Author's Note: Sorry for how long this one has taken to get out... My kids shared some crud they brought home from school and getting the dialog to flow right while being on cold meds has been... I'll just say interesting, lol. Thank you all so much for reading. Hope this one lives up to the earlier chapters...-~Rebecca

I’d like to tell you the next two days were full of excitement, but they were basically normal… Well as normal as it could be for a fourteen-year-old guy, who’s almost died, been neutered, fed female hormones, and basically is transitioning against his will. To top that off, his best friend is a trans girl who he wishes was more than a friend, but she likes guys and he’s afraid to tell her how soon he won’t be a guy anymore… Yeah, Thursday and Friday were pretty normal…

Thursday being a ‘B’ day meant that except for her P.E. we spent the entire day together. At least Sam has quit trying to carry my stuff for me, but she still keeps a close eye on me to make sure my stubborn ass doesn’t try to overdo anything. We did get invited to sit with the senior softball captains at lunch, and they were surprisingly pretty cool. They genuinely seemed excited to have Sam start pitching, and they were impressed how much we were already practicing so she would be ready for the season. We also made plans to meet them at the softball field on Saturday afternoon, seems a few more of the girls were wanting to come along as well. Hey, the more the merrier right? I found it odd how the girls were wanting me to practice with them, after all my guy friends haven’t asked me once to hang out with them. The girls had wanted to meet in the morning, but I had my appointment with the shrink… I only told them I had an appointment… I really didn’t want any of them to know I was having my head examined… Including Sam…

Thursday evening, we spent half of the practice working on her change up and then moved to her trying a curve ball… Turns out with her being so used to throwing a smaller baseball, she was able to put a wicked spin on the softball, at least to her right. Unless she was throwing to a leftie her curveball to the right would be unusable, unless she wanted to hit the batter. The last few buckets of balls we spent swapping up her pitches and refreshing our hand signals in our memories.

Friday was back to an ‘A’ day, which brought me back to P.E. Teddy and I didn’t talk at all, and I didn’t even see him at lunch… Jason and Nick of course didn’t sit with us, and it was creating a rift in the team… I was feeling guilty for that, after all it was my fault, or so I thought. I offered to sit somewhere else, but Rick wouldn’t hear of it. He told me it didn’t matter if I wasn’t on the team right now, we were still friends… Yeah, I almost got all weepy at that, but faked a few sneezes and rubbed my eyes to disguise any evidence of tears.

At P.E. we played dodgeball again, and because I’m a competitive idiot, I started running my mouth again. Unlike earlier this week, I didn’t wear out as quickly and I rarely got hit. Then again, when I knew I was going to get smacked I protected my boobs at all cost. Since Brett couldn’t hit me, and with my smack talk, he exploded at me… Which got him called back into the Coach’s office to get chewed out… Then I got pulled into the office after he was done with Brett… Coach then told me to go easy with my trash talk… Brett’s family was splitting up and he was blaming himself… That explained the anger, and I promised not to push his buttons… Brett was already gone when I got out of the office, so I couldn’t apologize… Yeah, the poor guy is struggling, then he roughed me up, and I’m the one that turned out to be an asshole… I told you I have a gift…

We didn’t practice any, as soon as I got home and drank my ‘nutritional supplement’ we only hung out for about half an hour. Then Sam rode her bike home to get ready for the meeting, oh yeah, she’s been riding her bike over here in the mornings, so she can walk to school with me. I was under orders to be ready by 6:15 so her mom could pick me up to take us to the meeting. I really was nervous about going… It wasn’t because I had issues with the group, I was more afraid that someone would ‘read’ me somehow and mistakenly out me as transgender… I know it was an irrational fear, but its funny that no matter how irrational it might me, its still fear. I hated being afraid of anything, especially with what I’ve already survived through.

I was ready right at six, which was a good thing since they were ten minutes early. Mrs. Wilkins stopped and picked us up some Burger King since my parents hadn’t gotten home yet, and they hadn’t eaten yet. We still managed to walk into the Metro Center twenty-five minutes early and Sam and I were the only ones there. Well except the guy leading the group, Dr. Rodrick. Sadly, I already knew who he was…

“Hi Samantha, who is your friend?”, the Doc asked.

She took my hand to introduce me and while she was grinning, Sam told him, “This is my friend Jordan… He was my best friend from before… He still is.”

I had to rescue my hand from Sam, she didn’t realize she was still holding on to it, and I stuck my hand out, “It’s nice to meet you Doc.”

We chatted for a couple of minutes, mostly about inconsequential things. He said he wanted to wait for the group to start before we discussed anything important, so Sam and I wouldn’t have to repeat ourselves. After a few minutes Sam had to go to the ladies’ room, her sweet tea had run through her fairly quickly and she’s already told me that her blockers made her have to pee a lot. That left me and the Doc in the room by ourselves.

The Doc gave me a calculating stare and a smile, I knew that look. It was one my therapist gave me quite often, he was studying me. He asked, “So Jordan… It’s refreshing to see someone of your age with an open mind. I’m glad that Samantha had you stay with her. To be honest, I was worried from what she had told me about her former teammates. She hadn’t mentioned your name before though, I know I’d have remembered it.”

“There’s a good reason for that probably… There had been a rumor going around that I had died…”

“That’s a horrible rumor to spread? Why would they have believed it?”, he asked dumbfounded.

“It’s because I almost did…”, I start to tell him, then take a deep breath and continue, “I was pulled off the team two seasons ago because I was so sick… I did almost die… The rumor wasn’t too far-fetched…”

He told me, “Son that’s horrible… If you don’t mind me asking, what happened?”

I respond, “Sir, I think you already know…” At his blank stare I add softly, “Dr. Byrnes has been wanting me to transfer to you for a while…” As his eyes opened wide I say, “Yeah… That’s me…”

He asked, “Are you going to share any of that tonight? You’d be more than welcome to.”

I shook my head, “No sir… I’m only here for Sam… She doesn’t know yet, so don’t tell her… I’m just not… I’m just not ready for that…” He just nodded solemnly.

Sam came back in the room a few minutes later, “How are you two guys doing?”

I smile, “We’re getting along fine.”

The Doc nods and says, “Samantha, your friend is a remarkable young man. I’m glad you brought him tonight.”

She smiled as she sat back down and without thinking she took my hand in hers, I let her and didn’t say anything… Only because I didn’t want her to let go. She said, “Thank you Dr. Rodrick, and yeah… He is pretty amazing.” She said that last part looking right at me and that flushed feeling ran through me again…

I caught the Dr. staring at us with an odd expression on his face, so I asked, “About how many people usually come here?”

He told me, “The numbers vary from meeting to meeting, we can have as little as four or as many as twenty-four show up. The Loved One’s groups usually don’t see as many people, only because some are still in the closet and don’t want to trust Cis people they don’t know…”

We started just talking small talk waiting for people and by seven there were eighteen people in the room. There were young kids with their parents, a few older people with their spouse or close friends. I did think it was odd that Sam was the only person in high school here… I’ve ran the statistics before, if they held true we would have six or seven people with some sort of gender problem… Then I realized that if there were any our age that came to the group, with the friends and family night they probably would have stayed home. Especially if they had seen how Sam was initially ghosted by everyone she had known.

First were the introductions that went around the room, Doc decided to go clockwise around the room, which put Sam and I last as we sat next to the Doc. For the introductions, most just gave their name, age, how long they had been transitioned, or for the friends, just who they were to the group member. When it came time for me, I just told them my name and that I was here to support my best friend Sam. She was still clutching my hand, and I was too much of a fool to let go…

Next, Dr. Rodrick told us all the rules, like that anything said here stays here, and trust is the most important thing. The typical things I had already expected. Then several of the people, mostly of the younger ones, asked Sam how the first week of school went. She squeezed my hand softly and glanced at me with a soft smile, and I thought I was going to melt from the inside out… I just squeezed her hand back and gave her a smile of encouragement.

She started, “Well at first it kind of sucked… I mean I knew what to expect after I came out on my Facebook… As most of you know I went from having over three hundred ‘friends’ down to less than fifty in just over two hours. Most of those left was family, at least the family that didn’t disown us…”

That pissed me off, I hadn’t known that so many people had abandoned her. I interrupted her, “I’m sorry… I didn’t know…”

She smiled, “I know… It’s okay, you had other issues going on at the time…” Turning to the group she continued, “So my first day at school as Samantha… I expected people to call me names, or something like that… I had actually prepared myself for that… Instead they ignored me, or they’d whisper in their groups then point and laugh… I was really considering the option my parents gave me to transfer or even to homeschool…”

Doc spoke up, “Samantha, you know running never solves anything, it only postpones them.”

She nodded, “I know… That’s why I only said reconsider… I wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction by running… I learned that from a good friend…” She glanced over at me and gave my hand another small squeeze… I felt a lump form in my throat as I saw her eyes starting to mist slightly. All I could think was please Sam don’t cry, because I know I’d join her if she did at this moment.

One of the younger girls, probably around eight or nine, asked her, “So what happened?”

She smiled, “My best friend in the whole world walked into my last class of the day, and the only open seat was with me…”

The same girl looked at me and asked, “Was that you?”

I nodded, “Well I couldn’t just let this really cute girl sit at a table all by herself.” The girl giggled, and I saw Sam blush and look away trying to hide it from me.

Then the girl teased, “Sam he said he thinks you’re cute… You got a boyfriend your first day.” I chuckled, only because Sam blushed so much her ears turned bright red.

When she looked back towards me I told her, “Go ahead and tell her what made it even better than that? You know, the reason it was my first day back too.”

She looked at me to make sure I was okay with it, I just grinned and nodded, so she said, “Jordan had gotten really sick in seventh grade, and was pulled completely out of school in eighth grade… During the summer someone had heard that he had died, and we all believed it… So, when he walked into that class… It was like he came back to life, just so I wouldn’t be alone…” She glanced over to me and I could see the first tear start rolling down her cheek, as she softly said, “I know that’s not what really happened… But that’s how it feels to me Jordie… It’s like you came back to life just to save me…” The second tear rolled down her cheek and quickly more started to follow.

I gently tried to wipe her cheek with my free hand and told her, “You know? That’s one of the best reasons I’ve heard of why I possibly survived…” I gave her a gentle smile and she finally let go of my hand… Only to pull me into a hug where she clutched on to me with everything she had as I felt her body jerk as she silently cried. She held me hard enough I couldn’t have escaped if I even wanted to, so I just wrapped my arms around her and tried to tell her it was okay. Then I felt a tear run down my face as I felt how desperately she was holding on to me. Great… She’s got me doing it now…

After several long moments Sam composed herself and pulled back far enough so she could look at me, “Sorry Jordan…”, she apologized wiping her eyes.

I actually chuckled softly, “Hey its about time that it was your turn. Lately it’s been me being the one that breaks down.”

She smiled softly at me, then we remembered that we had an audience. Most everyone else had that expression you would expect when someone saw a new puppy or something similar, a few of the older ladies were wiping their own eyes at our exchange. Sam immediately blushed as she let out a low moaning, “Oh God…”, as she tried to cover her face with her hands.

I was feeling a little self conscious myself, so I did what I normally do, I made a joke… I leaned over to Sam and said, “So what should we do for an encore?”

She glared at me for a split second before starting to giggle, then she gave me a gentle shove, “You, dork!” Even though she almost pushed me off my chair I grinned at her, after all this was what I wanted, to see her smile.

The rest of the meeting was mostly just people asking questions of each other, a big sharing of information and experiences. I learned a lot, at least even more than what I’ve learned by all the reading I’ve done. Listening to some of the ladies who transitioned later in life, I realized I might have more in common with them that I thought. Due to their age, they couldn’t do anything to stop their puberty back then and their body changed in ways they didn’t want… I could relate to that. Maybe I am transgender… Or maybe I wasn’t, but I am becoming more trans with each passing day. I asked a few questions, mostly how they coped with their own earlier puberties. I got a few odd stares from Sam, so I tried to ask more generic questions and not be too obvious.

As the meeting was over one of the young girls came up and shyly told me that she wished she could get a friend like me one day, I leaned over and told her, “Even if you don’t find someone like me to be your friend, I’ll be your friend okay?” Which got me a big hug from her, and also her mother. Even Sam gave me a hug and told me how sweet that was of me. I just told her I know the importance of a good friend, so… Dr. Rodrick did shake my hand and tell me how nice it was to meet me, and how he hoped to see me again… I caught his underlying meaning, I just told him we’d have to see.
I rode in the back of the car on the ride home, Sam had to fill her mom in on what went on in the group. At least the part about getting to ‘show me off’ to the group. I just sat there smiling at her excitement, it just made me feel good to be a part of it. I did get those weird hot flashes a few times when she turned back to look at me while smiling. I’ve decided whatever those are, they sort of feel nice, and it wasn’t worrying me near as much as it did when it first started happening.

After I got dropped off at home, I did get the inquisition from my parents. Mostly they were wondering if I’d be interested in meeting with Dr. Rodrick now that I had met him. Yeah, they knew about Dr. Byrnes wanting to refer me. I just told them after the group discussions, and meeting him, that I’m not quite as opposed to it as I was… I escaped upstairs as soon as I could, I knew I’d have to be up early for the meeting with my own therapist thanks to the meltdown earlier this week. I quickly got my shower, and with it being Friday night I did my end of the week routine of taking my picture, so I can track my progress of my changes… I mean my recovery…

I spent about half an hour comparing the new picture along with all the others over the last few months. It was funny, but not in a ‘ha ha’ kind of way, how by itself my current picture just looked like a small boy with a bit of pudge around his chest. Comparing it side by side with one from two months ago on my tablet though… I realized I didn’t look near as boyish as I had thought… While I knew I had gained some weight, the comparison only drew my eye to where I had gained the most… My breasts and even my hips were more noticeable in the comparison… My breasts… While still small, I could definitely make out the shape of breasts… I pressed on them to check, only to feel them extremely tender. Apparently, they were still in a ‘growth’ stage, how awesome... Not! From all the walking and basically doing squats during our baseball practice have helped to tone my legs and behind some, I was starting to get some shape now… Just not the shape I was wanting to see.

As I got in bed, I grabbed my phone and was looking at another picture. It was one that I took of my best friend with her laughing. I couldn’t help but smile myself, as I remembered the feeling I had for causing her to laugh, as another soft warm feeling filled me. While I was staring at the picture, my phone beeped at me indicating a text.

{Sam text} *** Thanks for going with. I’m really glad you were there. ***

{Me text} *** I’m glad I went. Your other friends are cool. Was nice to meet them. ***

{Sam text} *** See you tomorrow at your house at noon for practice? ***

{Me text} *** Wouldn’t miss it for the world. NN Sam Sweet dreams. ***

{Sam Text} *** You too. NN Jordie. ***

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With the morning’s appointment I couldn’t sleep in like I had wanted to, after all it was Saturday. Unfortunately, I was awake by seven and once I did my morning business I checked my weight before getting dressed, another normal ritual of mine. I had gained five pounds this past week with all my exercising, I was up to a hundred and seven pounds now… Then I realized it also might be all the times I had frequented the pasta line at school too. After a quick breakfast with my mom we were soon on our way to have my head examined once again… I used to love Saturdays…

It appeared that Doc was waiting on us, as soon as we walked into his office he was ready and raring to go. I unfortunately was not…

“Hi there Jordan. It’s been almost a month since we last talked, you’re looking good.”, He told me his smile almost completely hidden behind his beard.

I just shrugged, “Morning Doc… Thanks I guess… I’m feeling better…”

He raised his eyebrows at my lack of enthusiasm, “That’s good to hear… You ready to start?”

I respond, “Not really, but the sooner we start the sooner I can get out of your hair.”

As he motioned for us to go into the ‘room’ for our session he joked, “You got a hot date to get to, or something?”

I again shrugged, “Something like that… I’m helping a friend practicing some ball… I don’t want to be late is all…”

He was sitting down, but nodded, “That’s good, so you’re getting back into baseball?”

I sighed, “No… Not really… My friend is learning to do fast pitch, so she can pitch for the upcoming season… I’m just helping her get ready… Some of the other softball players are going to be there too so we can work with live batters… Plus its good exercise for me…”

He nodded, “So are you planning on going out for the baseball team? I know how badly you were wanting to…”

I shook my head, “Nope… Don’t see any reason to now… It’s not like I’ll be able to play by then anyway…”

“Really? Why not?”, he asked.

It pissed me off when he played stupid like that, I snapped, “You know why!” Immediately I regretted losing my temper and after taking a deep breath, I say, “It’s the reason I’m here today… The changes have started, and comparing my pictures… I just won’t be able to play by then… It’s as simple as that…”

He sighed this time, “Your mother was quite concerned when she called me. I know we had talked about what to expect… You had seemed to accept that it was going to happen…”

I snorted, “Well I don’t know what to tell you… I accepted that it’s going to happen eventually, but actually seeing it… This soon? It caught me off guard is all, no big deal… I had a moment when it hit me, the moment passed and now I’m fine… Nothing to worry about… So, can I go now?”

“Jordan… I’m not worried about you having a ‘moment’… What I’m worried about is that you didn’t have one sooner than this one. From what your mother told me this ‘moment’ was extremely intense… Holding back your feelings until they boil over isn’t healthy and it could be dangerous… I just want to make sure that you’re prepared for…”

“Holding back my feelings? Are you serious?”, I ask dumbfounded. “I can’t hold anything back anymore! It’s like my body wants to start bawling over nothing!”

“Jordan we’ve gone over this… While it’s intense now, once you get used to having your heightened emotional states… You’ll be able to start dealing with it in a much healthier way.”, he said trying failingly to calm me.

“That’s it though, I don’t want to have to deal with it! Yes, I had a moment when I noticed my body starting to change, and yes, I had a meltdown… As it sunk in though… I don’t know… I guess the changes aren’t as scary as they once were… I think I can deal with them… It’s just the damn emotions… It’s all I can do at school to not break down in tears when something stupid gets to me.”

“Jordan, I understand how this is frustrating for you… It’s okay to get upset about things… Do you think its wrong to get emotional or to cry?”

I shrugged again, “No… Not really… It’s just… I’ve just never really had the need to cry before.”

He shook his head in disbelief, “Jordan, I find that hard to believe… You’ve never felt like crying before? Ever?”

I shrugged yet again, “Yeah I guess I might have felt like it… But what was the point in it… It never seemed like it would accomplish anything, so why bother… When I broke my arm in soccer, I mean it hurt a lot… Crying about it wouldn’t have helped so… I didn’t…”

Sadly, he shook his head, “Jordan… That’s what I’m talking about… Bottling everything in isn’t healthy… That leads to what happened the other night…”

I blurted out, “But I wasn’t bottling anything up. I swear! I mean, I felt like I wanted to cry and crap… I just didn’t need to… So, I didn’t…”

“You expect me to believe that you can just control it like that? You can just turn off that emotion like a switch?”, he asked.

I sighed, “Well I used to be able to… Now… Well that’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”

He shook his head, “No Jordan, that’s not why you’re here… I’m trying to help you realize its normal to cry every now and then. It’s perfectly acceptable to cry, even for a guy. So, you’re saying that even when you were pulled out of baseball, and then stuck in the wheelchair, that you never once cried?”

I shook my head, “Nope not once… It wouldn’t have gotten me out of the wheelchair or back on the team…”

Looking at me sadly, “You know that would have been the perfect time to have a ‘moment’ like you called it… Your life was spinning completely out of control Jordan…”

I interrupted, “That’s exactly why I didn’t… Everything in my life was out of my control, and I mean everything… My emotions, and being able to keep them in check… That was the only thing I had any control over… Tell me how it would have helped if I had of cried? Can you?”

“Jordan… I’m not saying it would have cured you, but it usually helps to be able to let it out… No one would have thought less about you if you had of let it out…”

I shook my head, remembering those really dark days before they found out what was actually wrong. Before I started sending my visitors away and asking them not to come back. They had all been crying, well most of them had been. Most of my teammates looked like they had wanted to but held it back, well all but Sam… he had cried, a lot. Even back then when I thought she was a boy, that one had hurt the most. I started to feel the tears form in my own eyes from the memories. I tell him with my voice starting to break, “You’re wrong… It doesn’t help… Everyone that I saw when it got really bad were either crying or wanting to… So, I couldn’t… And now look at me… See what I mean?”

I saw the concern on his face when he asked, “Why couldn’t you? What about them crying made you choose not to cry?”

I was wiping the tears now, sadly they were flowing faster than I could wipe. I muttered, “Because Doc… Everyone who was crying over me… They had already given up hope… They already knew I was going to die… I just couldn’t… I mean… I wasn’t ready to give up…”

He reached over and placed his arm on my shoulder and gently asked, “You think that crying is a sign of giving up?”

I shrugged, “I don’t know… Maybe… If it is… What’s this say about me now?” He stared at me in concern, I was able to only hold it back for a few seconds, then I completely broke down…

 
 
To be continued.