment. The people who had named me that did so because it seemed to fit better for them than Amazon. There are just not enough strong female characters in mythology.

They could have named me Athena or Artemis or Diana or anything like that, but they called me the slut of the Norse pantheon.

I don’t know why, but in that moment, I let my self-loathing out. At this moment that I should have been happy, I aired my hatred for everything I’d done, and called myself slut and bitch and so many worse things. I contemplated doing worse than killing myself in that moment. I considered cutting off my hair. The one thing I knew was pure and made me feel the most feminine, and always had, I was going to cut now that no one could deny my femininity.

It would serve me right. I hurt people around me, none more than Shawn.

I had to tell him to leave me, to move on before it was too late. Before I seriously hurt him just like his sister.

I looked around the room for something to cut, to gouge, to damage, but there was nothing, and I began to cry. It wasn’t fair. Life hated me so much that it wanted to make me happy.

I began to laugh at how inane that thought was, and it became a bit hysterical. A nurse came in and I screamed something at her, with the general intent being that she get out. I remember the words to this day, and they still embarrass me. I was spiraling out of control and raving and crying, and saying I should die. I was trying to rip out the IV, and get up, but my arms and legs wouldn’t respond to me, and then they were shooting something into the IV and the smell changed.

.-.. .. -. . -... .-. . .- -.-
I opened my eyes, realizing that the light had changed again. I looked down at the foot of my bed and realized I wasn’t the only one here.

“So, how are you feeling, AJ?”

“Mr. Reiss?”

“Well, what did you expect? Apparently you had a reaction to something or other, they’re not ruling out the anesthesia, and started raving like a lunatic. Their words not mine. It’s not professional in my opinion to apply labels to a patient.”

I just smiled at him. He was a really nice guy, all things considered.

“So, again, how are you feeling?”

“Better. Not as…I don’t really feel like I’m a broken mirror any more. All jagged edges and half images.”

“Interesting description. So, you’re saying you felt disconnected from yourself, cut off from a complete self image. Do you know what caused this to happen?”

I blushed a bright red, and looked away from him, ashamed for what I’d done.

“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me, AJ.”

“What if I don’t want any help?”

“Then thank you for your time, and I’ll be going,” he got up and began to gather his things.

“Wait! I didn’t mean it. It’s just…I hurt Shawn. I gave him a bloody nose and I could have really attacked him.”

“What happened?” he said with real concern in his eyes.

I began to cry and just let everything out that had happened on Sunday, including my abortive suicide attempt, my almost successful one. If Shawn hadn’t been there…

I shuddered at the thought even as I told him the details, and my feelings about it all. He looked concerned.

“I know you mentioned some times before where you have considered suicide, but have you tried anything else, like self mutilation? Cutting for example?”

My thoughts flashed to times I had considered just what he was asking, and thought about my earlier thoughts of marring my beauty by cutting off all my hair. I told him everything. I was in wracking sobs as I got to what people called me on the street and how it made me feel.

I just couldn’t hold it back, and before I knew it I’d told him everything I’d thought or dreamt or imagined was happening to me. I told him the details of my first nights in juvie, and about the kid I had beaten half to death because of it.

I told him about Jeremy, and how much I had loved him. I told him what it did to me when I told Jeremy how much I cared. I told him about Shawn, and how much I was afraid of our relationship. How much I wanted to prove I was physically female and that I wanted to have sex with him more to prove it to the world than for any concern over his needs.

I told him of everything that had darkened my mood and destroyed my joy as my life went on, and how being a girl was the only thing I’d ever done that alleviated that, even for a little while. I told him that I didn’t expect to be alive on my seventeenth birthday.

My deepest darkest secret was that I was seriously considering hanging myself with my own hair the night before I turned seventeen.

I just knew he would take it away from me then, and I was crying uncontrollably after I told him, but I had to let him know everything, even if it meant losing this one beautiful thing about me. He let me cry, and silently I thanked him.

“You know it’d never really work.”

“What?”

“While the image is certainly evocative, I doubt even your hair is long enough to wrap securely around your throat and then be tied off on something. Then, there is the problem that I know you condition your hair often, so it’s not the same as a rope. It will tend not to knot well. Then there’s the consideration that hanging long enough from your hair so that you would actually die is pretty hard with how often your parents check up on you. Sure, other people might be able to get away with it, but I doubt you would.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Maybe just a little, but you have to admit that when you think about it, it is likely the most impractical method of suicide you’ve tried.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but then shut it and blushed. “I can’t even kill myself properly.”

“That’s a good thing in my book, AJ.”

“Why do I feel this way?”

“Because you have been deeply hurt, emotionally, and the walls you hid behind have been broken down through your transition. You thought being the most badass boy you could would get people to leave you alone, the problem is you had to prove you are the most badass.”

“Can you say that?”

“Badass? I did. As you began realizing you were a girl, the core of your defenses was taken away, that you were a boy.”

“But, I didn’t hurt Shawn because I thought I was a boy.”

“No, you hurt Shawn because he was threatening your safety on an emotional level. You asked to be let go, and he refused. He was assaulting you, and like any other time someone assaulted you, you reacted violently.”

“He didn’t…”

“He did. You need to accept this, and I actually need to have a long chat with Shawn.”

“But…”

“No buts. I need to explain certain things to him, with your permission, so he understands where he is. You are very fragile right now, and if he wants to be a part of your life, he needs to understand how fragile you are.”

“You sound like my parents.”

“Who love you a lot, AJ. Trust them. Listen to them. Make sure they understand what you are going through too.”

“You mean I have to tell them…”

“you don’t have to, but I think you should.”

“But, they’ll think so much less of me. If I’d been faster, or stronger, or…a boy this would never have happened to me.”

“Those rapists saw you as a boy and it never stopped them. If you’d been recognized as a girl, I can’t even guarantee that a girl’s facility would have treated you any better. Although, if that first boy had known you were a girl…regardless, we can run revisionist histories till the end of time, and nothing will come of ‘what if’ or ‘might have been.’

“Realize you are who you are because of your experiences, but your experiences are not you. You are the person who is here, now, in this place, who has just had corrective surgery to make her outside match her beautiful inside.”

I was still sniffling a bit, but I smiled at him. It wasn’t even forced.

“Is it safe for us to come in?”

“Shawn!”

“And Mom and Dad,” my dad responded.

“Mr. and Mrs. Smith, I need to take Shawn and talk to him a moment. I’ll let you two spend some time with your new daughter.”

I began smiling at the statement. New daughter. I was their daughter, in name, before, but now I was their daughter in truth. We talked for a few minutes before a shaken looking Shawn came back in the room.

“Shawn?” there was a sinking feeling in my stomach. No, he couldn’t be leaving. This wasn’t possible.

“I’m so sorry, AJ.”

“Nooo,” a moan erupted from my soul by way of my mouth.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to leave me.”

“What?”

“Don’t leave me. I’ll be better. I’ll stop hurting people. I promise.”

“No, I’m not leaving you, AJ. I just didn’t realize how much I was hurting you.”

“You complete me.”

“Princess Anne-Jeanette, you never needed anyone to complete you. How bout we promise to at least try to not hurt each other in the future?”

I just nodded mutely at him. He wasn’t leaving me, and he was talking to me about the future.

“Shawn, just kiss my daughter and get it over with.”

We laughed a bit and he kissed me. It wasn’t deep, or long, but it was a kiss, and it was Shawn kissing me. And it was my first time being kissed after my surgery. Life was almost perfect.