The dorm room smelled faintly like highlighters and Josta. My notebook was open in front of me, pages curled slightly from where I’d rested my elbow too long, and the textbook for our Dutch language elective lay between me and Maya like a stubborn peace treaty.
“Okay,” I said, tapping my pen. “Try it again. ‘Ik woon in…’”
Maya squinted at her notes. “Ik woon in… uh… Groningen?”
I nodded, grinning. “Nice. And I live in… Amsterdam.”
She made a face. “Everyone says Amsterdam.”
“Well, I’m not ready to be from Eindhoven yet. That feels too advanced.”
She laughed and nudged my leg under the desk. “You’re getting good at this. Show-off.”
“Hardly. Half the time I feel like I’m trying to clear my throat while saying a sentence.”
She flipped a flashcard. “‘Hoe gaat het?’ That means—”
“‘How are you?’” I said. “Easy. ‘Goed, dank je.’”
Maya smiled. “Dutch isn’t as bad as I thought it’d be.”
“It’s kind of… weirdly comforting,” I admitted. “Like it’s close enough to English that I don’t feel lost. But different enough that it still feels like I’m learning something real.”
Maya nodded. “Plus, it makes us sound cooler when we talk about weekend plans. ‘Ik ga naar de bibliotheek.’”
“Ooh, look at you,” I teased. “‘Going to the library’ in style.”
She tilted her head toward me. “You think someday we could actually go? To the Netherlands, I mean?”
The question caught me off guard. I looked up from my notes, blinking.
“Sure,” I said. “We’ll ride bikes in Utrecht. Eat stroopwafels in Rotterdam. Maybe even fall asleep on a train and end up in The Hague.”
Maya smiled, a soft, dream-shaped kind. “Yeah. Let’s do that.”
For a moment, the books didn’t matter. The stress didn’t matter. It was just me, her, and the sound of Dutch verbs echoing off the dorm walls like a promise we might actually keep.
Maya was halfway through a sentence about tulip fields when we both heard it.
The sound was sharp. Muffled, at first — the kind of raised voices that filtered in through cheap dorm walls and under badly-fitted doors. Then clearer. Louder.
Someone was arguing in the hallway.
I glanced at Maya.
She set her pencil down, quietly.
“…Why the hell is he in the women’s dorm?” a man’s voice snapped. Angry. Echoing just enough that the words carried past the door.
“I’m telling you, this is absolutely inappropriate—”
Another voice — a woman this time — cut in, brittle with frustration. “You are not his father, so don’t act like you know what’s best—”
“I was his father longer than you were ever around!”
More footsteps. A third voice now — someone older, calm but firm. “This isn’t the place for this conversation. Please step into the office.”
“No, I want to know what kind of school lets a boy sleep in a girls’ dorm. What kind of sick—”
My hand clenched around the pen.
They were talking about me.
Maya shifted closer, silent. I could feel her eyes on me, even as my own stared straight ahead at the Dutch verbs on the page. Ik ben. Jij bent. Hij is.
He.
I swallowed hard.
“I’m sorry, but we are following protocol,” the calm voice — the head of housing, maybe — tried again. “She has every right to be here.”
“He?” the man shot back. “He is not a she just because he says so. I want answers. I want to know what kind of school lets this kind of thing happen.”
Silence.
Then footsteps.
A door closing down the hall.
Maya reached out, slowly, and laid her hand over mine. Neither of us spoke for a long time.
The pencil rolled off the desk and hit the floor.
Outside, the noise had faded — swallowed up by the door to the admin office.
But inside me, it still echoed. Every word. Every he. Every wrong name.
And suddenly, the Dutch words on the page didn’t mean anything anymore.
I don’t remember standing up.
I don’t remember opening the door.
I just remember Maya calling my name — once, quietly — and then the sound of my own heartbeat drowning out everything else as I stepped into the hall.
The admin office door was half-closed, the voices inside low but heated. I didn’t knock. I didn’t pause.
I pushed it open.
Three heads turned: the head of housing, Mr. Ellis, sitting stiffly behind his desk; my mother, arms crossed, cheeks blotchy with anger; and my father — or whatever word I was supposed to use for the man who hadn’t called me since I moved in — standing like he owned the place.
His mouth dropped open when he saw me.
“You want answers?” I said, my voice louder than I meant it to be. “Then ask me.”
“Riley—” Mr. Ellis stood up halfway.
“No,” I said. “It’s fine. Apparently, I don’t get to have a private life anymore.”
My dad pointed a finger like he was scolding a dog. “This is a girls’ dormitory. You shouldn’t even be in here.”
“I live here.”
“You’re a—” He stopped himself. “You’re not a girl.”
“I am,” I said. “You just don’t want to understand how.”
He scoffed. “Oh, come on. You were born a boy. That’s a fact.”
“No,” I said, louder now. “I’m intersex.”
The word hit the room like a dropped plate.
My mother’s arms uncrossed.
My father blinked. “What?”
“I didn’t choose this.” I said, my voice shaking. “I didn’t even know at first. My body just… started changing.”
My dad’s face twisted. My mom looked like she was trying to catch up to the words.
“I didn’t wake up one day and decide to be a girl,” I went on. “It started happening weeks ago. My voice, my face, everything. I thought I was sick. I thought I was losing it.”
Their silence was unbearable.
“It wasn’t until they ran all those tests — bloodwork, chromosomes — that they told me the truth. That I was intersex. That I was born this way. And no one ever told me. Not once.”
“You never told us that,” my mother said quietly, like her throat was closing.
I let out a breath that felt like it scraped my ribs raw. “Because I didn’t know. Not until now. And even if I had known—do you really think either of you would’ve believed me?”
My dad took a step forward. “You listen to me, young man—”
“I’m not a man!” I shouted. “I’m not your son. I’m your daughter. I’m eighteen years old, and you don’t get to control my life anymore.”
He froze.
Then he said it.
“Well, if that’s how you want to live… fine. But don’t expect me to keep paying for your collage anymore.”
The room spun.
For a second, I couldn’t breathe.
“I mean it,” he went on. “Tuition, housing, books — I’m done. I didn’t sign up to fund this shit.”
I stood there, heart thudding, eyes stinging like they’d been scrubbed raw. I tried to think of something clever, something bold and final to say — but the words wouldn’t come.
So I turned.
I pushed back through the office door and down the hall, past Maya who was already on her feet, calling after me.
I didn’t stop.
Not when my vision blurred.
Not when my knees nearly buckled halfway down the stairs.
I made it outside before the sob caught in my throat.
The cold air slapped my face, and I ran — across the quad, away from the building, away from their voices, away from everything.
I didn’t make it far.
Just back to our dorm room — heart pounding, throat tight, the sting of his words still burning in my chest. My hands fumbled with the door handle, but I finally slipped inside and let the door close behind me.
I didn’t even turn on the light.
I just sank to the floor, right there beside the bed, my breath catching in my throat like it didn’t know how to keep going.
The room still smelled like highlighters and Josta. Like comfort. Like before.
But I didn’t feel any of that now.
I heard footsteps a second later — fast, urgent — and then the door opened again. Maya.
She didn’t hesitate. She closed it behind her and came straight to me.
“Riley,” she said, soft but firm.
I shook my head, curling my fingers into the edge of the bedspread.
She didn’t ask what happened. She already knew.
Instead, she knelt beside me and wrapped her arms around my shoulders from behind, pulling me in like she’d done it a thousand times before — like it was the most natural thing in the world.
And it was.
I turned and buried my face in her shirt, tears spilling fast now, too fast to stop. She held me tighter.
“He said he’s cutting me off,” I choked out. “He said he’s done.”
Maya didn’t flinch. Her fingers moved slowly through my hair, steady and grounding. “Then he’s not the person you needed him to be.”
“But he’s my dad,” I whispered. “He was supposed to love me.”
She kissed the side of my head. “Well, I love you.”
That broke me even more.
I let myself cry into her arms.
“You’re not alone,” Maya whispered. “You have me. You always have me.”
We stayed like that for a while — just breathing, just holding on.
Then—
BANG.
The door jolted hard.
We both flinched.
BANG. BANG.
“RILEY!” my dad’s voice exploded from the hallway. “Open this damn door!”
Maya’s hand found mine, but I was already standing.
“You think you can just walk away?” he shouted. “You think this is done?”
I stepped closer to the door. I could already feel the heat rising in my cheeks. My whole body vibrating like a live wire.
“And this?” he barked. “This trash on the whiteboard?”
My chest tightened.
“I saw what someone wrote. ‘Dykes Go Home.’ And what do you do? You write under it like it’s some badge of honor. ‘We already are.’ Real mature.”
Maya moved behind me, close enough to touch, but didn’t speak.
“I didn’t write the first part,” I said through the door. “I just answered it.”
“You answered it? You should’ve erased it and shut up. Instead, you put it on display.”
“I’m not ashamed.”
He let out a bitter laugh. “Oh, I know you’re not. That’s the damn problem.”
Then his voice shifted — lower, meaner.
“You think pretending to be a girl makes you one? Putting on makeup, dressing like this, acting like you belong here? It’s pathetic.”
I blinked hard. My throat burned.
“You are not a girl,” he hissed. “I don’t care what some doctor says, or what you tell yourself. You’re not my daughter. You’re a confused little freak playing dress-up.”
Maya gasped softly behind me.
I marched to the door, shaking but steady, and stood just inches from it.
“I’m not going to say it again,” I said, loud and clear. “Get the fuck away from my room.”
Silence.
“If you don’t leave right now, I’m calling campus security. And the police.”
A pause — just long enough to feel like the air had thickened.
Then his voice came, low and cold.
“…You’re dead to me.”
I stared at the door.
My hand was clenched so tightly I could feel my nails cutting into my palm.
He didn’t say anything else.
Just turned and walked away — slow, stomping footsteps that echoed down the hall like gunshots.
When the sound faded, the buzzing light above us filled the silence.
Maya slid her arms around my waist from behind, holding me like she was afraid I’d come undone.
“Why didn’t you erase the message,”she whispered.
“I didn’t want to,” I said quietly. “I wanted to answer it.”
We were still standing by the door when we heard it.
The sound of his car — that stupid red Ford with the loud muffler — roaring to life outside the dorm. Tires screeched against the pavement like he couldn’t leave fast enough.
And then... silence again.
Maya didn’t let go of me. She just rested her chin on my shoulder, her breath warm against the back of my neck.
I didn’t move.
I didn’t want to.
A few minutes passed like that. Maybe more. I wasn’t counting.
Then came the knock.
Soft.
Gentler this time.
Maya’s arms tensed around me, but neither of us spoke.
“Riley?” It was my mom’s voice.
Calm.
Quiet.
Not like his.
There was a pause. Then:
“Can I come in to talk?”
I looked at Maya.
She gave the smallest nod.
I turned and opened the door.
Mom stood there in her coat, arms folded — not angry, not storming in. Just tired, and maybe a little sad. But her eyes met mine like she still saw me, not some stranger.
“Can I sit?” she asked softly.
I stepped aside. “Yeah.”
She came in, glancing around the room — the mess of notebooks and flashcards still scattered on the desk, the half-drunk can of Josta, the quiet aftermath of the storm that had just left.
Maya offered her the desk chair, but she waved it off.
“I’d rather sit with you.”
We sat down on the edge of the bed, just the two of us, and for a moment the silence hung between us like a thread waiting to snap.
And then I told her.
Not everything — not again — but enough. Enough to explain why, how, when. What the doctors found. What had changed.
What hadn’t.
When I finished, she didn’t ask a thousand questions.
She just pulled me into a hug.
A real one — which I needed.
She held on for a while, then said, “No matter what sex you are… you’re still my kid. And I still love you.”
That broke something loose in my chest — not in a painful way. In a way that let me breathe again.
She pulled back and looked at me, brushing some hair from my face. “And don’t worry about school. Your father hasn’t paid a dime for anything in years. He just likes to act like he has power.”
I almost laughed. Almost.
“Let him throw his tantrum,” she added. “I’ve got you covered. You’re not getting kicked out of school because of him. I won’t let that happen.”
Maya stayed quiet, but her hand found mine between us, her fingers lacing with mine like always.
Mom sat with us a while longer, her hands resting on her knees, eyes scanning the room like she was trying to make sense of a new map.
Then she looked at me, and her voice softened even more.
“Now… about your relationship,” she began. “Are you sure you want to be lesbians?”
Maya stiffened just a little beside me, but I squeezed her hand.
Mom wasn’t being cruel. Just cautious.
“You know,” she went on, “you can’t get married.”
I nodded.
“I know,” I said. “But maybe someday.”
Maya looked at me, and I saw the flicker of a smile behind her eyes.
“Yeah,” I added, stronger this time. “Maybe not this year, or even ten years from now… but maybe twenty. Or more. And when it’s allowed—when the world finally catches up—we’ll be ready.”
Maya grinned, eyes a little misty. “We’ll get matching dresses. Make everyone cry.”
That earned the first real smile from my mom.
“Well,” she said, giving a soft laugh, “I still hope I get a grandchild someday.”
There was a pause.
A long one.
She blinked, like she’d just remembered she had a son back home too — but didn’t say anything else.
Maya leaned against me. I leaned back.
“Well,” I said, trying to keep a straight face, “technically, I can get pregnant.”
Mom’s eyes widened. “Wait—what?”
Maya snorted. I just shrugged.
“Yeah,” I said. “Turns out biology’s full of surprises.”
“Oh my God,” Mom whispered, staring at me. “That’s… okay, wow. I—don’t even know what to say to that.”
I laughed.
And then, just like that, all three of us laughed.