Dare to live 5(5)

 

 

After two months, I was back at home.

 

 

Note to readers. This is a work of adult fiction. No resemblance to reality should be inferred or expected.
Copyright… We will circle back to it…

 

 

After two months I was back at home.

Mom was here alone. Twins, Gedas and Minde, were at Uncle Bruce's place for summer. He offered to have the boys stay at his farm. Mom and dad were more than happy to accept the invitation. My cancer had drained family savings almost to zero. That meant there was definitely no money for the boys to be sent to some summer camp.

We weren't back to normalcy still. I had biweekly visits to Dr. Brody in Boston for tests and investigations and counseling.

Then I was assigned to the local school – Falmouth High and was entering ninth grade for the second time. As a girl this time. I had to be checked by a local GP doc. She thought I was anorexic. I was the same five-four as a year before and weighed seventy-three pounds after a one-month recovery in Kersey. I had gained four pounds in the last month. But my new doc didn't know this. I told her. She decided I needed some counseling anyway. Waste of time, I have to say.

Because of me, my sister Audra lost her tuition in Orono. She tried to come back but there was no success. She was accepted into the University of Southern Maine. Not a big school and maybe not so reputable as uni in Orono. But she was offered the same studies program and was now a sophomore. Audra, the same as me, had lost one year in her studies.

I was more than happy, ecstatic to say the truth, to have her at my side. While dad had accepted me as a girl, he wasn't talkative and he worked more than before. This way I was left with mom. Mom called me my old male name Linas and used masculine pronouns. I didn't blame her. She's my mom!

For Assumption of Mary we, that's mom, dad, Audra, and me, went to Uncle Bruce's farm. It was time for the twins to come back. The school was about to start the last week of August. This way they will have only a week to get ready for the new school year at the new school.

At my uncle's farm, another minor miracle happened. Uncle Bruce and the twins accepted me as a girl. It was almost five months ago that I had visited Uncle Bruce. I did remember him treating me like a boy then.

The same as my brothers. Boys, when they have only other boys around, they curse sometimes. Or speak rough. This time my brothers were reminding each other not to swear in my presence because Lina's a girl. There was always some jostling around the door about who'll go first. The jostling remained but it was about who will keep the door open for me or Audra, or our parents.

Uncle Bruce and the twins also helped mom to change her mind about how she thought of me.

 

 

We had a new OUR church. ‘Our' in the sense it was in Falmouth and we were comfortable and accepted there. Holy Martyrs of the Holy Eucharist parish. It was different. Not like St Louis. The ceiling was low and it looked more like at home rather than like a church. Cozy and warm.

 

 

The school year started. I didn't know anybody in my new school. When it was in South Portland I had friends and I knew most students from Junior High or Elementary schools. The same was true for the freshmen in my new school. They all knew each other from Junior High. In my homeroom, I was the only really new student.

Nobody was paying too much attention to the new student me. I was left to myself. Until lunch period. I got an empty secluded table for my meal.

"Lin?" somebody asked from behind.

I turned around.

"Trevor?" I hadn't seen him since he had moved away from South Portland to somewhere two years ago after his mom passed away.

I had not seen him in all of that time. He had changed. He was taller. Well, Trevor was always taller than me. But now I could assume he was something about five-ten. And more manly. I sighed. I'll never be like him.

"You look like you are…" Trevor started but didn't finish.

"Like I'm a girl?" Even before Kersey, I looked more like a girl not only because of my flat front in leggings. My tits started growing before Christmas. I was dying and fighting the cancer while my body started to grow female parts and it was the most important thing at the moment. Now they were like plums and visible. Add to this I had to wear a bra because Audra and mom insisted and even dad said I was too big to be without a bra at school.

"Yeah…" he nodded affirming.

"Because I'm a girl…" I said and sighed again. I wanted to feel like a girl but it wasn't so simple.

"It's not unexpected," Trevor said after a while.

"What!?"

"What I remember, you weren't exemplarily a manly boy," he kinda apologized. "You and Mandy and your stuffed penguin…"

"Don't be like Zigi and Co," I protested.

"By the way, have others got the news of your transition?"

"I wasn't eager to transition," I replied. "It wasn't what I wanted. All my male parts were removed because of cancer."

When he heard the word "cancer", his body flinched.

"What do you mean by cancer?" he inquired.

"Exactly the same thing as you know it. The nasty thingy inside the body eating and killing you gradually. I was supposed not to survive until Independence Day."

"But you survived…" Trevor rather stated than asked.

"I was ready to surrender. Death didn't seem so bad then. But Audra and the rest of the family and some wonderful people helped me in my fight."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Don't be. I'm here as a new person to start a new life."

"So what about the others?" he repeated his question.

"To tell the truth, I don't know. When I was at home after the first surgery I was kinda outcast. After radio and chemo, I didn't come back to school."

"They were afraid you're contagious," Trevor stated with a sigh, "the same as mom's friends when she got cancer."

The pregnant pause followed. I didn't know how to reply and he didn't say a word.

"What name do you go by now?" he asked at last.

"The same. Only the female version – Lina instead of Linas or Lin."

"Lina suits you better," he said.

"Don't start again your ‘I knew it before' thing, okay," I retorted.

"I say how it is. I am not pretending or trying to please you," he replied.

 

 

That was weird. I thought I was a boy like other boys. Was I really that different? Or maybe Trevor said it just to make my immersion into female life not so hard for me?

That same evening, I shared my thoughts with Audra. Especially since we lived in one room. Another advantage for Audra to study in her hometown.

"Boys sometimes observe differently than girls do," she said, "if they fancy the one they watch."

"Do you think Trevor is gay?"

"For one, you never could tell," she replied. "What do you think, is Armand gay or not?"

Armand is Audra's friend, a lawyer, who helped us a lot.

"Is he?" I wondered. I thought Audra and Armand were kinda in romantic relationships.

"Yes, he is," Audra confirmed.

And I had already imagined Armand as my future brother-in-law. Alas!

"Earth to Lina!" Audra waved her hand in front of my face.

"Huh? Sorry… What?"

"Why are you suddenly worried about what your friend thinks about you?" she asked.

"Because he says I was always more a girl than a boy. And I think of myself still more like a boy rather than a girl. And I don't think I like to be a girl."

"Why do you think so?"

"I hate wearing a bra!" I practically yelled

"Me too," Audra retorted.

"Do you? Really? Why?"

"Because it's restricting. What else?"

"I don't like frills, lace, and pink."

"Me too," Audra said again. "You are a tomboy the same as I am. Your feelings will change more after you'll start female hormones."

"Didn't I start yet? I take a handful of pills every morning."

"Those are vitamins, minerals, immunomodulators, and support for the liver and kidneys. Before you start hormones you need to gain some weight. Preferably muscles, not fat. And you need all the toxins from your previous therapies flushed out of your body."

"But I have got tits already. I thought they appeared because of hormones."

"Not tits but breasts," Audra corrected me. "Don't use that word in mom's presence."

"Fine, let them be breasts. But if I don't take hormones, how comes, they are growing?"

"You have some amount of your own estrogen being produced. Then genetics is working…"

"What genetics? Dad doesn't have tits!" I protested.

"Breasts." She reminded.

"Ok. Breasts. Anyway, dad doesn't have them."

"Mom has," Audra said.

"Oh! Huh? I don't want them to be like mom's breasts. They are huge. Why not like yours?"

"Ok. Your order has been accepted – cup C, round and firm. Exactly like mine."

I looked at her breasts. They were big. Not huge but big anyway. Then I tried to imagine them on my chest and they seemed huge.

"I'll not take them," I said at last.

"What will you not take?" Audra inquired. "Breasts?"

"Hormones. What I have is already enough."

"Hormones are not only breasts. They are needed for your growth and development. You can't take testosterone. It may and will cause cancer to recur. Estrogens are the only hormones you can take."

I sighed audibly.

"You better tell me how Trevor is," Audra asked. "I hadn't seen him since his mom's funeral."

"Well… He's tall, athletic… His hair isn't cropped like other boys have. Athletic… said it already. Handsome in some way I guess…"

"Cute…" Audra added.

"Maybe," I agreed.

"And you say you don't feel like a girl? You do fancy Trevor! You do! Really not a girl, I should say!"

Dunno… He was the only person in my new school I knew from my previous life. I liked him. He was tall, athletic, and handsome. Was it admiration or envy?

"Your dreamy eyes say volumes," Audra interrupted the trail of my thoughts. "I don't see a boy in this room. Not anymore."

I thought that getting past the cancer was a big enough milestone in my life. Now it looked like climbing the mountain of girlhood might be a challenge. Especially because I was going to live with it for the rest of my life. Was I already a girl or Audra said it to encourage me? Was I fancying Trevor or I liked him because he was the only one I knew in my new school?

 

 

The next day I didn't meet Trevor during lunch. Not that I was looking for him. I just half expected to meet him the same way as the day before. But it didn't happen.

After classes, I went to Junior High. It was on the same campus. This way I would be able to interact with my brothers more. Today was a try-out for basketball day. They followed in my footsteps engaging in basketball. The gym was packed with kids and some adults who were here to support them. One end was for boys and another for girls.

Minde and Gedas were waiting in line to perform exercises for try-out and I was sitting with some parents on the bleachers. Then I noticed Trevor sitting not far away from me.

He was with a girl. A good-looking guy like Trevor no doubt will be with a girlfriend. Why then did it disappoint me? Was I jealous? Of Trevor?

First, I wanted to come closer to him and say hello. But then I thought otherwise because I was a kind of a girl now and I didn't want to interfere in his personal life.

Then the girl disappeared and I decided to approach him.

"Hi," I managed to say.

"Oh!... Howdy Lina," he answered something stressing my new name. "Whatcha doing here?"

"Twins have tryouts and I'm here for support."

"Me too," he replied.

"Watching Minde and Gedas?" I wondered.

"Oh… No, no… I'm here for Mandy," Trevor said.

"Mandy… I didn't see her for so long… How is she?" I asked.

"How are you?" Trevor asked somebody behind me grinning from ear to ear.

I turned around and it was the same girl I saw with Trevor before. And it was Mandy. She was thirteen and she was taller than me.

"Lin…" she embraced me in a bear hug.

"I didn't believe Trevor at first, but you really are the girl," she said shaking her head, "and you are so beautiful…"

"You are…" Trevor confirmed.

"I am what?" I inquired.

"A beautiful girl," he said and it made me feel warmth inside.

Was Trevor right? How could I tell? I guess I would need to listen to what my friends and family were telling me and live the life I had been given back.

 

 

The End