Daring to Hope - Part 3

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Daring to Hope
 
Standing Up to Life: Book 2
 
Part 3 of 8
 
by Tiffany Shar

 
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.


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


 
 

Part 3: Waning Summer

 
 
Chapter 10
 
 
THE NEXT DAY Amy and I dressed comfortably for the trip home. Though we talked quite a bit, we also slept a decent amount too. I think Amy’s mom appreciated that since we weren’t asking for restroom breaks as often when we were asleep! We got into our hometown about 4:45 and pulled up to my house at 5.

My parents came out to meet me — and each received a gigantic hug from me. When we separated Mom went over to Amy’s mom to talk to her for a few moments. In the meantime Dad and I grabbed my bags out of the trunk. Once those were in the house I got my two trophies and some other things from the backseat.

“See Mommy? Daddy?” I showed them the two trophies. Both of them had a cheerleader on top with pompoms.

“Wow,” Dad said genuinely admiring them. Other than a small trophy I had won in a Cub Scout group, I had never brought home a trophy before in my life.

“Congratulations sweetie,” Mom said giving me another hug.

“Do you guys want to come over tonight and watch the video of their performance?” Amy’s mom asked my parents.

“Umm… I wouldn’t want to impose on you guys with as tired as you all are.” Dad said.

“No imposition at all, I know you would love to see the video — and that way Greg can see it at the same time too.”

“Well I suppose we could come over. What time?” Mom asked.

“How about 7:30?” She suggested

“Sounds good,” Dad said. From there we said our goodbyes until then and I entered the house. I walked back to my room with a load of stuff and got ready to open the door to my room. As I got ready to open it I saw they had put a cute sign on my door with letters that said ‘Tiffany’ on the door. I opened it up and couldn’t believe what I saw.

I stood there in shock, Mom and Dad had completely redone my room while I had been gone! I screamed with delight!

“Sweetie don’t you like it?” My dad asked very concerned.

I stepped inside to have a better look before turning around and jumping up onto him, “I love it Daddy!” I hugged him really hard and then moved onto mom.

“Thanks Mommy!” I told her with a hug.

“You’re welcome sweetie.” She replied.

I couldn’t believe what they had done with my room. My bunk beds were gone — replaced by a white day bed. I could see a trundle underneath the bed — so I knew that I would still have space for Amy to stay over — that was a must! The room itself had been repainted with a medium purple color for the main walls, with a lighter lavender trim, white ceiling, and the same lavender for the curtains on the windows.

They had put in a white dressing table that had a comfy looking chair in front of it so I could sit and do my hair or makeup. They had also replaced the old dresser I’d had with a new one that was also white. My bed was made with a quilted comforter that had pinks and purples in it.

All-in-all it was my dream bedroom! They had done it in such a way that it was very girly — but it wasn’t like a nursery set of colors. I loved it! Before I’d left I had said something about wanting to get rid of the white walls that had been there before — but never in a million years would I have dreamed they would have remodeled the room while I was gone.

“Thank you guys! How did you afford all of this?” I asked my parents.

“Well we dipped a little into the earnings of your project, but also your grandparents pitched in some money too. They also came and helped us paint a couple days ago.”

“Wow! Thank you so much,” I said giving them another hug.

“You’re very welcome sweetie. Now let’s work on getting your bags unpacked and your dirty clothes in the laundry.”

“Okay.” I told her.

We began unpacking my bags and Mom looked at my cheer uniform the camp had given me with astonishment. “Wow! I can’t believe the camp bought one of these for each of you.”

“Well Amy’s mom said something about they should for the price… Do you know how much it cost by chance?” Her parents had been the ones that had paid for it.

“No, but I’m guessing from what I was able to gather that it was about $1400.”

My jaw dropped. I had no idea that it was that much money. I couldn’t believe that her parents were willing to spend that on someone who wasn’t their daughter. “Whoa… I had no idea.”

“We’ll work on getting a thank you card done for them today before we go over, okay?” Mom suggested.

“Okay,” I replied. We hung that uniform on a hanger up in my closet — I honestly didn’t think I’d ever be able to wear it again… too bad.

We continued to unpack my stuff out of the bags. She oohed and awed at the other shirts and outfits that I’d received over the week. The shirt that Amy’s mom had bought us yesterday was especially one that she liked. Between the two of us we got a load of laundry started and then I remembered the pictures of me with the college guys and girls.

I got the envelope and showed the pictures to Mom and Dad as we sat down to eat some fast food he’d picked up for us.

“Umm… Was this safe?” Mom asked with a concerned voice.

“There were mats on the ground — and the guys that tossed me have been doing this for a long time — I trusted them.” I told her. “Just look at their muscles! I watched them toss a couple of the college girls earlier on in the week up a long ways. They were able to toss me even better since I weigh less!” I said with a smile.

“So you were one of the girls being lifted and tossed this week?” Dad asked.

I nodded, “Amy and I both were. I had a lot of fun doing it — although I was kind of scared at first…” I rambled on to them about the trip and everyone on it all the way ‘til it was time to go over to Amy’s.

We arrived at her house and she grabbed me, “You have to see this Tiff!” We went up to her room and I saw her dad had repainted it to basically the same as mine had…

“Whoa this looks exactly like what my parents did with my room at home!” I told her.

“Really?”

“Yeah it’s almost exactly the same; the colors are a little different but not much.”

“Come here then, you have to see the other thing Daddy did while we were gone.” She led me down the hall and into the guest bedroom. It was also redone the same way — and I instantly knew that they were giving me my own room at their house.

“Mine?” I asked Amy.

“Anytime you want to stay over,” a different voice — Amy’s dad — said.

I gave him a big hug. “You didn’t have to do this Mr. Hancock,” I told him.

“No, but you stay over often enough that we might as well have another room for you.” He told me returning the hug. I was crying at this point. A year ago I didn’t have a single close friend, and now I had one of the best friends I could have ever had, and her parents thought of me as their daughter… what a strange turn of events.

“You’ll have to break it in some time this next week,” Amy said.

“Yeah, though it kind of takes the fun out of staying up all night talking to you.” I told her.

She whispered back, “I think that’s why they did it — maybe we won’t stay up all night talking this way.”

I giggled, I think she was right. We all went back downstairs to the living room and her dad started up the video from our finals performance. Her mom had done a really good job of videotaping the performance — she’d used a tripod and managed to get us without only getting us.

My parents had a whole new level of respect for how I had earned my individual award after watching the video. “You both were really good,” Mom said to us. I had to agree, I hadn’t been able to watch myself in action before — I wasn’t bad now. And our squad had really done fantastic. My favorite part to watch was definitely our dance routine.

“Thanks!” Amy and I replied.

“We’ll have to get everyone’s pictures developed this week and have another scrapbooking session soon.” Amy’s mom suggested.

“Definitely!” I said.

They had copied the performance onto a VHS tape already so we could show it to my grandparents — not to mention have it for showing other people or watching myself down the road.

I went home and slept very soundly in my new bed — surrounded by a room that matched how I felt about myself.
 
 
Chapter 11
 
 
THE NEXT DAY Mom and I took my pictures to get developed. I had some really cute camp ones of all of us — especially Amy — that we put into the scrapbooks together. I stayed a couple of nights at her house later on that week before Mom made me come home.

She enticed me by saying she wanted to go shopping with me the next day — what can I say? Shopping is a powerful motivator!

That morning we woke up early enough to hit the malls right when they opened. Mom and I shopped at the malls for most of the day before returning home with a large haul for school this next year. It was a little on the early side for school shopping… but Mom and I couldn’t resist buying a lot of the stuff.

We had a fun day that day — bonding some more as mother/daughter — something we needed to do. Mom had always liked shopping — as Brandon I had wanted nothing to do with it. I don’t know why as Tiffany I liked it so much better… It really didn’t make sense. But I guess it was the variety of things that I could indulge myself in trying on.

A few days after that, I found myself talking to my psychiatrist about all sorts of things like this. “Tiffany I’m definitely thinking that you going to school as Tiffany is going to be inevitable at this point. Because of that, I want to start working on preparing you for what you’re going to experience.”

“What do you mean?” I asked her.

“Well, I want to start role playing some different situations with you.”

“Okay. Like what?”

“Well let’s begin with this one: It’s the first day back at school. You arrive and within a few minutes someone looks at you closely and realizes that you’re Brandon wearing girls clothes. Let’s say it’s one of the boys who used to pick on you before this, and he says ‘look at that fag!’ What do you do?”

That question laid waste to a lot of safety and comfort I’d been feeling… This was so likely to happen I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t believe that she would use that language though. “Umm… I guess walk away and cry when I get home?”

“What if he won’t let you walk away, what if he comes around the other side and pins you against a wall?”

“At that point scream for help?”

“But what if you can’t get help?”

“I… I… I don’t… I don’t know…” I know it doesn’t seem like a major thing to have this question posed to you… but this was my second worst nightmare that she was bringing up. Something very similar had even happened to me before. “I guess I could knee him in the groin?”

“That’s not a bad answer for safety sake, but how can we keep it from escalating to there already?”

“I don’t know. If you’re so smart you tell me!” I told her. I was in tears… I’d never felt hostile intentions from her before — but now I was beginning to get scared of her. Being the psychiatrist she of course knew this.

“Tiffany,” she said a couple times before I paid attention to her. “Tiffany, I’m not doing this to hurt you — I’m doing this to prepare you.”

I sniffled and nodded.

“You have to understand that I can’t believe the trip didn’t completely turn into a disaster when your parents let you get your ears pierced, and then come out to everyone. In nine out of ten cases you would have been at least verbally assaulted, if not physically. The crime rates against girls like you are very high. I’m not trying to scare you, but I want you to be prepared for when, not if, you face these situations.” She said while handing me a tissue and putting her arm around me.

I nodded again.

“So let’s talk through some different options here to keep this from happening okay?” She said tenderly.

“Okay,” I said in a shaky voice, still very nervous and unbalanced.

“So what could we do to keep him from ever getting to the point where he can pin you down?” She asked.

“Well on the first day… never leave some of my friends sides?” I suggested.

“That isn’t a bad approach. There is a lot of safety in numbers. Could you have done something in a response to deflect his comment instead of just walking away?”

“Like what?”

“Well, how about…” we went through situation after situation for a good hour.

In those situations she posed anything from me being called things to good friends like Amy betraying me… That wasn’t possible I swore — but it planted a seed of doubt that I knew shouldn’t be there. I knew as soon as I got home I’d be talking to Amy on the phone about this — I didn’t want to mention that part though.

When we finished Dr. Reynolds called for my mom to come into the office to join me there. “Okay Mrs. Jacobson please have a seat.” She said directing her to a seat next to me. “Today Tiffany and I talked through a lot of situations that she might run into once school starts. Some of them were likely, some of them were unlikely. Honestly we don’t know for sure how things are going to go when she starts school back up in August.”

“Okay, I guess that makes sense,” Mom replied.

“I didn’t do any of it for the sake of making you uncomfortable Tiffany, but I think if we do some more of this role playing it’ll help you to adapt better. I think if nothing else you’ve learned a couple of different responses that weren’t in your toolkit before this.” She said.

I nodded, trying not to start crying again — she’d gotten me genuinely worried about what was coming. Everything had been going well enough this summer that I’d kind of managed to keep it from being an immediate threat — that security was gone now. I wanted to be mad at her for what she’d put me through — but she was right, I needed to think about those situations. I just didn’t want to…

Mom looked at me with some concern as Dr. Reynolds continued on. “Anyway, I want to do some more of this for a couple of sessions before school starts. At the next session do you think it would be possible for your husband to join us here?” She asked Mom.

“If he needs to be here he’ll be here.” Mom answered. I hoped that was true.

“Good, then I will also have Dr. Wilmer attend this meeting with us too. He’s the endocrinologist that I want to work with her as we progress through the year.”

“Are you already thinking of hormones?” Mom asked, she seemed kind of surprised.

“Not exactly, I just want to go ahead and talk about delaying puberty from hitting yet. I want to wait a bit — but it’ll be more difficult for her if her voice starts changing lower. This’ll save her from having that happening until we’re certain of what we need to do.” She answered.

“You’re pretty sure that everything is still going along the same route?” Mom asked her.

“Yes, especially since she went on that trip with Amy to the cheer camp. That’s cemented a lot of my thoughts on her treatment.” She told mom.

“So what else is next?” Mom asked.

“Well like I said I want to meet with her next week with your husband. Again two weeks after that, and again the last week before school starts. From there I want to meet with her at least one time that first week of school and continue that for a while.” Mom and I were both stunned at the number of times she wanted to meet with me.

She must have seen that because she then continued, “Honestly this is going to be an incredibly difficult time and I want to make sure that Tiffany has someone talking to her about the issues that are going to come up daily.”

“That seems alright,” I told Mom.

We talked some more together as mother and daughter with Dr. Reynolds before leaving that session. I just sat in silence on the way home that night — my feeling of comfort that had been building up through the camp had suddenly come crashing down. How bad would it get this year?

As soon as I got home I called Amy. “Amy it was awful. I’m so scared now,” I told her.

“Why don’t I get Mom to let me stay the night at your house and we’ll talk there?” Amy suggested.

“Okay,” I said. I really needed a friend at this point. It was set up pretty quick and Amy came over to spend the night. When she got there we went for a walk away from my parents down to a nearby park. We sat down at the top of a piece of wooden playground equipment next to a slide.

“So what exactly happened?” Amy asked.

“She kept ‘role playing’ a whole bunch of different situations. I guess the ones that she did with me having problems with some of the people made sense — they’ll probably really happen. They bothered me, but not as much as the last one,” I said nearly in tears.

Amy’s a bright girl so she guessed, “Did they involve me turning on you?”

I nodded, the tears starting to form in my eyes “Amy I don’t believe you would ever do that — but just thinking about it freaks me out.”

She gave me a hug and said, “Tiffany, don’t worry it won’t happen. I would never do anything to hurt you, you have to believe me on that.”

I nodded, “I do, I guess I’m being silly aren’t I?”

“No, it sounds like Dr. Reynolds was being really hard on you today. Look, I’m not going to say kids are all going to be nice to you — ‘cause they’re not, they’re not even all nice to me! But, you can count on me, you can count on Nikki, Ashley, and I think most of the people on the trip. I was kind of surprised by Kyle, but I think he’ll stick by you — that means you’ve got some of the other guys too. You’ll be fine Tiff, we won’t let anything happen to you.” She told me.

We eventually began walking back home since the sky was beginning to darken. “Besides Tiff, they can’t get much worse than what it was at the beginning of last year can they?”

I made her knock on the bark of a tree we were passing… I hoped that those words wouldn’t haunt me next year.

AS WE WALKED back to my house I was surprised to see that Amy’s parents were there. I hoped that didn’t mean that Amy would have to go home… she was supposed to stay tonight for the first time on the trundle bed. I was really looking forward to having a friend over for the first time in my remodeled room.

When we walked in the door Amy asked the obvious question, “Mommy, Daddy, why are you guys here?”

“Hey Amy, we got a phone call at home a bit ago and wanted to go ahead and tell you girls about it.” Amy’s mom said. As she said that I saw headlights reflect off the window beside me. Ashley and her parents were in the car — a second later I saw Nikki and her parents pull up.

I instantly guessed it must have something to do with our film that we made… I didn’t know what though.

“So are you going to tell us what?” Amy asked her dad.

“I’ll tell you all at once,” he said. He smiled with that look like he was enjoying making her wait.

When everyone got to the door I opened it up and my parents scrambled for enough places for all of the adults to sit. Of course no one cared about us, so I ended up sitting on the floor — glad that I was wearing shorts today. It would have been more challenging in the skirt I’d worn the day before.

Once everyone was seated Amy’s dad said, “Okay, so I’m sure you all know that this has to do with their film?” He paused. “Well I received a call tonight from my friend at Mattel, and they had some interesting news for you ladies.”

“What did he say?” I asked him. What I was amused by was Amy saying the same thing next to me. We both giggled.

“Well, there’s a film festival in the third weekend of September that has accepted your film as an entry.”

“Cool.” Nikki said.

“Yeah, that sounds really neat. Where is it?” Ashley asked.

“It’s going to be in New York City, and they’re going to pay for all of us to fly out there to be at the premiere.”

“Awesome,” Amy said.

“Is it going to do anything else for them?” Nikki’s mom asked.

“Who knows? They will be in the run for some scholarship money in the youth category that they’re in. If nothing else it’ll be a free trip to New York for everyone — they’re even paying for the hotel.” He answered.

“How many days are we talking?” Dad asked, he would need to take off work — he didn’t have a lot of time left at this point this year.

“It’s going to show on a Friday afternoon, so they were talking about flying us out Thursday and sending us back Sunday.”

“I think I can swing that at work,” Dad told Mom.

We spent some time talking about some of the details he had been given — with a promise that he would talk to everyone when he got the final stuff. As we were wrapping up Ashley’s dad asked me, “Tiffany, do you want to send them another copy with the credits updated?”

“What do you… Oh right.” I didn’t even think about the fact that my name was still listed as Brandon on the credits. “Can we do that easily?” I asked him. “I had to send the master to Mattel when we got the money in May.”

“We’ll work something out.” He then started talking to Amy’s dad about that and they promised me they would call Mattel tomorrow about that and make arrangements.

As our parents kept talking, the four of us disappeared into my room for a bit. There I showed Ashley and Nikki the trophies that I’d gotten on our trip. I didn’t want to brag about myself… but I had to show them, right? Ashley and Nikki left with their parents after a bit, but Amy’s parents stuck around to talk to mine. Before they left we showed them my room. Everyone was amused by how similar our rooms had turned out — our parents hadn’t talked to each other at all about doing them.

We disappeared to my room while they were talking and played with my Barbies for a bit. Not too long into our playing though Mom came and got us.

“Tiffany, Amy’s dad had been planning on coming over here tonight anyway to talk to us.”

“About what?” I asked him.

“Well your parents asked me to help in getting some of the legal matters taken care of for you to be able to go to school as Tiffany next year.”

“I appreciate any help you can give me a lot,” I told him with a smile. I trusted him like a father anyway — he knew it, but it’s a nice thing to say.

“Anytime Tiffany. Anyway, so your parents wanted me to tell you where we’re at.”

I nodded.

The first thing he did was handed me a piece of paper that looked like a copy of my birth certificate. It said Tiffany Christine Jacobson on it! I had a huge smile on my face, “Is this real?”

“It is, but it’s not something that was easy to get. The state that you were born in really doesn’t want to do anything to help out in cases like yours. I worked through a friend to work on getting the name changed — the only thing that isn’t changed yet is this letter,” he said pointing to the M that was X’d instead of the F.

That made me frown, but at least the name was right. “How do we get the M changed to an F?” I asked.

“Well that’s going to be tricky, and unfortunately I don’t think we’re going to be able to do anything about it for at least a few months yet — if not a year or two. They’re going to want at least some proof that you are moving towards physically changing things before they’ll be willing to do anything on that. I’ll keep working on it though,” he told me.

He showed me a social security card (whatever that was) and some other documents too that he had gotten changed over to my name like. Some of those things, like insurance cards, represented a big feeling of relief for me. That eye doctor’s visit had been very nerve racking.

“Okay, so that’s the easy part Tiff,” he said, “the hard part is going to be next Wednesday when we have to meet with the school’s administration about this.”

Screech. The brakes in my head came on. After all that I’d gone through today with the role playing I hadn’t even thought about the fact that we’d have to meet with someone at the school this early already. “Next… Wednesday…?”

“We need to take care of it now so that if we have to take them to court we’ll have time.” He told me.

He must have seen the deer-in-the-headlights look I was giving him, because he quickly added, “However I think we’ll be okay. Your parents and I have set it up to where the principals, the school counselor, the superintendent, the school board president, and Dr. Reynolds will all be there. I will also be there to represent you and your parents.”

That information made me feel better about the meeting. If Mr. Hancock was there they wouldn’t dare do anything against me! I started asking/answering questions as we all talked through what would happen next Wednesday. He spent a lot of time discussing when we should talk and when we should let him talk.

Mr. Hancock also gave me some advice as far as what I should wear to the meeting. A dress, he said, would probably be a good thing to wear. By the end of the conversation, an hour later, I felt like we would be in good shape for the meeting.

When we finished I was quite happy that Amy was still left to sleep over that night. We changed into our pajamas before sitting together on the couch in my living room. Mom had rented a couple of movies the day before and we chose one of them to watch. Dad went to bed pretty soon after her parents left, but Mom stayed up watching the movie with us before shooing us to bed.

She wasn’t as used to us staying the night together as Amy’s parents were — but I think she knew as well as we did that we would be up all night talking. Especially, since I hadn’t been able to hang out with her for a couple of days.

“So are you still going to be here next Wednesday?” I asked Amy.

“No, we’re leaving that day for cheer camp with the school’s squad.”

“I’d forgotten about that… Oh well I hope you have fun with it! I wished I was going with you.” I told her.

“You’ll get to go next year Tiff, I know you’ll make the squad if you try out.”

“I hope so. I was talking with Mom earlier, she’s signing me up for some dance lessons this fall.”

“Neat!” She said.

“Yeah, I was surprised she agreed to it in some ways. But then she told me that if I was taking dance lessons she wanted me to start studying Tae Kwon Do too.”

“You know what?” She asked not really wanting an answer. “I should get my parents to sign me up for the same class!”

“That would be cool. It would certainly make it less odd that I’m a girl taking it,” I told her.

“Well we both should learn how to defend ourselves — you never know when some guy might try to take advantage of us,” she said in a very grown up manner — it was kind of funny, but not.

From there the conversation went away from the serious and strictly to the fun. Mom came and warned us to go to sleep at 3 — she’d gotten up to use the restroom and couldn’t believe we were still up!

Of course we were, what was she thinking?!? But we did go to sleep after that point — I didn’t want to get Mom mad at me — it was going to be a stressful enough week as it was.
 
 
Chapter 12
 
 
AMY HAD ACTUALLY ended up staying another night beyond that one. Mom had lamented to me after she left, “How does her mom deal with having both of you around all the time?”

I just stuck my tongue out at her and went to my room.

We had spent that Saturday out at my grandparents place. I brought my updated scrapbook, my trophies, and a certificate that had come in the mail for me about the scholarship, and the video to show them. They were amazed by the pictures that I had shown them and made me do some of the cheers for them.

I was both embarrassed, and pleased to show off what I had learned… It wasn’t that I was embarrassed to be a cheerleader… it was more that it was strange to do it by yourself. At camp I’d had fourteen other girls doing the same things with me!

I enjoyed that day a lot though. Both my grandparents seemed to be dealing with this a lot better than I expected them to. Thankfully for me it was as they said, “You’re our grandchild sweetie, whether you’re our granddaughter or grandson makes no difference to us. You’re still our grandbaby.” That had earned my grandmother a big hug at that point.

There had been further discussions of my one uncle that had wanted nothing to do with us now. Grandma had sent him one of the pictures that we’d taken of me with Amy’s mom in June — and he had been shocked by how pretty I was. He still wasn’t talking to dad, but he wasn’t outright bad mouthing him at every turn now. Grandpa thought he might be able to act civilized by Christmas.

After lots of town gossip we left for home. I spent Sunday night at Amy’s house with Mom coming to get me at eight so we could go to my doctor’s appointment. Amy had wished me luck before she went upstairs and went back to bed. We’d slept in our separate rooms that night, so she really didn’t have to wake up that long. I was glad she had though.

When we got to the appointment Dr. Reynolds secretary had us go into her office. Mom, Dad, and I sat down on a couch, while Dr. Reynolds and another guy sat across from us on another couch.

As we sat down Dr. Reynolds said, “Mr. and Mrs. Jacobson, Tiffany, I’d like you to meet my colleague Dr. Wilmer.”

“Pleased to meet you,” my parents and I said as we shook hands with him.

When I shook hands with him I saw his eyes pause and look me over. I think I saw a little bit of surprise in his face actually — I didn’t know what that meant though.

“Dr. Wilmer, I invited you today because I wanted you here to take part in discussions about Tiffany. As I told you on the phone we’re looking at starting her on a treatment to prevent her from entering puberty for now…” she continued on for a while.

This conversation was mainly between Dr. Reynolds, Dr. Wilmer, and my parents — I honestly felt like I wasn’t even there.

“Tiffany, if at any time you decide you want to change your mind on this you can stop the treatment and you should go on to grow up as a boy like you would have naturally. If you decide to continue being Tiffany I think we should probably consider moving onto a full hormone therapy late this fall, as Dr. Reynolds has suggested. I trust her judgment completely on this.” He told us.

“Do you want to do this?” He asked me.

This was the first time they had acknowledged that I had a brain as far as I was concerned. “Absolutely, can we start today?” I asked him.

“Actually I have set up an appointment for you to get a blood test in the lab downstairs. If we get that run this morning then I think we can go ahead and give you the first treatment, and the prescription you’ll be on, this afternoon around 2?”

I smiled. I didn’t think this would happen this fast. I know I wasn’t going to start growing breasts — but this would keep me from becoming a guy, a decent compromise all things considered.

“That should work for us,” I answered for my parents.

My parents then voiced their approval of the plan as well before my dad was allowed to go back to work. I walked downstairs with Mom to have my blood ran through their tests. I discovered that I really didn’t like that experience. It was weird watching my blood run into those vials. ‘How much of it did they really need?’ I had asked myself while watching them draw the fifth vial.

They gave me some water and something sweet before sending me back up to Dr. Reynolds office. There she grilled me with more role playing situations for an hour or so before Mom was able to get me to go to lunch.

Lunch was nice — Mom and I just hung out talking while we ate. Pretty soon though, we were in the car going back to the hospital. This time we went to a different floor where Dr. Wilmer’s office was located. We checked in with the receptionist who put us in line to see him. In the mean time I looked through the latest Seventeen Magazine that was sitting on the table next to me.

“Tiffany?” I heard a nurse call for me.

I stood up and followed her. She had me get on the scale to weigh. I was pleased to see I was still at sixty-eight pounds. As a boy that had bothered me a bit to be so light and wimpy — as a girl I was pleased to be so skinny! She had also taken a height measurement. I had actually grown an inch sometime recently and was now at 4’4”.

When she was done she took me into a room where I waited for the doctor to come in. Mom and I talked a bit while we waited. It really wasn’t anything deep as far as conversation until I asked, “Mom what do you think is going to happen Wednesday?”

“I don’t know sweetie. But one way or another you will be allowed to go to school as Tiffany. You will also be kept safe and treated with dignity or the district will be hit with a major lawsuit.”

That warmed my heart, but I was still worried. “What if they say I can’t be Tiffany?”

“They can’t really say that legally. I mean they could, but with Mr. Hancock there they aren’t going to be dumb enough to do that. That’s also why we’re bringing Dr. Reynolds in too though. She can say that it is for your own well being that you need to attend school as Tiffany. With a psychiatrist saying that you need to do that there isn’t much they can do.”

“Are you sure?” I asked her.

She came over and hugged me, “Everything will work out one way or another Tiffany, I promise you.”

The doctor came in at that point and shook our hands. “Okay, the blood screen shows me that we’re still in time to stop anything from really developing. There was a little bit of testosterone in her system, but not much. The shot that I’m going to give her will effectively stop her body from making any more of that until if, or when we want it to. You’ll need to follow this up with this medication every day as well.”

He handing mom a prescription. “So, are you sure this is what you want to do?” He asked one last time.

“Absolutely,” I told him.

“Okay then,” he said getting the shot. He administered it to me and then we left. It was that quick that we were done with him. We scheduled a follow-up exam in a month. Dr. Wilmer wanted to see me once a month to run blood and see how I was doing for the foreseeable future. I didn’t like the blood part… but if it was what it took to grow up as a girl instead of a boy I was more than willing!

After a stop at the pharmacy to fill my prescription Mom and I had headed home and I planned to take it easy. At least that had been the plan… She instead had made me clean my room. The nerve of her! Just ‘cause I had toys and clothes all over the place…
 
 
Chapter 13
 
 
WEDNESDAY MORNING CAME long before I was ready for it. I had picked out a light blue dress that had pink flowers on it to wear that day. I spent a long time on my hair making sure it looked absolutely perfect that morning. You would have thought I was going out on a date with as much time as I spent on it! My ears had finally healed from being pierced last month and so I was able to put in some butterfly earrings that seemed to go well with the dress.

Thankfully, Mom had known I would want to spend that much time on my appearance; so she had woken me up early enough so that even after all the time I spent primping, I had half an hour to spare for breakfast. Not that I really wanted to have any breakfast. My stomach kept flip-flopping around inside of me, I was so nervous!

Tuesday night I had talked with Amy on the phone for a long time. She had been so excited about going to camp today, but she told me she was going to miss me while she was gone. Amy said that she would call me tonight to see how things went. For me I just hoped that the fact she was doing cheerleading at school, and I wasn’t, wouldn’t get in the way of our friendship. She’d be doing cheerleading after school Monday through Thursday, every day — so I wouldn’t be able to go to her house every day anymore.

I told myself to focus on the present as we pulled up to the front of the school. I was being silly worrying about that when I had far more immediate problems to deal with. Mr. Hancock was waiting in the parking lot when we got there.

“Hi Tiffany, how are you doing?” He asked while he gave me a hug.

“I’m doing okay I guess… I’m really nervous and more than a little scared,” I added honestly. Dr. Reynolds pulled up about this point and began walking towards us.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get everything worked out. They don’t stand a chance,” he said as we walked into the school as a group. We checked in with the secretary who led us into the conference room I had been in several times last year. We each took a seat in the conference room. Mr. Hancock was on my right — the side closest to the head of the table, with my mom and dad on my left, followed by Dr. Reynolds.

The principal, the vice principal, the school counselor, the superintendent, and the board president all came in before the door was closed.

“First of all thank you all for coming,” Mr. Hancock began. “Before we begin though I’d like everyone’s permission to tape record this proceeding?” He asked respectfully.

Everyone concurred, and each spoke clearly stating they were in attendance and that they were agreeing to the recording. The principal actually had a recorder of her own setup for the meeting too. She was the first to speak, “Mr. Hancock you said this meeting concerned Brandon Jacobson, but all I see here is a girl whom I don’t know. What is this about — and should she be present?”

“Yes Ma’am it does concern your former student Brandon Jacobson. After counseling with a psychiatrist it has been determined it would be in Brandon’s best interest to begin coming to school as Tiffany.” It was like a bombshell had been dropped in the room. Everyone gazed at me like I was some sort of zoo animal.

“You mean that…”

I’d been instructed not to say much, but this was annoying, “Yes, I used to be Brandon, now I am Tiffany.” I told them matter-of-factly.

“Mr. Hancock this is highly unusual. If Brandon comes to school like this he’ll be nothing but a disruption to the learning environment.” The principal started to state.

“Ma’am for the rest of the meeting I request that you refer to Tiffany as Tiffany or Ms. Jacobson, not as Brandon since that is now her legal name,” Mr. Hancock said. “We will of course provide you with a revised copy of her birth certificate at the end of this meeting for your records.” There was a bit of venom there, but not an overwhelming amount. I don’t know how he pulled off being scary and pleasant at the same time. Crossing Mr. Hancock did not seem like something one would want to do.

“Al… Alright…” She said, clearly she was taken aback by his comment.

“Now, we have her psychiatrist right here with us today to discuss her findings. But in a nutshell, Tiffany suffers from a Gender Identity Disorder, a clearly defined condition, recognized by the medical community.” I grimaced when he said that, I hated that term, “This is a diagnosed condition that results in a need for her to live in the gender opposite of her birth sex, and probably transition to being a full girl when she turns eighteen.”

“Sir, do you understand how much he… I mean she, was getting picked on this past year? It seemed like I was dealing with one situation after another where someone was going after her. That was when she was just a short, intelligent boy. Now you want me to take her and put her in the student population as a transsexual? The kids will eat her alive!”

“Actually she has a number of friends who are already aware of her condition, and of her new identity, and all have been supportive of her” he shot back.

“Why don’t you transfer her to a different school in town? Surely one of the other middle schools where no one knows her at would surely be a lot easier?” She suggested. Clearly she’d rather give the problem to someone else.

“Because, she has friends here and has a relationship with many of the teachers already. That is in addition to her right to attend the school because she lives in-district.”

“Well then maybe we could put her into the special ed classroom, then she…”

“Ma’am I was wondering if you would try to suggest something like that. I will remind you that even if you did somehow get her classified as a sped student, she would need to be placed in the ‘least-restrictive,’ environment. Her academic record indicates she’s one of the school’s top students and, she has no physical limitations. Her only need is to be treated as the girl she is, and accorded the same considerations by the school as any other student. A special ed classroom would not qualify for that in her case.”

The banter went back and forth for quite a while as I sat there just sinking into my chair. Eventually the superintendent, Mr. Jameson, interrupted Mrs. Hinther, “Mrs. Hinther, that’s enough now. Dr. Reynolds, are you sure that it is in Tiffany’s best interest to come to this school next year as a girl?”

“Yes sir, I do believe that is the case.”

“Tiffany, you wish to come to this school as Tiffany next year?”

“Yes sir, absolutely.” I replied nervously.

“Then what would we need to do to make this work?” He asked everyone.

“Mr. Jameson I don’t believe that it can work…” Mrs. Hinther started to say.

“Mrs. Hinther, respectfully, you either need to start being helpful or be quiet. I’ve heard quite enough right now — and so have those tape recorders.”

She suddenly turned ashen… I think she had forgotten about the tape recorders. There had been several remarks she had made that could be brought up against her if we wanted to at this point.

Mrs. Henry, the vice principal, spoke up at this point, “Well I think first of all we’re going to have to address her class schedule. Right now she’s scheduled for a PE class, being in either the boys or girls locker rooms would be out of the question. So should we take her out of PE altogether at this point?” She asked.

Dr. Reynolds answered, “A lot of times that is the best way to work with this situation. The only other real alternative is to have a separate room where she can change — but there needs to be some monitoring in place so that no one goes in there after her for some reason.”

Mr. Jameson spoke up, “Let’s keep her out of PE for now. We’ll try to work something else out for next year maybe. In the meantime I would recommend you keep her doing something active for health reasons.”

“We have several things planned for that point already,” my mom told him.

“Okay, the next issue I can think of is restrooms… Do you have any recommendations on those?” Mrs. Henry asked Dr. Reynolds. I think she understood that she was the resident expert at the moment.

“Well in a lot of cases the best way to handle restrooms is to let her have access to your faculty restrooms. There’s usually a lock on those, and it’ll keep her from causing/having any awkward issues in the girl’s room. Under no circumstances should she be forced to have to use the boy’s room,” she said assertively.

“We should be able to arrange for her to use the faculty bathrooms,” Mrs. Henry replied. She apparently thought that was a good way to handle things.

After another two hours in this meeting we finally wrapped things up. They had discussed everything they could think about with the way I was to be treated, the expectations that my parents had for my safety being guaranteed by the school, and the strong likelihood of pressure being applied to the school to get rid of me. We also discussed meeting with all of my teachers together the week before school started — it was in my best interest for them to understand the situation so they could help me.

Mr. Hancock had made it clear that any missteps made by the district would result in a lawsuit. As we stood up to leave Mrs. Henry came over to talk to me. “Tiffany, I just wanted to tell you that you look very pretty today.”

“Thank you Mrs. Henry. And thank you for standing up for me.” I told her. In the middle of the meeting Mrs. Hinther had been dumb enough to start going after me again — Mrs. Henry had put her in her place. I was fairly certain after the meeting that Mr. Jameson, Mrs. Henry, and the school counselor were rooting for me. They would definitely be the first people I’d go to talk to if I needed something.

Mr. Winters, the school board president, hadn’t said much during the meeting. I honestly don’t think he developed an opinion one way or another. I did feel good though knowing that he and Mr. Hancock were golf buddies — that should help a bit if things got nasty.

Unfortunately that wasn’t going to make school easier with Mrs. Hinther. I had a feeling that she wasn’t going to help me one bit during the school year. I was actually feeling very nervous that she was going to be going after me for revenge after today… She definitely thought I was a freak to be dealt with. That really wasn’t a big surprise though, last year when my initial problems had been going on she hadn’t been very helpful. My parents had to push her to get rid of a student to keep me safe. Perhaps Mr. Hancock had brought up the word ‘suit’ enough though to keep her in check.

All-in-all it was an incredibly stressful meeting — but at least it had been agreed upon for me to attend school as Tiffany. Some schools wouldn’t have been intelligent enough to agree before having a lawsuit brought against them. In my case I knew that there were going to be more than enough other problems this year — this was just the tip of the iceberg for me.

That day as we left the school I gave Dr. Reynolds and Mr. Hancock both big hugs to thank them for their help. Amy called that night and I told her what had been decided. She was excited to hear that we didn’t have any major problems. Amy was also quite excited by the really good time she was having at camp. We discussed all of the things they had done so far — and what they were going to be doing tomorrow.

At the end of the conversation she said, “Tiffany you are so much better than half of the girls on the squad! I think Coach Holt is unhappy with most of the girl’s abilities and attitudes. She threatened to have a new set of tryouts in October to get rid of the girls that can’t hack it — and to let the ones on that should be on — before our competitions start. If they do those you have to try out!”

“I probably will if they do,” I told her before letting her go.

It was pretty quiet at dinner that night; the three of us were all preoccupied with our own thoughts. I went to bed two hours early that night, it had been a long day, and I was mentally and physically exhausted from it. As I lay down in bed, Mom came into my room and just sat down next to me for several minutes, stroking my hair — neither of us said anything. I vaguely remember her telling me “I love you, sweetie,” and giving me a kiss on the forehead before really beginning to fall asleep. I would also barely remember Dad coming into the room and saying “Good night princess.” At least through all of this my parents still loved me.
 
 
Chapter 14
 
 
THE NEXT COUPLE days were just lazy summer days. I slept later, did less, and generally moped around the house till Saturday since I had no one to do anything with. I received a phone call from Nikki that day asking if I wanted to come spend the night at her house. It was the first time she’d invited me so I decided to take her up on it. We had fun that night — but she definitely wasn’t the same level of friend as Amy. She and I could talk, but Amy and I were close enough we constantly completed each others’ sentences.

Sunday Amy came back and I went over to her house for a couple hours just to play and chat. During that time she told me everything that had happened on the trip — and how the coach was absolutely appalled by how badly some of the girls were doing. She’d been quite mean to some of the girls about it. She seemed to think that they would have some more tryouts in October to change the squad over — if they didn’t do it before then.

“Why would they do it so late?” I asked her. I’m not sure my parents would want to spend a thousand plus dollars on stuff for maybe two months of use…

“Well we’re going to be competing in some new competitions this year that are going to be held in the spring. Our coach cares more about us doing well at them than she cares about us doing well at the football games and such. I honestly think she would redo tryouts the first week of school if she thought she could get away with it.” She told me.

“Well, if and when they do it I think I’ll try out. I don’t know what we would do about the locker room situation for me though. They’re already planning on me not doing PE this year just so I don’t have to worry about that.”

“That’s cool though, you’ll get an extra elective, right?”

“Yeah, I’m going to take home ec, it’s the only thing beyond choir and band that I want to take.”

“Speaking of choir, we’re getting a new choir teacher this year,” Amy said excitedly.

“Good, she can’t be any worse than the ‘crazy woman’ we had last year.” I said with a giggle. Our previous choir teacher had been the only one with a bigger target on her than me at our school last year. “How did you find out about it?”

“Lindsey’s mom was talking to Mrs. Henry about it last week — she was going to pull her out of choir this year if Mrs. Schultz was still there.” She told me.

“Yeah, I wasn’t going to keep taking it either. Hopefully the new person is better.”

We talked through a lot of other gossip that she had heard over the trip, and she told me, “No one outside of our group that went on the trip knows about you yet.”

“You mean everyone’s kept the secret?” I asked her. We were really both surprised. The two of us figured if it had gotten out she would have heard about it on this trip.

“It seems that way — I think Kyle has kept the boys in check. I think all of the girls were okay enough with you that they’re not going to spill it either…”

“Of course we’ll just have to wait and see how everyone reacts when peer pressure starts, huh?”

“Yeah, there is that. Don’t worry though, we’ll get through it, I promise.” She told me.

I hoped she was right as I went home that night and thought about what was to come. There were now only three weeks left in the summer before we would be going back to school. I was lucky that we were starting so late for once, usually we started a week earlier.

During those three weeks Mom and I made sure that my wardrobe would past muster in the ‘cool’ department. She refused to let me dress too grown-up though. As she told me, “Tiffany, you’re not even twelve yet. You don’t need to be dressing like you’re eighteen!” I would usually respond something like, ‘I’m almost twelve,’ or ‘most of the girls in my grade are going to be thirteen this year,’ but she never bought it. Most of my clothes were coming from the girls department because of that. Truthfully, most stuff in the juniors department was too big for me anyway.

We also got the professional prints of our cheer squad from the camp during that time. My individual pictures in particular really came out well — I couldn’t see any hint of there being a boy underneath that uniform. Mom had taken an 8x10 that had come with it and put it on our wall in the hallway. I liked that picture a lot, it made me feel special every time I walked by it.

I also ended up having two appointments with Dr. Reynolds since she wanted me to be as prepared as possible. Slowly I was feeling less like her sessions were nightmares, and feeling more like I might have a shot at this next year. On Friday, the week before school started, we had set up a meeting with all of my teachers for the next year at the school board office. Dr. Reynolds and Mr. Hancock were also supposed to attend with my parents and me.

That morning was very much a repeat of the day we met with the administration — the butterflies were very much making their flying presence known. I tried once again to make sure I looked absolutely perfect before these teachers saw me. When Mom and Dad had talked with Mrs. Henry about the meeting she had told me that the teachers didn’t know what was going on yet — just that they needed to meet at the board office for a meeting with a student and her parents.

They had decided to have it at the board office so there would still be some anonymity possible before the school year for me. I didn’t honestly know that it was going to do anything good or bad, but we agreed to it anyway. We arrived on time and were directed into a conference room that they used for boardroom meetings. Mrs. Henry greeted me warmly, but I definitely felt the eyes of Mrs. Hinther drilling holes into me. Everyone else in the room was just confused as we sat down.

Mrs. Remar greeted my mom with a friendly greeting and asked, “Where’s Brandon? And who is this young lady?”

“Ladies and Gentlemen that is why we are having this meeting today,” Mrs. Henry started off saying to everyone — directing them to their seats. She introduced all of the teachers to my parents and me — I didn’t know all of them — and then she began to tell the teachers why they’d been dragged over to the board office.

“And this is Tiffany Jacobson, she’ll be attending school this year in your classes.” I watched Mrs. Remar’s face and was shocked honestly that it had taken her as long as it had for her to realize who I was. Mr. Randolph was right behind her in recognizing me, but I don’t think Mr. Martin made the connection until it was spelled out for him.

“A few weeks ago we were approached by Mr. and Mrs. Jacobson’s attorney, Mr. Hancock, and requested to set up a meeting with the administration. We had very little information about why, but we set it up anyway. At issue was Tiffany coming to our school this year.”

“Why would that be a problem?” Ms. Beecher, a young and pretty teacher asked. When she had been introduced I had learned that she was the new choir teacher.

“Well she has attended this school before as a different person. Last year she attended as Brandon Jacobson.” I saw Mr. Martin jump, he suddenly knew who I was. The other teachers began to take a closer look at me, with all of them shaking their heads.

“Are you saying that Tiffany is a transgender boy?” my new science teacher, Mr. Grainger asked.

“Yes, that’s what I am saying,” Mrs. Henry said.

"Actually, Tiffany is a transgender girl," interjected Dr. Reynolds. "A transgender boy would be a boy that is biologically female. Tiffany is male, but she is a girl," she continued as Mr. Grainger nodded his head thoughtfully.

“I don’t believe it, wow…” he replied back to her.

“Tiffany you look very believable as a girl,” Mrs. Remar said, “I assume your parents and everyone else know that this is going to be a challenging year in dealing with the other students though?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied to her. She didn’t completely scare me now, but she still imparted a bit of fear into me. As a band director she was a very powerful figure in my mind.

“Are you sure this is a wise move?” my math teacher who I’d had last year too, Mr. Martin, asked.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Mr. Hancock started, “But this is the move that is being made for her own well being. Dr. Reynolds here,” he said pointing to her, “has evaluated and determined that it is best for her emotional well being that she be allowed to live as Tiffany. It is more complicated than that of course, but this is something that will be allowed and facilitated by the district.”

“We have all spoken at the administrative level and Tiffany will be allowed to go to school this year. Because of that we need to discuss how we’re going to work together to maintain a safe learning environment for her.” Mrs. Henry added.

“The kids are going to be merciless with her,” Mr. Randolph guessed.

“Maybe, maybe not,” my dad said, “twelve of her fellow students already know about her changes. For better or worse it ended up coming out on the Florida trip this summer. She has a really good core group of friends that should be able to help her and keep her safe.”

“Who all is in that group?” Mrs. Henry asked. We hadn’t told them that much information when we’d met earlier on in the year.

I named off all of the kids I knew I could count on, then added the others from the trip that I wasn’t as sure of.

“That’s all of the good seventh grade cheerleaders right there,” Mrs. Holt, the home ec teacher said. “If they’re behind her that should help her quite a bit.” I’d forgotten that she was also the cheer coach at our school.

“I’ll try to make sure that we have those students scheduled in your classes as much as possible too,” Mrs. Henry told me. I had a feeling there was going to be some rearranging of schedules then, Amy was in most, but not quite all of my classes. I knew she wouldn’t be in band, but she was signed up for home ec too, but wasn’t in the same hour with me.

“So how are we going to deal with the initial introduction of Tiffany to the students?” Ms. Damien asked.

“Well we haven’t decided what to do with that at this point,” Mrs. Henry said. “We’ve tossed out a bunch of ideas, including an assembly, but I think our best approach might just be to have her go to school and go through the day as normal.”

“Won’t that increase the shock factor?” Mr. Randolph asked.

“It might, but it might also give the kids a chance to adjust and figure out that Tiffany is a great person before they even figure out who she was.” Dr. Reynolds replied.

“What about…?” The questions, concerns, and comments seemed to go on forever. I sat there not quite trembling, but definitely not comfortably the whole time, listening to everyone talk about me as if I wasn’t there. Every possible issue came up, including things like the band trip we were taking in the spring — what would be my situation for housing and such. To the teachers’ credit they all handled it quite professionally, and none of them once seemed to begin a judgmental vendetta.

I looked down at my watch as Mrs. Henry said, “Thank you all for coming, please remember this is not to be discussed with anyone at this time. If the media comes into play only the administration will be allowed to comment on it,” and saw that we had been there for well over two hours.

When we stood up to leave Mrs. Remar was the first to come over to me. “Tiffany, I think you look very pretty. We’ll get through this year together. Let me know if you ever need to talk,” she said with a smile and gave me a hug. Every once in a while her cold scaly exterior would shed itself only to find out she really was a human.

Right behind her Mr. Martin came up, “Tiffany I expect you to do just as well in my math class this year, let me know if you have any problems and I’ll try to help you out…”

The teachers continued coming up to me until Mrs. Holt came up to me, “So are you the girl that Amy was talking to me about?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well she mentioned a friend of hers had gone to a cheer camp with her earlier on in the summer. She seemed to think that if we had tryouts mid-season she would do well.”

I blushed, “I guess that’s me. We had a lot of fun at the cheer camp, and I think she wants me to be on the squad so that we can still hang out together as often.”

“Well let’s see how this year goes, but I am telling you that we are going to have a set of tryouts in late September for a new ‘dance team.’ It’s going to be just as responsible for cheering at games and such, but it’ll be the one that’s going to go to competitions this spring. She seems to think you’d make a great asset to the squad, so you’ll have to try out if you’re interested.”

I smiled and said, “Thank you Mrs. Holt.”

Eventually we got away from everyone and went home. Later that evening I was preparing just to lay down on my bed and read a book when the phone rang, “Tiffany, it’s Amy!”

I thought to myself what took her so long? She’d had to do some errands with her mom that day so I hadn’t been able to get ahold of her yet. The two of us talked for a long while that night before I remembered the part about Mrs. Holt. “You told Mrs. Holt about me?” I asked her.

“Not about you specifically…” she trailed off.

“Well she figured out you were talking about me during the meeting and afterward told me she’s going to start a new ‘dance team’ up this September. She seemed interested in me trying out for it.”

“Really!??” She asked me excitedly.

“Yeah… we’ll see how things go between now and then though. I think I’ll do it though if they’ll let me. I just have a feeling that I’m going to have a tough time to get them to let me onto a girl’s team for something.” I told her.

“That shouldn’t be a problem though Tiff, you are a girl.”

“Not on paper yet… and definitely not down lower… I’m worried that if I make it they’ll all scream about me beating some ‘real’ girl…” I trailed off.

“Tiffany, enough of that. You are a girl, you and I both know it, and if we’re the only two at the school that do then that’s fine, it’ll work out.” She told me.

“Thanks Amy.” I heard her talk to her mom off the phone for a second.

“Okay, so my mom wants to know if you and your family want to come over to our house on Sunday for a ‘back to school’ barbeque.”

“I don’t know, hold on let me go ask.”

True to typical kid form I yelled, “Mom?!?”

“Yes sweetie?” She said as she came in the room from the kitchen.

“Amy’s parents want to know if we would like to come over for a barbeque on Sunday to celebrate school starting again… I don’t really know what kind of celebration that is! But anyway can we go?”

“Tell her yes, we’ll be there.”

I put the phone back up to my ear, “Did you hear that?”

“What?”

“I asked did you hear that?”

“How could I not… that was just after my ear drum burst from your yelling in the phone,” she said with a giggle before passing the information along to her mom.

“Who else is going to be there?” I asked.

“I think Nikki, Ashley, Lindsey, Jennifer, Kyle, and David will all be there with their families.” She told me.

“Whoa, that’s a lot of people.”

“Yeah, it’s a good number. Anyway, Mom is yelling at me to get off the phone. I keep telling them if we’d just move to one of our houses we wouldn’t have this problem… Mom’s just sticking her tongue out at me now Tiff, anyway I’ll talk to you later,” she said as we hung up.

The barbeque should be a lot of fun I thought. All of the kids that would be there knew who I was and had accepted me pretty well so far. Not all of the parents knew about me though… that could be interesting.

IN THE FEW days before we had the barbeque we went shopping to buy school supplies. I had gotten a purple trapper keeper, pens, pencils, highlighters, markers, folders, paper, all of the wonderful stuff parents have to shell out for each year. Everything was marked with “Tiffany Jacobson,” something that made me have goose bumps each time I looked at it.

In preparation for the new year I had also spent a lot of time with some of those little kid handwriting books trying to develop some better handwriting skills. By this point my handwriting was now passable as a girl — it still wasn’t great though.

Sunday I wore shorts and a t-shirt over my swimsuit when we went over to Amy’s. We had arrived early to help her parents out with cooking and such, but Amy and I were quickly shooed away from helping after she nearly dropped a chocolate cake. We were told to get lost and go swimming — something we were more than willing to do.

The two of us were swimming and playing some diving games when Lindsey, Nikki, and Ashley arrived in quick succession. Shortly after that Kyle and David had arrived and we all had fun laughing and giggling together. Later that evening we were dragged out of the water and forced to eat… Okay so that’s a bit of a gross exaggeration. Really as soon as we heard, “Dinner’s ready,” we had all jumped up and ran towards the food.

As we sat there eating David and Kyle got Amy and I off to the side.

Kyle told me, “Tiffany, we just wanted to tell you to let us know if anyone tries to pick on you this week. We’ll take care of anyone who does.”

I was feeling kind of skeptical on one hand, but I remembered the old saying ‘never slap a gift horse…’ and responded, “Thank you!” I restrained myself from giving them both hugs — I didn’t honestly know how they would react (me either for that matter.)

“So are they going to say anything about you to everyone?” David asked. I had looked at him with amusement as he asked that. David looked like the stereotypical, future All-American football player already in seventh grade. He was already over five and a half feet tall, well over a foot taller than me, and was very sturdily built. By all rights you would expect someone like that to be completely unintelligent, but his grades were almost as high as mine!

“Their plan right now is to say nothing to the students. I guess we’ll see how long it takes before they figure out that I used to be Brandon,” I told him.

“I don’t think they’ll figure it out until seventh hour,” Kyle told me. I’d forgotten he was in band with me, he played tuba.

“You really think it’ll take that long?” I asked.

“At least that long,” Amy said.

“Then why do you think seventh hour Kyle?” I asked.

“Because they’ll be able to see you playing saxophone — I think that’ll trigger it for a lot of people.” He told me.

“I guess that makes sense. Are you sure you two want to be associated with the biggest freak in the school though?” I asked him.

“Absolutely,” David said.

“Thanks guys, I really do appreciate it.” I couldn’t resist anymore and gave them both a hug before we rejoined the group.

Everyone talked and enjoyed themselves until about 8:30, when the party started to break up and head home. Mom and I were helping with cleanup while Dad and Amy’s dad talked. At nine we began to leave for home.

I had really wanted to stay the night at Amy’s, but as a cheerleader she had to be at school the next day for the sixth grade orientation to the school. She promised to call me when she got home so we could talk.

I forced myself to go to sleep that night, I was feeling a little better with the reassurance that Kyle and David were going to be behind me, but that didn’t help much. I had found out on the way home that some of the parents that found out there weren’t necessarily pleased… but they seemed to keep themselves in check.

Monday my stomach was in knots and I really couldn’t get myself to do much of anything. I must have picked and re-picked my clothes for the next day a dozen times before Mom got home and helped me choose something completely different.

When we went to Applebee’s that night — Mom didn’t feel like cooking after her first day back to work — I ordered something I normally liked. But, as I sat there I barely touched it. Mom looked at me with some concern but didn’t push me too hard to eat. I think she knew I was incredibly nervous about the next day and she didn’t really have anything she could say to me to make it better.

At home I talked to Amy about how things went earlier for her, but it was the only thing that brought a smile to my face. She had told me how one of the girls that was being lifted for one of the cheers had screwed up and done a face plant in front of the entire sixth grade class. I knew her, and felt really bad for her, but it seemed to epitomize the whole situation with what Amy had said about the squad having problems. I definitely knew I could have done that better.

I was so terrified of what was to come. I had been verbally and physically assaulted so many times last year, especially during the first half, that I knew how bad things could get. My only armor was what Dr. Reynolds had helped build up. I had faith in my friends, but I knew there would be times I would end up getting separated from them. And… friends can turn on you.

I tried to read a book that night, I tried to play a video game, I tried playing with my Barbies, I tried doing anything I could think of, but no matter what I did I couldn’t concentrate on it. Mom eventually brought me a cup of tea to try and soothe my nerves — it didn’t really help much though. When she suggested I go to bed early that night I didn’t fight her.

I thought maybe I would be able to forget about my troubles in the realm of sleep, but that didn’t happen quickly. I tossed and turned well into the morning imagining everything that could possibly go wrong the next day. When I finally fell asleep I kept waking up — not getting any real rest.


 
To Be Continued...

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Comments

It's amazing to me

that Tiffany is able to function at all the night before school starts. Considering her past experience at school I'm surprised she's not in a continuous panic attack. I'm afraid I would be, if I were in her shoes.

Hugs
Carla

A very interesting and

A very interesting and believable story. I do have a question tho based on a comment by the Doctor after Tiff's blood work came back. He stated "her testoserone in her system, but not much." Perhaps this is why she is only 4'4" and 68 lbs? Has anyone every checked her out for being intersexed? Even if she did wind up male, based on her size and weight, it seems she would still be a very small ane possibly effeminate man in the end. J-Lynn

Janice I wondered same thing

concerning her size as it appears it doesnt seem to be a family trait. What surprized me most is that the ENDO didnt require a full & complete physical OR LEAST it wasnt mentioned when he took blood. Most I know in dealing with TS want one if nothing else for a baseline so when they get later test result they have a complete base to compare in case say reactions to the drugs, or other pecularities.

that principal - I hope she's close to retirement cause I do believe she's very very close to finding herself w/o a job or a deskjob completely away from students. A shame, but likely scenereo

Unlike the Shrink, I have more faith in Tiff's friends coming thru for her, but I totally understood why she ran Tiff thru those drills.

Last - believe it or not I think those motovational speaches & cheerleader camp, might just have put some more backbone in our little friend. I've seen what it could do for others in helping some come out of their shells abit. and that most improved trophey is just exactly what Tiff needed to grasp if & when she's accosted.