I knew Jada was cool with trans people because she was friends with Meredith, but I didn’t know about any of the other people listening in, so I didn’t go into detail about what my “trouble with my family” was about.

“I know Dad doesn’t want you at home unless you’re willing to change back, but when I have a place of my own, you’ll be welcome to join me there. I don’t know when I’ll have anything to offer that’s better than the sofa bed you’re sleeping on now, though.”

“You were scared of us?” Mom asked, looking heartbroken. I felt tears welling up, but I couldn’t honestly say no.

Then she asked me what high school I’d gone to before I dropped out, and apologetically asked me for my deadname so she could ask them for my records, and made an appointment for me to come back the next day for placement tests. I was in!

It was too short notice to make a birthday cake, Mrs. Ramsey said, but they had a couple of boxes of Girl Scout cookies that they’d bought from the scouts at church the previous Sunday, and we nibbled on those and they sang “Happy Birthday” for me, and I cried, and everybody hugged me.

“I still miss them, though, even though I’m worried about how they’ll react. Does that make sense?”

“At some point, InstaThere is probably going to be offering body swap services. It’s going to be expensive at first, but I’ll probably be able to get you a big discount. You’d just need to find a — um, a trans woman to swap with you... But she probably won’t want to swap if you’ve been taking male hormones or had a mastectomy.”

From the experience of the trans people he’d been talking to, at the support group and online, he didn’t think the dysphoria would get much better. Most of the improvement had come in the first few days after he got over the shock of the sudden new body, or in the first few days after he started wearing men’s clothes again.

On and off that day, I thought about that Missing Child poster I’d seen and what Mom and Dad were feeling and thinking about all this. Did they know I was trans by now? They almost certainly knew I’d venned into a girl body at least once; they’d have heard from Tim’s parents by now, even if the police hadn’t told them about the details of their investigation and what they’d learned from Meredith and Sophia.

She did a twirl, which was adorable and would have been much prettier if she’d had room for her dress to flare out without bumping into the walls and furniture.

“Well, it’s only around five or six times a day now instead of almost constantly. That’s better. But it’s still plenty bad.”

“I should be able to make up my mind by now, I’ve tried out like ten different girl names either online or in person.”

A couple in their forties went in the machine just as we got in line, and they came out again a few minutes later; the woman was younger and prettier, wearing a much more expensive-looking outfit, a dark blue dress that Meredith said looked like silk. The man was a wolf or wolfhound; the woman put a collar and leash on him and led him out toward the parking lot, probably to avoid trouble with the mall cops, police and animal control until they got home.

“I know this is only going to be for a couple of hours, but it’ll be a taste of what you can have all the time, later on.”

I’d pretty much given up on trying to convince myself I wasn’t trans by that point. I was still trying to convince myself that a girl body, whether human or dragon, was a “nice to have” rather than the burning need it had soon become once I’d started thinking about it.