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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Chapter 19
 
 
AFTER BAND I gathered my stuff quickly to go out to get picked up by my dad for my appointment with Dr. Reynolds. "How was your day Tiffany?" He asked me as I got in.

"It was good Daddy," I told him.

"So nothing happened today?" He asked me.

"Nothing bad at least." I told him.

He began the thirty minute drive to Dr. Reynolds office and went with me upstairs. Dr. Reynolds asked to talk to him for a few minutes alone before she began with me — by this time I was used to the drill of being talked about before I went in. I looked over at the table next to me and began reading through a fashion magazine that was laying next to me.

I didn’t really pay much attention to what I was looking at though. I was sure that Dr. Reynolds was getting a huge update on stuff that had happened in the past few days… I didn’t know what she would say about it… There really wasn’t anything she could do to make it go away.

After what seemed like an eternity I joined her in the office while my dad waited in the waiting room. "Hi Tiffany, how are you doing today?" She asked me.

"Fine I guess… I have a feeling my dad told you about yesterday?"

She nodded. "He told me some things, but I’d like you to tell me yourself."

"Well where do you want me to begin?" I asked her.

"Well why don’t you start with telling me how things began on Tuesday?" She suggested.

"Okay," I told her. I began to tell her about how well things started off on Tuesday. It had been great how I’d been seemingly accepted by my peers — most of them didn’t even recognize me. I told her about when Jarred told everyone about me, how I’d felt betrayed and scared all at the same time then. I continued through the events that happened after school and actually managed to smile when I told her about how Kristina and a lot of others didn’t seem to mind when I talked to them on Wednesday.

I actually managed to tell her most of the stuff about my attack that day without crying. "I was so scared, especially when they threatened to do something more to me than just beat me up," I told her with tears rolling down my face. "I did everything I could at that point to get away — and it doesn’t really help that I think the principal believes I should be getting treated like this." She asked me to explain more about the last part.

In my sessions to that point Dr. Reynolds had hid her own personal opinions very well on everything we’d talked about. She of course had been at the first meeting and wasn’t extremely surprised to learn that I felt animosity from the principal, but she was appalled by what had happened in our latest meeting. Dad hadn’t been at the meeting so he hadn’t really been able to tell what had happened as well. For a brief moment I could see an incredible amount of outrage on her face. Amazingly that outrage didn’t last long before being hidden back behind a veil of professionalism.

I got through telling her about making it the rest of the day, a little about dance class, and told her "Everything today actually went pretty well. I only had one kid say anything mean, and David shut him up really quick."

"Who’s David?" She asked me. Before I knew it I was going through a ton of questions first about him, and then more about Kyle. She seemed surprised by the number of allies I had and she commented on that.

"Before we end today Tiffany, I wanted to ask you about the dreams you had last night."

"…How do you know about those?" Dad knew I’d woken up crying, but I hadn’t told him anything specific.

"Well your dad told me about how you woke up — but also Dr. Hancock called me earlier today to tell me about the conversation she had with you this morning. So what happened?"

I honestly had hoped not to discuss these dreams — but I should have known better. We must have spent thirty minutes just discussing the dreams and her reassuring me that things would be okay. She also gave me instructions to call her if I needed to before my next appointment.

Before we left she pulled my dad in for a few minutes and talked through my journal and some other things before he drove me home. "Daddy, how are we going to make these appointments work? You can’t keep taking off work each week."

"My boss understands that there are some things going on with you." He must have sensed my wide open eyes looking at him, "No, she doesn’t know the specifics, at least not yet, but she told me to take whatever time I needed. She said she won’t dock me for these afternoons. Besides, I’m on salary so I’ll just get whatever I can’t get done on these afternoons done another time. Dr. Reynolds also told me it should only be a couple more weeks that we do this every week."

We arrived home about 5:30 to find that Mom had already made dinner. I scarfed down the casserole she had made and quickly changed into a pair of the shorts and a t-shirt that I had gotten from the cheer camp. The t-shirt I had chosen was just one of the general cheerleading shirts from the camp. But, it was really cute and I thought it would be appropriate to wear for a cheerleading class.

The class was being held in the same facility as my ballet lessons, so at least it was a little more familiar that night. As I walked in I kind of hoped that I would know someone there. I looked around hoping to see a familiar face somewhere and I quickly learned that wouldn’t be the case. I was relieved in a way though, as it would be another class where no one would know about me — that definitely had its’ pluses.

The teacher began class shortly after I arrived, and it quickly became clear to me that there were two types of girls in the class. There were those that had never done a day of dancing/cheerleading in their life and those that were actually on a cheerleading squad or had dance experience. Within that first group of girls, about half the class, about eighty percent of them were hopeless.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I fit in very well with the second group of girls — those that had experience — and found myself being asked to help some of the hopeless girls. Among them was a girl named Brianna.

I give Brianna a lot of credit, she tried at least as hard as what I did at camp this summer, and she did improve while I helped her… But the poor girl had absolutely no sense of rhythm at all. Just getting her to tap her feet to the counts we were going through slowly was impossible! I don’t think that it helped that her becoming a cheerleader/dancer was not real likely just due to her size.

She was easily almost 6 feet tall, and weighed at least double my weight, if not triple. I’ve been mocked/picked-on/stamped into the ground enough that I wasn’t about to start being mean to her though. I knew that even with as tall as she was she probably got teased a lot. I tried to help her as best I could, and she seemed to appreciate it. The class was ninety minutes long and I spent a good forty-five trying to help her. At the end of the class the teacher asked us to each individually demonstrate, slowly, the first dance we were working on.

She seemed to be intelligent and caring enough to go through some of the girls like Brianna first. I felt really bad as I watched one of the girls actually do far worse than Brianna had been doing to start off the demonstrations. From there things actually got steadily worse until Brianna got up there and did better than the first girls.

I ended up being asked to go last — I would have thought I’d have gone in the middle somewhere — and found myself smiling and doing all of the moves very well. I felt comfortable doing it and had a lot of fun. At the end the girls surprised me by cheering for me fairly loudly. We’d all been giving some polite applause to each other, but nothing that loud.

I found myself turning a deep shade of red but forced myself to smile. "Very nice job Tiffany," Ms. Clemens, the teacher told me.

"Okay everyone! Make sure you all take one of these count sheets home with you to work on this week. I want to be able to run through this with music by the time you get back. I have tapes for you to practice with here too."

As I grabbed my tape and count sheet from her she asked, "Tiffany can you stay for just a moment?"

"Sure Ms. Clemens," I told her.

As I stood by the side Mom came up to me and gave me a hug, "Nice job sweetie, I was really impressed by how well you did that."

"Thanks Mommy," I told her while hugging her back.

A moment later Brianna came over to me, "Tiffany you’re really good at this. How long have you been doing it?"

"Does a summer camp count?" I asked her.

"That’s it?" She asked incredulously. "Wow, you’re really talented then. Anyway I wanted to thank you for helping me. I know I must have seemed completely hopeless — I was certainly doing worse than anyone else before you started helping me. You really helped me a lot. Thanks."

"Anytime," I told her. I found myself then talking to the teacher.

"Tiffany did I just hear you tell that girl that you have only done this at a summer camp so far?"

I nodded.

"Wow. I don’t know if you know this yet or not but I’m the high school dance squad instructor. Which junior high do you go to?"

"Holden Junior High," I responded.

"Are you on the cheerleading squad yet?"

"No, I wasn’t able to try out last year." It was a bit of a lie… but I didn’t want to cause her to think I was a freak until she knew me as me.

"You should have. Mrs. Holt is planning on starting up a dance squad this next year though right?"

"Yeah, I’ve heard that we’re going to have tryouts the last week of September?"

"Well let me get you something really quick for you to work on for the tryouts," she said as she went over to her bag. "This is a routine that I’m planning on teaching this class in a couple months — it would be great for you to tryout on if they let you pick your own routine." She handed me a count sheet with directions on it and a tape.

"Umm… Thanks. I appreciate it."

"No problem Tiffany, I want to make sure you get on that team so you can get some experience before coming up to the high school. I think you could do really well on our squad up there."

"Thanks, I’ll see you next week," I told her as I was pulled to the door.

As I sat in the car while Mom drove me home I wondered to myself if I was really that talented or not. Were people just too nice to tell me I sucked? "Mom did I really look like I was doing well when you watched me?"

"Sweetie, I know I’m biased, but I really do believe you did better than any of the other girls out there."

"Thanks," I told her.

When I got home I hopped into the shower since I had been sweating a lot. I went ahead and washed my hair while I was in there — I thought that could save me some time in the morning — and put on a pair of comfy pajamas when I was done. I had just sat down in the living room to work on the one homework assignment I had received that day when the phone rang.

I jumped up and ran over to the phone yelling, "I’ve got it," to anyone who might care.

"Hello?"

"Tiffany?" It was Amy’s voice.

"Hey Amy, how was the game?"

"It was great! You should have seen it — David intercepted and ran with the ball for like twenty yards with six guys trying to pull him down before he got the touchdown. It was awesome! Then Kyle ended up coming in as quarterback and threw two touchdowns himself."

"Cool!"

"How did your stuff go?" She asked me.

"Well my appointment with Dr. Reynolds was… well an appointment with Dr. Reynolds. It’s kind of hard to describe what it’s like — it’s not a lot, and yet it is. Anyway, I made it through it. She seems to think I’m doing alright — she was rather mad about the incident the other day."

"Did you talk about your nightmares with her at all?" She asked me.

"Umm… yeah… she thought they should improve as I get farther away from the incident. I don’t know that I really believe that or not though. I just hope she’s right — it was a really awful dream."

Amy, sensing she needed to change the subject, asked "so how was the dance class?"

"It was really cool Amy. I think maybe I might actually have found something I could be really good at." I told her about everything including about Brianna, "I feel so bad for her Amy, she was trying so hard — and she did get better, but I can’t honestly see anyone ever letting her on a team just based on her size and looks. Isn’t that awful?"

"Yeah it is… I don’t really know that there’s a good answer for it though. At least you’re being nice to her though. Maybe she can come as far as you have if she’s given a chance."

"I guess that’s something." I replied. "So did you come up with any ideas for my birthday next week?" I asked her.

"How about you come stay the night tomorrow and we’ll talk about it?" She suggested.

"Why have you thought about something?"

"Of course. Actually I spent some time speaking with my mom last night, and I know she talked to your mom today, but I’ll tell you tomorrow at my house?"

"Okay, but I don’t know that I really want to wait till then to hear your plans," I said with fake exasperation.

"Oh you poor baby… I think you can wait. Trust me." She said. "So have you done this math assignment yet?" she asked me.

"I was just starting to work on it."

"You want to finish it together on the phone?"

"Sure, assuming my mom doesn’t complain that she needs the phone." I told her. It wasn’t as good as being able to work on it in the same place, but at least it was better than not hanging out with her at all. I hadn’t really been in the mood to do much this week — but the fact that we weren’t hanging out with each other every spare moment was kind of saddening.

After about twenty minutes we finished up with the homework and we ended up giving up the phone so our mom’s could talk to each other. Apparently they were in the midst of planning a party for me — and I had a feeling that they may have been working on it even before Amy asked yesterday.

I went to bed that night feeling like maybe I had a chance at a somewhat normal life this year.
 
 
Chapter 20
 
 
THE NEXT DAY the whole school was talking about the football game that had taken place the day before. Kyle and David were both being seen as the two coolest seventh grade guys in school. Fortunately for me I was part of the group of girls that hung out with them and that, of course, raised my status considerably.

That day I still heard conversations about me, but they seemed to be growing tired of me and were ready to move onto someone else. By the end of the day they had no new ammunition to attack me with and I was largely forgotten. I had worn a cute jumper that day and I had noticed a lot of various looks at me. It was as if I was an animal in a zoo with most of them — I might have come to school naked and had less staring actually…

I had been making it a point not to wear too ‘girly’ of clothing so as not to cause as much of a problem at school. It wasn’t like I’d been wearing boys clothes — they were definitely girls clothes — but I’d not been in a dress yet for most of them. It was amazing how this seemed to make everything step up to a whole new level of problems.

On one hand I received a lot of compliments on my outfit that day — many from teachers. I think a lot of them appreciated that I wasn’t just dressed in the normal baggy clothing that everyone else was wearing. For the girls many of them told me they ‘loved my outfit,’ and would love to have it themselves. Some of them just put on a fake smile as they walked by me and said hi.

Then there were a couple groups of girls that were clustered in a group as I passed and all started giggling and laughing — it may not have been about me, but it sure felt like it was. Some even just shook their heads at me and looked at me like I was a freak.

The boys were harder to read, but I think there were some that were checking me out every much as they would a normal girl. On at least one of those occasions I saw their friends slug them as if to remind them that ‘Dude, she’s not really a girl — what are you thinking?’

Overall though, things went well for me that day — at least I didn’t have any assaults that day. I did have a couple of ‘freak’ comments, but those seemed to be dying away. I think my novelty status was wearing off fast — and with a good support group of friends things seemed to be going okay. I had dealt with name calling for so long, that if that was all they were going to do, I figured I could deal with it. Eventually maybe they’d forget about me and things would settle down.

TGIF! Finally Amy and I could hang out after school. As busy as our schedules were it hadn’t been possible during the week at all. We rode to her house on the bus that day and quickly got into our swimsuits and went swimming. We were both so excited to be able to spend some time together — this week that had been scarce — and the two of us were extremely hyper by the time her mom came home and told us to go get dried off and get ready to go to dinner.

Amy put on a skirt with a top that looked really cute while I put my jumper back on. "So Tiffany how did your day go?" Amy’s mom asked me as we headed out to her car.

"It went much better, thanks for asking." I told her.

"Mom where are we going for dinner?" Amy asked.

"We’re going to meet Tiffany’s parents at Outback," she told her.

"What’s Outback?" I asked.

"It’s a steakhouse, they have a lot of different things though," Melanie told me.

"They have really good bread!" Amy added.

Dinner was just as good as they said it would be — though I thought it was a little on the pricey side for my parents. Amy and I helped out by splitting an entree — and her parents picked that part of the bill up — so it actually wasn’t too bad for my parents.

As we sat during dinner I finally asked Amy, "So what is it that you think I should do for my birthday?"

"Can I tell her?" she asked her mom and mine.

"You might as well — she’s never going to stop bugging us all otherwise," her mom replied. My mom nodded as well.

"Well we’ve actually already been planning on a party for you for a month now." She told me with a smile.

"What? Really?" I asked excitedly.

"Yeah, ever since I pointed out to my mom that this was going to be ‘Tiffany’s’ first birthday."

"So what are we going to do?" I asked.

"Well I thought we’d start off with having over some of the girls and maybe a few of the guys from school for dinner, then cake and presents. We’ll have everyone over in time so we can go swimming before that and watch a movie or something. At eight I figured we could kick the boys out and we could have a regular slumber party with the girls that come. Does that sound fun?" She asked me.

"Yeah, it does. Are you alright with having this at your house?" I asked Amy’s mom.

"Absolutely!" I looked at my parents to make sure they were okay with that too. They both nodded.

"Cool!" I said with a lot of glee. "So who’s coming?" I asked Amy. We talked back and forth at a very rapid pace for the duration of the meal.

After dinner I grabbed a bag from my parents that had some clothes in it, before riding back to Amy’s house. When we got there she and I began working on finishing some invitations that she had started the night before. She told me her mom had thought about doing Barbie invitations but decided that it might be a little juvenile for twelve year olds. That didn’t stop us from playing with Barbies once we were done though. Honestly we talked about it and I could see us continuing to play with Barbies for a long time after this. We had so much fun doing it, ‘who cares what everyone else thinks?’

The two of us had a really great time hanging out that night. After everything that had gone on this past week, I was just happy we could hang out and talk that night — forgetting about everything else for a while. She told me about how cheerleading was going so far — and how terrible many of the girls were. "I can’t believe that some of them even made the team," Amy told me.

"Why do you think they made it?" I asked.

"Well one girl said that her mom said that there was a lot of ‘input’ from Mrs. Hinther. I think she pushed Mrs. Holt to take some girls she wouldn’t have otherwise put on the team. Plus there are a lot of girls like you that are way more talented, but didn’t try out."

"Well… I was still trying to be a boy back then," I told her with a wink and a giggle.

"True… So did you bring home the permission slip and forms to tryout for the dance squad?" She asked me.

"Yeah, they’re in my backpack. I’ll show them to Mom and Dad tomorrow when I get home. I’m really excited… Didn’t you say Mrs. Hinther had a lot to say about the last tryouts? Won’t she try and stop me from being on the team then?" I asked suddenly nervous. It wasn’t that I felt like I was a shoe-in, but I did feel like I had a good chance if there was a fair process.

"Mrs. Holt told my mom that she’s going to be making this decision solely with some impartial judges being involved — Mrs. Hinther isn’t to be a part of it."

"Good, that woman hates me." I told her.

"Yeah, she’s definitely a witch." She said trailing off as we began heading downstairs to go watch a movie. "Hey have you noticed how busy this next month is?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well we have your birthday party next Friday, the Film Festival that we’re flying to with our project is the next week, the dance camp is going to be the next week, and tryouts will be the following Friday."

"You’re right… This is going to be a crazy month. With everything else going on I actually forgot that we were going out for the festival this month!" I told her.

"I’m really looking forward to it! Even though Coach Holt wasn’t real appreciative of me telling her that Ashley and I are going to be gone during a football game..." She told me.

"I’ll bet! Oh well, it’s not like this is a small reason for skipping."

"No, it’s not. What do you think will happen at the festival?" She asked me as she put in a movie for us to watch.

"Who knows? I doubt much will happen. Personally, as long as we’re not booed out of the theater I don’t care," I told her.

"Do you think we might win a prize or something for it?" She asked me.

"Eehh… Maybe. I’m not counting on it though. I think we’ve won all of the prizes for it that we could at this point."

"You’re probably right. At least we get out of two days of school!"

"Not to mention we get to go to New York for free! I’m not going to complain about that one bit. Do you think we could see something else out of this?"

"I don’t know. Daddy seemed to think that we could end up with an award for a student production. None of us were older than twelve when we did it — so that should put us in the lowest category if they have such a thing."

"I doubt they do… I don’t know, it’s going to be cool though I bet." I told her.

"Yeah." She said as we began actually paying a little attention to the movie. The two of us watched movies and talked late that night before her mom came and pushed us to go to bed. I ended up sleeping in her room that night — I felt really safe and happy with Amy’s family, but was still stressed enough then that I didn’t want to go down the hall to ‘mine.’

It had been a great night though — not being able to hang out with Amy every day was starting to bother me a bit. Hopefully that would be a problem that would fix itself soon enough. Of course what chance did I really have of getting on the new squad? Especially if Mrs. Hinther had anything to say about it!

THE WEEKEND FLEW by way too fast. I had spent Saturday with Amy, her mom, and my mom, out shopping for decorations and other things for the party on Friday. I was really excited — I’d never had a real birthday party complete with friends before. Oh sure I’d had an occasional neighborhood friend at a party — but not any ‘real’ friends. Does that make sense?

Every other party I’d ever had had mainly my parents, grandparents, and occasionally some other family friends there. None of them, not one, had ever had real classmates at it. The excitement that I felt absolutely drove my mom nuts on Sunday. I didn’t stop bouncing off the walls the whole day.

Monday morning came, and in first hour I began handing out invitations to my party. Amy and I had decided to invite Kyle and David to the pool party/dinner/cake and presents part of the party. When I gave them the invitations and told them what we were planning they seemed to think it sounded like fun.

As far as girls I invited Lindsey, Jennifer, Ashley, Nikki, Lindsey, Amber, Kristina, and of course Amy. Jennifer told me she wouldn’t be able to make it — she had other family plans, but appreciated the invite. All of the rest said they hoped to make it. Kristina seemed surprised to receive the invite when I gave it to her in choir, but said she would come if she could. I had debated a bit about giving her one — I didn’t really know her yet — but Amy seemed to think that she would be a lot of fun to have there.

Monday actually turned out to be a reasonably good day — nothing happened beyond that! Honestly even last year at this time I hoped for such days, but they never came. To have something like today go that well gave me a lot of hope going into the rest of the week. After all I think people had a lot more reason to want to pick on me now…

The next day things seemed to be on track to being another good day until sixth hour. In sixth hour one of the girls I didn’t know that well, Cassie, decided that today would be a good day to make her thoughts about me known — publicly. We had a short essay that we were writing for the class about our thoughts on some current event issue — I became issue number one for her.

As she spoke her essay began, "I believe that everyone is created by God to have one sex, either boy or girl. There should be no reason to…" I’m sure you can see where all of this led to… it was really dreadful. She finished with, "And that’s why I believe Brandon shouldn’t be allowed to continue acting like he’s a girl. He’s such a…"

"Thank you Cassie," Ms. Damien interrupted at this point.

"But I’m not finished ma’am. Don’t I have the right to free speech?" She asked.

"Cassie your right to free speech is why I let you read as much as I did. However, this has now turned away from free speech and into an attack on an individual. Please see me after class to talk about this," She said.

Cassie sulked back to her seat where she glared at me for the rest of the period. On our way to band Nikki said, "I can’t believe Ms. Damien let her read that much of her essay! It was awful all of the things she was implying about you."

I shrugged my shoulders, "I’m sure this won’t be the last time this happens. She really couldn’t justify stopping her up until when she did… That’s something Dr. Reynolds and I have talked about a lot. They have the right to feel that I’m a freak, they have the right to hate what I’m doing, but realistically no one can really do anything about it until there is a direct action against me."

"That’s not right Tiffany," she told me, "you’re such a cool person — you always have been — no one should be allowed to bring you down." She told me.

"I appreciate the fact you feel that way Nikki — it helps dull some of the pain from the comments." I said as I gave her a hug at the band hall door.

That day in band Mrs. Remar decided to start working a piece of music that we were going to play while marching in the high schools homecoming parade in early October. The piece was Louie Louie, and was kind of challenging for the band. She ended up throwing her hands up at the end of class and saying, "PRACTICE THIS!"

I of course made sure I took my horn home that night so I didn’t have to worry about her getting angry at me the next day! As I rode the bus home though I really didn’t know when I was going to find time to practice. I was supposed to have my first gymnastics lesson that night from 6pm-8pm, and I really didn’t want to practice immediately after school. Plus there was homework…

Somehow by 5:15 I had finished both my homework and my practicing in time to eat a quick dinner and change into some clothes for gymnastics. The instructor that I had just asked that I wear a pair of cotton shorts, a light t-shirt, a sports bra if I needed it, and had my hair tied back. If I ended up doing anything competitive they would have me start buying leotards and such.

I didn’t really need a sports bra… but I had convinced my mom that I wanted to fit in so she had bought me one anyway! The thought had me smiling as I got dressed to leave. Amy’s mom had gotten us connected with this gymnastics studio and I was going to be working with a local college student one-on-one on stuff. It wasn’t going to be cheap, but I really wanted to learn how to do some things like tumbling, and who knew what else?

Now that I was out as a girl I was able to act out on a lot of the dreams I had as a kid. Even before realizing that I wanted to be Tiffany I’d always been jealous of the gymnasts doing all of the cool stuff. Amy was really impressive with what she could do… but she had actually quit as of this year since she didn’t have any time with Cheerleading now.

Mom pulled up to a big metal sided building just before six. She went in with me and we checked in at a desk they had in the front.

"Hi, you must be new here?" The lady at the front asked.

"I’m Tiffany," I said to her while extending my hand to hers.

"It’s nice to meet you Tiffany, I’m Jan and this is my gym. You’re going to be working with Tara right?"

"Yes," my mom replied.

"Let me call her up here and she’ll get started with you," she told me. She spoke into a paging system through the phone asking for her to come up.

"So this is your first time doing anything with gymnastics?" She asked me.

"Yeah," I told her — nothing like short answers when you’re nervous around a new person.

"Well I hope you enjoy it. Tara is really good at pretty much everything we do here. She came in third place at nationals when she was fifteen — so she should be a really good teacher for you."

"Cool," I said as a brown-haired girl who was just under five feet tall came up to the counter.

"You called for me?" She asked Jan.

"Yes, this is Tiffany Jacobson — your new student." She told her.

I felt Tara look me over up and down for a few moments as she introduced herself. "Well are you ready to get started?" She asked me.

"Sure." I told her. I was really nervous as she intimidated me a lot for some reason.

Mom decided to stay and watch for today just to make sure everything went alright. She stayed on the side of the gym in a row of folding chairs they had setup while Tara led me onto a matted area.

"So what school are you at?" She asked me as she started leading me in some stretches.

"Holden Junior High" I answered.

"Oh that’s cool! That’s where I went to school." She told me with a smile. I think she could tell that I was incredibly nervous.

"What grade are you in?" She asked me.

"Seventh."

"So you’re thirteen?"

"No, I’m eleven until Friday."

"Wow, you’re young for your grade right?" She asked as she seemed to be mentally counting back her own age to that grade.

"Yeah, I just beat the deadline that year."

"Hey you’ll get to graduate earlier that way." She told me with a smile before asking, "So what is it you want to learn how to do?"

We switched to a different stretch as I answered her, "Well… I’d at least like to learn how to tumble… but I’d love to learn anything else too."

"Is there any specific reason you’re taking these lessons with me?" She asked.

"Well I’d like to have a better shot to make the cheerleading team at the school next year. I’m also hoping that it might help me a little bit with the dance team tryouts that they’re going to have this month."

"Okay. That gives me kind of a place to work from then. Have you ever done any tumbling or anything?"

"I learned some basic stuff from a friend of mine this summer, and a little bit more at a cheer camp we went to… But the most I can manage right now is one front flip." I told her with a grimace. I was so afraid of what she was going to think of me.

"Well then, now that we’ve stretched out let’s start working on some things okay?"

I nodded.

"We’re in a much better place really than I would have hoped from someone who hasn’t done gymnastics before. You’re able to do splits, and seem to be fairly limber, so that should help us get through some other things too."

I smiled, "Cool."

With that the smile on my face quickly turned into a grimace… ouch. The number of times that I performed face plants, landed on my rear, landed on other parts, and other indescribable conditions cannot even begin to be counted. For her part she managed to not to throw up her hands and tell me I was hopeless. Each time she just helped me up and told me how to fix something, held me in a position, or assisted me with the move in slow motion. I was so tired by the end of the lesson!

"Tiffany, today was a good lesson, if you’ll work that hard every session, and during the week in-between, I think we’ll be able to really get somewhere in a couple months." She told me.

I hadn’t honestly expected a positive comment so I managed a tired smile and a thank you before Mom led me out to the car. Once in the car I took my hair out of the ponytail it was in and put my head against the glass of the window next to me. Seconds later, or it seemed to me, mom woke me up by tickling me.

"Mom!!!" I told her angrily — I was grumpy.

"Well you didn’t want to wake up!" She told me, "Deal with it."

She was Evil with a capital E! I told her so and she just stuck her tongue out at me. I went inside and took a quick shower before going to bed. That night I thought about all of the other girls, even the little girls that had been doing so many cool things in the gym. I wished that I could do those things, but realistically knew I’d never be that good.

I wasn’t going to spend enough time doing it, and I was starting way too old to be able to be as good as them. If I could get decent at some stuff though, and have fun, it would be more than enough right?
 
 
Chapter 21
 
 
TUESDAY PASSED QUICKLY and safely. I had sax lessons as soon as Mom got home after school, dinner, and then I got changed for Tae Kwon Doe. Amy was taking that class with me so the two of us of course stuck together that day. The instructor taught our class from the absolute basics. We spent a lot of time practicing punches and kicking in particular. He also took some time to demonstrate some of the cooler things that were going to be in our future. Amy and I had really not wanted to separate after class, but our moms dragged us back to our respective homes.

Wednesday also passed with everything seemingly calm at school. I was really surprised that more things weren’t happening to me — it was making me nervous. Things should be a lot more difficult than they had been so far. The groups that were on the various sides of me were staying stable — no one was jumping ship from one side to the other — and that was making for peaceful days. I think the punishments that had been handed out early on to Lucas and Jarred had helped, but unfortunately they were back in school and I saw them glare at me and talk about me with their groups more often than I cared to notice.

Mom came home and got me to ballet at five, and I had another great night there. After class Mrs. Tyler talked Mom into switching me into the more advanced class. It would be the same night, but it would be from 7-8:30 instead of the current time. Mom seemed to think it might be a bit easier to get me there anyway. She asked me if I wanted to make the class that night but I had to smile politely and say I was too tired at that point. Mom let her know that I probably wouldn’t be there next week — since the trip was the next day. She was okay with that and we had gone home.

Mom cooked dinner while I showered and changed into a pair of pajamas to lounge around the house in. Just as we were clearing the dishes the doorbell rang. Mom went and answered the door — I could hear a voice that sounded kind of familiar but I wasn’t sure who it was.

"Hi Mandy, how are you doing?"

"I’m doing well, you?"

"Well."

"Good. Say I was wondering, you have a daughter right?" She asked.

"Yes, Tiffany. Why do you ask?"

"Well my husband and I are supposed to go to a party with his company on Saturday and we can’t find a babysitter. I was wondering if Tiffany might be interested in sitting for us?"

"She’s only eleven… actually she’ll be twelve on Friday… I don’t know."

"She’s responsible right?"

"She is, but she’s never done anything like this before. I don’t know…" I was overhearing all of this from the kitchen. "Tiffany?" Mom called for me to come in there.

"Hi Mrs. Lind," I told her.

"How are you doing Tiffany?" She asked me.

"Good."

"Well, did you hear what we were talking about?" She asked me.

"Yeah. I might be interested… Would I have to change diapers?" I asked. That thought kind of grossed me out.

"Well Jamie is four and is potty trained so that’s not an issue with her — though I will have to have you make sure she puts a pull-up on before bed if you do this. Brittany is only two though, and she’s still in diapers."

I thought for a second. I’d heard some of the older girls talk at school the other day about how much money they were racking up babysitting. It might be nice to have some money to go do stuff with Amy without asking Mom and Dad for it. Besides, I knew they weren’t exactly made of money. "I’ve never changed a real baby before," I told her. I had at least changed the doll that mom had gotten me in June… like once…

"I could show you how to do it if you want. It’s really not that hard," she told me. I think she was pretty desperate.

"What do you think Mom?" I asked her.

"I think you could do it. You’ll just be across the street so if you need any help you can always call home." She told me. Apparently she had decided it was okay.

"Okay then… if you show me how." I responded.

"Great!" She said with a smile on her face. "We’ll pay you of course. Could you come over now? I think Brittany should need changed about now anyway and I can show you how."

"Let me put on some other clothes real quick first," I told her.

"Okay, I can wait for a few minutes," She said.

I ran down the hallway to my room and changed into a pair of shorts and a top real quick. When I got back to the room we went across the street to her house. Mom decided to come with me and make sure that I would be okay doing this. "Jamie? Brittany? Come here." Mrs. Lind said when we came inside.

Her two daughters came in the room running and giggling. Both girls were really cute and we talked to them for a few moments. During the conversation Brittany came up to me and put her arms out asking to be picked up. I did so, doing my best to hold her — she was heavy! Or at least she felt that way after a few minutes.

Her mom took her from me after a bit and felt to see if her diaper needed changed. She showed me how she could tell it was wet and we walked back to her room where she had a changing table that she was almost too big for. I had expected her to just show me what to do, but she had me do it!

A few minutes later I had changed a diaper for the first time… it wasn’t as bad as I’d been afraid of. After she was in a dry diaper Brittany had to show me all of her toys. Eventually Mrs. Lind led my mom and I back to the door with me promising to sit for her Saturday. ‘If nothing else it would be an experience,’ I thought as I had gone back across the street.

Before I knew it the night had passed and it was time for another session with Dr. Reynolds. She seemed to be pleased by my progress so far, and positively ecstatic that things were going as well as they were at school. She told me that she was continuing to do as much research as she could into how to continue with my care. After talking to my dad we decided not to reschedule the appointment for next week — we’d just catch up the following week. On my way out the door she wished me an early happy birthday.

Next Thursday was already going to be the trip to New York for the film festival! Time was going by so quickly this year. Another night of dance class came and went. Things had gone just as well as they had the previous week, and I was really proud of myself. I know it seems unrealistic that I was doing as well at this stuff as I was… but I seemed to have found a buried talent within myself. Thursday night I went to sleep excited for the next day. It was going to be my first real birthday party!

FRIDAY MORNING I woke up and spent a lot of time doing my hair. I decided to wear a light purple dress that had some flowery designs on it to school that day. It was my birthday. I had to go to school dressed nice right? Right!

Amy and her mom both complimented me when I got into the car. I’d managed to find some time to paint my fingernails in a matching color the night before, and I looked pretty! The first part of the morning came and went without any problems. My friends all wished me happy birthday when they saw me, and a couple of the teachers led the class in singing happy birthday to me — I just turned bright red each time. At least in third period it sounded decent — the kids in the choir could sing decently. In second hour I’d wanted to gouge my eardrums out with the pencil I held in my hand!

In between third and fourth hour Amy and I stopped by our lockers to switch books, and I found a card taped to my locker. I was curious so I opened it really quick and looked at it. Amy being my best friend of course was right there beside me as I began to open it.

The outside had a dog on it and said happy birthday. I opened it thinking the dog was kind of cute only to find a message that shocked me. ‘Happy birthday faggot. Why don’t you give us all a birthday present and get the hell out of our school? If you don’t we’re going to make you pay.’

"Tiffany, I can’t believe anyone would do this to you." She said. Giving me a hug and taking the card from me. "I bet it was Jarred and Lucas…"

As she said that I looked up and saw the two of them standing a ways away watching me and laughing loudly. There were also a couple of girls around them that seemed to be getting into the act. It made me really angry.

"You know… I thought things were going too well," I said through an unsteady voice. I steeled myself and pushed back the tears that were welling up. "I’m not going to let this screw up my day though. And I’m not going to give those jerks the joy of seeing me cry right now."

"Good for you Tiff, but I think we should take this to Mrs. Henry before we go to our next class." She told me.

"Okay," I replied to her as she led me down the hallway to the office.

We walked up to the counter with the secretary at it and asked to see Mrs. Henry. Mrs. Hinther walked by glaring at me a couple seconds before Mrs. Henry came out of her office. "What can I do for you two?" She asked.

"This was on my locker," I said as I handed her the card.

She looked at the outside thinking ‘why would they bring this to me?’ When she opened it though she said, "Tiffany I’m so sorry. This is awful." She gave me a hug and led us into her office. "Did you see anyone around your locker?" She asked.

"No. I don’t have any proof of who left it." I told her.

"Well Tiffany I’m going to keep this card if you don’t mind and look into this. If I catch who did this we’ll be assigning them consequences for threatening you." She said with a grave demeanor.

"I appreciate that Mrs. Henry. Would you make a copy though for me really quick of the card?" I asked.

"Why?"

"My parents want copies of anything that comes in like that for their records." I told her.

Her mouth kind of hung open for a moment before she said, "Of course, hold-on just a moment." She ran out to the copier and came back with the copy in an envelope for me. "Her you go Tiffany. I hope you don’t let this ruin your day," she said.

"I’m not going to let it," I told her.

"Good! Let me write you two a pass back to class." When she had handed us a paper pass she said to me, "Happy Birthday Tiffany, I hope the rest of the day goes a lot better for you."

"Thanks Mrs. Henry." I replied as we left for class. Mr. Martin gave us a strange look as we walked in late, but let it go when he saw the note. The hour went quietly, and I managed to escape any choruses of happy birthday there.

For lunch Mom came and dropped off a couple of happy meals for Amy and myself. We got some strange looks as we both carried the boxes to the lunch table and began playing with the toys inside! Kristina just looked at us and said, "You two are so strange," and giggled. While I ate she started playing with the toy that I had. It was a better afternoon than the morning I’d had!

During English the secretary came over the intercom and asked for me to come down. Ms. Damien didn’t really want to send Amy with me, but she ended up going anyway. I was afraid it had something to do with the card from earlier. Amy and I vowed that I wouldn’t let it ruin my day though, no matter what!

As we entered the office door I noticed a big vase of flowers on the counter with balloons tied to it that said, ‘Happy Birthday.’ I wondered who else had their birthday that day. "Hi Tiffany, these are for you." Mrs. Walden the secretary said.

"Really?" I squealed with glee.

"Yep!" She said.

"Cool!" I said looking at them closer. There was a dozen yellow roses, with pink tips, in the vase. I saw there was a card attached and opened it.

‘Happy Birthday Tiffany! Love Mom and Dad.’

"Wow, this is so cool," I told Amy.

"Yeah… I wish my mom had sent me a dozen roses when I turned twelve!" Amy said.

"They got you flowers didn’t they?" I asked.

"Yeah, but they didn’t send a dozen! Geeze.. I thought I was spoiled!" She said smiling.

I stuck my tongue out at her as we walked back to class. The balloon was kind of a pain in the butt as I walked up the staircase, but I loved the reactions of all of the girls when I got into the room.

"Wow! Those are really pretty Tiffany," Nikki said. The others all agreed. Ms. Damien also commented about the fact she wished someone would send her flowers on her birthday. That kind of planted an idea in my head to look up her birthday and as a class we’d get her flowers this year. My mom had the entire district’s birthdays at home from working at the bus yard.

I was quickly distracted from that thought though as she piled on a reading assignment for the weekend. I think she did it just to annoy me.

Band was fun… Mrs. Remar had me set the flowers on her desk while class was going on. I didn’t know how I was going to manage my saxophone and the flowers when school got out, but the solution presented itself. Mom came into the room just before the end of class.

"Mommy thanks for the flowers!" I told her while giving her a hug.

"You’re welcome," she said with a big smile on her face. "Speaking of flowers where are they?" I got them off of Mrs. Remar’s desk and she carried my saxophone out to the car. Amy met us out there at that point as the bell rang and we headed for her house to prepare for the party.

When we pulled up to Amy’s house I carried my flowers with me while Amy opened up the door to her house. As I entered I could only think, ‘WOW!!!’

Their entire first floor was decorated with happy birthday signs and streamers for me. There was also a pile of presents already started on the dining room table where I set my flowers down. Amy led me outside to where they had some tables set up with table cloths and more Happy Birthday stuff.

I gave Mom, Amy, and Amy’s mom hugs in quick succession after seeing it all. "You all are so cool," I said with tears in my eyes.

"You’re welcome Tiffany," My mom said.

"We had to make sure you had a really incredible birthday," Amy’s mom added.

"I really appreciate it!" I told them.

"So what still needs done?" Amy asked ‘the moms.’

"Well not much, but if you two will…" my mom directed us to do a list of things before guests started arriving. I was really careful the whole time not to get my dress messed up. Around 5pm people started arriving, beginning with my grandparents.

"Hi sweetheart, happy birthday!" My grandmother said as she came in and gave me a hug. My grandfather also greeted me and hugged me.

"Here," my grandmother said as she handed me wrapped present, "this is for you."

"Thank you Grandma!" I said while giving her another hug. I turned to my grandfather and gave him another hug and said, "Thanks Grandpa, I appreciate you guys coming."

"We wouldn’t miss it sweetie," my grandfather replied. "You look very pretty today," he added.

I beamed with a big smile while leading them into the house. I dropped the present off on the table and introduced them to Amy and her mom. "So this is the famous Amy?" my grandmother asked me.

"Uh huh, this is the one." I told her.

"It’s nice to meet you Mrs. Jacobson," Amy told her.

"You too." My grandmother answered. "So how was your day sweetie?" she asked me.

"Well… it was mostly good."

Mom hadn’t been home all day to catch the message on our answering machine, "What do you mean mostly good?"

"Umm… Can we talk about this another time — I’d just kind of like to forget about it today and enjoy my birthday…"

She gave me a really concerned look but decided that she could interrogate me later. "I guess sweetie, but I’m not going to completely drop this."

"Thank you Mom," I told her before leading my grandparents into the living room where the adults were planning on gathering.

I sat and talked to them for about ten minutes or so before the doorbell rang again with Amy and me racing for the door. Our mom’s both yelled at us about running in the house as we opened the door to see who it was.

Amy beat me to the door by that fraction of a second for me to discover it was Kristina. "Hey Tiffany! Happy Birthday," she said while handing me a small gift bag.

I gave her a hug and said, "Thanks Kristina, I’m really glad you were able to come!"

"I’m glad you invited me. I just met you last week so I was kind of surprised you invited me." She told me.

We led her inside to the dining room where I sat the present down. "Well you’ve been so nice to me the past couple weeks I decided that you would be fun to have over."

"I’ll try to live up to your expectations Tiffany," she told me. "So what’s up first?" She asked.

"Well let’s go put your bag upstairs in Tiffany’s room until we get through the party." Amy said.

"I thought you said we were having this party at your house Amy?" She asked as we led her upstairs.

"This is my house… my parents just decided Tiffany needed her own room over here this summer. We came back from cheer camp to discover that my room had been redone and Dad had done one of our spare bedrooms for her while they were at it." She said.

"You have your own room at their house? You guys must be really close," Kristina commented.

"You could say that," Amy and I said together before giggling.

We topped the stairs and entered ‘my’ room. It was still kind of strange and awkward to have ‘my’ own room at someone else’s house — but I wasn’t going to complain. If nothing else it was Amy’s parents’ way of telling me that they considered me to be a daughter just like Amy. Thinking about it made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

"Wow, this is really cute," She said as we entered the room.

"Mine is similar, but in slightly different colors," Amy told her.

"Amy’s dad did a really good job with both of them," I added.

"So what’s first?" She asked as we walked downstairs.

"Well, we’re going to wait for everyone else to get here before we go ahead and eat dinner. Then we’re going to go swimming for a bit, before doing presents and cake," I said the last part with a bit of a squeal.

"Cool," she told me as the doorbell rang again.

It was Ashley this time, "Hey Tiffany, Happy Birthday!" she said to me as she came in. We repeated the steps of putting the present she brought (a bag) on the table and taking her bag upstairs. The four of us had just reached the downstairs again when the doorbell rang yet again.

This time it was the two guys I’d invited, Kyle and David. "Hey, thanks for coming!" I told them.

"Wouldn’t miss it Tiffany," Kyle replied.

"Yeah, besides what other party have we been invited to with this many hot girls?" David joked.

"And Food!" Kyle said, laughing.

Amy slugged him in the arm lightly before leading them to the dining room. They had each brought a present — I was really surprised that they had gotten me anything. I guess it is good manners though when you go to a birthday party… still. I was beaming when we sat down for all of twenty seconds before the last succession of my friends arrived. Lindsey arrived next, then Amber, and then Nikki, so that we were left with a total of seven girls and the two boys. Yeah… the guys were definitely outnumbered… but hey I didn’t care and they certainly didn’t seem to mind!

We all went outside and sat and talked while our mom’s worked on finishing up dinner. Amy’s dad arrived and worked on grilling hamburgers and hotdogs, joined by my dad about ten minutes before we ate.

During this time the nine of us just sat around and talked about all sorts of stuff. Shortly before dinner the game from the previous evening came up.

"So Kyle I hear you guys did really well yesterday?" I asked him.

"Yeah, it was awesome. David scored two touchdowns off interceptions and I threw three touchdowns. The other team didn’t really stand a chance," he told me.

"You should come to one of our games Tiffany," David said.

"Well I’ve been pretty busy so far, but maybe the week after next I can try and make it." I told him.

"Why not next week?" Kyle asked.

"Well we have that trip to New York," I began.

"Oh that’s right. Wow that came up quick." Kyle replied. The two of us were now kind of sitting in a group with David talking to Amy on his right, and Kristina and Lindsey were talking on my left. "Are you excited to go there?"

"Yeah… I think so. I’ve never really wanted to go to New York before… but I’m really excited for other people to see our film. I have a feeling we’re going to get laughed out of the theater though."

"Oh well, at least you guys seem to have gotten a lot from it already," he observed.

"Yeah."

"So what else are you up to right now?"

"What else?" I said semi-incredulously, "Well, one night each week I’m doing Tae Kwon Do, one night I’m taking Ballet, another a dance class for cheerleading, yet another a gymnastics lesson…" I paused. "A lot?" I asked sweetly.

"Yikes… and I thought football practice everyday was a lot."

About that time we were called for dinner and we all sat down at the tables they had set up outside. I got a hamburger from my dad off of the grill and put some cheese and ketchup on it, grabbed some beans, some potato chips, and then sat down next to my grandparents at the table.

I really wanted to sit next to my friends, but my mom had steered me there so I could be social with them. Luckily for me though Amy sat to my right, and Kristina sat cattycorner to me. There wasn’t a lot of conversation for most of the next ten minutes though — we were all too busy eating.

As I had just put another bite in my mouth my grandfather asked me, "So are you excited for next week?"

"Yes… at least I think I am." I replied to him politely.

"You know I’ve not seen this film yet that you ladies made," my grandmother added in.

I hadn’t realized that they hadn’t seen it yet. "Amy should have a copy here if you guys want to watch it while we’re swimming," I told them.

Mom must have heard that part of the conversation because she said, "That’s a good idea Tiffany. You have a copy here right Melanie?" she asked Amy’s mom.

"Yeah, it’s in the living room," she answered her.

"Do you mind if we throw it in after dinner?"

"Not at all!"

The conversation shifted back to my left with Amy whispering in my ear, "So are you intentionally flirting with Kyle or what?"

"What?!?" I whispered back loudly.

She just giggled.

"I’ll get you for that one later," I hissed in reply while smiling.

"Sure you will," she taunted back while sticking out her tongue.

I sat there stunned. ‘Was I flirting with Kyle? That’s kind of gross,’ I thought. I’d have to watch it for the rest of the day. I didn’t want to mislead him — though maybe I had already gone too far….

I was jolted out of these thoughts by Amy grabbing me to go setup the TV for my grandparents to see the video. Kristina hadn’t seen the video either so she wanted to watch too. Before I knew it we were all sitting there watching the movie again. ‘The moms’ had justified it by telling us that we should wait a bit before going swimming so we didn’t get cramps.

As we watched our project it brought back a lot of good memories of that weekend. It was a neat project that for whatever reason had caught on with people. We had used Barbie dolls to create a film based on a Nancy Drew book. Ashley’s dad had let us use his television studio’s equipment and shown us how to do stuff. From there he had been pretty much hands off — suggesting things here and there — and somehow we’d come up with a decent product.

Before I knew it the credits were rolling and I got a jolt out of seeing my old name. Under director it said ‘Brandon Jacobson.’ That made me feel weird… I wasn’t entirely sure why that bothered me as much as it did. I got up and walked over to stop the VCR as I listened to the comments by my grandparents and Kristina. Everyone else had seen it before — but I remained kind of in a trance. Things had changed so quickly… in less than a year I had gone from being a boy to a girl… it was strange. I felt Amy grab my hand to pull me upstairs, but I continued to think about seeing Brandon’s name on the credits.

Before I knew it I was upstairs changing into my swimsuit in the bathroom that was attached to my room. I quickly put on the one-piece before joining everyone else out at the pool. As I worked to hide my extra parts, I couldn’t help but continue to think about how much I wanted to be rid of everything Brandon…

Once I hit the water I snapped out of it and made it back to the present. "I bet I can hold my breath underwater longer than any of you," Kyle taunted everyone.

"Oh yeah?" Ashley answered.

That of course led to a contest, with Amy counting, "1…2…3…Go!" To everyone as we all went underwater to see who could stay longest.

I had taken a deep breath, like I would with playing saxophone, and held on for a long time. Soon I saw other people surfacing while I was still underwater. I held on as long as I could and then went back up to the surface gasping.

I heard an ‘aha’ from beside me. As I wiped the water from my eyes I turned around to see who it was. "See I told you all," Kyle said.

"Actually it was more of a tie," Nikki declared.

"What? A tie? No, we don’t have ties today. I win," I said in my own declaration with a big smile.

"What? No it doesn’t work that way Tiffany," Kyle said.

"Uh-huh, it does. It’s my birthday, I win!" The smile on my face was too much for him and everyone else. Everyone else just started cracking up laughing.

"Kyle I don’t think you’re going to win this argument bro," David told him.

He then started laughing on his own too and we all went back to splashing and swimming in the water. After a half hour or so Amy’s mom said, "Time for Cake!"

The guys had especially built up an appetite after swimming and we all walked back over to the outside tables after toweling off a bit. My mom brought out a large cake that was decorated in pink and purple. In the center of the cake it said ‘Happy Birthday Tiffany.’ They were being cute and put one of those big number ‘one’ candles on the inside, plus the twelve real candles that were my real age.

I stuck my tongue out at Mom after seeing that. "It was her idea," she said pointing to Amy’s mom. I then stuck my tongue out at her too, but she just smiled.

After listening to the dreaded chorus of happy birthday for the millionth time that day, I blew out the candles. As they passed out the pieces of cake I admitted to myself that I was kind of touched that they had decided this was Tiffany’s first birthday…
 
 
Chapter 22
 
 
AS CAKE WAS finished I began opening my presents from everyone. Most of the presents from my friends were small things that weren’t really anything that special. I got several Barbies, some stuffed animals, and some earrings — that kind of stuff. Kristina gave me one of the first ‘older’ gifts that I got.

She gave me a bottle of lotion from some place called ‘Bath and Body Works.’ I’d heard some of the girls talking about it being a new store in the mall — but I hadn’t gone in there yet. I opened the top and put some on my hands to smell it — I really liked it. "Thanks Kristina, this smells really good."

I then moved on from there. Kyle and David both gave me stuffed animals — I think their mom’s had thought that was a safe gift for a girl. I of course had no problems with them, so I gave them a smile and said thank you to them as well. Kyle’s was actually a really cute white tiger that was really soft. I had a cousin that was going to be very jealous since she collected them.

There were some other things that I opened before getting to the ‘family’ presents. My grandparents gave me a teddy bear holding a card with fifty-dollars. "Use it on your trip sweetie," my grandmother had advised.

"Thank you Grandma," I told her with a hug. I gave Grandpa a hug too before moving onto the present from Amy’s parents.

I must have just been the kind of girl that seemed to need more stuffed animals! Not that I minded… but I think three year olds get fewer stuffed animals for their birthdays. Amy’s mom had come up with a gift basket that had a teddy bear in it in a cheerleading outfit. There were a bunch of things sitting around and on the teddy bear.

I began with looking at the top — a really pretty tiara! I was highly amused and of course put it on before looking at anything else. I looked around at everyone else and said, "See I really am a princess!" They all laughed and that of course made me blush a bit.

Around the teddy bear were different things like lotions, some nail polish, lip gloss, and a bath soap set. In the middle of all of it was a card inside an envelope that Amy or her mom had done with pink glitter to say my name on it.

I opened the card up and was really touched first of all by the message inside of it. ‘Tiffany, we very much consider you to be the fourth member of our family. We were trying to think of an appropriate birthday present for you and decided that you might enjoy another day at the spa on us before the trip.’ It was signed, ‘Happy Birthday, Love Melanie, Greg, and Amy.’

I had tears in my eyes as I finished reading the card and the gift card was held in my hand. I hugged Amy’s parents and Amy before wiping my eyes with the towel that I’d wrapped around my body. "Thank you guys," I said.

"You’re very welcome Tiffany. I figured we can go together on Wednesday after school," Amy’s mom said to me.

"Sounds good!" I told her with another hug.

I put the card back in the gift basket and moved onto the presents from my parents — the last presents I had. There were about six boxes that I had to open that contained different things. In a couple of the boxes were some things for music stuff, one had a stuffed animal, another had a cute top in it, another had a skirt that matched it, the last of those (a large long box) contained a dress that was absolutely to die for!

As I unfolded it out of the box my jaw dropped open. "Why did you spend so much on the dress?" I asked Mom.

"Well you’re going to need something nice for next week — and actually I did find it on sale." She answered as I continued to look the dress over. Somehow it was a mix between being a dress for a girl that wasn’t developed yet but also looked like it was going to make me look older.

The dress was in satin with short sleeves and was in a brilliant bright blue. I held it up to me and looked at the full skirt and especially the bodice — it was gorgeous. It had embroidery on it with a white stitching that added a really neat texture to it. There were also beads at the points of the patterns creating an effect that would look really pretty in the right lighting. I twirled around with it in front of me, while all of the other girls gawked at it too.

"You have to put it on!" Ashley said.

"Yeah!" Kristina said.

"May I Mommy?" I asked.

"I suppose, but you have to take a quick shower to get the pool water off of you." She told me.

"I’ll be right back!" I said, as I started running off to the house.

But Mom said to me, "Hold it!"

I stopped in my tracks, "What?" I wanted to go try it on — they all wanted to see me with it, what was the problem here?!?

"We have one more present for you." She said.

I walked back to the table — surprised that they would have gotten me anything else. I guess she must not have been lying about getting the dress on sale — I was sure that it wasn’t cheap. My parents had never spent this much on me for a birthday before… I hoped they hadn’t put this on the credit card…

As I got to the table Mom said, "Trade me," she took the dress off my hands and handed me a black velvet box with a purple bow tied around it.

"Huh?" I asked dumbly as I opened it. Inside was a beautiful necklace and earring set — inlaid with blue sapphires.

I just stood there dumbstruck. My friends all pushed their way in to see with a chorus of ‘wows’ going on around me. I just stared at it, "Well what do you think?" My dad asked me.

I didn’t have any way to vocalize my feelings at the moment. As I tried to open my mouth nothing came — so I did the only thing I could, hug him and cry. After a moment he kissed me gently on the top of my head and I moved onto hugging Mom — making sure that my tears didn’t get on my dress.

"You guys shouldn’t have done this," I told them as I looked at them both.

"We wanted your first birthday as Tiffany to be special." My mom told me.

"Thank you everyone," I told the group.

I handed the jewelry box to my dad and said, "Can you hold this for a few minutes?"

He smiled and nodded. I grabbed the dress from Mom and ran upstairs to the bathroom. I quickly showered off the pool water, dried off, then pulled the dress over the top of my head and on. It gave me shivers up and down my spine as the fabric glided over my skin. I smiled really big.

There was a zipper up the back of the bodice that I worked closed. I grabbed a ponytail holder that I had left in the room for an emergency occasion, quickly put my hair up, and ran downstairs to where everyone was waiting.

As I walked outside to where everyone was still sitting around the tables I heard a catcall from my grandfather. "Wow…" he exclaimed.

I spun around for everyone before going over to where my dad was still holding the jewelry box. I took it from him and handed him the necklace before turning around. He got the hint and put the necklace on me. That moment was a defining moment in my life — it symbolized a formalized connection between him and my new self. As soon as I felt him finish fumbling with the clasp I turned around and hugged him again before putting the earrings in my ears.

At that there were a number of flashes that went off and my friends and I posed in any number of poses. Eventually things began to wind back down again and we sat down in the living room. "So why is it that I need this pretty of a dress for the trip?" I asked mom.

"Yeah, now we’re going to have to go dress shopping for me Mommy!" Amy told her mom. I could see that Ashley and Nikki both had that glimmer in their own eyes as well.

"Well we found out last week that you guys are going to have your film attached to the main film on Friday night — instead of just being a minor film in the afternoon."

"What’s that mean?" I asked.

"The film they’re attaching yours to is a premiere of a medium-large budget film by a well known director. They have a fairly well-known cast — it’s to be the main event of the night." Amy’s dad said.

"Why is our film being attached to it?" I asked incredulously.

"Yeah, why?" Amy asked. She too was flabbergasted.

"I guess they were looking for something ‘light and fun’ to open up things. I don’t totally understand it myself, but the director of the film and the festival called and asked if we were interested in this — we of course told him yes." He said with a smile.

"Wow, that’s cool!" Nikki said.

"So does that mean there will be red carpet?" Ashley asked. There were clearly stars in her eyes over this.

"That’s what they told us," Amy’s dad answered.

"Wow… this is too good to be true. What’s the catch?" I asked.

"None that we know of," he replied.

"So that means everyone’s going to have to dress up for this?" I asked.

"That’s right," he said.

I grinned from ear to ear thinking of my parents having to dress up for it. My mom occasionally dressed up — but I’d never seen my dad in a tux before. The thought had me really smiling. We talked about that for a couple more moments before Kyle’s mom came to pick him and David up. She came inside for a few moments and told me, "Happy birthday Tiffany. That’s a really pretty dress," she added.

"Thanks!" I replied to her. "My parents got it for me for my birthday — it’s actually for next week though."

"Well you look really beautiful in it." She said.

Kyle and David both wished me happy birthday again before leaving with her. All of the girls then went upstairs to change into pajamas. I was sad to take the dress off, but it wasn’t exactly something that was practical for the slumber party we were now starting. I also took out the earrings and the necklace off — handing the box to my dad to go ahead and take home.

The main party really began breaking up at this point with my grandparents wishing me happy birthday one last time before leaving as well. Dad wished me goodnight and left with them — I think he was running away from all of the girliness as quick as he could! As they left I put on the tiara from the Hancocks present so that I could properly begin a night of being the birthday princess!

We all ended up sitting down in a circle in the living room a few minutes later. "So what are we doing next?" Ashley asked.

"Yeah, what’s next now that we got rid of the boys?" Amber asked.

"I think that we need to do everyone’s hair and nails like you’re going to a big dance," Nikki suggested.

"Okay," I replied to them.

"And you’re first, birthday girl!" Amy told me.

"Of course. I also have the tiara on!" I smiled at them all.

Before I knew it they had led me upstairs, taken the tiara off my head, washed my hair in the sink, and led me over to Amy’s room where she had a makeup dresser with all sorts of curling irons nearby. Amy had plugged them in while we were washing my hair so they were all ready to go.

"Okay who’s first to work on Tiffany?" Amy asked.

Almost every girl wanted to do it, "Okay, how about let’s do it this way?" I started. "I’m thinking of a number between 1-100, the closest person goes first!" I said with a smile. I didn’t want to have any fights start at my first real birthday party!

Each girl guessed a number. Amy was closest by picking the right number, seventeen. I think she must have known that that was my favorite number. We decided that we were going to do it by every girl getting two minutes each to work on my hair. Everyone agreed that I deserved a full amount of attention since I was the birthday girl. Once they were done with me we were going to divide into two teams to work on each other within the teams.

Our moms were going to judge the end result and decide on a winning team. Speaking of moms, mine was busy taking pictures like mad as the girls worked on my hair. She used to always say how much she wished she had a daughter to do stuff with… I think she was happier with me like this.

I felt my hair get tugged, twisted, yanked (ow!), and all other manner of things by each of the girls in turn. The curling irons seemed to be in nonstop usage no matter who was doing my hair. After what really seemed like all of about three minutes, but really nearly twenty, I was told, "Done!"

I tried to turn around to look in the mirror behind me but Amy and Amber kept one hand on each of my shoulders, "Not yet Tiffany," Kristina said. "Are we all in agreement that we need to finish her majesty the birthday girl completely first?" She asked with a grin on her face.

"You all are having way too much fun right now — you’re not turning me into a clown are you?" I asked semi-suspiciously — but with a sweet smile. I trusted the girls… but you shouldn’t trust someone off a cliff, right?

"No Tiffany, we’re not doing that — we’ll do that to someone else later — we really just want to see the finished Tiffany first. You’re going to look a lot older when we’re done here," Kristina replied.

"Older?" I asked surprised, "How much older?" I was curious. I didn’t know that I really wanted to look a lot older on a normal basis — I’d look more suspicious with my flat chest… - but I was curious.

"It’ll be a surprise," Amy said. She whispered, "Trust me," into my ear.

"Okay," I said.

My mom had stepped out of the room for a couple minutes, and at that point came in with Amy’s mom to snap some more pictures. In the meantime the girls had each drawn their own battlegrounds with me. Ashley and Nikki were working on my feet, Lindsey and Amy were working on my hands, leaving the other three working on my makeup. Kristina was definitely the most experienced person in our group; though Amber was also pretty good at stuff too.

I was in sensory overload by the time everything was said and done. Having your feet, hands, and face worked on all at the same time… very cool, but it was also a little overwhelming. It did send shivers up and down my spine and give me goose bumps though!

Twenty minutes after they started Amy said, "Done!"

"So I get to see now?" I asked.

"Yep! Stand up Tiff," She told me while keeping me pointed the opposite direction from the mirror. "On three! One…Two….Three!" She said turning me around.

Whoa!

I did a double take — what they had done was impressive. First was the hair. My hair had grown down to past my shoulders at this point… but it wasn’t really incredibly long like Amber’s (hers was down her back). Still, they had somehow found enough hair to do a bunch of ringlets coming down from a braided bun at the top of my head. They had used some really pretty hairpins that Amy had to hold things in place. The goal of making my hair look like I was going to prom or something had been accomplished!

From there I moved my glance back to my face. The girls had managed to make my face look like I was seventeen or eighteen. It wasn’t garishly done though — it was just enough to do it… Mom snapped some more pictures as I looked down at my nails and saw that they were redone in a base coat of a blue (it just about matched my new dress), and had a mixture of flowers and designs on them. Each nail was different — but somehow they all looked good together.

I spent several minutes gaping at myself — my brain still trying to process everything — before giving Amy a big hug. I followed that up with all of the other girls. "Thank you all! Wow, you’re all really good at this!" I told them.

They smiled and we all broke down into a fit of giggles before breaking up into the two teams. Amy grabbed a kitchen timer and set it for forty-five minutes — each team had that long to make all of the girls look their best. It was then a frantic grab of curling irons, nail polish, and makeup. In my group (which had Amy, Kristina, and Nikki) the three girls that weren’t ready circled up and I rotated between them. It was crazy!

By the time the timer rang everyone was looking really nice and we called the mom’s back up to render judgment. To make it more fair, since it was our moms, we both stayed out of the picture and they rated each girl without knowing which team they were on. Then they rated how Amy and I looked before calculating the scores. Of course… fairness aside our group looked way better! But they announced, "It’s a tie."

We all got the prize of cookies. Yay more sugar for us!

For the next half-hour or so we went outside and sat on a few blankets that we had spread on the grass talking. It was nice just to see the stars and the Sandia Mountains in the background.

"So Tiffany, what’s going on between you and Kyle?" Nikki asked me.

I sat up really quickly and looked at her asking, "Huh?!?"

"You have to be kidding, right?" Ashley said to me, also sitting up.

"You have been flirting really hard Tiff," Amy told me.

"I have?"

"You have," Kristina answered for her.

"You’re all joking right?" I asked them. "We were just talking earlier…"

I stopped talking at that point and tried to think back to what I had been doing earlier. Was I flirting? I guess it could have seemed that way… I didn’t even know if I liked boys yet… They had all stopped talking and were just looking at me.

"Was I really flirting?" I asked Amy.

She nodded, "That’s what I would call it."

"Definitely," Amber said before adding, "He seemed to be enjoying it too."

"I don’t even know if I want to like boys or not — I mean I’m a girl so I should like boys… but why would Kyle even be interested in me — dating me would be the quickest ride to him being made fun of ever…"

"Well… I don’t know about that — he’s pretty popular." Ashley replied to me.

"But you must definitely like boys," Amy said.

I stuck my tongue out at her. "So if we’re going to play this way what was going on with you and David?"

She just blushed and stuck her tongue out at me. Everyone just broke up into laughter at that point. When everyone had calmed back down Kristina brought up something I guess she had wanted to know. "Tiffany can I ask you a question?"

Anytime someone asks if they can ask you a question you have to be a little nervous, "I guess," I replied.

"You still have boy parts down below right?"

"Unfortunately," I replied.

"Will they ever be able to fix that?"

At least she thought of it as I did — fixing it. "I hope so. They won’t probably do anything with them permanently until I turn eighteen."

"That kind of sucks… can they do anything else for you until then?" She asked me.

"Well they already started me on some medicine to keep me from getting a low voice and a beard, but I want them to start hormones that’ll make me grow breasts and a normal girls shape as soon as possible… But the earliest they said they’d even think about it would maybe be at the end of this semester. That’s the time they told me earlier this summer — since then though my doctor has been kind of backtracking there."

"Why?" Amy asked. I hadn’t told her this part yet.

"Well it seems that she had a phone call with another colleague of hers that thinks that’s too young to start on them. They’re afraid of the consequences being severe if I change my mind."

"What kind of things could it do to you?" Ashley asked.

"Well… Like I said the hormones will make me start growing breasts just like you all. It also would have an effect of softening my face and moving some of my body fat down to my hips. Because I’m still young I might even get wider hips. Basically I’ll start looking like I was born a girl."

"I get all of that, but why is that a problem?" Kristina asked.

"Well if I change my mind I’ll be stuck with breasts that will make me look really strange as a guy — same thing with the rest of my body. Plus… if I change my mind at that point it’ll probably be too late for me to be able to ever have kids."

"Are you worried about changing your mind?" Nikki asked.

"No, this is who I am — the doctors just have to be careful."

"Then they should be doing everything to make stuff work out," Amy told me. "Maybe I’ll talk to Mom more about this later though."

"With as much as our moms talk anymore I’m sure they already know." I told her.

"You’re probably right."

The conversation moved on to other things for a while before we all kind of grew tired and bored of sitting there.

"Tiffany why don’t we go play some board games?" Amy suggested.

"Does that sound good to everyone else?" I asked.

Everyone nodded and we went inside to go through her board games. As we were going through the board games her family had, I heard Amber exclaim, "You have Candyland still?"

"Don’t say that too loud Amber, she’s only slightly obsessed about that game still," I told her.

"I heard that Tiffany!" Amy told me. "Besides I’ve never made you play it." She added.

In the end we ended up getting two board games out since there were eight of us. Candyland and Life were both brought out. Amber had indeed spoken too loudly and I had gotten roped into a game of Candyland with her, Amy, and Nikki.

The other girls played Life while we played through two games of Candyland. On both of the games I swear Amy must have been cheating somehow… "Amy how in the world have you beaten us so badly with this game twice in a row?" Amber voiced my thoughts.

"I’m just that good!" Amy said.

"That lucky!" I added.

We put up the game and moved over to where the other girls were just about finished with their game. "So who won?" Ashley asked.

"Who do you think?" I replied. "We have the world’s biggest Candyland shark ever in the house."

"She beat you that bad?" Ashley asked.

"Yep."

"Well, she used to always do that to me too. That’s why I haven’t played that game with her in a couple years. I’m surprised that she hadn’t made you play it yet."

"Her mom wouldn’t let her pick it when we were up skiing last year."

"Just ‘cause she’s mean!" Amy said entering the conversation.

"I can see we’re not going to get through to her here," I feigned to Ashley.

"Nope."

I soon saw a tongue stuck out at me and watched Lindsey win their game. As they put it up I asked, "Movie?"

"Movie sounds good," Lindsey said.

"What movie?" Amber asked.

We then went over to the VHS collection they had and started trying to pick through them. As I let them go through and pick something out — I wasn’t real picky tonight on that one — I looked at a clock and saw it was already 11pm.

The girls ended up picking out The Little Mermaid for some reason. My mom came in at that point, "Girls, why don’t you all go wash your faces and such so that you can just go to bed when the movie’s over?"

There were a few groans but I said, "okay," to keep from us being rude. The girls split off between Amy’s bathroom, my bathroom, and the other spare bathroom upstairs.

By the time everyone got back downstairs, at 11:30, we started the movie. No one really seemed to pay a lot of attention to the movie though — we just talked. There weren’t any important conversations held — it was just normal kid stuff. Amy, Nikki, Ashley and I had our sleeping bags all fairly close together — we had talked about the trip quite a bit.

Honestly we didn’t even know much about what we were going to be doing — so we didn’t know what to get excited about. What little I knew about the trip it seemed like it was going to be really short and tiring. Especially, since we were going to be coming back the next week just in time to start the process of trying out for the new dance squad.

All of the girls in the room wanted to try out for that team then except for Nikki. She just wasn’t interested in it — that was fine with me. I’d have at least one friend not on the squad if I didn’t make it. The girls that were already on the cheerleading squad spent a lot of time talking about whether or not that was going to help or hurt them.

"Why would it hurt you to be on the squad?" I asked Amy.

"Well, Coach Holt really isn’t happy with the cheerleading squad right now. I think that’s why she’s forming an entirely new squad to go to the competitions this spring. Pretty much all of the girls who aren’t here right now have been terrible about everything on the squad."

"Yeah, it’s been pretty bad this year," Kristina added. "Especially the eighth grade girls. There are nine eighth grade girls on the squad, and other than one other besides me, they’re all terrible."

"So why are they on the team?" Nikki asked.

"Well Mrs. Hinther pushed for six of them to be put on the team — even though they weren’t really good enough. I think she’s good friends with their parents or something. I’m not really sure." Lindsey answered.

"Well Mrs. Hinther and I certainly haven’t been getting along this year," I said aloud.

"I’m amazed that she’s been the only one that you’ve had problems with." Kristina said.

"Really you’ve had so much easier of a time like this than I expected Tiffany," Amber said.

"I wouldn’t be doing this well without all of you," I told them with a small smile. "Which, speaking of all of you. Thank you all again for coming — I appreciate it."

"This has been a blast Tiffany," Lindsey told me, "Of course we were going to come. I may not completely understand why you would ever want to be a girl instead of a boy… but I think you’re really cool and don’t want to see you hurt."

"Why wouldn’t I want to be a girl?" I asked her.

"Well… there are so many reasons," She started off.

"Most of them she’ll never have to deal with though," Amy said with a smile and a wink.

"Yeah she doesn’t have to worry about periods… lucky." Katrina told me.

"I’ll trade with you," I told her. I really would. They looked down at the idea of dealing with those things — yeah they definitely would be a pain to deal with — but I’d do anything to have them myself. Let’s face it — I’d never be able to have kids myself...

Amy, always the ever present friend guessed something was going on in my head and decided to shift the conversation. "So homecoming week is in what four weeks now?"

"Something like that," Lindsey answered. "I think it’s going to be two weeks after the tryouts."

"Maybe Kyle will ask you to the dance," Amy joked with me.

"…Maybe…" I answered back. "I don’t know that I really want to go with anyone though — it’ll cause more trouble than I think it’s worth. Is our homecoming dance that dressy?"

"Not like the high school, but it’s something where you want to wear a nice dress." Kristina told me.

"I’m sure my parents are going to regret this more and more as I keep needing new dresses," I told them all with a giggle.

"Probably." Amy said.

It was about that time that the movie finished and my mom came downstairs from the guestroom and turned off the lights. She of course knew that we weren’t necessarily going to go to sleep at that point — but it was a start to push us in that direction.

That night I’m not exactly sure what time I fell asleep — I did so though knowing that I was a twelve year old girl, not a boy. I knew that I would not have any regrets on choosing this road. It was me. I actually enjoyed being me like this — I sure hadn’t had this much fun as Brandon. He wasn’t completely gone yet — as long as I had this stupid body part he wouldn’t be — but he was a very diminished portion of myself.

---

 
To Be Continued...