-==-

"What do you mean you're a boy!" Evelyn asked her daughter, leaning back against the kitchen counter in shock.

"I mean what I said. I'm a boy, not a girl. I've always felt that way."

"But--"

"But what?"

"But," Evelyn said again, looking her daughter up and down. "But you don't look like a boy."

"That's why I need to see the doctor. I want to stop my body becoming any more feminine than it is."

"But you don't act like a boy!"

"What do boys act like?"

That one stumped Evelyn, since she had to admit that every answer she could come up with seemed awfully sexist, but she thought her next question would cinch it.

"But you like boys, don't you?"

"I mean, yeah! What's that got to do with anything? Or do you object to me being gay too?"

"I..." Evelyn started, but trailed off, not sure what to say.

"Sigh. Mom, I love you, but I'm tired of living a lie. I need to do this."

Evelyn swallowed hard, then took another look at the papers from the doctor's office she had been handed. It was as her child had told her: nothing permanent, no hormone treatments for at least two years of evaluation. No surgeries until they were eighteen at the earliest, giving her three years to come to grips with what she'd been told.

She loved her child. She would always love her child.

"Fine," Evelyn conceded, standing up and giving her daughter -- no, son? Her child a kiss on the forehead. "Then what do I call you?"

"Jamie, same as always," Jamie said, giving his mom a firm hug.

"So I guess no more skirts or makeup then?" Evelyn asked disappointedly, once again taking in Jamie's feminine outfit.

Jamie laughed. "Why not? Boys can wear skirts too!"

"Oh," Evelyn said, leaning against the counter again as she considered her problems once more.

-==-

END

NOTES:

*hugs*