---

"Michael Stewart?"

Mike looked up and nodded. He didn't know if she was Mrs. Thakur or someone else, since he hadn't met her yet. Or know what she wanted. But the lady looked like he was supposed to go with her.

He was still so tired he almost couldn't get up. He'd been sitting there for almost an hour. Since after his last class. Thinking.

-

The lady who'd come to get him wasn't Mrs. Thakur. She just took him to her office.

Mrs. Thakur was a short, dark-skinned woman who looked even older than Father Bertolli. She had grayer hair, anyway, though her face was hard to guess from.

She'd stood up when she saw him and reached out to shake his hand. He was slow, but he shook hers, too. She had cool, soft hands.

"I'm glad I could see you today after all, Michael. Please, have a seat..."

Her office was narrow. A window at the end, a wall of books from her desktop all the way to the ceiling, the desk, and barely room for two chairs. When the other lady closed the door it just cleared the back of Mike's chair. The other chair.

Mrs. Thakur sat, so Mike did too. He looked at the carpet, past her legs. She was the woman who might take the electrolysis away.

But Denise said he was finished, almost.

So he didn't know why this was so important. Just that it was.

He didn't know what he was going to say to her. He didn't even know what she wanted to know. He didn't know what he wanted to tell her, either.

He knew, before, in the morning, but things were different then. He was. He was even different than in his last class.

Mrs. Thakur had sat forward in her chair and was leaning towards him. He looked up.

"Michael, are you feeling quite alright?"

He noticed that she had an Indian accent, or maybe a British one. And a high voice. He thought she sounded like an actor in an old movie the way she pronounced her words so perfectly. And she smiled when she spoke.

If everyone...

"... Bertolli- "

Mike looked up again. Mrs. Thakur had an odd expression.

"Yes?"

If she was talking about him it was about, about... important stuff.

Mrs. Thakur still had the same odd expression, sort of surprised. Not smiling. Then she sat back a bit and blinked.

Mike realized he hadn't been listening. That he was almost asleep.

She blinked again and looked kind of apologetic or something, even though he was the one not listening. Mike tried to smile instead, since it really was his fault.

"I'm sorry. I'm really, really tired. Father Bertolli said I should have a sleep after we talked too long and after I called you this morning we talked almost another hour more, too, and I... he said I should go h- back to the res and try to get some sleep but I couldn't and went to class anyway and now I'm really tired. I'm sorry."

He looked down. Mrs. Thakur had been almost staring at him. He couldn't look at her any more, so he'd looked past her.

Her books were all about psychology. And counseling. And she was a doctor of some kind. Her name thing on the desk said 'Dr. Sina Thakur.' He looked back at her.

He still didn't know what she wanted to talk to him about.

He remembered what he wanted to, though, from before. He took a breath and talked at the floor.

"What I said when I talked to Mr. Hamilton before, I know I said I was sure but I wasn't then and I am now, but I lied to him, even if it's true now, or what I had to say, I thought..." He ran out of air and hiccoughed.

"It's true, now."

He ran down. It wasn't all true. All of the truth.

Father Bertolli said a philosophy had to be about everything. And honest.

He wanted to tell her the lie, like he always told the girls, but it hurt to tell ~anyone~, now. From now on.

Even if she was a counselor, and he told her what he'd told Kevin. And Mr. Hamilton.

Even some of the stuff he'd even told Father Bertolli.

Stuff that he'd wanted to be true so hard he thought he'd die.

His whole chest hurt.

"~What~ is true now, Michael?"

She asked a question from what he'd said, before. The real one.

He couldn't make himself say anything.

Tyson Greene had dropped out because everyone treated him like shit because he wouldn't lie, and ~he~ was getting free help.... She was ~asking~!

Kevin hadn't made him think. Mr. Hamilton hadn't asked him what was really true and what wasn't. Just about Kevin...

"Is it what you talked to Professor Bertolli about? When you called?"

His throat tightened, as painful as his chest, and he could feel his eyes filling up. He nodded to keep from looking up. To keep from having to say he had to go and apologize to Father.

Tried to brush the tears away with his fingers without her seeing that, either. Lying about ~that~ too.

She sat back.

"Professor Bertolli called after you left him and told me he couldn't tell me anything about your conversation there." Her voice was calm.

Mike nodded. Father'd told him. Said it didn't matter what religion Mike was, to him it was a confession. He had to wipe more tears away that he'd loosened by nodding.

"Michael?"

He finally looked up. She'd put a box of tissues closer to him and he nodded thanks as he grabbed a couple.

"Michael," she spoke quietly, "you told Mr. Hamilton you were transgendered, and that you needed help to pay for electrolysis?"

Mike nodded. He couldn't look up. He could barely talk, but ~that~ at least was all true. "Yes."

"But you didn't think that was true when you told Mr. Hamilton? Even though you'd been in therapy for, almost two years?"

He shook his head. Shook it again. No.

He ~had~ thought that. But he hadn't ~really~ thought at all, because after two hundred free dollars of 90% effective electrolysis he'd looked into a mirror and thought that he would rather die than see that hair come back. That he would die.

Like Julie's pills had been... they'd been his life. ~That~ important. He'd had his friends and parents and the pills weren't... everything. Even though he'd thought they were. Like he'd thought electrolysis was.

But he'd started to... to maybe learn what was really important. Since he'd come to university. Who he really was.

Like Father Bertolli said, he'd been looking at shadows and thinking they were real. Or that they were ~all~ that was real.

And not even trying to understand that if he had ideas, they might be wrong ideas.

Like, he'd thought he was the one who kicked over the bucket on a stairs and started everything, back in September. But it was before then. Way before. And he was just a ball, not even the bucket, even.

And his beard wasn't who he was.

A couple of months ago Mike told the same old lie to himself, again. Then he told Mr. Hamilton, so he could pretend a little while longer. Enough to get past the panic about his electrolysis.

And by accident, he'd gone and told Mr. Hamilton almost the truth. Even if he didn't listen to himself.

He hadn't even listened when Father Bertolli had told him.

Who he really was. What he'd been doing.

It'd taken two months to realize it. Two packs of pills, and a hundred phone calls with Julie and the girls. Eight visits to Denise - and her finishing. Dozens and dozens of classes. Talking to his mum and dad every weekend.

Before he'd even realized it.

And he still couldn't stop.

He'd tried.

Smiles. The boy. His TA in Science. The girl beside him there, even. Father Bertolli.

Even Mrs. Thakur.

But there were a thousand memories, too. A million words. Years and ~years~ of frustration and fear as he'd seen his life slipping away. Believed.

Talking for a whole year to Kevin, his free counselor at the same free clinic he had to hide outside of when Julie went in. So the receptionist wouldn't see him and her together... and put two and two together.

Telling his parents, all of them in tears, that he dressed the way he did, sometimes, why he had to... Not telling them about the pills. Because of the lie.

He ~hated~ that lie more than...

He looked up at Mrs. Thakur again. Even though she wasn't smiling, he could see what he needed.

"I didn't know, before." He mashed sodden tissues under his nose, but kept his eyes on her and tried to enunciate, so she could understand.

So he'd be able to talk to Father Bertolli, after. And call home. So it didn't matter if she took away the money.

He kept looked at her, even though it felt like there was a knife in his throat.

She started to cry.

"I had to lie and lie every ~day~ and pretend I was happy, but everything was- was like I was dead.... And now I just can't be like that again.... But it still hurts!"

It took deep breaths to get past the pain.

"It's like everything is happening so fast now and I can't stand it except Father... Father Bertolli said... he said... he said...."

Mike sniffed, tried to breathe. And still tried to look at Mrs. Thakur again, too.

"He said it hurt to tell a lie... and I... I thought... I thought he meant I was lying so long... to myself..." Mike had to gulp air.

"But I... I was lying to ~EVERYONE~! I lied to my mo- my, my par-ents! and my, my friends, Julie, and... and ~EVERYONE!~"

A few tissues.

"An- I don't ~want~ to! I can't... any... more!"

She broke down completely in wracking sobs.

She had to talk to her mum and dad. And Julie. And see Tyson. See if he was alive... she hoped so with all her heart....

Mrs. Thakur put a light hand on her knee as she sobbed. Like she wasn't so terrible... like she wasn't a liar anymore.

Like it didn't matter what she looked like.

She felt the pressure under her breasts ease a bit, too. For the first time in forever.

-

The End.